"I did say I think. Not that I was sure…"

The wisp said this tremulously, seemingly vibrating at a frequency that was nearly undetectable to Bakura's eyes. This shaking distorted the image in strange ways and made his head hurt. He winced and clutched his temple.

"You think," he said, disbelievingly.

"Uhm, yes?" it said, as though it was a question. "Well, see, I don't remember dying. Or living, actually. So I'm not sure."

Bakura blinked at the… ghost? Was that what this was? He looked down at his hands and noticed for the first time that they were shaking violently. In fact, much of his body was shaking.

He pulled the towel over his shoulders, trying to warm up, but the damp towel didn't do much but make him colder. His breath ghosted in front of him as Hikari vibrated even faster, until it seemed as though it was still.

"Well. This explains a lot," Bakura puffed, watching his words freeze as they hit the air. A small chuckle escaped, and then suddenly he was laughing so hard he was bent over.

The wisp hovered closer. "Are you okay?" it asked.

He couldn't stop laughing. This was ridiculous! "You're the great and terrible evil in this house?" he cackled. "You're what I was supposed to be afraid of? You're tiny!"

"I- I'm sorry," it said, shrinking slightly. "Am I supposed to be scary? I didn't know. I could- I don't know, I could try to be frightening-" The scratching began again, and Hikari froze in place. "Oh no," it said.

Bakura frowned. "What is that?"

"I don't know, but it isn't good. I know it isn't. Something about it is… wrong."

Bakura studied the flooring again, kneeling back down to look at it closer. "Is it like the marks on the floor?" he asked. Hikari flew down.

The marks had no meaning or sense on a conscious level, nothing he could convey with words or pictures or even begin to relate, but which made perfect sense at a baser level of functioning. Looking at them made bile rise in his throat, made his stomach churn.

Fire stirred in his bones as he looked at them. A spreading warmth lessened the chill. The scratching sounds intensified.

This. This was the evil that his neighbor had spoken of. Bakura was absolutely sure of it.

He turned back to look at the source of the scratching: an ancient, wooden chest locked with a massive, iron padlock.

"I want to open it," Bakura said.

"No! You can't!" Hikari cried. "Something bad will happen!" It tried to step between Bakura and the wooden chest, but he passed through the wisp with nothing more than a passing plummet in temperature where the silvery, insubstantial ghost touched his bare skin.

He pulled at the padlock, but it stayed firm. "Mmm. Solid," he mumbled. Hikari looked relieved. Bakura shivered and turned back.

"Guess you can't open it. Looks like I worried for- hey, where are you going?" Hikari asked as Bakura started to climb down the ladder.

Bakura smirked. "Getting my lockpicks."

"Lockpicks?!" Hikari yelped.

Bakura stepped quickly into a pair of pants, threw a jacket over his shoulders to replace the damp towel, and grabbed the set of picks, holding them between his teeth to free up his hands. He pulled his arms into the sleeves of his jacket as he climbed back up, returning to the dim attic.

"How do you even know how to pick locks?" Hikari said from his shoulder.

Bakura muttered something incomprehensible through the picks, then pulled them out of his mouth as soon as his hands were free. "It's a useful skill."

"Please, don't do this!" Hikari begged, but it was ignored. Bakura knelt in front of the chest once more, unrolling his lockpicks and pulling out two choice tools. He grimaced as he worked.

"Tricky lock," he muttered. The tumblers seemed to be actively working against him. He'd line a few up, and then the rest would seem to slide themselves back to where they'd begun. "Goddamn rust!" He turned the lock over.

He brushed away a thick layer of dust to find another of the symbols etched into the back panel of the padlock. He studied it closer, humming to himself, before going back to work, trying out any method he could think of to crack the lock. Nudging individual tumblers, raking over all of them, fiddling aimlessly.

Each failure served to infuriate him further. He swapped out one of the tools and redoubled his efforts, clearing out the tumblers and trying one final time.

With a final twist, he heard a loud click, letting out a victorious sound as he did so. The padlock sprung open. He tossed it back and grabbed the chest's handles.

He pulled them open gently, waiting for something to happen, some secret mechanism to trigger. But nothing happened.

He brought his cell phone back up to light up the insides, when a rush of darkness suddenly flooded out of the chest, washing over him in a crashing wave of ice.

He yelped and fell backwards, the darkness falling over him like a second skin, buzzing with the intensity of a swarm of enraged bees. He choked on the clouds, and found that he couldn't breathe. He grabbed at his throat. "He-elp-" he gasped.

