Chapter Text
Bakura already felt like he’d been running forever, and the desert only seemed to get bigger with every frantic step.
He choked and swore breathlessly as he stumbled over a small rock, getting tangled in his cloak. He tried regain his former pace, glancing over his shoulder at his pursuers.
The shopkeeper and his assistants were still in furious pursuit, and they seemed far fitter and well fed than their quarry. It was just his luck that he should decide to steal from a merchant with not only exceptional endurance, but three sons who were at least a head taller than the thief.
He was already exhausted from hunger, and it took all of his will and strength to keep running over the unstable sand and searing blasts of wind as the sun bore down on him. He scrambled over a sand dune and cursed the sun, the merchant, and most of all, his own carelessness.
He didn’t have to steal the bread. Hidden in his coat were a few necklaces and anklets he had procured earlier. He could have easily traded one of them and gotten five loafs. But the merchant had been busy chatting it up with the attractive wife of a local farmer, not minding his wares. Bakura was starving, the bread was well within his reach, and the merchant seemed oblivious.
Unfortunately, the merchant’s sons weren’t quite as negligent and had quickly given pursuit, and with the way they had chased him out of the village and straight into the desert, one would think he had stolen the gold of the Pharaoh himself. They probably would have given up earlier, but they saw his unnatural white hair, and suddenly what had been only a thieving boy became a demon in their eyes.
Bakura wished he was a demon. Maybe then, his lungs wouldn’t be burning, his legs wouldn’t be aching, his skin wouldn’t be burnt, his muscles wouldn’t be screaming at him, the heat and lack of food wouldn’t be making him dizzy, his pursuers wouldn’t be gaining on him…
And maybe he wouldn’t have just run out of ground.
He skidded to a halt, gasping raggedly for air and staring down at the sudden drop. His desperation had lead him straight up a bank, and though it wasn’t too tall, the wall was sheer and rocky, impossible to climb down.
Bakura whirled around to face the men chasing him. If he was cornered, then at least he’d go down fighting. He reached into his coat to pull out his dagger –
But a cracking sound and sharp, stinging pain to his arm caused him to recoil. He hissed in agony, and only had a brief moment to register the fact that one of his attackers had a whip, before the men were upon him and a fist connected to his face.
The boy was already half-defeated by hunger and heat by the time they caught him, and quickly collapsed as the beating commenced. His face was forced into the dirt, and he felt a heavy foot step on the back of his neck, effectively pinning him. In one rough motion, his cloak was jerked downwards, the ruffled sleeves trapping arms to his sides. As the hot wind hissed across his exposed back, the thief steeled himself. He knew what was coming next.
CRACK.
Bakura didn’t cry out. He refused to give his attackers that pleasure, even if it meant biting his lip until it bled, even if he had to muffle himself by burying his face in the hot, rocky ground. His body jerked with every slicing blow of the whip, and tears where in his eyes, but he was silent, even as blood filled his mouth and danced along his back. Crimson flecks splattered the sand.
He couldn’t stop himself from screaming, though, as he felt his broken body being lifted up by the nape of his cloak, and tossed off the rocky cliff like a sack of grain.
As he fell, as the air rushed through his hair and cloak, as the rocks at the bottom of the drop quickly rose to greet him like the gaping maw of an eager crocodile, he could think of nothing but his childhood at Kul Elna. Memories of his family, his friends, laughing, eating, crying, begging, screaming, bleeding…
He snarled into the rushing wind.
The thief hit the ground with an explosion of red pain. Blackness crept over his conscious, but before the shadows consumed him entirely, he made a promise.
I won’t die yet.