Special Notice: OMG. Eleven reviews, eight favorites and six follows. I want to glomp you all.
"You broke my ribcage! Bastard!"
... Okay. No glomping.
DX
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Good morning, yadonushi ~
It's the last one you'll ever have.
The second those words had ghosted through lips that weren't, couldn't be there, Ryou had slammed the top of his digital clock so hard it broke, a single crack racing down the offending object's display, right between the two digits that made up the 12.
You're not giving yourself much time, are you?
An icy chill ran down his back. If Ryou wanted to see another day, he knew that he had to best it as its own game.
You're admitting I exist, you know.
- he had to beat this puzzle that someone who was not in his own head had laid out for him.
Don't blatantly deny facts like that. It's sloppy.
Okay. It was okay. He had done this before. What just happened?
He broke the clock. Right. Then, something - his intuition. Yes. His intuition -
I suppose I am the only intuition you'll ever have ~
Pathetic.
- had told him that he had done something wrong, cut himself short. What could that mean? Ryou searched his own head and drew a blank.
He had no idea.
Hah! You make this too easy!
No. No, it wouldn't be. He just had to think about it as if it were one of his RPGs. A trap in Monster World.
Slowly, he slipped his toocoldcoldcold legs off of the bed and into dull blue slippers.
Words and blood alike pounded in his head, competing for space. Pain blossomed around his temples and he knew he would have a killer headache once all this adrenaline wore off. Slowly, he made his way to the bathroom that was adjacent to his room, fumbling for the lightswitch.
He hit it ungracefully as his hands shot to his eyes, rubbing them as the white light stung at the backs of his eyelids because that all-too familiar burning sensation couldn't be tears. They weren't. He couldn't cry, there was no reason to cry, nobody was there and he would be fine, it was paranoia, a dream, something, anything, oh God let it be anything but what he couldn't doesn't wouldn't think it was because he couldn't live with that THING anymore-!
The albino sank to the floor, banging his back against the metal handles of a cabinet as he curled up on himself. Just to spite him, the headache he knew would be coming on exploded in full force, drawing a loud and ungainly moan from the victim.
Because that's what you are. It's all you'll ever be. A pawn, a victim, somone I can use.
No-!
But he couldn't argue anymore. Not this early, not with this headache, not in this painful light and not while crying.
Heheheh...
(The voice that didn't belong to anyone but himself giggled like a naughty schoolboy who had made a classmate break down with just a few words.)
Because that's what just happened, wasn't it?
A few snide comments and a clock that Ryou himself had broken, and suddenly he was a mess. A now sobbing, broken mess, splayed out against the walls of a sanitary, soulless bathroom, alone and hurting, hurtingsobadly.
Hurting so badly he didn't react when an invisible hand brushed against his hair, and he wouldn't have anyway, because it was just a trick of his mind that he could make stop whenever he wanted.
The comforting strokes stopped the moment he had the audacity to think such a thing, the appendange deciding to instead fist in the silky locks and yank cruelly.
A particularily extreme cry was drawn from Ryou and he fell forward, face smearing against the ice-cold tiles.
Come on, make me stop!
"I- I!"
Another twist, another pull.
"I - AH! - ah, ah, stop that! -" A howl.
Make me!
Ryou squeezed his eyes shut tighter, not daring to look, in case he was hallucinating, as well.
"I- I c-c-an't!"
His mind froze in a liquid that felt like hysteria.
"I can't, I can't, I can't, I CAN'T! I CAN'T I CAN'T WHY CAN'T I? WHY CAN'T I?"
Vaguely, a part of him knew that he was screaming and that he should stop, but the rest of him, the numb, traumatized part, didn't care.
And with that, it was over. He knew it was over. He had spoken to Bakura. Admitted that the Yami existed and that he had no control over it. He knew all of this, and the knowledge was excruciating.
But what Ryou didn't know was that he was only half right.
It was over, yes, but it was more than just that.
It was game on.
Ready or not, here I come~!