Disclaimer: Yes, yes, I have much to disclaim. I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, Harry Potter, Death Note, or the song "Electrical Storm" by U2. Those were all created by people who are much more talented than me.

Too old—that was a common one. They wanted someone that they could mold and mutate, really raise as their own. They wanted to hold onto the illusion that he was not really someone else's child, with his own history, independent of their existence. As soon as he was old enough to think on his own, to not go blindly running into the arms of some stranger and fling his unconditional love at them without a second thought, he was suddenly no longer wanted by anyone. He could not say where the line had been, but he had crossed it, and was now too tall, smart, opinionated, to have any value.

All the other excuses sprung from that one. And he had heard many, countless, excuses stumbling out of awkward mouths as his once potential emancipators tried to concoct a reasonable pretext for their cruel and thoughtless abandonment. He couldn't pretend that it didn't hurt, either. He listened to their empty explanations, sucked in their words as best he could, tried to be better. He tried to turn the words of rejection into some sort of comfort, advice for the next time, a way to better himself. Then maybe, just maybe, he would be saved. However, as the months had turned to years, he could not help but wonder when this mythical and long sought-after next time would become this time, when he finally would be deemed worthy.

Seto turned back to his fingers. One down, but how many to go? Too defiant. Well, that came with age and the situation; it didn't count. Certainly he was too defiant, he saw the reflection of his defiance in the widening of stranger's eyes when he refused to heed their commands. After all, what difference did it make if he and Mokuba didn't eat with the rest of the children in their stuffy and dirty dining halls, would the world really stop spinning if they took their meals together, away from prying eyes? Apparently, to some it would. Nevertheless, defiance was tied to age, and just as how he could not change the passing of time, his blossoming rebelliousness was too unalterable. He refused to accept it as a separate justification, and returned the finger that had represented it back to his fist.

He bit his lower lip in concentration. There had to be more. Age played a large part in it, to be sure, but there had to be something independent, something that he could change. Seto did not consider himself immodest, only realistic, and he knew that if he could pinpoint the source of the problem, then he could correct it. However, he had a feeling that the answer to his conundrum did not lie in his hands, the problem lay solely in the minds of those strangers. They examined him for perhaps five minutes, ten if he was lucky, and from that brief encounter expected to know every facet of his personality, all his traits and subtleties. They thought that they could see his past and future extending around him as clearly as they could see his present, and that was their primary error. Children were not as simple as all that.

"I guess that's why they like the little ones. They have no past, only the future. And they can control their future, if they want to…"

He had not meant to say the worlds aloud, it was a habit that he had grown accustomed to when it was just him and Mokuba; and when the two of them were together, he had the tendency to ignore the presence of everyone else. Unfortunately, not only were they not alone, but the one that his words were intended to reach was dozing peacefully on his shoulder, his head gradually working to cut off the flow of blood to Seto's arm.

Their chaperone only eyed him skeptically over her overwhelming layers of stark, black clothing that smelled strongly of old silk and the inside of armoires. She was most likely looking over all her past misdeeds, wondering what it was that warranted her spending several hours shepherding these two basket cases across the countryside in the pouring rain. At least, that was what Seto hopped she was thinking. And if anyone deserved a potent dose of melancholy reflection at this time, it was her, the cruel fiend. How she had attained such a strong hold over Seto and Mokuba he could never fathom; after all, she had no real authority. She was merely a retired old witch who had once been the director of the orphanage that the two brothers had previously called 'home.' She had not officially held her post for at least twenty years, but did not let that fact deter her from ruling the lives of those unfortunate enough to fall under her supposed jurisdiction, prodding around and generally mucking things up.

Seto and Mokuba had been misfortunate enough. Possibly for his age, or his defiance, she had taken an instant and venomous dislike to both of them, and, once making her judgment, had refused to alter her opinion even an inch. From her lofty perch, she had governed them with an icy heart and iron first, both equally destructive and unswayable. Always his life was in the possession of such undeserving people.

