Sixteen's Story: Part 2

I have no idea how long I was out for. There’s no way of keeping track of the time here. All I know is that when I came around the other Yugi was sicker than before and my chest hurt.

I tried reaching down the link for my other self, recognising the pain of having my other self torn from my heart and praying I was wrong. Unfortunately I wasn’t. I couldn’t feel the comforting, protective embrace of my darker self. Which meant he wouldn’t be able to reach me either. Or use the link to locate me.

Still he’ll find a way to come and get me. He’s Yami. He doesn’t lose and this was just a game of Hide and Seek, albeit one with huge stakes. Yami had won games with greater prizes than just my safety before. I have faith in my other self. He won’t abandon me.

I have to wonder if the Pharaoh’s got some way of keeping tabs on what we’re doing, because it wasn’t long after I woke up that he somehow came through the door. Not the door frame. The door.

Glowering at him had no effect. In fact all it did was amuse him. The Pharaoh moved further into the room, looking between the pair of us and chuckling. Not a mirthful sound, more one of vicious amusement. He introduced me to the mage Yugi, and vice versa. Apparently I’m not Yugi anymore. I’m ‘Sixteen.’ At least according to the Pharaoh.

When he started draining something from the other Yugi, a pained whimper escaping Fifteen as light drained from him to the Pharaoh, I couldn’t stand aside. I tried to pull him away from the other Yugi, only for contact with the Pharaoh to turn the spell on me.

There was a sharp pain as part of my soul tore away and the light I’d only ever willingly shared with one other person was pulled into the Pharaoh. He shoved me away as I was reeling from the spell’s actions and took a little more from Fifteen, finally stopping when the other Yugi almost passed out.

Then he made a snide comment about me ‘waiting my turn’ and stalked out of the room. Once again going through the door quite literally.

It took a while for both of us to pull ourselves together. I recovered long before Fifteen, as he recommended I call him, if only to prevent confusion. It took Fifteen much longer to recover than me, partly because the Pharaoh had taken so much more from him and partly, he explained, because while my soul was already recovering his had stopped healing a while back. The Pharaoh had been taking too much from him for too long and it wouldn’t be much longer before he was gone completely.  

I tried to reassure him. If he just hung on a little longer, his Yami would be here and then we’d both get away. After all there was no way a real Yami would ever abandon his light.

Fifteen’s response was a bitter chuckle. I had been lucky when I had been taken. My Yami was alive. Fifteen’s Yami had gotten into a battle of magicks with the Pharaoh and been destroyed while trying to prevent the kidnapping.

There wasn’t much I could say to that. If anything I envied his fortitude for hanging on this long without the hope of his Yami coming to rescue him. When I asked him what had kept him going, Fifteen just smiled at me sadly and said I’d understand later.

Instead of letting me dwell on it, he offered to tell me stories about himself and the previous Yugis who had dwelt in the cell. It was, he explained, part of a promise he had made to Fourteen. That if he didn’t make it out, he would pass their stories on to the next Yugi to come along. It was a way of making sure none of them were forgotten. Almost all of them had secretly hoped that their Yami was still looking and they had wanted to be able to give their other selves some closure. Even if they couldn’t return themselves.

I promised Fifteen the same. It was the least I could do.

Sixteen's Story: Part 1

I have no idea what I should be writing, but I found this notebook in the corner of my cell and if I don’t do something I’m going to go nuts, so here we go...

My name is Mutou Yugi. This shouldn’t surprise you. The last three people who wrote in here were called Mutou Yugi too. Hopefully I’ll be the last because when Yami comes for me, the Pharaoh won’t stand a chance.

There’s another Mutou Yugi in here with me but he’s sleeping so I don’t want to disturb him. The Pharaoh introduced him as ‘Fifteen’ but he told me his name once our captor had gone. The other Yugi’s been here a lot longer than I have and the Pharaoh’s been draining him of light for far too long.

I suppose I should explain my situation a bit better, though you could probably skip back to the other Yugis’ explanations. ‘Eight’ tells it a lot better than I could but I’ll try.

To make a long story short, I’ve been kidnapped.

I was with Yami, the other half of my soul, getting ready for our trip to the museum to regain his memories, when someone snuck into my Soul Room. He looked like Yami, so at first I didn’t question it. I mean Yami comes and goes from the Soul Rooms all the time, it’s no big deal. I mean it’s not like just anyone can walk into a Soul Room without the Millennium Key, right?

It wasn’t until I tried to start a conversation with him that I realised something was wrong. Something about him seemed off, his aura was wrong and I couldn’t properly sense what he was thinking or feeling. So I made the mistake of getting closer, concern clouding common sense.

The moment I touched him I knew this wasn’t Yami, or at least not my Yami. He was twisted, his heart was sick and he carried Light within him. My Yami didn’t. I was my Yami’s light and he my Dark. We balanced each other out.

He was fast, fast enough that even before I could call for Yami aloud he had cast something that left me reeling. I couldn’t think straight, nor would my body respond to any call I would try and make. I didn’t need to think too hard to call for Yami over the link though. Yami was there in a heartbeat, able to tell something was wrong, just from my desperate plea.

I’m not quite sure what happened between my Yami and the fake one who introduced himself as ‘the Pharaoh.’ I know the Pharaoh challenged my Yami to a Shadow Game, but every time I tried to resist whatever he had done to my mind it just got worse. Before too long it was almost impossible to count to five, yet alone focus on what the pair of them were saying.

In hindsight I played right into the Pharaoh’s hands. With my mind fading fast, Yami was distracted and didn’t catch the trick phrasing to the terms of the Shadow Game. Because of that it didn’t matter that Yami won, the Pharaoh got what he wanted anyway.

He dragged me into the Shadows the moment the game was over. It hurt, a lot, but there was a benefit to it. It snapped whatever was suppressing my mind and spirit as the Shadows tore at it, trying to get at the light underneath. I didn’t get a chance to appreciate it though. Before I could recover properly, we’d shifted again, reappearing in what I thought was the inside of my Puzzle.

At least until the Pharaoh shoved me into a room and slammed the door shut, sealing it behind me and leaving me trapped with another Yugi.

I wish I could say I was calm and level headed about the whole situation, but that would be a lie. I screamed, I shouted, I tried to break the door down, I even tried a few of the tricks that Yami had taught me.

The door didn’t budge. I was well and truly trapped.

It wasn’t until I gave up and slumped against a wall, staring at the door and wishing I could open it with as much ease as I could the doors in my Puzzle, that the other Yugi spoke up.

The other Yugi was oddly dressed and he kind of looked like he was supposed to be a wizard from some fantasy game. That wasn’t what caught my attention the most though. He was tired, I could see that right away, and he looked really ill. However when I worried at him, he just shrugged it off as something I couldn’t help him with and started to explain what was going on. Who the Pharaoh was and why he’d kidnapped me.

We didn’t get far into the other Yugi’s explanation before agony coursed through me as the bond to my Yami was ripped viciously away.

And that was the last thing I knew for a while.