— Day 1—
Danny woke up slowly, as he usually did when he had been left on his own to heal after a session. But as consciousness washed over him in greater waves, he noticed that there was a desperate churning in his stomach. This caused him to put his senses on high alert, since his gut had never lied to him before. He guessed that this feeling meant that he was due for another session, since it felt like he was basically healed, and they did not let him rest if they could help it.
With that pleasant thought, a low whir filled the room, and Danny was greeted by the grim faces of his captors as they advanced on his limp figure. He put up little resistance at this point, having spent upwards of a year already in their care. From his "room" the men in white dragged him down a hall, and into another room. There they dropped him with no explanation, and walked out, closing the door, and letting the room become pitch black.
Danny, wanting to find out why in the world they just dropped him in a room, and hoping it was just a different cell; proceeded to feel around himself. He noticed immediately the rough, textured surface of the floor; nearly scraping himself on it as he felt around. His closest guess as to what it most closely resembled would be that of heavy duty sand paper, or a rough lake bottom. Quickly checking above himself for a ceiling, and noticing none, he stood up, and began the slow, ponderous journey to the other side of the room. Along the way, his feet scraped along the floor, a necessary evil to see if there were any pitfalls, or inclines he should be aware of. Finding nothing other than the wall and scraped, hurting feet; he began feeling along the walls, trying to find out the dimensions.
But before he had even gotten 3 ft, the floor lurched underneath him, and slowly began moving away from the wall he had previously been touching. He yelped as he fell to his knees, a few more scrapes added to the ones on his feet and knees. Wondering what was happening, he waited till he got the other wall, and noticing the pace was neither slowing, nor accelerating, he got to his feet and began walking forwards and a little to the side, wanting to find on the of the side walls to help him get his bearings straight as he could. Especially since he did not know how long he would be in here…
It took him what felt like forever, but he finally found a side wall to place a hand on to help him walk straight, and conserve energy. It also gave him a sense of direction. Finally in a semi comfortable, he wondered what he would do now that he had a pace set, and no where to go for the foreseeable future. Deciding to help his sanity some, he tried playing games, such as, "Guess which indiscernible blob I'm thinking of," or "What's the coolest rhythm I can tap out on this metal wall". But after many hours, he started wondering why they had not let him out yet. Fearing the answer, he immediately dropped that line of thought, and began the futile process of thinking up more escape plans.
—- Day 2 —
Many hours had passed, and Danny was so, so tired. Yeah, he was able to do fights in the middle of the night, and yes, he was used to getting no sleep for weeks on end; but the empty darkness and monotonous tread for HOURS on end was exhausting to him, and he was about ready to collapse. But he knew he could not as that was weakness, and he could not show them any more weakness. They already won so many battles, that he wanted one little victory in this sea of failures…
And on he went, trying to play some more games with himself. It worked, at least for a little while. But over time, his eyes drooped, and his stomach growled, and his legs ached and he just needed ONE moment of shuteye before dealing with more walking. And before he knew it, he had drifted off, collapsing to the rough sandpaper.
—- Day 3 —
A burning pain in his side, and arms woke him with a start, and he screeched as he tried moving. But he still felt the rasping dragging sensation of sand ripping him into pieces as he had laid there. Finally realizing what was happening, he dragged himself to his feet, and began the arduous task of walking again. Each step, which previously had merely been burdened with sleep, was now excruciating; liquid leaking from his side and arms and leg as he walked, making the journey even more hazardous. He tried checking his energy reserves, knowing he needed to heal himself if he wanted to last as long as possible; and finding a little bit of energy left, he let it flow outwards, knitting together loose folds of skin, and healing over the agitated swathes of lost skin, making new skin to heal over the oozing sores on his arms and legs especially. Danny was sure that he would never be able to look in a mirror like this, since he was sure the sight would be horrific.
With this pleasant thought, he resolved himself to stay up for as long as possible, and to only heal his scrapes and injuries to the point that they were merely scabbed over. This served two purposes; to help him regulate his limited supply of energy, and to help alert him earlier to the fact that he had lost consciousness again. He knew that scabs hurt fifty times worse than just regular skin getting ripped off, so keeping his healing scabs as indicators seemed like a good idea. So he made sure to keep a careful thought to how his injuries were doing, and stopped his speed healing as the tears and gashes hit the scabbing over phase.
This, however did nothing for the pain of having to walk on some of those scabs, or the continuing exhaustion of having to keep slowly walking in such a straight line with nothing to see, and the thirst of not having anything to drink for days, or the hunger that was clawing at his stomach, eating it from the inside out. And partially healing himself only reminded him that he did not know much of anything about his situation, such as how long it would last, or would he even make it out alive? Or how long would he himself be able to hold out? Or even why he continued to go on, knowing that escape was hopeless in this room, and that the sooner he gave up, the sooner that this exercise would be over.
