Chapter 3
OLD AQUANTINCE

When I had returned to my body I looked into the ceiling of a room I had never been in before. I thought through everything that had happened to me within my mind and I started to think about the frightening memory he made me see and I felt sick and sat up, just to throw up on the empty bed besides me. The images flashed through my mind, it felt sickening. I could never imagine something that horrible could happen… When I saw the faces of the people who fell into the pit, their skin burning off while their eyes slowly disintegrating while their agonizing screams for help pierced through my ears.
I realized that the room had started to stink of everything I threw up and I ran out of the room and I saw the ocean. I got confused and tried to grasp what had happened. Where am I? I looked around for a while and saw several other kids, the same age as me, running around on the ship and then I realized where I was. I was on the boat heading to the Duel Academy. I felt the scent of the fresh seawater in the air and took a deep breath. Then I remembered that I easily get seasick so I ran to the side of the ship and tried to throw up just to have someone hit my back hard with the flat of his hand. I looked at him after a hard cough and wiped my mouth with my sleeve to see a tall figure wearing a red suit. He smiled at me and moved his white hair so that I could see his eyes. All my problems felt like they had been washed away, it was the person who taught me how to play Duel Monsters, it was Maximillian Pegasus! I was overcome with joy and I hugged him tight, I didn't even feel queasy anymore.
"Pegasus! I've missed you so much!" I hugged him so tight and I started to get tears in my eyes. My father often went to different countries, he was a reporter and very successful. Pegasus had always been there and he often sent choppers or a jet to fly me to his island so I could spend several weeks there. He had never told me why he was so nice to me and why he taught me everything he knew but I felt that I could trust him.
"My boy, how are you feeling? You look sick" He held me back and looked questioning at me. I looked away when I started to think about what happened and he seemed to have noticed. "Boy, I have something I need to tell you…"
"W-what are you talking about?" He unlocked a small door on the ship and showed me into it. After I walked inside the dark, murky room he hastily locked the door and turned on the lights. The light revealed a sarcophagus with several weird shaped slots in it. Then I remembered what I had heard from my father's stories. It was the Millennium Tablet. But how could this be?
"You are probably wondering how this still exists. You see, when it broke and turned into rubble just to have all the items fall into a hole, I wanted to know what had happened and where they fell. I gathered a team of peopled to excavate the fallen ruins. In the bottom of the ruins I found a deep hole with a black void in it. One of the people in my excavation team was careless and reached out to touch it; his mind was crushed by the mere force of the shadows. But now for some reason the void doesn't exist there anymore, and I found the Millennium Tablet in a place I had searched through before in the ruins which means for some reason it started to exist again." I thought his explanation was too vague but I know there was no reason to question it. He only knew slightly more than I did.
"Pegasus… Why are you telling me this?" Why would he tell me something like this? He didn't know that the spirit of the Millennium Ring had come to me right? I had cleverly concealed it in my black coat. Or so I thought at least, I now noticed that the coat I had been wearing when I fainted had been taken off me so my Millennium Ring was fully exposed. He chuckled for a bit when he realized what I had thought and then he walked up to me.
"My boy… You have obtained the Millennium Ring. I know that if I attempt to take it away something horrible might happen to me and it will somehow find its way back to you. Boy, you must resist the temptations the spirit might offer you and you cannot listen to it!" He looked at me worrying and I felt anger welling up inside of me. Temptations? The Thief King hadn't tempted me with anything, it was the opposite. He had shown me the pain he had gone through and will continue to do so, it was my own choice to help him and I won't change my mind.
"What do you know? I help him not by his means but by my own choice and I shall continue to do so!" I couldn't control my anger. I felt stronger hatred by the second as I glared at his worrying face. I suddenly heard the Thief King in my head. His voice was calming and reassuring.
"You are my vessel, we can't have someone ordering you around and trying to change your decisions can we?" I tried to move but suddenly my vision flew out of my own body. I saw my own body. I had a scar on my face again and I felt that my body had a hostile but secure atmosphere towards me.
