Welcome to the updated version of Free From Him! If you're new, enjoy. If you're old, I hope it's an improvement!

It was a while before Ryou realised it was over.

It was a few days after his return from Egypt. Average day, overcast, windy. The same as always, except for one thing: the Ring.

It lay, glinting, on his bedside table, next to the family photographs and general clutter; almost as if it belonged there. Ryou couldn't stop glancing at it as he dressed, expecting it to glow suddenly and to feel the constricting hands on his soul, feel his mind being crushed, hear the Thief's voice in his ear.

"You didn't think I had forgotten you, did you?"

No. Ryou sighed. He didn't think that. He didn't think it for a minute.

But today he felt different. Like an immense weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He felt free.

For the first time in six years, he wasn't afraid.

Of course, there was the feeling of shame. The guilt of letting the Thief control him, lead him. His soul had been weak, he told himself. He'd tried to convince himself that he was not to blame, and that the Thief was nothing but a distant memory now that he was gone. They weren't related. The spirit of the Ring was gone, the Ring was just a Ring, and Ryou was just a normal person. With his own soul.

Sometimes, though, he could have sworn he felt the empty space in his mind where the Thief's soul had once been.

Ryou shook the thought off and continued dressing. The same striped shirt, blue jeans, the Ring... Ryou stopped, feeling it in his hand, heavy on its string. Despite its apparent innocence, it was still compelling, its gleam seeming too bright for the dull day, its golden surface flawless, the five needle-sharp points hanging and clinking together with an almost inaudible chime.

Irresistible.

Ryou slipped it around his neck, feeling its familiar caress with such a wrong feeling of relief that he almost tore it off again. It was cold. He waited, feeling his shoulders instinctively clench upwards, his eyes shutting against the expected mental onslaught.

Nothing.

Bittersweet, but liberating.

Why am I wearing it, again?

...

Never mind. It doesn't matter.

Ryou sighed and left his room, closing the door carefully behind him. He slowly made his way down the stairs, glancing briefly at the photographs hanging on the wall above the banister. They showed his family whole, his mother and Amane displayed proudly as if they were still here, and they brought a dull ache to Ryou's chest. That was why he never looked up, he recalled. He hadn't been able to make the decision for a while. The phone next to the front door was bleeping, so he picked it up.

'You have two messages.'

"Ryou, it's only me. Just checking up on you, I'm sure you're fine. I'll phone again tonight. Erm... Bye."

His father. A fool, easily misled by Ryou's faux cheery emails. Or, on a few occasions, the Thief's.

"Hey, Ryou! It's Yuugi. Do you wanna come down to the shop tonight? Joey says we should have a Zombie Invasion III marathon, and it won't be the same without you. You should get out of the house more. See you at school!"

Ryou allowed himself to smile as he replaced the phone. Everything was back to normal.

It was cold. Ryou wasn't surprised at that; winter in Domino was always accompanied by bitter winds and snow, but he'd grown accustomed to the feeling of the Egyptian sun beating down on him and hadn't yet adjusted to the Domino winter chill. As he walked, he was blissfully aware of how normal everything was. Kids on their way to school shrieked and ran up and down, being chastised by their parents, dogs barked, the shops were full of people chattering and browsing the shelves, in their own little worlds...

Rather than a world full of ancient Pharaohs, tomb keepers and demons.

Ryou took his usual shortcut through the park, rubbing his gloved hands together. He couldn't wait until tonight; he would actually be able to choose what to eat!

This is my chance. This is my one chance to start again. I can forget. Forget Marik, forget the Pharaoh, forget the Thief, forget everything. I can go back to school. I'll throw the Ring away. I'll burn it. This is the last time I'll ever wear it. In five minutes I'll be at school. I'll be talking to Yuugi like I did before all of this. I'll look people in the eye without hearing him tell me what he'll do them when I'm asleep. I'll think without being interrupted. I'll...

Ryou felt his heart sink. I'll be all alone.

"Help! Help! HELP!"

A little girl came crashing out of the bushes and straight into his path, screaming blue murder, her yellow coat covered in leaves, her auburn hair full of burrs, her knee smeared with mud from when she'd fallen in her haste.

"Oh, mister. Please help!" She looked up to him with teary, desperate eyes. Ryou felt a jolt in his stomach, immediately springing to the child's aid.

"What's wrong?"

