Chapter 3
The next morning, Philippa was no better. Despite their efforts to keep moving neither, Philippa or Atem, had the energy to get very far. They didn't know how far they had come or how far away the village was. It was visible from the barred window that was in the prison cell. But down here, in this condition, it felt a lot longer. The day went slowly. All they could do was keep moving and hope that the Demon's minions didn't find them. Philippa wasn't able to register anything anymore. Her mind was clouded, her wounds wouldn't stop bleeding and her increasing fever only made things worse. Atem did his best, but they never seemed to be getting anywhere. But his usual attitude to hard times like this didn't die. He wasn't ready to give up yet. "Just go." Philippa whispered. There was no point in him dieing in this forest too. "No, I'll tell you as many times as I need to. I'm not leaving you." He stated. Philippa decided to save the strength of arguing with him. Her negativity made Atem feel more determined to get them both out of this. He pulled her to feet again and started moving. After a while Atem took her to the river, and tried to refresh himself. He made sure both of them had drunk plenty of water before moving on. It was slow again and it only made both of them even weaker. But just when Atem was about to give up. He saw smoke rising over the trees. He put Philippa down in a save hiding place, and went to investigate. To his shock and relief, it was the village. He went back to Philippa. "Come on, it's the village, we made it." He said cracking a smile, which faded when Philippa didn't respond. She was breathing heavily. Atem felt her forehead, she was just getting hotter, and her pulse was really fast. "Philippa wake up." He said. She was completely out cold. It was only a few hundred yards. So he put her arm over his shoulder and guided her along.
At the entrance to the village, people gave them looks of disbelieve. A young man with dark red hair came up to them and put Philippa's other arm over his shoulder. "Come on this way." He said. leading them to one of the small houses. "Hey dad, give us a hand here!" The young man called as he stepped inside. A middle-aged man came down the stairs. "Is that..." He started.
"Yes dad, it's Philippa, will you help me here." The young man said with strong urgency. The man picked Philippa up and carried her upstairs to a small bedroom with the young man and Atem behind him. "Name's Herrick, by the way." The young man said.
"Atem." Atem replied.
"Right, Herrick you deal with him." The middle-aged man said, nodding at Atem. "I'll take care of this one." He said turning his attention to Philippa. Herrick lead Atem back down stairs. He got some water and bandages, and started to treat Atem's wounds. "Well I'll give you this mate, you got guts taking on The Demon." Herrick said.
"Thanks." Atem replied.
"So where are you from?" Herrick asked.
"A long way. A lot longer than you think." Atem replied. He looked out the window and saw that people were avoiding the house. "If the Demon wants, the Demon gets, and if he losses something, he doesn't let it go lightly, and he will kill anyone who stands in his way. You've heard about Philippa's step dad right." Herrick said noticing that people were avoiding the house. Atem could understand that, but he could now see why Philippa felt like she didn't have anything, and she was right, she literally had nothing. "What about you?" Atem asked.
"I guess I'm just a soft hearted idiot." Herrick replied as he tied the last bandage around Atem's wrist. "A lot people, including me, avoid her, if The Demon does come here looking for her and finds her, I doubt I'll live to tell the tale." Herrick said.
"So they're afraid." Atem said. Herrick nodded. "Why are you doing this then?" Atem asked
"I don't know her very well. But I do know that she's not a bad girl, and no deserves to be imprisoned by the demon." Herrick replied. The conversation was broken by the arrival of Herrick's father. Considering Philippa's condition, that was a bit quick. "I've done what I can, because she's only half human, her biology is different. I can't going giving her medication when I don't know what it will do to her." Herrick's father said. Atem's heart sank, there was nothing anyone could do. If she was going to survive she would have to do it on her own.
Later, something jumped into Atem's mind. He needed to get in touch with Yugi and the others. "Hey, do you have phone?" Atem asked.
"Yeah it's round the front." Herrick answered. Atem immediately picked it up and tried the game shop number. Yugi was the one that answered on the other end. "Atem!" He exclaimed.
"Yes Yugi it's me." Atem replied.
"Thank god, we were so worried." Yugi stated.
"It's ok, I'm fine. I hate to say it but I don't think this demon is going to give up anytime soon." Atem said.
"Let me guess, another dangerous adventure." Yugi said.
"I'm afraid so." Atem replied.
"Ok, where are you?" Yugi asked.
"A place called Romford." Atem answered.
"Right, I'll be there as soon as I can." Yugi stated.
"No Yugi. This Demon is after us." Atem stated.
"Us?" Yugi questioned.
"I'll explain later. But the point is if you come here, you'll only be putting yourself in danger." Atem said.
"Atem that hasn't stop me before, and it's not going to stop me now." Yugi stated.
"I mean it Yugi. He almost killed you the day me met this Demon." Atem stated.
"Except he's not after me is he." Yugi argued.
"That doesn't change the fact that it's dangerous." Atem stated.
"Look, me and the guys been stuck in these dangers with you for years, and while you're still in them, I don't plan to get out." Yugi stated. Atem realised that he wasn't going to be able to talk Yugi out of this one.
"Alright. But we are going to have to be very careful, this Demon is nearly as bad as Zorc." Atem replied.
"Got it. I'll see you soon." Yugi said and he hung up.
Yugi grabbed his jacket raced out of the shop. Joey's place was his first stop, Tea and Tristan where already there. "Hey Yug, what up?" Joey asked.
"It's Atem he's ok!" Yugi said.
"What, how do you know?" Tristan asked.
