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[knifemonopoly]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, PLAYER1. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 10.11.0.0.01 *** PLAYER1 has joined 10.11.0.0.01 <PLAYER1> If you're looking for someone you knew as Yugi before June, you've found him! It's Atem, leave a message.

Main handle: < Player1 > Anon: < turtleluck >, < actuallydied >, < burner >

Comments

cw ptsd, flashbacks, anxiety, panic, unreliable memories!

[knifemonopoly]

[At least, this is how Atem remembers it.

What happened in actuality was, Ryou said:

"I would if I could have...but my powers, they...they didn't work. I couldn't -- I couldn't do it. I t-tried to get out, but in there...th-there's no way out."

And Atem thinks he remembers saying his reasoning aloud, as he desperately tried to make sense of what he understood as I couldn't use my powers, instead of "I couldn't get out." He could swear he said it. But I tried to get out has sent his heart racing out of his chest, set the room swimming like he's seeing it through the heat-haze, is making his back itch, is sending reflected portal-light on warehouse office-walls across the surface of his brain, an echo in his ears of These are silver. Even think about trying to get away from what's coming and I will start using them instead of the surgical steel. -- but his voice didn't work. It didn't obey him as he tried to make sense of it, find the reason, find the rule, find what he did wrong, and he didn't say --

The rest of us -- we had our powers. Our god boon powers. As long as we stayed on the same side, as the god who gave them to us.

The knuckles of his hands just went white silently, as he started to breathe shallow and quick. What did he do wrong? What did he do wrong?

He thought he said, You should have had them. Why didn't you? What was different, about...?

But he didn't find his voice again, not until "It wasn't your fault." And he doesn't notice that they're talking past each other, that he's misunderstood --

He doesn't notice at all.]