Chapter 2: "A Walk in the Park" 2/1/2014 – 2/28/2014

Atem stood in front of the gate that led into the Domino Cemetery, Yugi asleep in his perch on the yami's hips. Malik sat on the ground nearby, Mariku asleep in his lap.

It was nearly 1:30 in the morning, and not only were the hikaris sound asleep but the yamis were about to fall asleep as well.

They were about to give up and go home when Bakura walked up, carrying Ryou on his back.

"Where have you been, thief?" Atem asked, seriously annoyed. "We've been waiting out here for quite awhile. You said you'd be here by at least 1:00!"

Bakura rolled his eyes as he set his hikari on the ground beside him, the perky child looking around eagerly with wide eyes.

"Look, work took a little longer than usual, alright? Stop your whining at me!" He looked away, scoffing under his breath. "Insolent fools."

Ryou gazed up at his yami expectantly. "Can I go play now, Yami?"

"Of course you can, Ry-ry," Bakura cooed to the child in a motherly sort of way. "Just as soon as your little playmates decide to wake up from their nap."

"And how are we supposed to get inside anyway, thief?" Malik asked, poking Mariku in the ribs to wake him up. "In case you haven't noticed, there seems to be a large fence and a gate with a lock on it, so apparently the park is closed."

Bakura smirked. "Just follow me, boys. Just follow me."

He led the other yamis to a large tree that stood right outside the fence. Some of the branches went over the fence and into the cemetery.

Placing Ryou onto his back again and instructing the hikari to hang on tightly, the white-haired yami thief shimmied up the tree and out onto the one of the branches, dropping down onto the other side of the fence and landing lightly on his feet.

"That's how you get in," he explained, placing Ryou back down on the ground. The little hikari scampered off happily as soon as his feet hit the dirt beneath him. "Get the picture?"

Nodding, Atem and Malik each tried the tree tactic as well, soon finding themselves and their hikaris inside the cemetery.

Within minutes, the yamis were relaxing on some memorial benches while Yugi, Ryou, and Mariku chased each other in circles around the tombstones.

"This is a very nice place," Atem remarked. "It's quiet and wonderfully creepy, there's places to sit and rest everywhere, there's little buildings where you could duck in if you needed to escape bad weather or the like, and with the large fence running all around this place you can let your hikaris run wild in here and do as they please without you having to worry about them too much."

Malik nodded beside him. "Why don't people use this place very often, Bakura?"

"I don't know. Lack of taste, I suppose."

"You can't catch me, you can't catch me!" Yugi was shrieking. "You can't catch – OOF! YAMI!"

Rushing towards where his hikari had fallen, Atem found that Yugi had fallen into a deep, rectangular hole in the ground. A mound of dirt stood beside the great hole, a shovel poking up from it.

"What is this, Bakura?"

Bakura shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes there's holes like that that seem to show up out of nowhere. Done during the daytime when Ryou and I aren't here, I suppose. And then, the next night the shovel will be gone and all the dirt packed in again, and then another one of these stones will appear at the head of it later on."

"I think it's where they plant a stone seed!" Ryou cried out excitedly. "They put the seed in there, cover it with dirt, and then a new stone grows right out of the ground!"

Mariku scratched his head in confusion. "But if they're going to put a seed into the hole, why haven't they done it yet, Ryou?"

"Silly, M'riku! Since the hole's so big, the seed must be giant-antic! So it would take them a long time to drag the great big seed over to the hole. Plusses they gotta lift it over all the udder stones in the park too."

Bakura chuckled and ruffled Ryou's hair. "What a smart little hikari I have!"

Malik, meanwhile, was eying the shovel with interest. He turned and smirked at the others. "Want to find out for sure what goes into these holes?"

No one else had really thought about the possibility of digging the holes up, but now they were all very interested. And with six Shadow Creatures and a shovel all working together, they soon had a few other holes dug up.

"Look, Yami!" Mariku cried out as he peered down with fascination. "There's a big pretty box down there!"

"It looks expensive..." Bakura commented, almost drooling. "I want to steal it!"

Ryou looked at the large box and then back at his yami. "I don't think a stone seed that big will fit in your pockets, Yami."

