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Something jolts you awake. Your eyes fly open and you have no idea how much time has passed — you never do, but still your mind always reaches into the void to try to understand every time — and there is darkness ahead of you and a light behind you and something is touching you—
A searing presence and pressure on your skin, burning like a boiling mug of… of… of something to drink. Your whole body tenses, little electric zaps crawling over your skin, down your arms, your legs, up your throat and at the base of your skull, and suddenly you are far too aware of every inch of you.
And someone is touching you.
You yank yourself away, only causing more sparks to fly through your muscles, forcing a choked gasp out of you, and there is no room to escape because there is something in front of you and under you and behind you and— someone is behind you—
“Woah, sorry —— kiddo! Didn’t ———— startle you.”
It’s trying to be quiet in this darkness, but it’s right behind you and it’s too much on your nerves, gears still spinning in your skull trying to make sense of all this sensation and awareness after so much silence — how long has it been? Oh, you wish you knew. You always wish you knew.
Despite your muscles still twitching and sparking, you wrench yourself around to face your opponent, and a different kind of crackling energy wakes in your heart, in the spot just under where your… your… where (something important) presses into your sternum. You grasp it with one shaking hand and the other you throw out in front of you and you try to make yourself tall, even as you trip and fall off balance trying to escape whatever it is you were trapped in. Your power hums awake and this feels familiar, you know how this works. Now just to assess your opponent’s transgressions and decide a fitting game and—
“Easy, boy,” the voice says — quiet, coming out of a man’s mouth, a very small man with worried eyes and silver hair and soft, wrinkled skin that feels… feels… Well, it suddenly doesn’t feel like burning. He is holding your arm and it feels… it feels…
Oh. Yes, you know this man.
This is…
This is…?
You know this man.
You are safe.
“Sorry,” he says again, chuckling. You allow his hands to touch your shoulders and it doesn’t burn but it’s still so loud, but… but you allow it. Because you know this man. You are safe. (You are safe? The thought is disbelieving, incredulous, and some tiny part of you tries to drag wariness and suspicion up from deep inside to act as armor, but you don’t have the energy to act on it and it slips back into the void.)
He says something else, but you can’t quite process the words. A fuzziness has descended on your mind, seeping into your limbs that now feel heavy and awkward. He guides you out of the place you were trapped against — a chair, yes, it was a chair in front of a desk — and leads you through a brightly lit room that you have to squint against, staring down at the tile on the floor and trusting this man’s hands. Then it is up a stairway and down a hall and through a door that feels right, feels correct and safe, and you don’t quite understand it when heat prickles at the back of your eyes, wetness welling up and your throat tightens… But you often don’t understand, so you accept this and ride the wave, following this man as he helps you move your body and change your clothes, and even when he reaches for the weight hanging from your neck, the brief flare of alarm is just that — brief. Smothered quickly by the wave of… of… of some powerful feeling pulling at your limbs. Gravity pulling you down.
You lie down. It is soft and the electricity has finally stopped buzzing under your skin. Everything feels fuzzy.
The man says something, his tone soothing, and pats your hand. And then he leaves. The door closes with a click and you lie there, pulse racing and every bone in your body feeling like it weighs a ton. Your body sinks into the softness and you stare at the ceiling, unblinking. At least the heat and wetness in your eyes has stopped, though your throat is still tight.
You are alone.
Your heart thuds in your chest.
Where are you?
What are you doing? What were you doing? You hesitantly peel back the layers of fog, peering through your mind to try to find the memories of tonight. Of you.
For some reason, you’ve tensed, clutching the bedsheets and bracing for… for… something. Something to go wrong. But it doesn’t. You don’t know much, but you do know this is strange… oh, because normally when you start to question things, when you try to dig through your past, that’s when you lose everything again. That’s when the darkness returns and you are gone, waiting and yet nothing and nowhere but waiting for your next glimpse at the light.
Inside your head you find very little, just more haze, shapeless colors and sensations and emotions flitting in and out of the darkness. It’s… disappointing. But you are still here, so you hold this kindness close to your chest and keep watching the colors swirl and change. Your heartbeat slows.
This is so strange. It’s strange because everything is so… normal. There is no threat. Why is there no threat?
