Fallen: Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter, everyone! D: School's been nothing short of a nightmare this week *cries many tears*

Nickey: Okay! So, chapter 8! Well, besides being a little bit scatter-brained this week (speaking for the both of us) lol I think we... Well... I won't say made progress... I feel like I got nothing done, personally... XD I dunno about you Fallen, but I feel as though I got absolutely NOTHING done... just aggravates me to no end honestly... Anyway! Hope you all enjoy chapter 8! And Fallen, don't forget the disclaimer and chapter title! ^w^

Fallen: Yeah, sorry about that... It's taking me a lot longer to find a Muse for my chapter than I thought... so sorry you haven't been able to work on yours *rubs neck, nervous laugh* Anyways: I gotta be honest you guys, this chapter... doesn't exactly... advance the story that much. But, it is setting the stage for future chapters. So I'm sorry if it's a tad boring, but I swear that it's a necessary evil.

Anyways, enjoy the chapter! I promise I'll update on time for the next one!

DISCLAIMER: Nickey and I do not own, nor are we affiliated with Yu-Gi-Oh! nor anything pretaining to Yu-Gi-Oh! This is a fan-made story made purely for entertainment purposes, and nothing more. Enjoy!

~ Chapter VIII ~

A Sense of Dread

"Go talk to him."

My eyes fluttered open at the sound of a voice. Drowsiness clung to my head like wreaths of mist, and I felt a yawn build in my chest. I rubbed my eyes with a fist, releasing said yawn quietly, and tried to blink the sleep away. What time was it? I didn't know. How long had we been here? Well, judging by how many times the people who kept us here dimmed out the lights for us to sleep – presumably sometime at night – I'd say... about two weeks.

Fourteen days my brothers and I had spent in this pit of Hell. Fourteen days since finding my Kindred, and then discovering that he was the world's biggest asshole. Fourteen days since I had last felt the presence of my Ka, and gone without his comfort.

Fourteen days... yet it felt like an eternity.

I looked up, glancing around lazily. I was propped up against the corner of wall I had seated myself in when we first got here – I rarely bothered to leave it, other than to walk a few laps with Ryou and Malik in our well-lit half of the room. It was better than just sitting around, and waiting for food, or the next experiment. But, I digress.

The lights on our part of the room had been dimmed dramatically, but not fully turned off. Apparently, it was healthy for people of a specific "Attribute", as I've heard it called, to have the maximum amount of exposure possible to their... element, of sorts. Which, seeing as how the other three occupants of the room were "dark" Attributes, it explained as to why half the room was kept dark twenty-four-seven. The only reason they turned down the lights was because it was freaking impossible to get any amount of sleep with those things on full-power all the time. But, without it... well, I'd personally had the privilege of that particular scenario. It had been some kind of mental endurance test. I'd been locked up in an insulated room with absolutely no light being able to filter its way inside. I was pretty sure there were either cameras, or some kind of one-way mirror, something like that, for those bastards to jot down their little notes, watching my reactions. It made me feel like I was a rat in a cage.

At first, it hadn't been so bad – in fact, I actually used the darkness to my advantage, and took a nap. I expected to be released a few hours after I woke up, or something. Only... I wasn't. I have no idea how long I was in there, but when you're stuck in a room – just a big, empty, dark room – and you can't see a thing, even after your eyes have adjusted to the darkness... It screws with your head. And apparently, due to my Attribute being the exact opposite of the constant darkness, the severity and intensity of my responses were multiplied tenfold. I must have been in there for almost the entire day. I actually started to experience hallucinations. I could see horrible monsters coming after me, intent on shredding me to pieces, lingering in my peripheral vision with the goal to drive me mad. I heard voices whispering loudly in my head, voices that were not Arceus. It was terrifying and nerve-wracking and horrible beyond belief – hell, at one point, I think I actually started to have a conversation with one of the fucking walls just to ease off some of the stress.

I personally believe that the only reason they'd let me out as early as they did was because, A: they got annoyed with the constant pacing; B: about halfway in, I was hitting the door and demanding to be let out every thirty seconds; and C: at the end of it all, I was so delirious that I curled up and started to scream.

When the lights had come back on, they blinded me. My head had been pounding and the pain almost made me gag. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to attack the people who had put me in here, as vengeance, or weep and thank them for finally letting me out. So I just sat there, frayed and shivering and flinching at every last movement or sense of physical contact.

