Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! I do not own Vampire Hunter D. Anyone who thinks that is just silly.
By the way, thank you for the reviews. It makes me happy to know I am making something enjoyable for people to read.
Chapter Two: Desperation and Escape
The gray walls seemed so much smaller now.
And time was almost nonexistent…
March 2001?
Amane, help me…
I don't know what to do. I, I feel that I'm going insane. There are no words to explain what I'm feeling, what I've experienced. All of the scribbles on this page can attest to that. Oh God, Amane, help me.
Years have passed, and my concept of time is slipping, as half the time I'm unconscious, not unlike that time with my darker half. Oh, to have him back would be a blessing from even the most twisted of gods! This boy's father, this man…no, this monster, I can't explain it Amane, I'm crying so hard that the page looks white. I can no longer see the dark ink that is delivering this to you.
I'm his experiment, as his son puts so lightly. He also experiences these things, but, I don't know how he didn't go crazy from it for all of these years. In fact, if it wasn't for him, I would have gone insane probably months into this treatment. He has been my lifeline, that child. We have talked, and although I rarely see him, it helps. He seems to like me, but I don't think I can go on much longer.
It hurts Amane. It hurts. I have been injected with things I can't even pronounce, and others still I don't even want to know, and after I was tested for radiation…all those years ago, and the results came back negative, I have been, there is just no better way to say it, their food. I've been drained of blood, like a cow drained of milk. I just thank whoever has been looking over me this far that it has been through a needle. I have been opened up at least once, I'm still healing, and I really don't want to know what he was doing. I don't. The fear, though, and the pain; the confusion and the loneliness, I'm just losing it, I can feel it. In fact, this is the first time I have felt strong enough to sit up by myself and write. I'm just so lethargic. Thankfully D, that angel of a child, brought me this notebook again, as I had been unceremoniously moved from that prior room to another, and yet again to this one while I was unconscious. He is the only one here who doesn't treat me as a meal, although I'm sure he's had some of my blood before. There are only a few humans his father tested for blood use, he says, and I'm a favorite for some reason. I don't care if I'm their version of the most expensive sake, I want out! But I can't leave D-kun. He's been here for so long, and probably hasn't really lived. He's never actually celebrated his birthday.
Like I told you, D-kun and I talk. I told him everything there was to know about me, and he sat there, fascinated. I learned about him; how he can stand out in the sunlight and be fine, how rain only affects him a little, and how he, although turning eight in December of this year, has never tasted "human" food. He's taken to calling me Bakura-sama, whether out of some sick humor from his father or he honestly holds me in some high regard I don't know, but I need to get him out. Even if the world is a barren wasteland, it would be far better than the life he has here. Here, he's just an experiment, he's not a child. If I ever get out, I will be sure to take him.
I hear someone coming. It sounds like they're pushing a gurney. I bet it's just waiting to transport me to some hospital like room where they can take x-rays and get skin samples and use me yet again for their sustenance. How stupid these other "humans" are, from what I've seen, they're perfectly content being the food source, or the slaves. They proclaim that their lives are better here than what was waiting out there for them. I've been here long enough to know better.
Just kill me now, Amane. I'm begging you. If you can, kill me, and have D find his peace too. I'm losing what was me, and he has never had a break. It's funny that we share some of the same fate. Our lives have been nothing but some form of hell in a disguise of a decent life.
So just kill me, otherwise, I may just stubbornly live until I have the strength to kill someone else.
January 12, 2003
Amane,
It has been a while. Many Happy Belated Birthdays for all of the ones that we have missed. You won't believe all that has happened. I can't believe it myself.
After I stopped writing last, I was wheeled off to another room, and put under anesthesia. Between that time and the time I woke up, I'm not sure what happened. I was returned to my room, my notebook missing (D kun told me a little earlier today that he had taken it for safe keeping), and I was left there, alone, with no food or water for over a month. Of course, I was a mess. I was dying on the last day, I remember that feeling all too well from the time I sacrificed myself to protect Yugi kun and the others from my other half. That was when I saw you. I thought it was a hallucination, but I know now it couldn't have been. I always knew you were still around. In fact, writing this letter is a little silly of me, because it feels like you're right next to me, about ready to slap me for not sleeping like I probably should, but let me have my last letter to you not be a plea for death.