Why are you expecting one?
Oh. That's right. Every time you can remember being awake, it has been in a fit of fear, of rage — so that’s why when… when… when this man woke you, you reached inside yourself for your power, your defense— only for all the fight to sap out of you when he was so kind and soft and gentle, and oh, you feel exhausted. You are… up late. Yes, that’s it. (The clouds of color sharpen, hinting at edges, at a defined shape.) You remember now (you remember!) you don’t normally stay up this late. And it’s… it’s a school night. You need your rest because you have to get up for school in the morning. School… You remember school, right?
The colors constrict and expand and some blurry edges emerge that you latch onto, staring at them, following the lines down and around as you chase these memories.
You remember classmates (faceless) (monstrous) (small). You remember hallways and desks, and gift boxes hidden in desks and racing down those hallways. You remember library bookshelves and a school fair and— and— and an explosion. You remember rage and justice and power flying out of your fingertips. And everything was loud and bright—
But you remember carnival games and the smiles on your friends’ faces. (Your friends! You have friends! Yes. Of course.)
Oh, it feels so good to remember. It’s like you can feel the fabric of yourself stitching back together, frayed seams closing and folding inward. The shapes and colors are beautiful. Incomplete and smudged, but worlds better than you have ever felt before.
But something still itches in the back of your mind. You are restless. You can’t sleep. There was something you needed to do, wasn’t there? Yes… You were looking for something. Looking for answers… like you always do. You are always desperately seeking answers. But this was different than those other times, wasn’t it? It was different… important…
There’s a knot in your throat and under your ribs and the one in your chest itches and scratches and swells.
You need to get up. You were looking for something. You need answers. You will find them this time. (Because this time you can remember!)
So you throw the blanket off and stumble out of bed, clutching your chest as the knot tightens— But something is missing. A flash of panic blinds you, head spinning— You need… What do you need? What will make this stop?
A glint in the moonlight in the corner of your eye. Your treasure. Yes, you should take that. That is what is missing. Relief threatens to drag your limbs back down again. You throw your hands out and fall braced against the desk, looking down at your treasure, trying to catch your breath. (Its eye betrays nothing. There are no answers there. Somehow you know deeply in your heart how tightly your treasure guards its secrets.)
You let out a sigh as it settles against your chest, a comforting pressure, its rope snug on your neck, and the knots under your skin loosen. The itching dims.
But it’s still there. You need answers.
You creep your way down the stairs, just knowing you should be quiet, careful, not to be found by… by him. (He would send you back to bed. Not a threat, you reassure yourself. You just need answers.)
Through the room with the tiled floor — mercifully dark now — and into the place you woke in, there is nothing to accompany you but the buzzing silence and thumping of your pulse.
You stand behind the chair, in front of the desk, trying to remember what to do. What were you doing? How were you looking for answers?
The thing that sits on the desk… Something clicks and you allow your thoughts to drain from your head, your hand reaching forward on instinct and pressing a button.
Bright, white light blinds you and you wince, taking a step back and covering your eyes. You blink the echoing flashes out of your vision.
Slowly, the light becomes less unbearable and you squint at it. There is… It is a screen, you remember. This is a computer. It has access to a lot of information. Maybe answers.
There are words on the screen. A rectangle. A symbol that means questions might be answered.
So you reach out, on autopilot, understanding for once, and move the cursor to where it needs to go.
You fumble with the computer, not sure what to ask. Your hands are unsteady and uncertain, poking at the keys. You were looking for something. What were you looking for?
A thought floats to the surface. You purse your lips and consider it. Why not?
You type out some words. Something stupid. A place to start.
“how to remember”
Click.
More words appear. Strings and lines and shapes and paragraphs. You frown. It doesn’t feel right. This isn’t what you needed. These are not your answers.
Your mind blanks out again and you move the cursor to the spot that means go back. You hold it down.