I couldn't even walk correctly I was shaking so bad. I thought I'd taken a none-too-graceful dive off the deep end. The scientists pretty much half-carried me down the halls, and when we got back to the room? They'd just dumped me on the floor like trash, leaving me in a trembling, curled-up heap, and left. Ryou and Malik had tried to snap me out of it, but all I could see were my delusions. They later told me that I'd fled to my corner, and any attempts made to come close had me spitting out threats and profanities like a rapper. That, and whenever physical contact had actually been made, I'd just start to scream again and curl into a ball. That was just under a week ago, and I still had an annoying tremor that sprung up every so often.

I shook my head lightly, as if to dislodge the memories as said tremor started up in my hands, and blinked rapidly to wake myself more. Ryou and Malik were curled up on either side of me, also stirring, my movement having startled them awake. Ryou glanced up through sheets of long, white hair, brown eyes unfocused and questioning. I smiled gently at him, and whispered an apology.

"It's fine," he yawned in reply, before noticing my shaky hands. He looked up at me, concern flashing across his face. "You okay?"

Malik punched me in the arm before I could reply, and muttered for us to "shut the hell up". I rolled my eyes at his grumpiness, before the quiet hiss of voices met my ears again.

"You are going to talk to him, and you are going to like it," the voice of Malik's Kindred growled at someone (probably Yami). The sound of Marik's voice seemed to be an incentive for the other Egyptian to stir more willingly, as his head popped up within seconds of Marik's comment. Again, I rolled my eyes, more fondly this time, and Ryou giggled at our brother's reaction.

The two had spent a large portion of our days here talking. Sometimes, Marik would even come over to our side of the room and sit with him. Ryou and his Kindred had been doing that, too, only where our youngest brother wasn't hesitant in the slightest when it came to parading over to the 'dark side' (get it? Ha ha...) and demanding some kind of conversation with the other, Ryou's claustrophobia made him stick purely to our half of the room. His Kindred's name was Bakura, apparently, and from what I've managed to see of him (and what Ryou had told me), he had long, grayish-white hair, pale skin, and eyes caught somewhere in between red and dark brown. 'Burnt umber' was how Ryou had described it once (with a rather cute, doting, dreamy expression, might I add).

"You can't make me do something I don't want to do," I heard Yami spit back, "Now let go of me."

I couldn't help but to feel hurt at that statement. And though talking to that jerk was probably the last thing I wanted to do right now (at least until he apologized), I sulked in disappointment, the emotion flooding my chest intensely. Ryou looked more than a little irritated – Malik had filled him in on what had transpired during his... experiments. Which had involved basic blood-work and screenings, to check if there were any sort of ailments affecting us, skin samples (which actually involved cutting away pieces of skin), and all this other CSI crap. All three of us had been forced to go through the unpleasantness of it.

I breathed a small sigh at my brothers' sympathetic looks. Whether I was angry with him, or disliked him, or whatever was going on with my emotions as of late... Yami was still my Kindred. Whether he was a jerk or not, he was still my other half. Hell, I didn't even know what he actually looked like! All I had seen was a mugshot, back in that damnable Matching Center two weeks ago. But there was so much more to that face than I knew – and with the way things were going right now, far more than I would ever get the chance to know. Whether I would acknowledge it or not, I wanted to get to know him, and be close to him. I wanted to be his friend, at the very least. And I wanted him to want that, too. It sounds selfish, but... knowing that your other half was so close to you, yet they didn't want to come into contact or even bother talking to you... it hurt...

It hurt a lot.

There was a small stretch of silence, and I just shrank back towards the wall again. Ryou and Malik both shifted, each drawing an arm over my shoulders comfortingly, and leaned on my sides. A pause, before I heard Yami begin to mumble again. The voice was quiet, and the distance between my family and his made it a little hard to catch, but I could still hear him talking.

"Huh, seems we're meant for each other in more ways than I realized..." I overheard him muttering, and I couldn't help but to cast a subtle glance in the voice's direction, its source lost somewhere in the darkness. "You got your brothers into this mess, and I got mine into this Hell hole."

I felt a familiar guilt seep into my bones, but also a smidgen of surprise at that quiet confession. Yami had brought his brothers here, too?

There was a chuckle. "Crazy... isn't it?"

I blinked, slow and sad. Yet something odd about the comment made the tiniest of smiles appear on my face – confusing my brothers, to say the least. Yeah... I mentally replied to him, it is.

"You sound like a madman," came Marik's whisper.

"Maybe so..." Yami replied, "But it's all true... Just a bunch of curious, stupid kids. And now we're locked up, like mental patients, except without the straight jackets... I'm sure those will come soon enough, though." I found myself giving the smallest of nods at that, and my brothers recoiled slightly in surprise at my silent agreement. I blinked, and looked up at them as they leaned in front of me, the sudden lack of warmth making me feel a little bit cold. At the questions I could see in their gazes, I could only shrug.