You saved me Amane. I apparently had been given something that was supposed to affect my metabolism, or something to that effect, I really don't know, I was in and out of consciousness when they were talking about it, but it hadn't worked as that man had planned. If you hadn't been there, I would have not survived those last few minutes as they tried to resuscitate me. You have always been there when I needed you, and I just want to thank you again. I know that doesn't explain why it took me so long to write to you again, but as I was in a delirium for a good portion of last year as they were trying different methods of, well, what ever they were trying to do. They stopped just recently, and I've been able to see D kun again, although each time I see him, he seems to be worrying about something. I wish he would stop, I don't even think I've seen that poor kid smile before. Then again I don't think I would either under these circumstances. He makes me smile though, every time he comes into the room I appreciate life more, because he continues on, no matter what is thrown at him. I wish that some day that I may be able to help him see that there is more to life than this, even without TV or video games.
Someone is coming downstairs…
I hope it is D kun. I'm sorry if I seem like a broken record, but it is all I really have to talk about. I'd rather not know the details of what they were doing to me right at this moment, so all I have to talk about is a child that keeps me going.
I miss Yugi kun and everyone else. I really miss Dad too. I wonder if they survived. Dad wasn't even in the country when this all happened, at least from what I remember, and if I survived then there is a good chance that Yugi kun survived, unless the reason I survived was due to the nutcase who locked me up in here for three years. I doubt that though, that was probably just my luck.
You know what's funny, Amane? With the way that I have been taken care of, you'd think that I'd be far worse off than I am. I still have the energy to walk around and I'm not even emaciated looking, but I rarely get fed. Look at me, I sound like a dog…if dogs could talk. I'm laughing now; I remember that Jounochi used to hate it when someone called him a dog, or a monkey-
The door opened so quickly that instead of closing the notebook all Bakura could do was to fling it across the room. His heart continued to beat rapidly even after realizing it was only the young boy that he had been praising on paper, but his stoic face he preferred to show the others brightened into a smile almost instantly.
"D kun! You scared the heck out of me. You need to watch your strength! That door is strong but you have a tendency to break-"
"There is no time." The short reply caught him by surprise. What was there no time for? "Father…he, there is one more experiment he wants to test on you."
Bakura shrugged. "So? It isn't like he hasn't done it before. What is this all about?"
"No!" D shouted, startling the young man. The child had never raised his voice in such a way to him. "If your body fails to accept this mutation, then he has no more use for you!"
"Mutation?" Bakura asked, "So that's what he's been trying to do? Wait, if he has no more use for me, how is that a bad thing?"
D gripped Bakura's pajamas with urgency, tugging on them, trying to get Bakura to stand up. "He'll kill you!" he hissed, actual panic in his eyes, "You have got to leave. You have to." Quickly glancing back over his shoulder, he continued to pull on him, "I can't let him kill you."
Bakura continued to watch the young boy struggle to get him standing with a strange look in his eyes. After longing for it for so long, he was finally going to be able to see what the outside looked like again. He would be free from it all, from these last four years of torture. How selfish though? Had he not also said he wanted D to feel what true freedom was like? If he could have D feel like a real kid, and not some sort of experiment; prodded when he did something unusual or spectacular, he did not care if he was killed attempting it.
"Yes," Bakura said, looking down at the child again with a smile, "We need to leave."
Seeming to not realize the full weight of his reply, D led him to the door. "Okay; the door that is in the niche seven doors down is the way out into the stairwell. I have already disabled the security cameras, so you should be able to sneak up to the ground floor without detection, considering there are only a few guards, and all of them are human."
"Why," Bakura interrupted, "are there only human guards, and why human guards in the first place? I thought he used them only for experiments."
"Because it's day time," D said, "they threw off your sleeping schedule about two years ago, that is why you probably feel that you need to go to bed right now. Father is asleep, I checked personally, so we should not have too hard of a time in getting you out of here, so long as you have enough energy. As for the fact that the guards are human, I believe father figured that they were loyal enough to him, considering most of them want to become vampires as well."
"Why?"
"I wouldn't know. Possibly they think it is the best means for survival, otherwise, I'd just say that they think it's cool. Anyway, after you are at the ground floor, it is pretty obvious where you need to go next. The door from the stairwell will take you into a sort of main lobby, where there will be two guards with guns on either side of the entrance. I speak with them regularly, and have a tendency of getting them in trouble for not doing their duty, which is to watch the door. The door itself in the day time is not barred because most of the experiments are asleep, and the humans awake are already allowed out, so it isn't even locked. I've seen them pass through it a number of times when I was supposed to be asleep."
Amazed at the unusual amount of detail the child had placed into his plan, Bakura could only shake his head in wonder. "How did you disable the security cameras in the first place?"
D shrugged. "I just imputed a virus that one of Father's friends created as a joke," his lip twitched, "I guess it wasn't much of a joke, considering it fried the entire system."
