A/N Vague hints of...well, honestly guys. This one is just plain vague. Post-series...ish.


Reality is never as bad as a nightmare, as the mental tortures we inflict on ourselves. ~ Sammy Davis, Jr.


The story starts (like always, like always) with a –

"Once upon a time," Ryou's mother says to him, with wide gentle eyes.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away… Far, how far from home? Domino or Egypt?

Dear Amane,

We are leaving Egypt, today. Everything is over, it's all finally over.

But it's not truly over. Ryou still feels the ring around his neck.

(The weight of all his sins.)

His mother had been Catholic. Ryou's father hadn't really been anything, but would force the family to indulge in church every now and again. Amane had hated it, but he hadn't mind. Until his fascination with occult started (yes, it did start – there was a time when he had just been a child, so the spirit was wrong –)

Now, though, as he filters through memories without haze, he wonders what he is guilty of the most.

Envy? Or Sloth?

The darkness swells up around him, and smirks wrath, before it disappears into a snowy hill top where Amane smiles and giggles. Soon, that disappears too.

(It all fades away eventually – whether he had wanted it to or not.)

It all starts out so simply. Isn't that the worst – isn't that just the absolute worst? A present from his father (who was just trying to be kind, he assures himself, it wasn't as if his father had purposely…) or just his mother and sister going to the store.

Simple. Yet all ends in tragedy.

(Even from the beginning, when Ryou would fall asleep above the Egypt sand…even –especially that ended in tragedy…)

Oddly, it's fitting. Oddly, it's what he deserves.

Dear Amane,

It's odd but…but I can't remember where I was last night.

No. No. Something else, something else.

He is aware of what this is, to some extent, and there are some things he refuses to deal with.

Like that night, when he found out truly what the spirit was capable of.

(He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs but the blood never comes out…)

His mother taught him how to wash when he was seven. Ryou had always been a bright boy, always had been willing to help.

Ryou likes helping.

"Do onto to others as you would have them do onto you," his mother had told.

So does this mean someone soon will help him?

Flashes of violet, worried eyes. Yuugi's eyes. But Yuugi didn't help him. No matter how much Ryou had wanted Yuugi too, and how much he had helped Yuugi, he had never helped him…

"I'm here, I'm right here!" He screams at them, at friends who are not close enough to touch.

They can't hear him, and Ryou learns to accept this.

(The spirit was so proud of him for that.)

"You're finally learning, landlord. The sooner you accept that you have always belonged to me –"

Suddenly, darkness wraps its arms around him and now there is less of a chance that Yuugi will ever hear him…

Bright, white light – that light that had blazed when the Pharaoh crossed over – illuminates this place.

The darkness is no longer there.

(But he feels it, he feels it.)

Or maybe…maybe he just wants to feel it. Maybe he doesn't want to be alone.

Alright. So he doesn't want to be alone. Is that so wrong?

Doesn't he deserve some form of companionship – even if it was parasitic?

"Well, Yuugi-kun?! Isn't my choice?!"

No answer. But he hears dark, sardonic, laughter.

Even here, even in the place that is his own creation, the spirit still mocks him.

(At least he realizes this. At least he isn't as crazy as he thinks.)

Amane hadn't thought he was crazy at all. She had called him brother and played with him in the snow. And when spring came and all the snow was gone, she would make crowns out of flowers. She'd place it on his head and playfully called him, "King."

King of what? King of what?

(Like always, he knows the answer, but questions are much easier to say that truths.)

The truth. Maybe he could say one…

He hates himself. That was true.

Because Ryou does, he really does hate himself. He has always hated himself. He has hated himself longer than he has loved games.

All he sees is a bright, flickering television screen.

BUY MONSTER WORLD NOW. COLLECT ALL PIECES.

The letters are blood red and flash, something a child would like. A seedy looking man in a bowtie pops on the screen.

(He is aware that this is not the present, but the scene continues on despite himself…)

"Wouldn't you like to be anyone you want to be?" The T.V announcer says and smiles. At the time Ryou thought it was genuine but he knows better now. The announcer is a liar and cannot be trusted. He comprehends this…but…comprehension doesn't change anything and he opens his mouth anyway.

