When I looked in his eyes, I knew he felt nothing for me. Nothing for the world, the people who surrounded him, maybe even nothing for himself. So caught up in revenge – so entwined into the clutches of hate that he held no amount of empathy for anything in the world, no desire other than to see the death of those he despised.

It set me astray. I didn't know how to deal with the intrusion, the way he imposed on my life - however partial it was at some points – because screaming and cursing and fighting wasn't working. I didn't know how to reason with him, and after some thought I finally came to the conclusion that he was impossible to reason with. There was no compromise.

However many times Yugi's other self had beat him he'd always returned, without a word, and took away my body and freedom again. At some points I'd lost hope, but every time I was surrounded by my friends it returned again, allowed me to fight him anew. And then, just like that, without even needing any help from me they beat him, leaving him to be nothing more than a haunting memory of worse times.

When they'd come back they told me everything that happened. Everything the spirit of the Millennium Ring had always actually been, beneath the transparent skin and boiling anger. More than once I wished I'd never heard the story, it would have made life a bit easier, made forgetting just that much closer of a goal. I could have hated him I suppose but instead I feel a conflicting sadness every time my thoughts come across the memory of the ghostly presence that had always been at the back of my mind, until it wasn't.

I wondered whether there could have been any resolve to the battle between the pharaoh and the thief that didn't involve death and disembodied imprisonment. Perhaps had they looked around themselves, read between the lines they'd have both come out alive, or better yet the young thief could have chosen to live life instead of emotionlessly moving towards a goal surrounded by darkness.

Entertaining the idea now though, it feels like a pretty far shot. Very unlikely. The thief would not have gone down a different path. The pharaoh had no other path available to tread. So they thought and died, as if the whole affair was just arranged by some cruel twist of destiny, designed to mess with all of us, designed to bring us pain.

Just a drabble I don't quite remember writing. Must have been one of those 3am things.