But stopping was not an option, since his pride, what little remained, told him that he needed to surpass this obstacle; to show the demons watching that he was able to keep his will, even after all these many months. And sure, he was thirsty, but was just all the more reason to keep going, since maybe they would give him water if he was able to finish this course in the time limit set out for him (lies, they were just torturing him to see how long he would last and he knew it) and similar with the hunger. And bleeding out wasn't a problem as long as he conserved his energy and stayed awake and continued walking...
Right? (Wrong, sososososo wrong and you KNOW it, we're here till we die lose hope stop struggling empty ourselves of life and light and just keel over for them to walk all over and why do you still fight?)
- Day 4 -
step
step
step
step
s-ste-p
stumble
step
step
step
stumble
tumble
fall
scrape blood heal breath
step
step
breathe
stumble
step
just keep going just keep going justkeepgoingjustkeepgoing
step
- day 6 -
pain
up
GET UP
breathe
heal blood, ohgodwhyistheresomuch?!
breathe
step wince
step
step wince
step
wince
step
wince
stop healing you dolt, stop wasting energy, it's fine now, slick is gone keep going
breathe
why is it so dark?
why am I walking? (you stop then you hurthurthurt and it won't stopstopSTOP STOP)
—- Day 7 —
**There's rough pavement beneath his feet as he walks a lonely stretch of highway. Looking around, he nothing but endless desert and hazy images of water from the heat on the concrete, which blisters his feet as he walks. There's pain everywhere, but he does not quite know what to do about it beyond keep walking. On the horizon, a faded image of the sun and moon pass him by, whispers of freedom over the horizon call as he neither picks up speed, nor slows down. He knows the voices lie, and the sun and moon are inaccurate; as the bright colors of the desert flash vibrant reds and browns into his retinas against their black surroundings.**
And like that, his surroundings fade, and he is confronted with the steady throbbing of his arm and face and side and legs and they actually don't hurt that much anymore…. His disjointed thoughts relay a steady stream of semi-useful information as he tries to comprehend why there's a tugging sensation underneath the prevailing throbbing of his frayed nerves. He tries to move, to get away from the tugging and throbbing, and only makes it worse as he comes to the sickening realization that the floor is still moving and he's lying on it. So, with herculean effort, Danny heaved his abused body off the ground and began the arduous task of yet again trying to walk. For luck, he was right next to the side wall, and used it to pull himself upwards; his aching legs just barely able to move as they brushed the back wall. he then went about his walking, concentrating on getting that going, and ignoring the shrieks of the rest of his body demanding his attention.
After a few falls and trips, and possibly spraining his ankle when he stepped wrong, he finally felt confident enough to try and heal the damage of this latest slip of consciousness. Mentally assessing what hurt the worst, he deduced that he had lost quite a bit of skin, and possibly some muscle on his upper thighs and even some bone grinding on his elbows. Taking this in stride, he centered his healing on getting the worst parts of his bleeding under control, and then making sure that he stopped bleeding.
Once done, he hoped to whatever deity was out there that the GIW would take mercy on him and remove him from this hell soon…
—- Day 10 —
step
step
gasp
stumble
fall
scrrrraaaaaaape
get up
breathe
step
step
step
breathe
stumble
fall
scraaaaaaape
get up
breathe
ohpleaseohpleaseohgodohplease
helphelphelphelpmehelp
fall
scrrrraaaaaaaape
struggle
up
breathe
"Hhhhhhh"
fall
scraaaaaapppe
up
get up
GET UP YOU USELESS TRASH
step
step
"hhhhhhhh-llllllllllllllll ppshhhhhhh"
fall
scrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
g-ge-
get UP
step
step
falter
step
step
fall
scrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
— Day 13 —
A boy awoke to the vague sensation of something different. Now, he could not tell what it was, but there seemed to be something different. Like, there was not a tugging anymore, and he thought there was something sort of, dare he say it, smooth rubbing against his burning sides and face and everything. Sure, there was the crackling of dried blood everywhere, but he could feel the distant sensation underneath that of smooth metal.
Wanting to see where he could possibly be, he attempted to open his eyes. He could only seem to open one, but looking around, what he saw astounded him. Around him was white, and even though it gave him a mysterious feeling of terror, he could still appreciate that it was not the black of his previous enclosure. Trying to remember what he could have been doing before all that time in the black, he was greeted with nothing but small glimpses of pain and sentimental longing; as well as a name, Phantom. Pulling the name to the surface, he thought that it must be his name. And pulling further, he managed to find that it was attached to a Danny.
And so the newly dubbed Danny Phantom thought and pondered, till at last he opened Pandora's Box and out came his memory. It was a rush of images and understanding, and he was both sosososo happy to outoutout, but also sad, that he was still captured. Then he smiled, though it hurt, and thanked his lucky stars that he was done with that particular torture chamber for the time being. Sure, he was hurt, both body and mind (ohgodwe'restillhereandthere'snoescapeandwe'regoingtodoitagainohwhyohwhypleasedon'tmakemedoitagain) but it was ok. He was still alive to fight another day, and that was all that mattered.