Hikari was beside itself. Above his head, he could see the wisp flying in circuitous figure eights, but even this was wavering. His vision was growing fuzzy. His head was light. Everything was going dark.

Through the haze overcoming him, one thing rose from deep within. A small stabbing pain grew in intensity, right over his heart, like an icy knife twisting under his skin. It took on shape, but what it was, he couldn't tell. He gasped once more as pain flared up, writhing below his flesh. One hand moved from his throat to his chest, clawing at the center of the pain.

And then his vision cleared. His airways opened, and he could breathe once more. Under his fingers, something felt wet. He pushed himself upright, panting, studying his fingers with abstract curiosity. They were dark and shiny. Bloody. His own blood.

He reached for the chest, fingers scrabbling over the box, staining it red where he touched. He had to see inside it. He had to know what was within. He thrust his hand blindly into the chest, landing on the leather cover of an ancient book. He pulled it out.

A Compaendium of Darke Magicks was carved into curiously pale leather, the title smeared over with his own blood. It soaked slowly into the bindings. He watched as the blood vanished inside the book.

When it faded away, the pain flared up once more in his chest, coursing through him like a camera flash, and then it was gone. He cringed faintly and groaned, his hand going back to his bleeding chest, but there was no more pain as suddenly as it had come.

"Oh dear, oh thank heavens, you're awake! Are you alright?" Hikari asked, leaning close. It seemed to finally notice that Bakura had moved.

"Fine," Bakura grunted, looking at his hand again. He was still bleeding. Or was he? His skin felt solid. No give, no breaks. Fully healed?

But then, where was the blood coming from? "What do you mean 'awake'?" he asked.

Hikari bounced from side to side. If Bakura didn't know better, he'd have said the little bugger had to pee.

"You've been out for hours. I tried to get your aunt and uncle, but they didn't notice me. I was afraid… so afraid… that you'd died. The last person who tried that did die! I told you, evil! It could have killed you!"

"You could have mentioned that before I opened the box!" Bakura growled.

Hikari shrank again. "I'm sorry, I didn't think about it."

Bakura grunted again, managing to get to his feet, trying to process what he'd just heard. So Hikari wasn't the only death in this house? Would have been nice to know before popping open sketchy wooden chests with stubborn locks.

He grabbed a few of the massive books, hefting them carefully so they wouldn't be ruined by the bit of blood on him.

"I'm getting out of here," he growled.

He extinguished the light and headed down the stairs. It was almost perfectly dark in his room, lit only by the swollen moon. Hikari followed at a distance, and the ambient light brightened up a bit. After a moment's thought, he pushed the ladder up, and it closed the ceiling up with a nearly inaudible squeak.

"So… if you don't mind me asking… what did you find?" it asked slowly. Bakura didn't look at the wisp drifting down through the attic door. He was staring into the mirror with his mouth hanging open in shock.

"Holy shit," Bakura breathed. "Why didn't you say something about my being completely covered in blood? Oh, shit, I'm never going to get this out." He tugged at the jacket, staring at his chest.

His pale skin was slicked over with blood, dark and red and fluid, from the base of his throat to the edges of his boxers and the low-slung jeans. Some of the blood along the edges had only just started to dry and fade to brown. The jacket was stained faintly along the zip, but it was minimal enough, thankfully, that it seemed like it would probably come clean in the wash.

Thank the gods he'd never bothered to zip it, or it would likely be ruined.

So much blood. Bakura never considered himself to be squeamish, but to lose this much blood… it couldn't be healthy. He shouldn't be able to stand right now. He dropped the books on the desk and slid down the stairs into the kitchen, trying to keep from dripping on the floor as he went. Hikari bobbed in the air behind him like a balloon, lighting his way.

He grabbed the roll of paper towels, sat on the countertop, and started cleaning himself off. "Four AM," he grumbled, noticing the time finally. "How does it get to be 4 AM without my noticing?"

"You were out for a long time. A very long time. Your aunt assumed you were out exploring Domino, so she saved some dinner for you. I saw her put it in the fridge if you want it."

"I want it," Bakura said, frowning at his chest. It was still messy and bloody, but as far as he could see, none of the skin was actually broken or even scabbed over. He dampened a paper towel and started to cleanse away the final layer of blood that had smeared itself over his skin. That was when he noticed something even more odd.