"What are you planning on doing Thief King? Don't hurt Pegasus… please…" I heard the chuckle from his voice as he opened his mouth to start laughing loudly while staring madly into the ceiling. I saw Pegasus terrified expression as he looked upon my body. He must have realized who was controlling my body. He backed away from me and fell backwards on a chair as the Thief King walked towards him but suddenly turned to a table in the room. He walked slowly towards it and picked up a key from the table. He walked hastily towards Pegasus and held his hand to his face. He started to speak aloud in his sinister, dark voice.
"Please. Call me Bakura." Pegasus was still sitting on the chair, too afraid to move. Bakura held his hand so that he could see the palm. He held the key in the other hand and held the edge to the palm as he looked at his hand with a wild look. His eyes were those of a madman, I had never seen such bloodshot eyes as he pressed the edge through the skin on the palm. Of my body. He looked like he enjoyed it and was laughing while ripping up a long wound through the skin of my palm. The blood was oozing down from his hand as he showed it to Pegasus. Pegasus was quiet and shivering in fear while Bakura faced my spirit as I was standing there, horrified of what he might do to Pegasus, the one person I could ever rely on. His cold look in his eyes made me want to escape. Just run away. But I knew it wasn't possible. The Millennium Ring started shining with a radiant, purple light as he grabbed my neck. I didn't have any physical form yet I could feel the excruciating pain that went through my soul. "If you want to be able to handle having your soul in your body while I'm controlling it, you have to have felt strong fear and pain. I'm going to give plenty of that to you!" He let go as I fell to the ground. He turned to Pegasus and stabbed deep into his shoulder with the blunt key. Pegasus let out a loud shriek of pain as Bakura twisted the key in the wound and then ripped it out. Pegasus tried to reach out for a paper at the table next to him but Bakura hit his arm when it was reaching out, pressing it hard against the table as the key slowly buried into his arm and he was twisting it around. Bakura was laughing and licked the blood of the palm from his own hand. "You should feel honored Pegasus. You're going to be a part of this boy's traumatizing process." He held his palm to Pegasus wound on his shoulder as Bakura's blood dripped into the wound. Suddenly I felt like my spirit was diminishing as I looked upon the events occurring in front of me with fright. I held my hands up and stared at them as they slowly disappeared. I tried to scream but my voice was completely gone. My vision slowly faded as I saw Bakura glaring into Pegasus eyes.

My vision returned slowly as the darkness started to disperse. I suddenly felt an excruciating pain in my right shoulder and right arm. I felt weak and I opened my half-closed eyes and saw myself glaring into my eyes. I tried to open my mouth but I couldn't move anything. He leaned over to me and whispered in my ear.
"It's time to play a little game Pegasus." Then I realized what he had done. He forced my spirit into Pegasus body. I could suddenly feel all the pain surging through his body. I felt the fear in his mind along with his thoughts of what might become of him. His thoughts were unorganized and with nothing but confusion and pain. He was thinking of how this might be his last moments alive, how his life was still unfulfilled. He felt certain that he would die. After all, last time he met Bakura he got his eye ripped out. Pegasus finally started to talk. His voice was shaky and still very low.
"A-a game..? Do you mean I will live..?" His voice was filled with a small hope as he was stuttering.
"Yes, but this won't be a normal game, it will be something you are very familiar with. It will be a shadow game!" Pegasus expression changed when he heard those words. Shadow game. In his head, thousands of thoughts were brimming through his head as his eyes were fully open. He was afraid, the thought of dying sounded pleasant compared to what he thought shadow games as. His mind was scattered in thoughts but I managed to make out that the loser in a shadow game gets a punishment and that the doors of darkness open to their mind and gives various punishments to your mind. The examples were terrifying, living for eternity and continuously feeling pain in your body that only grows by the second, seeing monsters that will devour your mind and crush it so your mind goes blank forever. I was terrified of what might happen. I felt both Pegasus fright and my own. What would happen to me if Pegasus receives the punishment? Would my mind be crushed? I felt scared as I just wanted to cry but Pegasus eyes were still filled with fright as he stared at Bakura's wide grin. Bakura grabbed the nearby table and dragged it in front of Pegasus. He walked to the drawer and took out two decks of cards and ripped off two long pieces of my precious blue-striped shirt. He sat down on a chair and faced him as he put one of the decks in front of him. "Before we start, I will tell you the rules. It's simple, we both cover our eyes with this cloth and draw 5 cards. We may not take it off until we have drawn them and placed them face up on the table. The one with the highest sum in the end wins, the other gets a punishment game" When he uttered those last words, he sounded pleased. Pegasus hands were shaking as he reached out for the long piece of cloth. I sensed the dim hope he had that he might win. This game had an equal chance of having any of them winning. Bakura put on the blindfold before Pegasus. Pegasus was thinking about cheating so that he'd be certain that he'd win but then he thought about the horrible consequences. He put on the blindfold and now I couldn't see anything through his vision. I was so scared. I just wanted peace now. I don't want to have my mind crushed. The inexplicable fear was terrorizing our minds. Pegasus drew the first and second card in haste. He just wanted to get this over with. He wanted to forget the whole business with the Millennium Items and all the problems with it. He drew the third card and the blindfold started to get wet. He was crying. I had never seen him cry and if this was the last day of his sane life then I never would either. He drew the fourth card as he was thinking of returning to his castle, just lying there… He was imagining just being secure… without anything to be scared of. He was brimming with hope as he drew the fifth card.