Several strings of text appear. A bunch of questions. A history, some tiny memory supplies. Questions this computer was asked before.
how to talk to my other self
how ti talk to my ogher self
is it normal to have another self?
people who have two souls
how to tell if you have more than one soul
can you have two souls?
split personality
are ghosts real?
possessed by a ghost
someone else controlling my body
how to tell if you’re going crazy
hiw to tell if youe going crazt
amnesia but only sometimes
can you lose your memory by accident?
can you have a head injury and not remember?
losing memory
Did you do that? Did you ask those questions? You don’t remember. (Of course you don’t.) You don’t think you’ve ever thought of… someone else. Another soul. Another self. But… but you… If this is…
“losing memory”
You don’t remember—
“someone else controlling my body"
You can’t feel your body anymore. (Your body?)
“possessed by a ghost”
Your face burns and your lungs scream and your heart— It doesn’t race, no, it’s like it has stopped completely.
Stopped dead.
Are you dead?
Is that why you can’t remember?
You… you can’t even remember your name. You remember your friends and school and books and games and magic and judgment— but you can’t remember your name.
Who are you? Where are you? Where do you go when you are lost to the darkness? Who are you?
This body… Is there someone else here? Have you always had this body, or have you taken it from someone? Possessed it? Is that why it always feels so strange, why you can’t be in the light for more than a few minutes at a time, why you are always kept in the dark—
No. No, you can’t be dead. You are alive. Your racing pulse proves it. The cold sweat down your neck proves it. But… could your soul…? Could there be another in here with you? Is it a stranger? Are they the ghost?
No. It hurts, but surely with so little of your time allowed in the light, allowed in this body, you are the… the guest. The stranger.
So who…? Who is the other?
“is it normal to have another self?”
Your… your other… self? Oh, yes— What if it is you, but… just another version of you? (Your heart jumps into your throat at the hope of making any sense out of this. Of belonging here.) That’s a thing, right? You frantically claw your way through your memories, the ones you inexplicably can find so much easier right now, and you know you’ve heard of something like that before.
“Two souls.”
“Two selves.”
Could you have another you? Is it… Is the other you the one who asked these desperate questions?
Something bitter rises in the back of your throat. If you are only ever awake for such tiny moments — moments of rage and fear — then do you even have a claim to the rest of this life? Is the rest of it another version of you? Or are you the other version of him?
A name sears into your mind like a brand: Yugi.
Your name. The other times you were awake, you remember now— You thought your name was Yugi. Is it? Or is it his?
If you are the other version of him, can’t you be Yugi too? Can it still be your name?
It feels desperate, flimsy, undeserved. But what is the alternative? Combing through these memories, you get glimpses of what lies behind them. The endless void. The darkness where you are so often trapped. If you aren’t Yugi… you are no one. There is nothing inside you but Yugi and emptiness, and you— oh, you don’t want to be emptiness. Is that really so wrong? To want to be someone?
A quiet sob bubbles out of your mouth and you clench your throat to hold back any more.
You don’t want to be nothing. You don’t want to be dead. You want to be Yugi.
Can you still be Yugi? What if… what if you can share it? What if he can be Yugi, and so can you?
“how to talk to my other self”
Two selves. Two Yugis. Would he let you share it?
“how ti talk to my ogher self”
Dread and guilt curdle your stomach. The words on the screen came from someone’s shaking hands, came from someone afraid. He is afraid of you. He will not share himself with you. You have stolen something that does not belong to you.
You are the stranger. You are the ghost. You are dead. You are no one.
Pain shoots through your (his?) skull right between your (his?) eyes and you stagger backward, clutching your (his?) head — and your treasure.
Your treasure. It has secrets. So many questions, so much nothing, just like you.
Suddenly it’s there, a flashbulb of a memory, just a blink but you snatch it out of the darkness and cling to it with tense, tremulous fingers: it is the Puzzle. You (you?) (Yugi?) solved it. It hums with hidden secrets, with the power you don’t know why you have and barely understand, just understanding enough to use it to punish and protect.
Is your (his?) treasure why this is happening? Does it hold the answer? You bring your (his?) trembling hands to it and cradle it, lifting it to see it in the harsh white light of the screen. Your (his?) eyes sting and you can’t look away, staring into its eye.
If it has the answer, it will not betray it. You will not find anything in there. You know this.
You will not find answers tonight.
So you clutch it to your (his) chest and shudder there in the silence, standing in the unbearable light. You are in the light and it burns.