I'm a poor judge of character. Always have been. There's really never been an instance where I've correctly surmised someone, no matter how long I've known them. Not even myself. Especially not myself. There's just a mystery to people that I can never really predict. Maybe it's because I grew up without anyone around me for more than a year or two. To this day, people don't stick around me longer than absolutely necessary. Maybe it's that lack of continuity that keeps me from recognizing people. And as a result, I don't really trust people. Oh I'll give you information about me, yeah. Because frankly, what are you going to do with it? It doesn't matter to me; I'll be gone soon anyway. But just because you know things about me, doesn't mean you know me, or I trust you. I've never trusted anyone as long as I can remember. The word 'trust' took me awhile to learn, actually.

I'm lying on hard gravelly ground on top of a hill. My scarlet eyes are focused on the shifting clouds above me, and the sun touches my skin like it's saying hello. I inhale, and it's almost as if nothing's changed. If I didn't know better, I could think I was on a cliff-side in Egypt, waiting while my horse grazes, planning my next daring tomb raiding. But no, it's 2011, and I'm in the middle of Japan. I do this sometimes. Sit and pretend. I do this when I desperately wish it were true. I just want my old life back. There are times where I want more than I can express to just be back in Egypt. No blood-oath of revenge, no Diabound, no Zorc, no technology, no housing, no friends. Just me. All on my own. Spending my days in the sun, stealing and running, and my nights in a cave, curled up under my cloak as I stare at the pinpricks of light in the endless sea of blackness, each of which I've given a name. Relying on no one but myself. Owing nothing to anyone.

Because this… The modern world is so trying. Everything is so drastically different; I still can't handle it, even after two years. Once I finally got my old clothes back – I had commissioned them from a seamstress, I wanted them that badly – I started to feel like an identity again. Not knowing where I was, being thrust into whatever clothes I could lay my hands on, getting food in the crudest way possible… I felt like something time forgot. I don't belong in this time period. I should be dead. So time keeps shutting me out, making me the outsider looking in on the world through foggy glass, trying to erase me. My cloak only draws me unwanted attention. Granted, it was extravagant in Egypt as well, but it showed my 'wealth' more than anything. Here, I am glared at. I don't really care; honestly, it's just rather annoying.

I use a laptop every day. I find one on a table, in someone's bag, on the seat of someone's car, and I steal it. It becomes mine. I still don't know what I'm doing, though. But at least with the help of the laptop, I figured out what language was being spoken around me, and so I knew what scro– book to steal from a bookkeeping place. I've learned Japanese pretty fluently after all this time, really out of boredom rather than necessity. Once the battery runs out, I smash it. I take out my anger on it and kill it. I use it, but I hate it. Confusing thing. It doesn't make any sense. Nothing about any of this does.

I've learned to suspend my disbelief, to accept things that fly at me, else I would be a raving lunatic muttering to himself in Ancient Egyptian and drawing hieroglyphics in the dirt. I still do those sometimes, but it's controlled. Heh. Anything you tell me, I'll pretty much accept. This isn't a fruit; it's some hard stuff? Okay. You can heat and cool where you live at will? Alright. When you're hurt, you go to a large building, getting poked and prodded and stabbed with things and you're suddenly all better? Got it. I accept most things. There's just one thing that's been throwing me through a huge loop the past two weeks… I just can't wrap my head around it.

I don't have friends. It's just not what I do. I anger and infuriate people. I have fuck buddies. Not friends. The closest I've ever had to a real friend is my albino snake, Dee. She finds me, curls up with me, lets me pet her and stays with me when I want company. She's the closest I have ever had to affection.

One day I was sitting on a bench with her wrapped around my shoulders in a park. This kid came up to me and started asking about her, and we got to talking. He sat down. He invited me to come with him when he got food, and I agreed. This happened two or three times, just meeting at the park and hanging out. Then he invited me to his home, which I agreed.

Ryou was his name.

I'm going to be honest; when I first met him, I generally assumed I would do what I always do. Meet, talk, flirt, seduce, fuck, move on. It's the cycle of my life. But I liked talking to him, so I drew it out. The seduce stage was where I first really hit a speed bump. Then again at the fuck stage. In retrospect, this is where I should have just left. I should have decided he wasn't worth it, and not see him again. But I'm an idiot.

We watched a movie or something, I don't really remember, but I do really remember what happened after. I cornered him in the kitchen, shifted to press him into the counter, spoke quietly while I gently brushed my lips to the side of his face, went in to kiss him, and he jerked back. Stammering, he insisted he can't and doesn't kiss anyone. I stepped back from him with this blow to my pride – I'd never been shot down like that – and just kind of looked at him. Teary eyed, he latched on to my middle (there had been very little touching between us until right then, I remember) and apologized over and over, promising I could kiss him anywhere else I wanted. That was the first speed bump. I really should have realized that was indicative of something else. The second was during sex. He wouldn't let me see his legs. He set my plan of attack back a ways, but nothing major. This was not that big of a deal, but I later learned he was hiding something from me. Something that would turn out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. (Heh, we had that metaphor in Egypt.)

