He'd lost his flats somewhere several dunes behind him, and was now trekking through some very mucky ground, but he'd ceased to care the moment his bare feet had met cool mud. The sensation was so utterly refreshing and pleasing that he'd laughed aloud, picking up his pace into a run, and had marvelled at the change in scenery as he'd dashed through it.
Fields of produce, all wet with some rain that had probably just drizzled down from the skies an hour before, lay before him. They were ordered in nice neat rows, and Bakura's only bother was that none of it was mature enough to bear fruit or vegetables. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had something to eat. Not that the dead needed to eat. Still, it would have been nice.
When he came abruptly to the end of them, he frowned to see that the fields were smaller than he had expected, but after getting a glimpse of a cluster of buildings over a low hill he realized that it was enough to support the village up ahead.
Someone was walking down the slope towards him, and Bakura squinted with his hand over his eyes as he tried to make out the figure. They'd come to tend to the produce, he knew, and so probably had good knowledge of the area and could tell him where he was. For Bakura hadn't a clue.
The child, now mostly discernible, stumbled down the slope and squinted at him, too. He was perhaps around eight, naked except for a loincloth, and still had a mess of hair on the side of his head tied with a short bit of string. Bakura's mind worked through the information slowly, trying to figure out exactly why seeing the boy standing there struck a chord with him.
Stumbling down the slope was another child dressed like the first and carrying some field tools. He stopped several feet from boy in front of him and caught Bakura's gaze.
There was a panicked cry as the child released all the tools, and scrambled forward, raising a shout, "It's you, it's you!"
The first boy jerked forward too, seemingly realizing who he was staring at, and ran straight into Bakura's knees. Two little arms gripped hard around his waist, and then the second boy made it forward, and pulled him into a hug, too.
"I didn't recognize you!" One said into his schenti, and Bakura struggled to make the words out. His mind was frozen, his body frozen, as he tried to figure out what was going on. "I didn't know it was you, you look so different! I didn't remember! Please forgive me!"
"Don't do it anymore!" The second one shouted up at him, and Bakura's eyes widened at the distraught look on his face. Little hands tugged hard at his cloak. "We don't need you to do it anymore, okay? Just stay here and everything will be alright again, okay, Bakura..."
The distinct Egyptian accent to his name threatened to make his gut clench and heart twist, but he only muttered, "I don't know who you are."
One of them grabbed his hands, and pulled him forward, hard. "You have to come see the others! Everyone's been waiting...for so very long..."
"I don't know who you are," he grated out.
They only cried harder. "We know we're different looking, but it'll still be the people you knew," the child said whose arms were tightly wrapped around his waist. Bakura found himself feeling lost and confused and hurt, for some reason. There seemed to be a heavy weight on his chest.
"Even though we're not ghosts anymore, you still remember us, don't you, Bakura?"
He let himself, stumbling, slowly, be pulled up the slope. As the village came clearly into view, the weight he had felt on his chest finally lifted. The children kept tugging, hard, determined not to let go of him.
Bakura walked on, feeling as if in a dream, not quite believing in what he was seeing. But it was all so different from his nightmares, and his memories, that somehow it could not be untrue.
The children pulling him into the streets were yelling at the other villagers.
"It's Bakura, it's Bakura!"
"Come out, come see, he's finally back!"
I remember you now, thought Bakura, to the child with his arms around his waist. You died cleanly; a decapitation, short and quick. You died in a kitchen, blood flowing over a counter. I remember you.
The pressure around his waist, and in his hands, certainly felt real. But Bakura was caught in a daze, and as other villagers came out of their houses and gathered in the streets, he could only blink in amazement.
I remember you, he thought to the child grasping his hands, digging his nails in so hard that it would have drawn blood had Bakura not had thick skin. You died from a horse, from being trampled to death. You died with your limbs twisted in more directions than possible. I remember the fear on your face.
There was an absolute silence, as the crowd stared in shock and awe at the man standing in the middle of their village, at the man that they were certain had been devoured by Ammit. There was silent crying, as the children and the women and the men all stared in wonderment at what should have been just a dream.
Bakura met the eyes of the man in front of him who had dropped to his knees at his feet, managing to get out around his teeth, "For all the hatred we instilled in you, for the task we demanded of you, could you ever...forgive us..."
A little girl, less than five, doll in hand, broke free from the hand of her mother and tottered over to his side.
"Hi! Let's play together. 'Cause you said you would, only you didn't, remember?"
I remember I remember I remember...
Dozens of hands, all grasping his arms, his cloak, his waist, his back. Eyes everywhere, all staring, all illusions. No, solid. No, bleeding, dying, twisted forms—
"You don't have to do it anymore—"
Brain fluid, all leaking, mashed bodies, all crushed and burned and melting—
"We're sorry, we're sorry, you remember us, don't you?"
The thunder of hooves, the clanging of bowstrings. Clashing of steel. Roaring of flames.
"Bakura, Bakura, Bakura—"
He sucked in a shuddering breath, and very slowly, squeezed the hands of the child grasping his.
Excerpt from So Shed the Darkness by firstForward