How long Seto and Mokuba had resided at the Wammy House orphanage, he could not say. It could have been days, mouths, years. Since they had been unceremoniously cast out of their childhood (it had been unintentional on the part of their parents, yes, but that hardly made a difference), time had taken on a new, and increasingly vague meaning. He had first lost track of the days of the week, they all seemed to blend into one when there were no distinguishing features to mark one as different from any other. Next had been the months—despite a few minor weather changes, those were all more or less identical as well. Now he hovered somewhere along the edge of no longer being able to distinguish between years and seasons. Years were difficult because they were so long, once you forgot, you were lost for a good long while. Seasons should have been easy to remember—all he had to do was look out the window—but with the near constant re-relocations, it was difficult to remember where exactly destiny had placed him. And, seeing as how the seasons are dependent on the location of the observer, time had slowly faded away to nothing at all.

Location mattered less. They were all the same, these dreary buildings with the unyielding walls inhabited by equally unyielding people. The physical properties of life had become essentially a mass of unrecognizable blurs to Seto. After all this, very few things pierced his swirling haze of consciousness. One was Mokuba, his only connection to the bright days of youthful pride when he had thought that destiny had only grand things in store for them. The days when the two of them had run wild in the dense forest of their backyard, imagining that they were conquering immense monsters that threatened to lock them up, separate the two of them forever, and trap them in darkness so fantastical and horrific that only a child can conceive of it. Little had they known that the real monsters walked the earth in flesh and blood, and were more horrendous than anything they could have dreamed up.

Slowly drawing himself back into reality, and careful not to disrupt the head resting on his shoulder, Seto shifted to gaze out of the window. This place looked quite unfamiliar to him. It was impossible to say for certain, but this didn't feel like Japan. The expanses of land were so immense and unconquerable—so open and airy—it was quite unlike the boxy buildings that jockeyed for breathing room as they scraped the sunlight down to the head of a needle. Here, everything looked huge and surreal, as if this world was the product of a stranger's dreams more than the laws of nature. He watched this strange world race by quickly and wondered vaguely what it was running from.

Motivated more by a desire to fill the sinking void of silence than out of any sincere curiosity, Seto whispered, "Excuse me, but…where are we?" Those old, weary eyes carelessly rose out of their sunken, watery pools and meandered over in his direction. Seto thought that he could detect a hint of surprise in her features, maybe she had forgotten that they were there.

"England." The word was uttered without ceremony. That woman had no awareness that with those few syllables, she had taken them away from their homeland, halfway across the world and away from any and everything familiar. Seto had known that he was far from home, he had seen it in the huge gray sky and lush wet foliage, but it had not been real until there was verbal confirmation. Hearing the words made it real, but that did not make it more meaningful. England was just a word, a collection of letters that had no independent meaning; they just so happened to correspond to a place that was very, very, far from Japan.

He nodded, gently resting his forehead against the cool glass of the window as he absentmindedly ran his free hand through his hair. Wrinkling his brow, he couldn't help but wonder aloud, "Why are we so far away? Didn't they have anywhere else to take us?" The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and that was answer enough. No. He focused on the passing scenery for a moment longer then turned to her with freshly rising agitation that he was doing his best to suppress. "So where are we going?" He dared her with his tone to evade his questions again.

"Somewhere very lovely…" her response was more mumbles than words, sounding as if they were desperate to conceal themselves behind a few sizable pieces of furniture.

'Too lovely to have a name of course,' he wondered (this time careful to keep his thoughts internal), 'yes, that sounds splendid…' He was about to turn on this poor excuse for a chaperone with more questions, but a stirring at his side overtook his attention. He let his gaze flicker down to Mokuba, still fast asleep and blissfully unaware of what strange twist of fate had befallen them. While Mokuba's body was becoming with every moment closer to their new life, his mind remained in suspended animation, running through the scenery of dreams that Seto had so long ago left behind. Seto caressed the innocuous face with his gaze, allowing his eyes to follow the gently curving lines of the tightly pursed lips, furrowed brow, and damp forehead.

He watched as Mokuba's mouth formed unvoiced words. For some reason, despite the fact that he could not hear them, that they existed to no one expect Mokuba, those words seemed more real to him than those he exchanged with the creature sitting opposite him. He watched as his brother's eyes raced beneath their eyelids as if running, darting from one corner of the world to the next. They never rested, even while he slept. Delicately sweeping his free arm across his chest, he stroked the silky cushion of hair that seemed to grow increasingly wild with each move that the pair made. He gently ran his fingertips through the stray hairs, wishing that he could just as easily and elegantly build a fortress to seal them off from everything that was trying to tear at the seams of their lives.

