Danny gets a text from Laura. Laura is in trouble… again.
Danny is sitting at her desk in the staffroom marking essays when her phone beeps. Danny pulls her phone out of her back pocket and reads the message.
Laura 3:
Trapped in dorm room. Bring vacuum!
"Shit" shouts Danny jumping out of her chair sending the chair flying into the wall behind her. Several teachers look up in surprise as Danny bolts out of the room. Danny runs down the hall to the nearest cleaners closet and kicks the door beside the handle. Splinters fly from the door as it is forced open. Danny grabs the commercial vacuum and slings it over her shoulders clipping the buckles up. Danny sprints down the hall and out of the Literature building cutting across the Quad directly for Laura's dorm building.
She charges through the door and is running up the stairs. Her blood is pounding in her ears, her breathing coming out in even measured breaths, years of athletics training coming in handy. She gets to Laura's floor and runs down the hall to Laura's room. Thankfully Laura and Carmilla still leave their door open and Danny runs in.
"What is it? Ghosts? Poltergeists?" shouts Danny. Laura is standing in the corner of the room besides the kitchenette; Laura turns to face her looking sheepish. Laura looks down at her feet. Danny follows Laura's gaze to the floor. Around Laura's bare feet is near perfect circle of glass shards.
"So did you know that Carmilla owns a dozen crystal goblets?" Laura asks. Danny glances down at the shards at Laura's feet and raises an eyebrow. Laura blushes and adds, "Ok, so she owned a dozen crystal goblets."
Danny lets out a long-suffering sigh and walks over to Laura. The crystal shards crunch underneath Danny's shoes as she steps over the crystal shard circle. Danny picks up Laura bridal style and lifts her over the shards caring her to Laura's bed.
Danny grabs the first aid kit from the bathroom and places it besides Laura. Next she walks over to the shards and starts vacuuming up the crystal, "So what happened?" Danny asks over sound of the vacuum.
Laura opens the first aid kit and starts cleaning the small cuts on her feet and proceeds to explains; "Well Carmilla got some of her things out of storage and last night she decided to be fancy and drink her blood out of one of her crystal goblets while reading poetry. Only she left the whole lot of them out after she was done. I knew she wouldn't put them away with out some motivation so I was going put them on her bed so she'd have to put them away properly, but I dropped them."
"How did you drop all twelve?" Danny asks.
Laura places bandaids over the small cuts, "Well Carmilla also had a crystal tray to carry them on, I dropped that with all twelve goblets on it when I stubbed my toe," answers Laura; she starts to pack away the away the first aid kit when she stops and lets out a groan "It was probably really old and expensive too," whines Laura.
Danny finishes vacuuming up all of the shards and drops the vacuum at her feet. Danny walks over and plops down on the bed beside Laura. Laura says "Thank you," Laura pecks her on the lips, "but uh, did you run all the way here? " She asks.
Danny scowls, "Yes, you said you were trapped. Which is a common predicament, for you; usually involving some crazed villain straight out of a b-grade horror film. So of course I ran,"
Laura scowls for a moment; she opens her mouth to say something but she shuts it. She shifts in her seat and rings her hands together nervously and bites her bottom lip, "Sorry, I guess I was a bit vague." She apologizes.
Danny shifts in her seat and slumps her shoulders, "I'm sorry too, I have to stop over reacting, I know you don't like me being too over protective," says Danny.
"It's ok," she says nudging Danny and offering Danny a smile, Danny smiles back. "Maybe we should take Laf's suggestion and include a rating system, in my SOS messages one being I'm out of cocoa, ten being hell mouth is opening in the school; Avengers Assemble," jokes Laura.
"Really, running out of cocoa is a level one emergency, with your addiction I thought it'd be a ten for sure," jokes Danny. Danny and Laura share a laugh, Laura leans against Danny's side and Danny wraps an arm around Laura's shoulder. Danny tilts her head down and captures Laura's lips between her own.
Laura pulls a part and rests her forehead against Danny's, "What made you think ghosts?" Laura asks Danny.
"You asked for a vacuum," Danny says shrugging. "I figured that meant it wasn't corporeal. And I know vacuums can trap ghosts, a couple students trapped one of the history teachers in one a year ago. He's been haunting them since," says Danny.
Laura laughs and starts humming the Ghost Busters theme song. Danny pokes out her tongue and then laughs.
Here's the prompt that inspired this story.
Imagine that Person A drops something and shatters glass all over the place while they're barefoot and so are stuck in centre of a field of glass shards. Enter Person B, wearing shoes, to carry Person A to safety, care for their feet, and clean up the mess.