"This way." She turned back and disappeared the way she'd come. Ryou followed, the thorny bushes tugging at his jeans, the frosted grass crunching under his favourite shoes. They came to a huge lake, which most people didn't bother to visit at this time of year; in the summer, it was a beautiful place. When the sun withdrew, it sank into eerie silence, bare limbed trees reaching out over grey water.

The girl turned to face him, eyes pleading. Ryou looked out onto the lake, and then saw the problem.

The lake was frozen, after days of sub-zero temperatures, and another kid was standing out on it. A little boy, well wrapped up in a matching yellow coat, tiny boots firmly planted on the dull ice – a thin barrier which was all that stopped him tumbling into a pool of deadly, ice-cold water.

"My little brother, there was a cat. He chased it out onto the ice, and now he won't come back... he won't listen to me, please help..." The girl was speaking to him in panicky tones, but Ryou didn't hear it. All he could see were the boy's eyes. They were utterly blank. Staring. He vaguely remembered the mind slaves of Marik Ishtar. That was the last time he'd seen eyes like that.

Five minutes in, and I'm back in the game.

"Hey, what's his name?"

"Samuel... but we all call him Sam..."

Ryou started edging his way out onto the ice. The ice near the edge of the lake was thick, but near the centre, it was much thinner. Ryou knew it wouldn't take his weight. Still, he kept going.

"Sam! Come here, please."

The child turned his head, but remained horribly sightless, arms hanging limply, blue mittens still wrapped on tiny fingers. Ryou shuddered. He took a step further. The child, bizarrely, took a step away from him.

"Hey! This isn't funny!" Ryou snarled, looking around for anyone who looked like they could be behind it. The lake was deserted and silent, except for the girl and her cries of "Be careful!"

Ryou took another step, feeling the ice shift ever so slightly beneath him. A raven screamed nearby.

Suddenly, Sam was there. The eyes lit up, his face changed from slack to terrified in a split second. Sam ran.

"Stop!"

The ice groaned. Every time Sam's feet hit the ice, Ryou could see him falling in, but seemingly instantly and almost inexplicably, Sam was at the other side of the lake, his little legs carrying him quicker than Ryou had thought possible.

He's safe. Everything's fine...

Then Ryou heard it. That horrible, high pitched, screeching, aching moan as the ice split beneath his feet and a chasm of black, churning water appeared, yawning hungrily.

Ryou had felt fear before. The heart thump when you realise you've said the wrong thing. The stomach lurch when you lean too far back on your chair. The disgust when you see dozens of red ants crawling across your jeans. But none of those feelings could compare. Not even the fear he'd felt of the sadistic thief, or of himself and what would he would do next. Where he would wake up the next morning, covered in a stranger's blood.

He was paralysed. The terror rushed straight from his racing heart to every corner of his body as the ice shattered and he fell into the water, diamond-like droplets exploding from the gaping hole. The little girl screamed. Ryou tried to, and felt freezing water fill his mouth; press itself against his body like some cruel mockery of a hug, caress his face with cold, numbing fingers. Ryou sank like a stone. Seeing the light fade, Ryou recalled his earlier feeling.

That feeling, that incredible, hopeful feeling that everything could change.

It wasn't meant to be. Subconsciously, he'd known it, even at the moment he thought he was free, that very morning while he was relishing in his new life, he'd known.

It was cold, and Ryou could feel himself slipping away.

And away...

And away...

And...

A...

...

The Millennium Ring glowed an eerie yellow as the ambulance arrived, staining the water green where Ryou lay in the silt, his lifeless body barely distinguishable from the rocks and other paraphernalia littering the bottom of the lake, his drifting hair like weed, his eyes closed. He was dragged from the water by the paramedics, who didn't bother checking his vitals. They could tell just by the temperature of his ghostly, dripping arms, the way he lay limp on the shore, that he was dead. Ryou was no more alive than any of the bleeping machines that were there, ready to try and keep people that way.

"He never stood a chance," one of the nurses said sadly to a colleague as she filled in some forms. "A waste, a terrible waste."

The school was told in an hour, and the students were stunned into silence. The teachers threw out his books. A few of the girls cried.

Ryou's father was told in two, over a crackling telephone line to Libya, where he was excavating an old temple. He thought it was a prank at first.

The whole of Domino knew within a week. The newspaper had a little obituary for him.

Bakura Ryou, a local student, dies in a tragic accident after falling into a frozen lake. He will be missed by all who knew him.

A few limp bunches of flowers were left by the lake where Ryou had drowned.

The little girl was never seen again.

Thank you for reading! :D

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x Kal277 x