"Yami..." Bakura suddenly grumbled, making Ryou start slightly, and look in the direction of his Kindred's voice, "Stop it."

The sharp look my own white-haired sibling shot me held a similar message, and I frowned at him. Leaning up, I opened my mouth to speak, before the words on my mind were relayed by my very own Kindred. "Stop what?" I heard him snort, "Stop replaying everything in my head? Stop remembering everything that's happened to us?" Ryou and Malik both gave me a light glare, knowing my thoughts had just been spoken aloud – just from a different source. I shot one right back in defiance. "Are you insane? Do you need a straightjacket? I won't stop remembering. I'll never forget what that son of a bitch did."

That man had trapped us, and our Kindred, in this place. The latter for who knew how long. And, as far as we knew, he'd murdered our grandfather. He would pay for hurting all of us, and I'd make sure I was the one that collected his fees.

"And I will take him out," Yami finished, and I gave a curt nod to his words, despite the fact that he didn't see me. I doubt he even knew we could hear their conversation. "even if I go down with him."

I was caught by surprise as a tanned hand shot out, and Malik slapped me straight across the cheek. I gaped at him, my own palm coming up to cup the abused area in shock. Ryou gave him an astonished look, as if torn between scolding him, or thanking him for trying to smack some sense into me. Malik looked a tad guilty, but opened his mouth to yell at me. Only, he was cut off by the sound of conflict. It sounded like skin on skin, and someone being slammed up against a wall.

"You're our baby brother, and you're going to shut up!" I heard the Kindred to my brother shout, all attempts at quiet conversation completely forgotten on their parts, "Stop talking like that! That's not the Yami we know."

Yami growled at them. "The Yami you knew died ten years ago!" My head whipped in their direction, though all I could see were three very undefined silhouettes. "I'm no longer the 'baby brother' you knew. And I won't be walked on anymore. Not by you. Not by Pegasus. Not by anyone. If not for this God forsaken collar, I'd already be out of here. So don't tell me what to do, or how to talk."

The sound of our room's door sliding open cut through the air, and I felt a chill run down my spine. All I could think, as I heard unfaltering, slow footsteps pace towards the darker side of the room, was that something very, very bad was about to take place.

Fingers snapped, and we all went to shield our eyes as the dim lighting suddenly flared into overwhelming brightness.

Looks like nap-time was over.

Pegasus ordered Bakura and Marik away from a third figure, and I couldn't help but to gape at him in surprise. He wasn't tall, nor was he entirely short. Somewhere in between, standing couple inches higher than myself. His hair held three colors – black, red, and blonde – and some of the darker ebony tresses tried to spike up into the air along the back of his skull. Like they were meant to do that naturally. The smallest traces of red lined the sides of his neck and very edges of the shortly-cut spikes, while traces of jagged gold bangs lined his face. It looked like a much, much shorter version of my own hair, and I silently wondered why the people here had decided to cut it.

His physique was strong and lightly muscled, with a stubborn and proud posture that matched well with his attitude. Sharp cheekbones, a narrow chin, a slightly-pointed nose, and broader shoulders made the differences between us. Whereas I was often mistaken as being younger than my actual age, and Yami's appearance somewhat mirroring that, he had just enough masculinity to his figure that made him appear as more grown up. And Gods above, those eyes.

They looked just like the picture. Narrowed, daring, and a striking shade of gemstone-red.

I watched as Pegasus drew close, and Yami stubbornly stood his ground. It was like a showdown from one of those older, cliched Western movies that Jii-chan watched from time to time. Something in me was screaming at that stubborn ass to stand down, and not taunt the metaphorical bull with that red gaze of his. But another part of me was cheering, seeing such unabashed will and refusal to be bullied into submission.

I started as a semi-familiar burst of energy broke the atmosphere, and raw power made the baby hairs on my nape bristle with caution. I bit back a yelp as Pegasus shot his arm forward, only for it to change mid-swipe, before clamping around the throat of my Kindred. Monstrous, silver talons now gripped themselves around the flesh of Yami's throat, digging the collar around his neck with obvious discomfort showing on his defined visage. His face began to redden with a lack of air, and I immediately wanted to go to him – to run over there, and save him. I bit back an instinctive growl, snarling despite not being able to use the strength of Arceus' sharp teeth, as a protective rage filled my belly. I wanted to charge that silver-haired bastard – sink my and Arceus' claws into his flesh, use our fangs to rip out his throat, and just make him suffer and regret even thinking about laying a hand on my Kindred as I tore him limb from limb.