So often he just wanted to sweep him away, to grow wings so that he could use them as a shield against the wind and rain. But he had no wings, no magic. Seto only had arms, one of which Mokuba was using as a pillow.

Maybe it was hours that passed, or it could have all been a few minutes. All that Seto was aware of was that his conscious became as clouded as the sky; his mind seemed to be floating several inches above his head and incapable of making direct contact. He vaguely felt the lurching of the car as it navigated the steep sea-side highway, always seeming to hover on the brink of toppling over the cliffs and into the ocean below. Thick layers of fog obscured his vision, making him just as incapable of seeing a hand in front of his face as the distant countryside. The sky slowly melted into the ground, forming of a new breed of shadowy creatures that leered on the distant hillsides. Everything seemed both close and far away, and always seemed to follow them, waiting for the moment when they looked away to finally spring their attack. However, he was always acutely aware of the rain. Pounding was not the right word, the rain was screaming, rushing closer towards him with every moment, chasing him down the road and howling his name. The afternoon melted into the evening, a worthless smudge of sights and smells, but that sound remained.

When the car finally pulled up to their new destination, he was afraid to touch it. He could see thousands of tiny daggers gleaming in the plunging drops, waiting to slice him with their needlelike incisors. He shied away from the thought, if only for a moment. Nevertheless, he had to practice caution. Pulling his collar up around his neck, he gently placed his cool palm on Mokuba's forehead, summoning him back into the waking world.

"C'mon," he mumbled, gesturing to the torrents of rain with a twitch of his head, "we gotta run." Their guide had already abandoned them, making her way inside with the only umbrella. With only her solid black silhouette distinguishable from the blurry gray sky and equally gray ground, Seto thought she most closely resembled some sort of demon of the underworld, a comparison that pleased him very much.

Seeing that Mokuba was still battling fatigue, Seto carefully grasped his neatly curled hand. Bracing himself for certain annihilation at the hands of his aqueous foes, Seto drew Mokuba closer and, with as much gusto as he could muster, fiercely kicked the door open before embarking on a mad dash for the entrance.

Immediately they were surrounded, the bullet-like drops of rain colliding with the few patches of skin that they had left uncovered, and desperately penetrating their insubstantial layers of clothing to get where they had. Seto bowed his head in an attempt to spare his eyes from the ruthless assault, but all the while was wary to not let Mokuba out of his sight. The boy's legs were so short, his feet still clumsy enough to stumble over loose pebbles and thick clumps of grass.

Trying to force his voice to remain calm while at the same time retaining the urgency of the situation, Seto called to his struggling younger brother, "You have to hurry! C'mon, don't fall!" Falling would be the worst possible outcome. A shiver stole between Seto's shoulder blades as he could see the two of them sprawled gracelessly amid the ruble, lying helplessly as the rain feasted on its defenseless prey. No matter what, he could not let that happen. Quickening their pace to the point that their feet made more contact with the surrounding air than the ground, they heaved forward, running desperately into their future, if only because their present was tottering on the brink of falling apart.

He tried to make noise to block out the incessant roar. It was louder than rain was supposed to sound, and much more abrasive. It was cries of terror, screams engorged with misery, and worse than that, listening carefully, he could hear the stifled sighs of suppressed tears, the worst because it struck him as being the most familiar. He was afraid that the rain would reach him—not just surround and drench him—but somehow work its way through his skin. Something that powerful would crush him, wipe away his lines and corrode him. Seto didn't have to feel it to know that it would happen; if he let down his guard for as much as a moment, he knew that he would be erased as easily as powdery and fleeting little smudges of chalk on a chalkboard.

Somehow, amid the lightning-sharp torrents that seemed so close to engulfing them, there was a door. In her final act of kindness, their companion had failed to leave the door open for them, leaving Seto to pound desperately on its unyielding, wooden surface. He opened his mouth, and was vaguely aware of thinking the words, "Someone, come on and open the door!" But his voice was extinguished by the time it left his throat, torn to pieces by the wind and the rain and scattered like the leftover feathers of a flock of birds departing for flight.

Just as he was about to consider giving up, planning some sort of shameless retreat, the door swung open with a crisp creak that, despite doing battle with the throbbing of the rain, seemed to reach him much easier than any sound had in quite a while. That crack seemed to break through the sound like a reaper slicing through dry grass, and suddenly everything around them became almost unbearably clear. The rain reversed direction and returned to the chasm of sky above them, taking its roar with it. Slightly apologetically, Seto thought. Almost frightened by the now overpowering sound of his own voice, Seto asked, "So, I guess we should go in?"