Two weeks ago I learned something. Something I can't handle. I found out what happened to me. The reason I'm here is because… Because Zorc decided he needed a back-up plan. I'm finding out that it's assumed I died- but I don't know if I did. All I remember is seeing my hands turn to sand and blow away. Panic overwhelmed me – you have no idea how much it hurts to be turned to sand – and a growling whispered into my ear, "Find the Pharaoh." Next thing I know, I'm waking up naked in an empty parking structure, and with the biggest headache I've ever had. The first week was just about staying alive, finding shelter and clothing and food. The worst week of my life.

There's always been a growling in my head. I first heard it, faint murmurings, when I saw the flames of my home and the charred corpses lining the streets. It was just a whisper, a faint background noise. "Akefia…" He was calling for me. 'Akefia…' That growling never stopped completely. Oh it would die down and just be a presence in the back of my mind, but it never left me. It just grew. As I aged, the calls grew louder, more vicious. Finally, the voice gave me demands. Do this, do that. And it gave me promises. Such sweet promises. Promises of revenge, of power, of godly status. And like an idiot I fell for it. When my head hit the concrete of that parking lot asphalt, the whispers told me 'He's here. Find him."The Pharaoh was here.

And as my eyes met the wonders and horrors of where I was, I decided, fuck that. Following that voice led me here. Believing that voice sent me 5,000 years into the future, away from my entire life and everything I knew. Fuck him.

The voices grew angrier. It's a constant noise in my head now. There's never a moment when there's not a growl, a stirring. Even now. But I've learned. As I accept everything, I accept he's here. But he only gets the power I give to him. I can feel him; he's a little huddling sliver. He doesn't have the ability to do any more than whisper at me. And I'm telling him to shut the fuck up. The only times when it bothers me is at night. At night, I hallucinate. In pure darkness the voices frighten me. A constant stream of 'Akefia… You let them down… You don't belong here… Find the Pharaoh or die….' And now and then, I hear the screams. He speaks as though there are imperceptible lips by my ear and screaming and the crackling of burning fire in the distance. If I open my eyes, I see nothing but red, angry eyes in the darkness. I need the light. The voices quiet, the eyes disappear if there's light…

'Akefia…'

I found out two weeks ago what else happened to me. Apparently, as my understanding is, there is a split. Yes, I died. But I also lived. Maybe my soul was sliced in half. I'm here in the year 2011, and I'm also here in the year 2011 in another form. A form given immortality in a parasitic form of a possessing soul locked in The Millennium Ring. A form without the light, made to endure the whispers, the screams, the eyes, the fire for the entire 5,000 years. Apparently, I went insane. From the description, the evil parts of me lived. I don't deny that on the whole, I'm evil. Yeah, I probably am. But for some reason, it really angers me that only the evil lived. I have redeeming qualities when I'm not obsessive. But those died. I'm described with a sour look, a bitter tone, called a snake. These cut me. That's what I became? I have that capability? I don't even recognize myself.

Ryou described him. He had dated the other version of me. (Was it I? There's something about alternate time-lines… I'm very lost as to the whole concept) I'm told how I'm manipulative, harsh, and cruel. These words coming from him, even not directly relating to the me standing before him, are going to stick with me. Is that who I am?

Bakura. That's the name I take, apparently. Bakura. I don't exactly know what he means, to anyone for that matter. There's another Bakura running around, I know, and my other 'acquaintance' is engaged to him. She loves him. Ryou used to date another Bakura. (This is wholly confusing…) He says they had an abusive relationship. From what I've been told, Bakura was selfish, uncaring about Ryou, except when they kissed. When they kissed, Ryou felt love from him, and craves it like a crack-head craves a fix. That's why I cannot kiss him. I get the feeling he's not over him.

Ryou was the only human being that was starting to become a real friend. A fuck buddy and a friend. Someone with whom I could talk, hang out, laugh, and of course, fuck senseless. He described 'Bakura' finally and led me to his room. We sat and he told me about his legs. They're covered in cuts. Criss-crossing cuts. I had worried about him for those. I thought someone was harming him. Heh. He was doing it to himself. He told me it was because when he and Bakura had sex, he scratched his thighs. When Bakura left Ryou, he took to cutting there to emulate his lost lover. Some of those cuts look pretty recent.

I asked him if he wanted me around for me, or because I reminded him of Bakura.

He said he didn't know.

I can't do this. I don't know who I am, who I'm supposed to be, who I became. The growling in my head tells me I'm not wanted here, I should leave. Maybe I'll listen to him for once. This bullshit is really starting to get to me.

After Ryou and I talked, I spent the night to appease him, and I left the next morning. I don't know if I'm ever going back. I don't want it hanging over my head. Every time I see him, I'll think that he's not seeing me. He's seeing the me I've yet to be. Yearning for him. I don't want that. Ryou was the closest thing I've had to a friend in 22 years. But he doesn't actually want me around. I'm not a good judge of character. Maybe it was a fool's hope that I'd finally have a friend.

I don't have to put up with this. There's nothing stopping me from going back to the decrepit building I live in and going on the prowl every night. I'm going to most likely die soon anyway. Might as well spend it fucking strangers, robbing strangers, killing strangers in fits of rage. I don't need friends. I don't need someone to hug or smile at me. I don't need the constant reminders that I don't know who I am. I have Dee. Dee likes me. I can live on that.