"He called from this place this place called Romford. I'm going there tomorrow morning." Yugi said.
"Well count us in." Joey stated.
"Are you sure he's ok Yugi?" Tea asked.
"I'm sure Tea." Yugi replied.
The next morning, the four friends caught the earliest train they could. They changed trains several times. But in the afternoon, they pulled into a little station called Romford. Atem was already on the platform. "There he is!" Yugi cried. He and Tea were first out of the train and ran and hugged Atem tightly. "Good to see you too guys." Atem said.
"Don't go scaring us like that." Tea said.
"Hey come on, give the guy so room to breath." Joey said.
"You alright mate?" Tristan asked.
"I'm fine." Atem replied.
Atem took his friends back to Herrick's house. On the way they saw one house that had been completely burnt down. Atem assumed that it use to be Philippa's house. "Hi." Herrick greeted them.
"Hey." Atem replied.
"So these are your mates." Herrick said. "And I guess you're his brother." He said to Yugi.
"Yeah." Yugi replied.
"Well, you guys hungry?" Herrick asked.
"You bet we are." Joey and Tristan said in unison. Tea shook her head.
"What?" Tristan asked.
"You two are always hungry." Tea said.
"And your point is." Joey said.
"Chill out, we're loaded." Herrick said breaking the argument. "Come on, I'm starving too."
"Now you are our kind of man." Tristan said and they went into the kitchen.
"I need some female friends." Tea said with a sigh.
"So who's the new guy?" Yugi asked Atem.
"Excuse me?" Atem asked.
"You said 'us' on the phone." Yugi said.
"Oh yes." Atem started. "Herrick, has Philippa been up yet?" He called.
"No mate, she's still out." Herrick answered.
"Alright, I'll introduce you to her when she wakes up. She got it quite hard from The Demon." Atem explained to Yugi.
"Oh ok, so what happened?" Yugi asked. Atem gave Yugi a long story, cut short of what had happened. Yugi was struggling to believe what he was hearing. "Man, poor girl." Yugi said. "But she's half demon."
"I know it's hard to believe…" Atem started.
"After all we've been through these past few years, I don't find it hard to believe, just surprising." Yugi said. "So we gonna bring her back with us when she's better?"
"That's the plan." Atem replied. "But we're probably going to have problems with the demon. He's probably still after her and me."
"But the millennium Items are gone, doesn't he know that?" Yugi stated.
"Unfortunately, he doesn't Yugi. He thinks I've hidden them somewhere." Atem replied.
"So what do we do?" Yugi asked.
"I'm not sure yet." Atem replied. Tea walked in.
"Those two aren't gonna stop pigging out, and they've got that Herrick guy who's just as bad." She stated. Atem smiled, it was good to be back with his friends. They were the reason he decided to stay in the first place. "Oh, almost forgot, I brought you this." Yugi said handing Atem his deck.
"Thanks." Atem replied.
"Atem are you sure you're ok?" Tea asked, noticing that he had a lot of bandages on.
"I'm fine Tea, honestly." Atem replied.
"Sorry, it's just after what happened…" Teas started but trailed off.
"Tea, I'm fine." Atem said reassuringly. A clap of thunder broke the conversation. Rain started pouring down. "Well that throws football coaching off the pitch." Herrick said. As the rain came down, things got quite, too quite.
Philippa was still asleep, when she suddenly plunged into a nightmare. The Demon came for her and Atem in the dead of night, a dark magician stood strong and protective of Atem and Philippa had one of her favourite monsters, The Dark Armed Dragon. But that wasn't possible. Philippa had lost her deck in the fire that destroyed her home, and the odds of her getting another Dark Armed Dragon were slim as it was a very rare card. She, Atem and the Demon were all wearing duel disks. Atem's dark magician was destroyed and the demon went to attack Atem directly, but Philippa played a trap card without thinking, and the attack was redirected to her. A sharp pain hit her, and everything went black. Philippa's eye's flung open, and she gasped for air. She tried to move, but found it painful. She looked around. The last thing she remembered was being in the forest. But now she was in a warm, comfortable bed, in a small, quite room. She could just see out the window, it was still raining heavily, and it was getting dark. She could also see a small clock next to the bed, and read 7:30 pm. She closed her eyes again and found it easy to fall asleep.
As the evening drew on, Joey repeatedly duelled Yugi, with Yugi winning every single one. "This sucks, why can't I win." Joey said just after a duel.
"What does that make Joey? 6-0 to Yugi isn't it." Tristan teased. Joey growled.
"Oh yeah like you could do any better Tristan." Joey replied. "Hey Atem, help me out here." Atem crossed the room to them and sat down at the other side of the table.
"Bring it on." Yugi said. Atem won when he summoned magician of black chaos. "Dang it." Yugi said and thumped his head on the table.
"Sorry Yugi." Atem said.
As it got later everyone went to bed. Tea was given the second spare room, leaving the guys in the living room. Atem went to Philippa's room to see how she was doing. He was getting worried since she had slept for two days straight. He went in to see her still asleep. He touched her cheek, she was still a bit warm, but no way near as bad as she was the other day. Her wounds had been properly treated and she wasn't so pale. Atem left without waking her and headed back down stairs. Everyone else was asleep, and it wasn't long before Atem was asleep too.
That night, he had the exact same nightmare as Philippa, only it was from his point of view. He woke up suddenly and was relieved to find himself in the living room. The rain was still coming down, and it was still hard. He looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was about 2:30am. Everyone else was still asleep. So he settled down again, but wasn't able to go back to sleep for quite a while.