I do not own Drake and Josh.
Seek
Prologue
The world is dark and gray.
Water falls from the sky in soft wisps. Sometimes, a passing gust of wind rushes past and kicks them into torrents, carrying the droplets a short distance before leaving behind a fading cloud of chaos.
The air no longer holds that brittle, early-morning winter cold. The somber clouds and gentle rain traps what warmth remains between the ground and the universe. All sounds are muted, and all colors have lost their sharp vibrancy.
It's a world of shades.
Existence between the living and the dead.
He fought the urge to curse as he saw the numbers on the car stereo's digital clock. His brother wanted a ride home from school after yet another session of detention, and he was over thirty minutes late. If he was lucky, his brother would shoot him his blazing "you absolute moron" glare and not talk to him for an hour. If he was not, his brother would catch a cold in the downpour and he'd get a healthy dose of guilt plus a talking-to from his mother in addition to the already-promised glare.
What wonderful options.
The light turned green, and he pressed down the pedal as hard as he dared.
He's beginning to realize his awkward position. His body's trapped in some sort of enclosed space, hard and uncomfortable against his bare skin. Limbs and torso are twisted in unnatural ways, and he thinks vaguely that it really should hurt more.
But right now, it's hard bringing himself to care. There's a feeling of numbness, of detachment, as if it wasn't really his body and his consciousness was just a hitchhiker. The only thing he truly knows is the sight of those clouds that look cotton-soft, features dulled by the pervading sense of grayness. He thinks they look so sorrowful, and he wonders why they're crying, what they're mourning for.
He doesn't want to move just yet. The sense of tranquility is so strong that he feels he could sleep forever.
So he watches through half-lidded eyes as the clouds pour their tears out, faintly aware of the warm drops of rain splattering on and all around him.
There's only the tiniest drop of regret for making his mother jump with the loud slamming of the door, and it's all but drowned out by the feeling of anger.
He would kill his brother for making him worry and fret with guilt. He'd busted his way to the school, only to find their appointed meeting place empty, not a sign of life anywhere. No doubt the boy had gotten a ride home and conveniently forgotten to call him.
At his mother's inquiry, he snapped that nothing was wrong. A quick question later and he found out that his brother hadn't returned. No doubt he'd been picked up by some girl and was out enjoying his Friday night.
Still fuming at having been made to worry over absolutely nothing, he stormed up to their room to vent his anger on some shells and flying turtles.
When the pain comes, it is as dull as the clouds up above. Gradually, it turns into a throb, then a deep ache, and he decides that perhaps it's time he leaves his sanctuary. For the first time, the question of where he is and why he's there surfaces, and he realizes he hasn't the slightest idea.
Getting out proves to be a bit of a problem, especially since he can't figure out what exactly he is trapped in. It takes a good deal of maneuvering and careful unknotting of his limbs, and it's harder than it should be because he still hasn't quite regained sensation of his whole body. The thing he's in is rackety and unstable, and he needs to remember not to knock it over as he sorts himself out.
At long last, he is able to stand up straight, and vertigo overtakes him. His vision is blurred for a few moments, and he hunches over until the wave of dizziness passes.
When he's finally able to look around, the sense of peace he's been feeling since he'd woken up is suddenly interrupted by a foreign sting of fear.
He's in an unfamiliar alleyway, dim and shadowed.
But in an instant after he realizes that, it becomes the least of his problems.
Looking down, he sees the thing he had been lying within, half crumpled and folded upon himself.
It's a metal trashcan that had long ago been shiny and silver, but is now rusty and faded.
When he woke up, it was past midnight. The television was still on; he had fallen asleep in front of it. The words "game over" were blinking mockingly on the screen, and there was an ache in his back from staying bent over too long over the table.
He heard someone calling his name, and he looked around to see his father and mother beside him, wearing nearly identical faces of apprehension. A feeling of anxiety clawed at his gut as he asked what the matter was.
They posed several questions, and with each negative answer he gave, all three of them started to shake inside.
Has his brother called? Has his brother come home, crawling in through the window? Has his brother mentioned staying overnight at anyone's house or a party anywhere.
No. No. No.
His brother wouldn't do this, right? He's always called before, right?
No. Yes.
Oh God.
The sound of his pounding heart was muted by the falling rain like everything else. He wants to know where he is. He's crying to know what happened last. Because he can't remember – can't remember anything.
The trashcan's filled with more than an inch of water, and he would have given anything to be able to leave it and walk somewhere – anywhere.
But he can't
He's completely naked, and there's no one or place for him to go to.
The officer with the strong cologne asked him to remain calm.
He wanted nothing more than to smack him and tell him to try remaining calm when his brother was missing, and had been for hours because of a mistake he'd made.
When had he seen him last? Yesterday at school. December fourteenth, Friday afternoon.
What time had he wanted to be picked up? Three thirty.
When had he gotten there? Nearly four fifteen.
Why hadn't he called his brother's cell phone?
The tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn't know.
There's more trash nearby, stored in cheap black plastic bags. After several minutes of standing and blankly staring at nothing, he finally gets out of his trashcan and walks over. His movements are jerky and forced, like they're frozen.
Luck of all luck, there's an old, extra-large t-shirt that pools to his knees like a dress. He also finds a half-eaten ham sandwich which he decides half-regretfully to toss aside after careful consideration. It was wrapped in a piece of newspaper blaring headlines he can only read half of, due to the way it was folded and torn. "Fire in dow-" one reads, and "Laboratory discov-" reads another, and a third: "Robbery i-."
He tosses it aside after a moment, deciding he may as well go somewhere since there was no point in staying here.
He rises to his feet shakily, and his muscles are now screaming in protest against too much movement. He looks first to his left, then his right. Both directions seem like it will yield the same result, so he does "eeny-meeny-miny-mo" quickly in his mind before starting towards the left path. His bare feet slap into puddles along the way, kicking up sprays of mist and water.
A playful wind knocks the newspaper he had dropped earlier into a few twirls in the air.
The date reads December 24.
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