Bakura stood up, startling the child when he wrapped his arms around him. He could have sworn D had made a joke. Creating a normal life for them never seemed more in reach, as strange as that sounded. Hugging him tightly, he realized how much he had been lacking in human contact. Doing his best not to fall into a fit of sobs, he let the confused child leave his grasp, and turned to blink away tears. He was the adult in the situation, he should have a better handle on his emotions, but there were so many he was feeling at that moment. Looking back at the child once he was sure his face did not betray his emotions, he nodded. "Okay, let's go then! You said there wasn't much time right?"
D raised an eyebrow, "Yes, there isn't much time. Why are you so happy all of the sudden? You do know what I was saying right?" He gasped, "Oh, please don't tell me I said something wrong."
Bakura laughed while patting him on the head. "No, you said everything just fine, I just…feel happy." It did feel good to laugh again. He had not had a reason to for a long time. "Well, let's go then."
D nodded and they began their journey to the ground floor. Before exiting the room, Bakura scooped up the notebook, not wanting anyone to read his personal conversation with Amane, or realize how close he had become with D. If anything, Bakura was hoping that it looked like he had kidnapped D in the end, so if by chance they were caught, the poor boy would not be reprimanded. For that man's idea of reprimand was but a sick and twisted form of child abuse. Bakura felt sick just thinking about how the boy had been treated his whole life. All of that would change though; he was putting what life he had left on the line for the child who did not seem to have a clue to his intentions. He did worry that what he was about to do would be too much of a shock on D, or that it would backfire entirely. Putting those thoughts aside as they hurried through the hallway, Bakura forced himself to just believe what he was about to do was the right thing, and that in order to be able to do it, he would have to believe in himself.
Halfway through the corridor, his pace slowed. His curiosity had burned as they had passed each door. Having not been out of his room for years, and barred from human contact when he had gathered enough courage and support to try escaping the second time, he had always wondered who or what resided in the rooms beside him. Stopping at the fourth door, he glanced through the small pane of glass into the dimly lit room. He heard D stop behind him, but continued to look inside the room even as he felt his pajamas being tugged in earnest.
The room looked empty, the bed disheveled, and there were strange brown markings against the walls. He did not initially know what to make of it. Even when he was being held captive, Bakura tried to keep his room as neat as possible when he could, just to have some consistency of his past life. This room was just a mess. The light that illuminated the room seemed to have been knocked behind the bed and a table, and was trying its best to shine through the fabric, although it failed miserably as the light only traveled so far before the darkness consumed it once again.
"Don't look in there!" He heard D exclaim from behind him. Continuing to gaze into the room, he felt around behind him to find the child and comfort him.
"Why not?" He asked as he felt his fingers brush against the child's forehead, "We'll be leaving soon, don't-aaAAAUGGGGGGGH!" Bakura fell backwards, barely missing the child on his descent. A person had peered at him with its one good eye. The other was still oozing out of its socket, mixing with the blood of what looked like self inflicted injuries. Bakura continued to gawk in horror at the face, which opened its mouth to reveal sharp layered teeth. The thing screamed at him, although it was muffled through the door. He heard scratching and clawing, and a sound of metal bending as the thing continued to scream at him, gnashing its teeth together in some sort of frenzy. Not wasting another moment to look, he clambered back up, roughly picking up the child, and ran the rest of the way to the door they had been heading for, slamming the door shut behind them once they had entered the stairwell. Trying to catch his breath and calm his heart, he set the boy down and leaned against a wall, still unsure of what he had seen.
D on the other hand, dusted himself off, and seemed annoyed more than anything. "I told you not to look in there," he chided, "we may have lost precious time now."
"What was that?" Bakura asked, glancing back at the closed door.
"That was Itsuki, a human male," D replied, scooting closer to him, glancing around to make sure no one else was around. "He is going to be discarded tomorrow. Initially, Father thought he was going to be a success, the first human to have modified genes to not only make them stronger, but last longer, so that few humans would have to be captive. The only problem is well, as you could see, the man went mad after a few treatments, and after the third one, there were serious defects. I remember Father cursing about him when he was tending to a bite wound. He had not intended for his teeth to become so sharp or to multiply like they did. If you want to know the truth," he muttered, again scooting a little closer to Bakura, "I am a little unnerved by that one."
"A little unnerved? Ha!" his hand sniggered, "You were about to piss your pants when emotional wreck over here fell back. Admit it."
