Greetings all! For those who have read my other stories, I'm sorry for the delay between stories. I'm trying to step it up.

Anyway, here's the first chapter of my new YGO story. I hope you enjoy it!

Special thanks to yugioratemlover, who made a suggestion that led to this story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of its characters.

It has been said that, when a person is dying, the events of their life flashes before their eyes.

If that was true, the thought brought Yugi a great deal of comfort – all he could see as he stared up at the dark, sandy ceiling of the tomb was a lot of nothing. He was grateful that he wasn't dead, but at least he'd have had something to look at.

He cursed his impulsiveness as he shifted into a more comfortable position, resigning himself to a long wait. Apparently it didn't matter that he was now in his mid-twenties and a full-fledged archaeologist, the prospect of solving a puzzle was still as compelling as it was when he was a student in high school.

Yugi had volunteered to go slightly ahead of the rest of the archaeological expedition with one of the young local guides in order to determine which way they should go next after crossing the chasm that stretched from a storage room to the antechamber of the tomb where Yugi now found himself. The others had preferred to shoulder the weight of the equipment among themselves so that the lingual expert and unofficial master of riddles ahead to cut the time required to continue into the depth of the tomb.

As always, the hieroglyphs carved into the wall of the tomb felt new and exciting, although it was partially flavored with the poignant memory of the wall of the Pharaoh's tomb before he and his friends followed Yami into his memories. He had relished the gritty, dusty feeling across his palm as he wiped the wall clean so he could better read it. It had been a particularly engrossing riddle, and he'd enthusiastically leapt about the antechamber, pressing idols and shifting stones until a portion of the wall slid impressively upwards. If he'd stopped there and waited for the others to catch up, things would have been different. However, he had let his curiosity compel him into the previously concealed chamber. A shocked cry ripped him out of his inner thoughts, and he'd turned around to see the surprised and worried-looking guide sprawled across one of the stones he'd pulled out of the ground…and was now sinking back into the sandy floor. Yugi, who had been fairly deep into the chamber, turned to sprint out into the antechamber. Unfortunately, the portion came down much more quickly than it had gone up, and he'd barely been able to duck back out of the way as it clashed down. Then a piercing pain in his leg, an odd squelching noise, and darkness.

It took several minutes for the pounding heart in his ears to quiet enough so that it could hear the desperate scrabbling on the other side of the sandstone. Oddly enough, the sound brought him some comfort rather than intensifying his anxiety. Well, at least he didn't do it on purpose. Yugi was more or less as trusting as he was when he was younger, but he was no stranger to confrontation or traps. Maybe I'm getting too suspicious, he half-heartedly admonished himself before grinning. Maybe Téa's right – Joey really is rubbing off on me.

The thought of his girlfriend and his best friend brought a smile to his face, but it soon wilted as he thought of how worried they would be if they knew where he was...

···

"What do you mean, he's trapped in there?" Dr. Tosen, the tall and well-muscled head of the expedition boomed as he towered over the trembling guide who looked both guilty and terrified. "What happened?"

The guide, Shaabbon trembled before shakily walking to the center of the antechamber and attempting, in a mixture of miming, Arabic, and disjointed English, to explain what happened. Tosen gnawed his lower lip to keep from shouting any more at the young boy. It wasn't the boy's fault that he couldn't speak English well, but he was lost and unfortunately Mutou was one of the few on the expedition who was fluent enough in Arabic to understand the language when it was being spoken frenetically.

One of the seasoned guides, Sabr, who had a better grasp of English, stepped in to diffuse some of the confusion. "He say melekh open the wall and go inside. Then Shaabbon fall on rock and make door close again –melekh trapped." The guides, and especially young Shaabbon, called Yugi melekh, or king, apparently because he bore a resemblance to some long-lost Pharaoh that they had seen in another series of tombs. That, and he was known in some circles as the King of Games.

One of the younger assistants burst out laughing. "He fell on the rock and the door closed? What is this, Scooby-Doo?" The gazes of the remaining expedition all swung towards him, and he cringed at the increasingly tearful and confused look of Shaabbon and the irritated glare of Dr. Tosen. "Sorry."

"This is no time for jokes." Tosen nearly growled before turning to face the sandstone wall. "Wonderful," he grumbled under his breath before continuing. "How long has he been in there?"

Shaabbon looked pleadingly at the older guide for help – it was hard to understand English when it was being spoken so quickly and angrily. Sabr translated and the boy responded immediately in Arabic.

Sabr turned to the expedition leader. "Ten minutes."

"How is he?"

The young boy understood the question without translation this time, and tears threatened to spill from his eyes. "No know! No know! I hit and hit wall, but he no hit back!" He looked up at the older guide for reassurance. "He no death?"

As Sabr tried to calm Shaabbon down, Tosen turned more fully towards the wall and walked up to it. Nervously, his breath catching in his throat despite his own efforts to remain calm, he tapped a message on the sandstone wall. Upon hearing no response, he rapped even harder with his knuckles, desperately relaying the same message again.

Tosen was about to panic, regardless of whether others were present, when he heard a firm tapping on the other side of the sandstone. Breath rushed into his lungs and he laughed heartily in relief before sending another message. He positively roared with laughter at the following response, and the rest of the expedition rushed up to see what was happening.

"He no death?" Shaabbon asked tentatively but hopefully.

"No, he's fine." Tosen grinned down at the young boy, who almost immediately relaxed.

"Praise Allah," Sabr murmured under his breath

"How do you know?" One of the other archaeologists asked.

"Remember how I complained that Mutou kept wanting me to learn Morse code with him? In case of emergencies?" The archaeologist nodded. "Well, he was right, blast him, and I'll never hear the end of it now. He says he's okay, just that it's really dark in there and he feels better about losing his sunblock since he won't be needing it right now." Tosen straightened up and his face became business-like. "Now we got to get him out of there."

···

Yugi let his arm fall as he felt more than heard the rumble of footsteps and voices as the others shuffled around in the antechamber trying to come up with a plan. He hoped they would hurry. He had said he was fine, but that was without mentioning the sharp pain around his leg.

And the liquid that he just noticed was beginning to seep from around his leg to his waist.

A/N: Dun dun dun! What's going to happen now?

Thanks for reading and please review! Reviews make me happy!