"Done. I've drawn all 5 cards." Pegasus voice was light and confident
"So am I, take off your blindfold" Pegasus removed his blindfold as he looked at the cards. He had one ace, 2 eights and one king. He got a confident smile on his face as the tears were flowing down slowly. Bakura removed his blindfold and declared before flipping the cards up "I. Win." He flipped up his cards and it was 4 jacks. Pegasus stood up and started screaming aloud as Bakura was laughing his sinister laugh like before. Pegasus felt helpless. He had grasped a single shred of hope, thinking that he might be able to get out of this, but when he lost, the hope turned into misery and all he could think of was running away. He was afraid and he tried to run towards the door, I was afraid, what was going to happen to me? I can't run away, I was just weak. Bakura kicked down Pegasus to the ground as he was sprinting towards the door and he stomped on his spine repeatedly. The pain could be felt throughout all of his body. Bakura pressed his shoe down on Pegasus head and was shouting out in glee.
"I beg you! Please! Let me live! I just want to go back to my peaceful life!" Pegasus was trying to find something to kill himself with to avoid the punishment. He raised his head a little but Bakura stomped it down to the wooden floor again as a piece flew out and pierced through his entire eye. He screamed in pain as he tried to stand up but Bakura bent down and pressed down his head to the ground, making the thick, wooden splinter pierce deeper into his eye. The tears couldn't fall down but just flowed into the hole in his eye, his vision was entirely red as he could only lie there, screaming in pain. Finally Bakura grabbed Pegasus hair and held him up. I could feel all of it. The pain, the fright, everything. He wanted to die, and so would I. Bakura stared into Pegasus eyes as he was smiling.
"You lost Pegasus... and you know what that means! The door of darkness has opened! Prepare for an eternity of endless pain!" No. Please. Make this stop. I don't want to feel this; I want to go back to my old, bland life! Why did this all happen to me? Darkness enclosed the entire room and the wooden floor was dispersing into small, sharp splinters flying through the air. Pegasus couldn't move a muscle. His entire body wouldn't go numb by the pain, it just continued. No relief. Hundreds of splinters flew towards Pegasus as they ripped holes in his skin and ripped up his veins. They kept coming from all directions, the sheer number of them never ended. He could taste blood in his mouth as the splinter made several holes in his neck. He couldn't breathe, yet he was still alive. None of the pains made the other weaker, all of it just kept regenerating and getting ripped again. He would never die here; he was doomed to an eternity of pain and suffering. He kept trying to grasp for air but nothing was there. His heart tried to beat faster yet it never stopped. It just came out more blood as blood was spurting through the holes in his body. The holes that kept being healed, just to get pierced again. I could feel all of the pain. The tears kept flowing, now both his and my share, but it just flowed into several of the holes in the body. His hair was ripped out by the roots as small parts of his skull started getting pierced by splinters, slowly digging into it and burrowing in his brain. His nails were ripped off by splinters pressing into his fingers and scattering his bones. Bakura's voice could be heard in the distance, telling him that this would never end. The pain will forever be, repeated in an endless circle. Pegasus tried to scream but mere hissing sounds were made. Nothing could be done but just scream into the endless void of darkness.