Mokuba nodded with forced resolution, and one gentle, creaky step at a time, the two slowly scaled the threshold. The hallway was cramped and musty, but the sound of their breathing and the sigh of the floor as it met their feet echoed as if they were entering an impossibly large carven to which they could keep walking through forever and never find their way out. Seto gripped Mokuba's hand tighter, afraid that the darkness might swallow him up. He looked about for the person who had opened the door, but wasn't that surprised when he saw that the hallway was completely empty.

He told himself that he was only trembling from the cold—for it was indeed incredibly cold, his breath showed up as clearly as stars in a rural sky the moment it left his body—Seto gently guided Mokuba down the hall, all the while wishing that he could take each footstep back the instant that he made it. He imaged that they could simply turn their backs and run away back home, but he didn't know where home was.

Their watery footsteps morphed into taunting masks below them, baring their wicked, twisted grins like how a lion greets its prey. Seto didn't look down. The shadows that lurked in the ceiling looked like black holes, destructive and never-ending. He didn't look up, either. Looking behind only reminded him of where he was coming from and looking ahead reminded him of where he was going to be. Running out of options, Seto looked at Mokuba, wondering if he could feel his fright through the shaking of his hand and the thrashing of his pulse that felt like rockets were going off in his heart.

Despite the fact that Mokuba was right next to him and there was no other sound around for miles, Seto had to ask Mokuba to repeat himself when he whispered, "I've never been this afraid before." That was true. The two bothers were accustomed to hordes of unfamiliar faces, bustling crowds, action, bright colors, and artificially cheery signs that were supposed to teach them about colors and numbers. This hallway was one of those place's half-forgotten nightmares.

"Hey," he bent down to the ground and cupped Mokuba's chin in his hand, looking him earnestly in the eye, trying to loose himself in them. "We're going to be okay, alright?" Mokuba nodded firmly, hopelessly drawn to Seto's unshakeable eyes and steady tone. "Now, c'mon." He stood again, only to find that the hallway looked different than it had when he had descended. Where there had once been an immense black abyss, there was now a brightly-light, albeit not too welcoming, office. Seto looked about warily, he could have sworn that this was not how he had left it. Walls weren't supposed to move on their own, bending and scooting into whatever position pleased them.

Overcome by the shock, it took Seto a moment to register that they were no longer alone. Seated at an unnecessarily copious desk that looked like it had seen its fair share of adventures, was a small woman whose face made harsh angles who too looked like she had long ago seen more than she had thought possible, and was now waiting for everything to come some sort of semi-satisfactory ending. She was deeply engaged in conversation with their guide. Seto had to squint, though they stood only a few feet away, to see that they were exchanging his and Mokuba's identification cards. The voices lagged several seconds behind the moving of their lips, almost as if someone had pre-recorded their conversation but hit 'play' a few moments too late. While he couldn't clearly identify a light source, the room was lit with the same artificial glare of a badly directed play, and the shadows were so crisp and intense and the items casting them took on the look of clay figurines or the product of a surrealist comic book.

Spotting an empty chair at the far end of the room, Seto half led, half carried Mokuba to their temporary harbor and gently cradled him in his lap, delicately placing his chin on his brother's drenched hair. Through the exchange of names and birthdates, Seto felt Mokuba's grip tighten as he fiercely whispered, "Seto, I don't like this place!"

Seto looked down at the top of Mokuba's head and drew him in closer, ignoring the waterfalls cascading down their clothes and rippling into the floor. He bent his neck low so that their owners—past or present—couldn't hear, and murmured, "I know, Mokie." He sighed like a gambler who had just been dealt his worst possible hand and continued, "neither do I."

He tried to keep his hands steady as the footsteps approached him. He didn't want to meet those new, strange eyes that would rip through him like iron-tipped arrows, demanding from him things that he couldn't give and posing questions that he couldn't answer. He had had enough of those types of questions, so fierce and so solid that they tore through everything around him, replacing the wide open expanses he tried to keep around the two of them with cold, stony-faced exteriors. Twisting his face as far away as his neck would accommodate, he tried to ignore the face that was looming dangerously near to his line of vision. Seto kept his lips stiff and his mood indifferent as milky fog as the woman gently, though wearily cooed, "Seto? And Mokuba? Welcome, I think you'll be very happy here."