A small shape over his heart refused to come clean. He couldn't tell what exactly the symbol was, but it was stained so deeply into his bone-white skin that he couldn't wash it away. He scrubbed harder at the spot, but other than his skin turning a bit flushed around the area, nothing happened.

"Won't come clean," he muttered. Hikari hovered down in front of him and let out a small whispery gasp.

"Oh no. That's not good."

"What is it this time?" Bakura asked. He frowned at the large pile of bloodstained paper towels and pushed them into the trashcan, swiping the damp one over the counter to clean up the reddish smudges. Eh. Good enough.

"That mark was on the box. The evil box. It marked you somehow," Hikari said. "That's dark magic."

"Dark magic," Bakura mused to himself, a wry smile on his lips. "Magic isn't real. Just a superstition kept by old housewives and children. It's probably just a scab or scar or something. It'll go away soon."

He slid off the counter. Inside of the fridge was a container of leftovers with his name scrawled on a post it note. He grabbed it and a pair of chopsticks and returned back upstairs, following the light provided by Hikari to get silently back into his room. He closed his door behind him.

He scarfed in the barely lit room, devouring the food in quick, hungry bites. When he was finished, he sidled back over to the mirror. His reflection leered at him.

It was easier to see the scar now that the blood was cleaned away. But it was as Hikari had said: it was such a curious shape. A bit suspicious. But it could have been worse.

As it was, it was in the shape of an eye directly over his heart. Around this eye was a thin circle, at the bottom of which there were five identical diamond shapes like pendants hanging free.

The sheer coincidence that a scar had naturally occurred in this shape was difficult to believe, but it was still more likely than Hikari's answer of magic. Still… there was the question of the books he'd found…

He hefted a weighty tome from the top of the stack, which was unquestionably the largest book of the four. Unlike the book he'd grabbed in the attic, this one was bound in black, slightly stained leather that was cracked and moldering with age. The pages were yellow and thick and ragged on the edges. Some looked rather like blood or some other sort of less-than-savory fluid had spilled onto the pages.

Necronomicon.

"I've heard of this book before," Bakura said, turning it this way and that. "Lovecraft. It's fiction. Complete BS. I'll give that someone put a lot of work into this for a fake." He started to open it, when Hikari let out a sudden shriek.

"Don't!" he cried.

Bakura paused. "Don't tell me you actually believe this."

"I do," Hikari said very seriously. It bobbed up and down slightly. "Please, don't go through these books. Something even worse will happen than what already has."

Bakura rolled his eyes and put the book back on his desk. He set The Picatrix aside and picked up the still unwieldy, but comparatively slimmer, Munich Manual. "And this is…?"

"A book on demons," Hikari said.

"And you know that... how?" Bakura asked, one eyebrow lifting slowly at the wispy ghost.

The ghost made a gesture that seemed almost suggestive of a shrug. "I don't know," it said.

Bakura scowled and put down the demon book. "Of course you don't. Anyway, what exactly are you?"

"I told you, I think I'm dead," Hikari said.

"I gathered that much," Bakura replied. "But are you, I don't know, a ghost? A spirit? Something… lingering?" He smiled and hefted the Munich Manual once more. "A demon?"

Hikari shivered. "You should take this more seriously. I was human once. I know that much. But… I don't know more than that. I don't remember my name, or what I looked like, or where I lived, or even when. I know it's been a while, though. Things have changed a bit since I… ahem. Passed."

Bakura leaned forward. "How can you tell?"

"The television, mostly. The way people speak when they walk into a house. The shows they watch. The things the people do. I can't leave the house, so I'm a bit limited on what I can do. But I can do that much," Hikari said.

"One more question. Gotta know. It's killing me a little, this not knowing thing," Bakura said.

Hikari nodded. "Of course. What is it?"

"Are you a guy or a chick?"

Hikari somehow seemed to look affronted. "Male, of course. Isn't it obvious?"

Bakura shook his head, a crooked smile on his face. "Eh, not really. But I was feeling a little weird calling you an it, so I thought I'd ask."

Hikari bristled slightly, but then calmed with a deep breath. "I guess it isn't that obvious, is it?" he said, frowning down at his form.

The ephemeral silver tendrils flowing from the main, humanoid shape were vaguely suggestive of hair, or maybe they were Cthulhu-like tentacles coming from an eerie structure resembling a head but lacking a face. Bakura didn't know. He doubted he'd ever be able to tell. Nothing was actually defined on Hikari's figure. It was like a rough sketch, but with too many lines tracing over each part to the point where nothing was left.