"Yes," Ryou says, childish and innocent.

"Wouldn't you like to be someone else?" The screen zooms in on the announcer's smile.

"Yes!" Ryou nods his head rapidly.

The Ryou he is now shakes, in fear, in anger, in sadness because "The past is never changing. Blood spilt stains all time, my dear landlord. It can never be undone…"

I take it back! He shouts angrily to the darkness. I take it back, I take it all back! I just want to be me; can I just be me again?

Please?

There is no answer, and the scene melts away like snow and souls. Burning, there is burning and fire and screaming and laughter.

The laughter of his sister. Who loved him. The laughter of the spirit. Who didn't.

They blur. They sound the same. It ends.

(And Ryou is left alone in darkness.)

Whispers come next, like always, spoken softly despite the harshness of their words.

"Did you hear what happened to that kid in Tokyo?"

"No, what?"

"Well, you know that new kid Bakura?"

"Yeah he seems really nice."

"Well that's what this kid – I think his name was Akio – thought too. But then – "

Shut up. Stop it, stop it! You did this, it was you…I didn't want any of this…

" – he went to his house and went into a coma. For like, no reason. He still hasn't woken up."

But you did, landlord. Don't you see? You wished for me.

Ryou doesn't even bother to call him a liar, because he's not.

"You should always be careful what you wish for," his mother had warned him, "you just might get it."

He should have listened.

He listens now though, as the laughter starts up again. It echoes loudly off of every inch of him, consumes him, entangles him, strangles him…

(…taints him…)

But all this is the past. So it is never changing.

On and on it goes, his life in reverse, fast forward, rewind and skip. Jumble bits of memories ("How can you not like snow, Ryou? It's so cold and soft and fun!") and lies (Why would they ever want to be friends with someone as pathetic as you? What could you possibly offer them?)

Or maybe they are both the same.

It seems pointless to judge them both now, because in the end they both left him.

Dear Amane,

I miss you a lot.

He's permitted that much at least. The letter burned and charred from the never-ending fire that started millennia ago, slips away.

And he lets it.

(He never really deserved her anyway.)

The ring stays inside of his skin, no matter how much he tugs, it never comes off.

It's not off now. Sorry, Yuugi, but you're lying, it can never came off. But that, (he knows, with insane certainty) that is what I deserve.

You and I are very much the same landlord, no matter what you tell those friends of yours…

No. You're wrong. We are different.

Though, at the time he didn't know how or why, but he does now and isn't that better than never?

You want to punish and I want to be punish.

They belonged together.

(So why had he left?)

But the past is unchangeable and fate unbreakable, so all the realizations of what the spirit was (in terms of him, at least) means nothing.

Ryou is left without darkness, which is worse than he imagined.

Worse than Amane's death, because at least than he could assure himself that she was in a better place now. "With God and the angels, making flower crowns with your mother, son."

(A crown for the King of Thieves?)

At least with Amane he is allowed to miss her.

All of it is empty. All of it is too complicated to deal with, too intertwined to examine by each thread.

So let it go, says a light voice, let it go…

It's hard. It's unwanted. It is unfair.

And it is –

(Soft, like whispers and snow.)

More of himself, just himself, alone. Then –

There is laughter; there is burning and fire, and screaming.

("And they all lived happily ever after…")

The end.

-0-

"Bakura! Bakura-kun, are you okay?"

Ryou is shaken out of his dream and looks deep into a pair of violet eyes. Worried eyes. Yuugi's eyes.

He looks away (like always, like always) and gazes out of the airplane's window. The sky is vast and endless…maybe even meaningless…and his eyes are his own.

"Fine, Yuugi-kun," he says without conviction, "it's just a nightmare."


A/N I think I wrote this because it had no plot. Compared to the two chapters in works for ASL...which have so much plot it's ridiculous, and don't even get me started on Nanowrimo, I'm already a whole day's word count behind...I really wanted to write something vague.

Hope it was a least semi-enjoyable. Please review! =)