She wasn't there she wasn't there she wasn't there. It was an illusion, her voice just the murmur of the wind outside, her face an unfortunate pattern in the curtains that would disappear as soon as they resettled. There was no woman, there couldn't be. It had been just the two of them forever, Seto and Mokuba, an irrevocable alliance, an unbreakable bond that was immune to the unpredictable changes that wrought their havoc on everything else. The two of them had always stood fast together no matter how strong the storms of life had blown around them. They had been vagabonds, unattached to anyone or anything but each other, floating like two little birds on a massive, ferocious current. They had learned that they needed no physical location to call home because their home was with each other. They had learned to not be corroded, not to be estranged by anyone. And that included strange, middle-aged women who tried to force his eyes in her direction and intrude on their little battlement as if she thought she had a genuine right to be there.

Seto heard her sigh in resignation, producing a sound not unlike the thumping of dirt being beaten out of an old, musty carpet. She slowly backed away, but did not dissipate entirely. Instead, she hovered in the middle distance, not wanting to stay any closer than she had to but at the same time hesitant to leave them to their own devices, a habit of never letting anyone fully out of her sight, though at the same time remaining at a safe distance, that seemed to be imbued in her from several years of painful experience. Seto found himself despising her for her lack of commitment. She had agreed to receive them, hadn't she? If there was anyone who had the right to shy away and act timid in a corner, it was he and Mokuba. Deciding that if she wouldn't, he would make the first move—if it meant only that this painful meandering around the issue would be cut a bit shorter—Seto slowly lifted his head and looked her directly in the eye.

The moment their eyes met, it seemed that much more than the distance between their faces had been surpassed. The woman seemed to re-inflate, as if the vile of the antidote to a previously incurable poison had been handed to her at the last critical moment. Perhaps it was the hint of a smile that graced her lips as she re-assessed them, or perhaps it was just the effect of the tension being lifted from her features that suddenly made her seem more controlled, trusting, and, if it was even possible given the circumstances—pleasant.

She approached the pair with constrained tenderness, as if afraid to wake them from a short and shallow slumber and whispered, now as if she was afraid of waking some foul creature that was sleeping in the next room, "We're so glad to have you here. And you're lucky; you've arrived just in time for dinner. But, let's get you two dried off first." Seto nodded in silent acquiescence and gently lifted Mokuba off his lap who, unsurprisingly, was hesitant to allow his feet to make contact with the ground. He squirmed uncomfortably in Seto's arms as if about to be lowered into a festering pit of snakes that were waiting to devour him. He sought Seto out with wide, pleading eyes, as if begging his brother to spare him from the cruel fate of having to admit that he was, in fact, here. Even once his feet had hit the floor, they never truly made contact, always hovering just an instant above the worn, dusty surface and preventing him from touching it. His footsteps were awkward and strained, as if the effects of gravity no longer fully applied to him and he had to make a special effort to keep from floating away. Clenching Seto's hand, he clung to him like a lone rock in the middle of a turbulent ocean and followed him down the dark, narrow hallway.

Peering into the shadows surrounding them, it was nearly impossible to discern any individual shapes or textures. It was as if the world had been wiped clean and spun around, leaving nothing the way it had been before. This world was new, but it was foreboding, like a night sky without stars, it was an eternal expanse of indefinable, untouchable space. The spectral figure of Mrs. Cole as she shuffled across the floor, her heavy layers of clothes leaving behind weak whispers in the otherwise silent hall, was the only discernable object, and even that came unpredictably in and out of sight like the glimmer of a distant building darting in and out of a heavy fog.

Amid the darkness, a faint light began to glow in the distance. It was feeble and obscured by dust and distance, but the sight made Seto and Mokuba's hearts jolt with anticipation and freshly kindled hope, the kind that they knew not to hold too tightly lest they break it. At the first intimation of light, they wanted to envelop themselves in it, to breathe it in like a flighty summer breeze and somehow trap it inside. But the glow was intangible. It was heavily dissipated across the nearly solid layers of somber shadows and seemed not to come from a direct source, but something all around them that they couldn't rightly locate.

