Painful Memories: Part III: Consequences

The White Mist

The Necklace never did like giving information in small, edible doses. It instead overwhelmed your senses so that you could feel everything, every word, every move. She imagined that if it was a consciousness (she had no idea what it was really), that it would be an excited child just bursting with information and being told to keep it a secret until just the right time. Sometimes it took more than one exchange of questions and answers before Ishizu was able to get all the information, but the Necklace never liked having to repeat itself. It was a bit of a spoiled child, and could be stubborn and petulant at times, especially when it thought the owner truly needed the information.

Ishizu stretched her arms out on either side of her in the bed, so that her fingertips hovered over the edges, then she spread her legs apart to give herself stability. It had been a while since she had communed with her Item, and she expected a flood of information. Since most of that knowledge would require her senses, it sometimes helped if she couldn't easily feel her legs rubbing together or a cramped hand. It was distracting and could pull her out of the trance. She understood what it must have been like for the Oracles of old when they had specific clothes, specific incense, and even specific food and drink. All of it felt important to bring the visions on. Ishizu at least had a tool to focus it.

"Alright," she whispered. "I'm ready to see."

Slowly her vision of the ceiling fogged over into blackness. A large serpent head hissed and writhed around, but it was attached to the torso of an even larger beast. Great wings emerged out from its back and its breath was flame as it burned a forest to the ground. This was Zorc, she realized, but this was not their world. The trees didn't look like any that Ishizu had ever seen, and the purple-pink bark peeled away to a hot reddish orange as Zorc's flames decimated them. Some wild animal sprung out with more than four legs and Zorc's serpent appendage snatched one up and gobbled it whole while Zorc's true head continued its rampage. Then the scene changed. An enormous shadowy figure emerged, this time in a different forest. It darted from tree to tree, covering everything in blackness, and leaving nothing in its wake. It was like a humanoid black hole, and as it devoured trees, shrubs, and any other vegetation that got in its way, it also devoured any animals that it found. She got the glimpse of something that might have been humans trying to run away, but were enveloped in the blackness. Then the shadow beast emerged from the woods and tried to absorb Zorc, but Zorc did not pass through as the shadow passed over him. Instead he let out a high pitched squeal of pain and took several steps backward.

The shadow stopped for a moment, as though curious as to what could have escaped its jaws, then turned to return back into the forest, but Zorc was not done with it. He reached a hand out and grabbed hold of the shadow and held it high. Tendril arms emerged on the shadow as it tried to fight, but Zorc's grip was firm. They began speaking to each other: Zorc in his raspy baritone and the shadow in a wafting whisper that could barely be heard. As they spoke, the shadow reached a long tendril from its backside around to Zorc's tail, and once again tried to engulf it. Zorc screamed, then slammed the shadow against the ground. He then slashed his claws through the air and opened a portal to the Shadow Realm. He gripped the shadow creature hard and then tossed him through the portal as though tossing out a bag of trash. Ishizu could hear the horrid scream as the creature floated into oblivion. The portal closed and Zorc continued his rampage.

Ishizu gasped awake, her breath coming shaky and uncertain. She was back in her bedroom again and by the Gods, she was trembling from head to toe. She sat up and flung her legs off of the bed, trying to get the shadow creature's scream out of her mind. The sound clung to her mind.

She went to the restroom to wash her face. The cold water was refreshing, but as she turned to leave, she glanced into the mirror, and the Necklace began to glow around her neck. A pair was walking toward her from within the mirror, growing larger and larger, their voices deep murmurings that she couldn't quite make out. Then she realized it was a repeat of the meeting of the two men she had seen in the underground tunnels, only this time their speech was quicker, as though whatever they were talking about wasn't that important. Then she saw a shadow emerge behind the one that looked like Bakura. It was the same shadow-