"What's in it, Yami?" Yugi asked, tugging lightly on Atem's hand.

Atem smirked. "Only one way to find out!"

So saying, he jumped down into the hole and forced the lid off the box, his eyes narrowing in confusion when he came face to face with a sleeping man. "Oh, sorry, sir! I didn't know there was someone in here!"

The man didn't move. He didn't wake up, and he didn't even seem to breathing.

"I think he's dead, Atem," Malik remarked from somewhere up above him.

"So it would seem."

Yugi began to squeal and giggle. "Dead people – eeeeew!"

"What's 'dead,' Yami?" Ryou asked.

Malik chuckled. "Well, that guy is for starters."

Bakura glared dryly at his friend before turning back to his hikari, patiently explaining the subject as best he could. "'Dead' means that something or someone isn't alive anymore, Ryou. Like on the funny movies we watch before bed every night."

The little boy's brown eyes lit up with interest. "Oh! You mean like a zombie?!"

"No, Ry, that's the undead. That's different. 'Dead' is more like... well, you remember what happened to the killer's victims on 'the Seven Deadly Sins?'"

Ryou nodded, now fully understanding. "Oh, okay."

"What are the killer's victims like, Ryou?" Yugi asked curiously.

His friend pointed down into the box in the ground. "Like that, but with more blood."

"Oh."

Having gotten that explanation out of the way, the hikaris began to amuse themselves by playing around with the poor dead man's clothes, hair, and body. Leaving the kids to their own amusement, the yamis wandered off, digging up other graves and checking through the people's pockets to see if there was anything of monetary worth buried with them.

Their fun didn't last quite as long as they had thought it would though, because shortly two men came along to put a stop to their enjoyment.

Atem recognized the uniform that the first man wore as that of a police officer, and, judging from the key ring that the other man held, he must have been the cemetery caretaker. "Hello, officer."

Yugi skittered over to stand beside his Yami, shyly staring up at the two men with interest. "Did they come to play with us, Yami?"

The two men stared down at Yugi with twitching eyebrows. Yugi was adorable, that was for sure, but the arm of a corpse that he carried in his hands sort of ruined the cute effect.

"What exactly are you people doing?" the police officer finally asked. The question almost didn't make sense though, because he was obviously looking at all the opened graves and watching while Malik dug up another one.

"Isn't it kind of obvious?" Bakura growled in frustration. "We're uncovering the dead that were buried here. Is there something wrong with your eyesight?"

Maybe it was what Bakura said; maybe it was the odd presence of these small children that were happily giggling as they tore a corpse to shreds; or maybe it was the way that the three strange men were glaring at him so curiously. Whichever the reason, the caretaker turned and fled suddenly, calling to the police officer over his shoulder, "I think I'd better get going you look like you have things under control bye!"

Feeling abandoned, the officer stood up straighter. "Right. Well... Can I ask why you're digging up the graves? And why your sons are playing with dead people's body parts?"

"Because it's FUN!" Mariku suddenly cried out, ripping a head off of a corpse and using it to play 'monkey in the middle' with the other two hikaris. "This is SO much BETTER than that horrid toy store!"

The poor cop looked as if he were going to faint dead away.

"Um... You see..." the officer tried to speak, his words coming out in a stammer. "Digging up graves and messing with the bodies is kind of... illegal."

"You're not going to arrest us for enjoying ourselves, are you?" Malik asked, the veins in his face bulging. It made the poor cop swallow nervously.

"Well..."

"Hey, Pharaoh!" Bakura suddenly called out, getting Atem's attention. "Why don't we teach our hikaris how to play a Shadow Game?!"

At this, both Atem and Malik smirked at Bakura, and the three younger Shadow Creatures perked up with interest; they'd never actually gotten to watch a Shadow Game being played, so this would be interesting to watch.

After having their fun with the police officer though, the hikaris were noticeably getting pretty tired, what with it being several hours past their bedtimes. So, the yamis took their smaller companions back to their parked motorcycles and strapped them on, heading back to their apartments to get some shut eye.

After all, they planned on coming back tomorrow, and the little ones needed to be filled with energy if they were going to play some more, right?

Who knows? Tomorrow they might get to learn how to Penalty Game someone!