Like the dainty sparks that haunt the night sky before the rising of the sun, the darkness slowly peeled away like old sheets of wallpaper, revealing something mysterious and disfigured that Seto wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to see. But he couldn't stop the rising of the sun, he was set on a course and there was now no controlling where it would take him. The rays multiplied in their intensity, looming across the horizon, and the immense, fiery ball hurled itself up into the center of the sky, searing his eyes and forcing him to fiercely beat back a series of sharp and biting tears.

"I'll leave you two here for now," Mrs. Cole said, pushing open the door to the bathroom with a dry, painful creak. "You two must be freezing in those soaking things," she gestured towards their waterlogged clothing. "There's a radiator in there you can use to dry your coats off, and I'll go get you two dry things to wear."

She turned from them and continued back down the hallway the way they had come, her footsteps slowly crumbling into oblivion behind them. Seto and Mokuba crept into the doorway of what they could now see was the bathroom, illuminated with a dazzling array of blinding lights. Row upon row of them peered down at them from the ceiling, melted off the walls, gripped the countertops with fierce, shining claws that burned with a fiery metallic sheen. The lights effaced any intimation of shadow or dirt. Everything put on the front of being crisp and clean, but Seto could see from the irregular shapes and sad, would-be sweet smell that left an antiquated stench in the air that this room was anything but fresh and clean. The walls were cold, the rough-hewn floor splattered with puddles of tepid, off-white water that was less transparent than it should have been. Seto had seen worse, and yet, he had never seen anything quite like this. The lights painted the walls with the guise of purity, but there was clearly none to be found there. It seemed like a foul trick, a cheap attempt at deception that was disgusting in its ineffectuality.

His first instinct was to throw out his arms like a set of steel swords, somehow prevent Mokuba from entering a place that felt so insincere in its supposed sweetness. However, looking over his shoulder, he could see the only possible alternative. Beyond Mokuba's shoulder was an encompassing black abyss, a solid wall of dismal impermeability that would drag him down with its sharp, smoky claws should Seto turn his back for a moment. Out there, he wouldn't know where Mokuba was, he wouldn't be able to see, even feel him. And he couldn't let that happen. Inhaling deeply, as if he thought that would keep him from losing hold of himself, his long fingers roped around Mokuba's wrist and gently, remorsefully, led him inside. With each step, waves of nausea palpitated through him, fierce, dark teeth punctured his skin and malicious whispers wreathed around his head. In one icy, rigid move, he flung himself and Mokuba against the back wall as if plunging into freezing water, all the while feeling his skin slowly slip apart and abandon him.

Mokuba looked up at him inquisitively, gently cocking his head to the side as the vicious torrents of lights threw unearthly shadows on his features. "I'm sorry, Mokuba," Seto whispered, his voice pounding out in short, bristled breaths. "I'm sorry, but we have to do this." Mokuba softly shook his head, eyes lowering as he retreated into thoughtful consideration of the situation before them.

"Sorry for what, Seto?" Mokuba whispered to the tile floor, his voice fragile and wispy.

"Just for—never mind. Here." He removed Mokuba's sodden overcoat, a patchwork, overused cloak that had belonged to an indeterminate number of children before him. He spread the coat out over the radiator like he might a burial shroud over its occupant and poked and twisted at the gears until a faint and throbbing rickety sound emanated from the machine. The radiator filled the small room with the stench of bitter, caustic burning that tasted like foreign poison on his tongue. Underneath it all there always seemed to be floating, just beyond his ability to define it, the eerie humming of another, distant world. It was as if there was some invisible force in play all around them, pulling on them with delicate, transparent strings as if they were lifeless dangling puppets whose only purpose was to serve and entertain their master.

Mokuba shivered violently, seizing at his arms in an effort to retain the little warmth that might not have abandoned him. The two had an unspoken understanding that they were to remain as silent as possible, afraid that the true meaning of their words would escape them if communicated verbally, become mutated and vague. The lights all around seemed to glower like the eyes strangers, waiting for the instant one of them might make a false move so as to use it was a justification against them. Mokuba's eyes darted uneasily from one to another, waiting to see which one would spring at him first. Turning cautiously to Seto, as if he thought it would be admitting a sign of weakness to a formidable enemy, he gently asked, "Aren't you going to dry yours too?"