Hikari sighed. "I guess you'll be going to sleep, now, won't you? You have school in the morning, after all."

Bakura laughed humorlessly. "Ha. Me? There's no way I can sleep at a time like this. I love this occult shit. I'm gonna read something. Only two hours till I have to wake up anyway, so there's no sense in trying to sleep now."

"Please, I think it's a bad idea."

"Nonsense. It'll be fun. C'mon, we can read it together. Maybe find out what you are...?" He trailed off, dragging the Compaendium of Darke Magicks off the desk and into the bed.

He looked at the cover and frowned. He had thought the leather bindings had been old and a shade of dingy off-white. But the book looked much newer than it had seemed in the dark, its pages jagged but crisp, as though freshly cut, and the leather was supple and red as a fresh rose.

On the front, embossed in black, was the same symbol which marked his chest. He ran his fingers over the cover.

"I suppose... a small peek might not do much more damage… In the name of research, of course," Hikari muttered, meandering over to Bakura's shoulder. From the light he threw off, Bakura had no problems opening the book and skimming over the table of contents.

"All in English," Bakura commented, running a finger down the page numbers listed at the edges. The font was handwritten and archaic, but very obviously not Japanese characters.

"Is that a problem?"

"Nah. I'm more used to English than Japanese. This works out well for me. I just wonder what all of these books are doing here, written in English... It's a bit strange. Say, you can read this, can't you?"

"Of course. Why is that a question- oh. I see. I must be able to speak English, or at least read it, if I can understand the words," Hikari said with a slight, nod-like bob.

Bakura grinned. "Well? Let's get started."

As they worked their way through the introduction, the sky began to lighten. Dawn came, and the sun rose with the sounds of an alarm clock going off in the next room. His uncle stirred. Bakura didn't move.

His eyes tracked over the book, completely enraptured by words contained within.

Even Hikari had fallen silent in favor of deciphering the words before them, piecing together the vague, meandering prose to find meaning.

The very words seemed poisoned as Bakura read them, but he found himself inexplicably drawn into the world which it spun from thousands of black threads. It sounded like fiction, no, it was fiction, but even so, Bakura couldn't help but keep turning pages, insatiably thirsting to know what darkness the next paragraph contained.

This world, it read, was steeped with a shadowy magic known only to a select few. Powers greater than human comprehension resting just beyond the edges of the plane which humans inhabit. It spoke of an ancient history reaching back to Egypt and further back still, which would be recounted fully in the very first chapter of the book.

It spoke of dimensions unreachable to all but the most powerful of mages and arcanists, of demons and souls split from human shells, thriving with human life but devoid of any means of communication with those who were not what the book called 'shadow touched'. As for the 'shadow touched', these were humans which were-

A shriek from below startled him from the book before he could read more.

"Bakura! Oh gods, is this blood?!"

Bakura groaned. "Of course," he muttered. He stretched with a soft vocalization and set the book aside on his bed. "Excuse me a minute, Hikari."

He stuck his head outside his door.

"Yes!" he yelled down. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine! Just… nicked my hand on the way in! Stupid mistake, I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

"Bakura, get down here now!" she yelled.

He glared at Hikari. "I shouldn't have to deal with this."

Hikari wavered back and forth. "They're worried about you."

"They shouldn't be," he growled.

He looked down at the bloodspattered jacket and the scarlet mark which sat slightly to the left of the midpoint between his pectorals, and he quickly shed the jacket in favor of a loose black tee. The shirt covered any hint of blood on his pants, so he figured it wasn't a big deal to leave the jeans as they were.

He threw a withering glare at the mirror. A little pale, but then, he always was. At least his eyes were bright. Yesterday, the reddish brown had been dull and listless, exhausted. Then again, he'd never felt quite as awake as he did now. Quite as… alive.

His blood felt hot, and though he'd barely gotten any sleep the last two nights, he was firing at all cylinders. He licked his lips and snarled at his reflection, liking the savage gleam of his pointy canine teeth.

He rolled his shoulders and stalked out of the room.

"What is all this blood?" Aunt Aiko demanded. She held the lid of the trashcan and pointed emphatically at the can's contents, as though gesturing harder and more furiously would convey the point more efficiently.

"I told you," he drawled, "I nicked my hand a bit. It bled, I cleaned it up. It isn't a problem anymore."

