Chapter 6.1

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                Kaiba and Mokuba were there. They were right there in front of me, the only other thing in this cold, empty place that was shrouded in darkness. Mokuba reached out. I tried to do the same, only to find I could hardly lift my arm. I couldn't get to him.

Suddenly, they were being drawn into the distance. The space between us was increasing faster than I could ever be able to move. I urged my body to run after them, urging my heart to pump adrenalin through my veins, but it was as if I had turned to stone. After a few weak steps, I fell to my knees.

"No," I said weakly, still reaching for his hand. I used all of my strength and thrust it out, only to wake myself up with the motion. My hand reached up into cold nothingness, at the stone ceiling, in the cell where I was more alone than I had ever been in my life.

I sat up in a cold sweat, pulling my knees in and staring at the wall. Everything was so still, but not the peaceful kind of still. It was like the calm before the storm. It was an emptiness, a heaviness to the air around me. I clenched my fists, trying to get a hold of myself.

"They're gone," I told myself, thunder pounding inside my head. "It's over. Don't let it... Don't..." I should have known it was far too late to stop it.

I buried my head into my knees and began sobbing. My harsh breaths soon became cries, and then screams. I let out my pain, my sadness, my hatred, my anger, my loneliness. Every emotion I had held back from then and from years before came pouring out of me at once without resistance.

I once heard that crying was considered an honorable thing in some cultures, that it makes you stronger. Once my tears dried and my breaths steadied, I began to understand why. It settled the quaking structure of my mind, allowed me to think calmly and rationally, and to see that there was still a way. The tournament is still on. Motto is still in. I'm still alive.

I allowed myself to lay back down, the whispering voice of hope lulling me back into sleep.

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