"Let's go for a walk... shall we?" that serpent-of-a-man hissed, and I saw Yami's body subtly tense and twitch with small electrical shocks as Pegasus' grip set off his collar.

He led Yami away, leaving him no choice, as his hand was still clamped over the other's neck. Somewhere, I felt that natural instinct to keep Yami safe overwhelm me – it was like my mind had combined with my Ka's, if only for a moment, and I felt his rage and pain and the need to protect what was mine grip my consciousness. I lurched forwards, intent on blindsiding Pegasus and slamming him onto the floor, so I could bash that fucker's head against it until everything turned red and he stopped moving. But before I could follow through with the rather gruesome mental image in my head, two pairs of hands grabbed me, stalling me, and the door slid closed.

I saw Marik and Bakura immediately race to the door, as if broken from a stupor, the former of which banging on it and calling Yami's name. But it all was covered by a red veil as the intense sensation that something was wrong took over, and I was consumed by those primitive fight-or-flight instincts buried deep within my bloodline. A dragon's rage was leaking through my supposedly-blocked link with Arceus, and for a fleeting moment, I rejoiced at the thought that he was still there. It was only for a second, and then I started to thrash wildly against my brothers' hands.

"No!" I screamed at Ryou and Malik, as they held me down and tried to restrain me. I knew that they could sense Arceus' enraged aura on my skin. And, somewhere, I could feel the concerned, cautionary, just-as-frantic presences of Ra and Amane within them. Worried, trying to keep us from doing something we would later regret. Scared, seeing us giving in to such a huge lapse of self-control. "Let go! Let me go, goddammit! I have to help him – he's going to hurt my Kindred!"

Their weight only pressed more upon me as I tried to scramble away from them, forcing me onto the floor.

"No! Get off! Something's wrong, can't you sense that?! I need to protect him, dammit!" That underlying hysteria was taking control as I struggled. For the briefest moment, I could feel a familiar, tingly sensation in my fingers, and I could have sworn I felt my nails lengthen some. I felt them scrape into the hard floor. "Get off of me!"

"Yuugi, get a hold of yourself!" I heard Ryou shout as Malik planted all of his weight over my back and shoulders, attempting to grab and subdue my forearms as I tried to find some kind of purchase on the ground, and pull myself away from them. Ryou did the same with my kicking legs, trying to weigh me down until I gave up, and this violent storm passed. I could sense Marik and Bakura staring at me in astonishment at my sudden outburst. In the two weeks since we arrived here, I'd hardly spoken, and the only time I'd acted out was when Pegasus had threatened my grandpa. But it wasn't like this. Even after being shocked, I hadn't been so outwardly violent.

But why couldn't they tell that something horrible was about to happen? Didn't they care? Couldn't they sense that?! "No, I need to help Yami!" My only reply to their shouts for me to calm was an acidic "piss off!" and more squirming, seeing as I was more or less pinned to the ground. Why can't they see something is wrong?

I began to tire out, my writhing starting to weaken against my will. I panted heavily as my lungs tried to fuel my body with air, heart pounding and hammering against my chest as the redness began to seep away. I'd hardly managed to struggle even a foot away from where I'd started when the adrenaline leaked itself from my bloodstream. I could feel the pointed edges of my fingernails dull once more. Arceus' emotions – and by default, the driving force to my uncharacteristic rage and desire to cause harm – faded and were locked away by that fucking collar for a second time. I could have sworn I heard him give a faint, distant-sounding roar of anguish and pain as his weak presence tapered out into nothing.

And once the rage had faded, sorrow and dread took its place. I fell still, and hid my face in the crook of my one, free arm as tears began to well up. Shame and dread and helplessness filled me, and I couldn't let them see me cry. I just... couldn't.

I didn't have a clue about what had just come over me, and was now long gone, but whatever it was... I knew that it was bad. It was so, so bad.

The tests had only started to get worse since my brothers and I got here, going by the words of my brothers' Kindred. And with that pissed, loathing, twisted-yet-pleased expression on Pegasus' face when he came inside, and dragged my Kindred away by the neck...

A part of me feared that – whatever it was Pegasus had in store for him – Yami would not be coming back in one piece.

If he came back at all.

Fallen: Dun dun DUUUNNNN. Cliff-hanger. Yep, you guys love us. XD Leave a review, and tell us what you think, please? :) Anyways, have a nice day, guys and gals!

Nickey: That's right, we left ya with another cliffy XD lol we're such jerks... :P No worries, I'll pull ya from the cliffy next chapter ^w^ Until next time everyone! * waves * Goodbye!