D looked down at the hand hatefully, while Bakura just pat his shoulder and began to lead him up the stairs. He had never really gotten used to D's little companion, but from what he remembered (and that was a feat in itself, so he thought) his own parasite of a spirit had been about as pleasant. So Bakura could thankfully relate to unwelcomed guests, and the sooner he could teach D to ignore his snide remarks, the better.
They made their way up the stairs, Bakura's heart pounding harder each floor they reached, knowing in just a short time he would be free. He would finally be able to go home, or at least see what had become of it. By the final staircase it was all he could do to contain himself. The door to the ground floor was just five more stairs away. Turning to D, Bakura felt his mouth turn dry. In theory, escaping with him sounded easy enough, he was sure the boy would be more than willing to experience something new, something better, but who was he kidding? He was not a fighter; he doubted if he could even throw a punch at the moment, with his nerves as shot as they were.
"So, what's the plan?" He asked; his mind racing for possible ways of adding on D's escape.
"It's as simple as doing what I do best. I distract the guards, you run for it, and don't stop running. I don't know what is out there, but, I don't want this to have been all in vain." Looking up at him with sadness in his eyes, he added, "I'm going to miss you. You are my best friend."
It was settled. Bakura was now more determined than ever to bring D with him.
"So what am I then?" D's hand questioned as D propped the door open so Bakura would be able to see when he could make a run for the door.
"A disease," was his reply. Turning to Bakura, D sighed. "Be careful, okay?" Bakura could only smile and nod.
As D walked toward the double doors guarded by rather intimidating looking security, Bakura could not help but be annoyed. The same glass that had been used for his window when he first came to know D seemed to be the same one they used for the doors. He still could not see outside. All he saw was a bright glow that illuminated the immediate floor under it. Glancing around the part of the room he could see, he noticed that there were stairs yet again leading up on the left side that hung from suspension wires. He could also see part of a front desk, but he was unsure if anyone was in that area as the door he was hiding behind blocked his view. D would not have done this if someone was there, though, he was much too bright. Bakura tried to calm his nerves as the excitement of the thought of his freedom returned, threatening to make his legs give out before he could even leave. Concentrating on the conversation that D was having, Bakura prepared himself for, possibly, his final dash toward his old life.
"—Sorry but we can't chat right now, young Master, the security cameras are down, and we need make sure we stay here in case there are any intruders."
"Intruders? Who would dare try and come into my father's home?
"A moron, that's who; you'd be surprised at how many wanderers come here, but this seems like it would be someone with a brain. They somehow got into the system. They're still working on trying to get the bug out."
"Then how would the intruder be a moron? Wouldn't that imply he was moronic?"
Bakura watched as D, with a few simple words and curious remarks, managed to engage both guards into a heated debate on how obsolete the security system was. Taking it as his cue, as both were now facing D, who was right in front of the doors slowly side stepping into a corner so they would follow him, he darted out of the hallway with as much speed as he possibly could muster. As the guard closest to him turned to realize that someone was running at them and began to pull out his pistol, Bakura realized that there would be no choice but to run into him, as ducking would not allow him to open the door in time before he got shot. Still sprinting as fast as he could, he rammed into the guard, who fired into the air as they fell onto the marble floor. Hearing a heavy crack, Bakura realized the guard had hit his head on a marble bench, and quickly glanced around to look for his gun, lest the man fire at him again before passing out; unless he was already dead.
Finding the gun just in time to see the other guard shaking himself out of his surprise and pulling out his own gun, Bakura pulled the trigger, aiming for the guard's leg, which was only a few feet from him. He missed. The guard stopped, and began to laugh, as Bakura stood up shakily, unused to such exertion. The guard lifted his gun again to discard of what obviously was a pathetic attempt at an escape when the butt of the other pistol came into contact with his temple.
D stared in shock and awe at Bakura who, while barefooted and in pajamas, had taken out two fully armored guards. He supposed that it was true, that necessity was the mother of taking chances, and wondered if Mark Twain would have considered what the young man in front of him had done had been necessary. D did not anticipate what his friend was about to do next.
Glancing over at the guard who was now waking up from his meeting with a bench, Bakura took a few moments to catch his breath. Turning back to D, Bakura grabbed his wrist and pulled with all his strength. There was no chance he was leaving D behind now, and he did not want to take the chance that D would pull back, unsure of what Bakura was planning. Slamming into the door so it would open wide, Bakura bolted outside, dragging a very surprised D with him.
"What are you doing?!" the boy shouted, but Bakura paid little attention. He continued to run, ignoring the pain that the sun brought to his eyes, the debris that cut at his feet. He and D were free, and he wasn't about to allow the guards that had began to chase him stop him from going home. So taking a deep breath and holding onto the child's hand with all of his might, he ran.