Everything went wrong here

Some­how Hikaru was feel­ing a lot worse. Even if her last dream had been calm, this one surely wasn’t. Some­thing was wrong. Some­thing was really, ter­ribly wrong. She was star­ing right at the per­son that had been chas­ing her through her night­mares. Two big, glow­ing green eyes stared right back at her. Right back through her.

It was Yuugi.

Out of all people, it had to be Yuugi. Her best friend. Someone she trus­ted. Why? Why was this even hap­pen­ing? It didn’t make sense at all.

“We caught you now, Run­ning Witch!”

His voice was garbled. It wasn’t no longer Yuugi. Noth­ing was Yuugi about Yuugi.

Hikaru looked at him. Stared at him. “Yuugi…”, she tried. He cocked his head to his left shoulder. “Yuugi, it’s me, Hikaru.” His head fell to his right shoulder. “Hikaru…”, he muttered. He seemed to lit up com­pletely. “Hikaru!”

Hikaru nod­ded, still quite scared. “So, you’re not the witch then.”, Yuugi said. “No, I’m no witch Yuugi, you know me.”, Hikaru replied, try­ing her best to sound calm. “Oh…” Yuugi seemed con­fused about that.

“Why are you here?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been here every night.”

Yuugi seemed to even grow more con­fused. “But this is my data­s­cape, how did you even end up here?” His data­s­cape? Hikaru didn’t under­stand any­thing about this all. But things looked peace­ful now. Right?

Right?

“Oh…”

Until some­thing seemed to click. Yuugi seemed to under­stand. “Oh, I see…” He seemed to talk to someone. React to a voice Hikaru couldn’t hear. And Hikaru grew scared again. Yuugi looked up at her and smiled. “I know it now!”, he announced, proudly. “You’re here because I like you!”

“You- Wait what? How does that even work?”

“Well, you’re a cyborg, your mind is cap­able of enter­ing data­s­capes… Your body is asleep but you are actu­ally awake, just here and not out there.”, Yuugi explained, his smile fal­ter­ing a little. “I’m sorry, I must have made con­tact with you without noti­cing…”, he said, look­ing apo­lo­getic. “It’s fine, it hap­pens…”, Hikaru muttered. “Can you get me out of here?” Yuugi stared at her. Her face went to Not Yuugi again. “No.”, he said.

“What?!”

“Unless my mom fixes me, or your brother. I think I’m infec­ted with a virus. You know, that one that has been cir­cu­lat­ing on the inter­net?” Yuugi looked around him. “Sure looks infec­ted in here. You prob­ably can’t see it.” Hikaru couldn’t see it. But that didn’t change the ter­ror build­ing in her stom­ach. “But… Why?”, she asked, no longer able to sound calm.

“Haven’t you listened to me?”, Yuugi asked. “Because I like you.” His smile came back, but this time it didn’t look like Yuugi was smil­ing. More like a mon­ster inside of Yuugi was smiling.

“And now we can stay together forever.”