She didn't look convinced. "And anyway, where were you last night? I let you run around at night back at the old apartment because I thought that it made you less homesick, and because nobody looked twice at anyone. But we talked about this. We're in a real home now. What are the neighbors going to think?"

"Fuck what the neighbors think," Bakura muttered, slouching back towards the stairs.

"Bakura!" she snapped. He paused and looked back at her. "We don't use that kind of language in this house."

"We don't, but I do," he said. He turned back around and started up the stairs.

"And where do you think you're going?" Aunt Aiko snapped.

He didn't even pause. "Getting ready for school. I have to go to that, remember?"

He heard a shout of "Bakura, get back here!", but he ignored it.

Hikari was resting on his desk when he returned. "She's going to be furious with you," he said dully.

Bakura shrugged. "Don't care." He stepped out of the jeans and pulled on the uniform on over his black tee. "So, I noticed that Aiko didn't see you down there. What's up with that?"

"I told you, they can't see me. Nobody ever does. Except for you," Hikari said.

"Except for me. And that person who died from the box."

"No. He never saw me. Just tried to get into the box. I suppose he wasn't meant to."

"So I'm the only one?" Bakura asked, grinning.

Bit of an ego stroke, that. It was pretty cool to be the only one who could see the ghost in your attic. So. If Bakura was the only one who could see Hikari… and probably the only one who could hear him as well…

"So I could bring you to school with me and no one would know?" His grin widened. Oh, the things he could do with an extra set of eyes…

Hikari moved slowly side to side, as though shaking his head. "I'm trapped in this house. I can't get more than twenty or thirty feet away from the box. I would if I could, though. Believe me. I'd love to see your high school."

"Shame," Bakura said. "Maybe we'll figure something out later."

"Maybe," Hikari said sadly, sinking closer to the floor. He perked up suddenly. "Oh, no! You're going to be late for your classes! You need to leave!"

Bakura groaned. "So what if I'm a little late? I'll blame it on the trains. I didn't grow up in Japan, so I'm not used to them. They have to accept that excuse, don't they? Or maybe I can just not show up. Be nice to read more of that book."

Hikari pouted. "Please, Bakura, will you go to school? I want to know what it's like. You have to go and tell me all about it!"

"I don't have to do anything," Bakura shot back, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. He leaned against the wall, casting a longing look at the books.

For a bit of fiction, the lore looked like it was shaping up to be pretty elaborate. Only 3/4 of the way through the introduction, and already there were hints of thousands of named demons, circles of hell, and magic spells. Alone, any one of those things would have been enough to merit Bakura's undivided attention. Together?

It was a cocktail of distraction.

"Maybe I could just bring the books with me…" he said, going for the Compaendium. He tried to force it into his bag, but it wouldn't fit amongst the clutter and other books inside. He snorted and threw it back onto his bed. "Fine, don't fit," he grumbled.

"Probably for the best," Hikari said. "What if something happened to it?"

"I would lose good reading material, that's what," Bakura said. He slung his bag over his shoulder and started for the door.

"Wait," Hikari said. He flew close to Bakura, then back towards the books. "Maybe… maybe you should hide them."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Just… I think you need to keep them safe. Not where your aunt and uncle can find them."

Bakura nodded. "True… They wouldn't like these if they found them…" he said, dropping the bag. "Superstitious morons."

He pushed the nightstand back under the attic door and pulled the handle down. In two trips, he lugged all of the books back up into the crawlspace where the chest was hidden, tucking them back into the oaken box he'd found them in.

"There. Nice and safe," he said, closing the doors. His hand landed on the open padlock, and he cast it a critical eye. "I thought I closed this…"

"You did," Hikari said. "I told you, black magic!"

"Black magic my arse," Bakura scoffed, locking the chest back up. He turned back and started to clamor back down the stairs, closing the handle once more. "There. No one can get to them but me, and I'll just pick the lock again when I come home. Better safe than sorry."

"Good," Hikari said.

Bakura watched the handle settle into the groove in the ceiling. His lips turned down. He'd need to find a more efficient way of getting into the attic than pushing the nightstand under it every time… One problem at a time, though.

Bakura grabbed his bag with a sigh. Hikari's light brightened suddenly. "Good luck on your first day at school, Bakura! Have fun!"

"I won't," Bakura replied. And he didn't.

Figured I'd try and update once or twice a week. And hey, if you liked this, give it a fave, a follow, or a review! It's always appreciated and means a lot.