YuGiOh: Souls of Shadow

Chapter 4.2

A surge through my muscles awakened me as I jerked up in the bed. I instinctively thrust my hand towards the bedside table, groping for the cards to make sure they were safe. My heart dropped when I realized it wasn't there, and I wasn't where I thought I was. The room around me wasn't my own, but a prison cell.

I paused in silence as the memories slipped back into my half-conscious mind. My adrenalin dissolved in my blood, allowing the soreness from sleeping on the hard surface of what was supposed to be a bed to fade in.

I propped my back against the wall and pulled my knees into my chest, shivering a little from the cool, dank air of the room. I was going through the process of re-accepting that in the previous twenty-four hour period, every aspect of my life had changed. I went from a comfortable boarding room to sleeping in a dungeon, from working for the ones I loved and respected to being at the mercy of the man I wanted dead... What kind of sick joke was my life, anyway?

I ran my hand through my thick, matted hair, smoothing the strands back. I imagined I looked like a walking corpse right now—my eyes red with irritation, my paling complexion contrasting against the scar that ran across my cheek, my body appearing to be thin skin pulled against muscle and bone. I used to not look like this, but after years of enduring harsh training, fighting battles even in sleep, and having no time or reason to care for appearance, it just happened.

I shifted my attention to the guard standing outside the cell. Like all the others I had seen here, he wore a black suit and had clean-cut hair. Through the dark glasses, I couldn't tell if he was looking directly back at me or staring off in la-la land. I decided it's probably the second one. I've been stationed on shift like his many times before; I know that's about all you do. But since he's just dying for something to happen, he's still prepared to act at any time. I would still consider attempting to escape, but without my gun, that's nearly impossible. My body's too tired to fight or run. Even if he really slacked off and fell asleep or something, I wouldn't risk my life for picking the lock.

The thought brought back a question I had been asking myself since the moment it happened. Pegasus said he would take my life if I lost. He made it a point to say he was a man of his word, so why didn't he keep his promise and do it? And, how was he planning to do it? It had to have something to do with the power of that eye. Besides that, judging by the way it played out, what happened didn't seem to be what was supposed to happen, and this was the alternative.

I had a feeling there was so much more that was going on that I didn't know about yet. Could these reasons tie in with Mokuba and Kaiba? What was he planning to do with them? And was I supposed to be a part of it, or was I just an unexpected side-effect?

Counting the number of the unanswered questions began to strain my mind. I decided to put the thoughts away for the time being. Dwelling on them wasn't going to help anything now.

That afternoon, I found a familiar figure standing just outside the bars of the cell. I didn't look at his face, but the get-up was unmistakable. I could hear the smirk in his voice as he spoke. "You've been in here a while now. How are you feeling?"

"Like I severely regret not killing you," I growled.

"Not in a very chirpy mood, I see," he chuckled.

"Don't you have something else to be doing?"

"Yes, but watching the few pieces of yourself that you managed to hold together crumble apart is much more entertaining." I turned away from him. "So, tell me Alice-girl, what is this mysterious past you've been keeping form me, and all this soul-searching talk about darkness and light?"