"No, I'm fine." Seto smiled weakly, trying to warm Mokuba with his gentle expression in a way that the radiator could not. "Come over here," he gestured towards the radiator though didn't touch it, "you need to warm up." They stood awkwardly for a few moments, occasionally repressing shivers as the watery, tepid, dirty-smelling air that felt like it had already been used by too many people washed over them, painting their skin the same musty, tired color sour shadows. Seto watched in silence as large, crystalline spheres accumulated at the ends of Mokuba's hair and collided with the floor, dully counting off the time like an immense grandfather clock in a large, empty room.

All the while, the radiator wheezed and rattled, its pitiful wisps of heat palling in comparison to the immense, deep-drenched enormity of Seto and Mokuba's countenance. Seto was vaguely aware that Mokuba was faring worse than he was. He skin was ghostly pale and papery, eyes bulging and faintly purple lips trembling. A small part of him, like a long-forgotten memory that was trying to make itself present again, felt that he should reach out his hand to touch him, to wipe the cold away that seemed so close to engulfing him, always lurking around his shoulders like dozens of silky black and semi-transparent crows. He could see the reflections of their wings in Mokuba's large, glassy eyes as they trembled with hope, uncertainty, and the eventual disappointment that always consumed them both after the most recent party of prospective parents had made their way past.

Seto starred down at his hand. Small, bony, and pale, he watched as it clenched and opened, seemingly on its own volition. Already the windy, tumultuous afternoon spent in the car seemed lifetimes away. He studied the curves of his fingers, how they mutated and became unrecognizable with his hand's shifting shape. He wanted to do something with it, to hold onto something or reach towards something better. He gently extended his fingers as if he hoped the miraculous object would materialize there, providing him with the key to unlock all the mysteries bubbling around them.

A sudden, shattering thud at the door snapped through the near silence, splintering the scene like a paper-thin sheet of glass. Mrs. Cole appeared in the doorway, her dreary silhouette a dramatic juxtaposition against the stark whitewashed walls. Her lines were heavy, loose, and excessive, another harsh contrast between the utilitarian and shamelessly unaesthetic bathroom. She came baring several deflated piles of threadbare pajamas that were an off-white, diseased looking color that couldn't decide what it wanted to be. She set the clothes down on a dry patch of countertop, and turning to them with a slightly misplaced and insincere sense of authority, as if she wouldn't have followed her own directions if she had been on the receiving end of them, examined them carefully. "Here you two go," she gestured towards her offerings, "you best put these on so you don't catch cold. Once you're all changed you can have something to eat and I can show you where you'll be sleeping." She smiled weakly and, Seto couldn't fail to notice, let her eyes dart around the perimeter of the room as her breath caught, seeming to be searching for something that she couldn't define but was always expecting to suddenly appear.

"There's no way I'm wearing these," Seto grumbled as he scrutinized the clothing after Mrs. Cole had left. "They're practically transparent." Indeed, as he held the threadbare garments against the piercing volley of lights, they appeared to be composed more of the gaps between stitches than actual fabric. Even just holding it, Seto felt like he was somehow doing it harm, as if simply breathing on it too strongly would cause the entire contraption to disintegrate in his hands and crumple to the floor like finely ground sand.

"But Seto, won't we be cold?" Seto cautiously set down the shirt he had been scrutinizing and turned his eye instead to Mokuba, who was shaking so viciously that his face was nearly blurred beyond recognition, replaced with static and pierced with ambiguity.

"Trust me, Mokuba, these won't help." He roughly nudged the clothes, only to see them dissolve into the milky puddles of water accumulating on the countertop. Stealing a fleeting glance around the room, which seemed to tear itself open before his eyes like a ferocious jaw about to devour him, Seto seized at the stiff, heavy doorknob and ripped the door open, revealing the same black mountainous abyss that they had just barely escaped such a short time ago. "Come on, Mokuba, let's get going." Mokuba cautiously teetered towards the doorway, uneasily—as if the darkness produced a pounding wind that he couldn't overcome on his own. With hands tightly curled into sharp fists, he followed Seto out of the room, not daring to look back as he heard the door shut with a caustic, scraping thud behind them.

AN: This was a story that I began a few months back, but due to the general suckiness of the first edition, am now revising. Because I'm always looking for tips on how to improve (much like poor Seto here xD) I appreciate any comment that you have to throw at me!