A/N: Two chapters today. If you clicked the little arrow button, you've missed one.
LOST
Chapter 29: Time
I lost track of time pretty quickly. I slept, was rudely awakened by Walker's goons, dragged out of the cell to another room, larger, high ceiling, dirty gray walls, completely empty. The walls were wet, water was dripping on the floor, forming little pools. There was a stale smell to the room, as if the air in it had been in there for hundreds of years. Which, come to think of it, was probably true, since ghosts don't need to breathe. In the ghost zone, air stays where it is.
I tried to create a portal, again and again, but I never even came close. I had read Sam's description on what I had done to achieve it, but it didn't make much sense to me. Focus power on a single spot, like letting go of an ecto blast without it going any further than an inch or so from my index finger. The only thing I managed was creating scorch marks on the walls. There was no way for me to control that kind of power.
Walker didn't like it. At first, he seemed patient, as if he wanted to give me the chance to get into it again. But when I repeatedly failed miserably, he started screaming at me, advancing on me and growing bigger and bigger as he got closer. This, I realized as I was backing away from him, was probably the very reason we came here instead of trying to create a portal in my cell. Walker grew bigger when he was angry, and the high ceiling here allowed him to get really intimidating.
Of course it ended with me being knocked senseless again. I woke up in my cell, disoriented and aching all over, and it took me a while to realize that Tucker was talking to me, calling my name more and more frantically.
"Shut up Tucker," I muttered as I crawled into a corner and curled into a ball again. He wouldn't leave me alone, however, and I ended up talking to him for a bit before falling into a restless sleep, only to be woken again and the whole thing started all over again.
"Why, Tucker?" I asked later, much later, leaning against the bars that separated our cells, my back touching his as he was also leaning.
We weren't reading at that moment. I had refused to light an ecto ball because I felt totally and utterly spent, and the beginning of a fierce headache starting at the base of my skull. I still hadn't managed to create something that even closely resembled a portal.
"Why what?"
He sounded distracted. I could hear him eat some of the dry toast they had brought him while I was 'sleeping'. He had offered it to me too, but I had refused. I wasn't hungry. Thinking about food alone made me slightly nauseous. At some point I'd have to eat though.
"Why did Aragon take Sam?"
He stopped eating, and the silence that followed only emphasized the noise he had been making chewing his toast.
"Because he could, maybe. He's weird. He wanted to have her before, organized a beauty contest to find him a human bride, and she won."
"Sam? Winning a beauty contest?"
"What, you don't think she's pretty?"
"Well, yeah, but..."
Tucker started laughing. He was shaking against my back, laughing so hard he almost choked on the breadcrumbs still in his mouth.
"Finally!" he gasped, coughing, "It only takes being knocked around for a few months until you lose your memory to get you to admit it. You like her!"
I listened to his laughter, slowly dying down. He turned around and poked my back. I refused to look around, instead staring at the wall opposite of me.
"What do you mean by that?" I finally asked him.
"You're still clueless," he said, "You two have liked each other since forever, but you were both denying it. You were always yelling at everybody that you two weren't love birds that it got a bit old in the end."
"I only said I thought she was pretty."
"Dude, believe me, coming from you, that's practically a marriage vow."
I suppressed my annoyance at Tucker's amusement. "Beauty contest," I reminded him through gritted teeth.
Tucker hiccuped. "Right," he said, "Beauty contest. And she won, actually you let her win because you were the jury, but that's beside the point. Aragon kidnapped her, and we had to rescue her in the ghost zone. Only we didn't have to rescue her at all, of course, Sam can take care of herself. Guess Aragon wanted her back after all."
A thought hit me. "Does she still have the collar on?"
Tucker was silent. I could feel the laughter leave him.
"Yeah," he said.
"So now he can control her."
My voice was impassive. I didn't want to think about the implications. Sam was strong. She'd survive. I'd rescue her. Aragon was so dead. I started thinking about what I'd do to Aragon, and actually managed to spend a fairly enjoyable hour or so, until I lost track of my thoughts and just sat there. Tucker was talking again, a story about Paulina and my pants falling down, obviously designed to cheer me up. I just listened to his voice.
Time moved. Every now and then I had the crazy feeling I could feel it move, shift, flow. My eyes glazed over as I tried to follow it, to no avail. It wasn't something I could grasp. I had to ride the tide. Walker came for me again, I couldn't create a portal again, got punished for it again and finally got to be unconscious for a while again. Just a day in the life. I no longer cared.
My mind drifted. I was there, yet I wasn't there at all. I moved, talked when spoken to, answered questions, tried to follow Walker's orders to the best of my abilities, but that was only part of me. The rest of me retreated into the black abyss of my mind, the gap between me and my past, the memories that were lost forever. I was nothing. I didn't exist. It was all just pretend. Day became night became day again, but I didn't know. Time was only a vague concept. I honestly couldn't say how much time had passed, hours, days, a week.
It turned out to be two days.
Day I don't know anymore.
Nothing makes sense anymore. I don't know why I'm still trying to write something down. Tucker is sick. Danny is sleeping. Or dead. Can't really tell. I'm bored. There are fifty three cracks in the back wall. Forty bars separating our cell from Danny's. Eight in the door. Three cells on this side of the room, three on the other. We're the only ones here. I don't know where here is. Walker's prison, obviously, because we haven't left the place, but Danny says it's no part he's ever been to.
Day 20?
Tucker is feeling better, but now I'm sick. Sick. I hate being sick. Sick sick sick.
Day 25
They couldn't wake Danny today. They left. He's just laying there. We can't wake him either.
Day 26
No change.
Day 27
He woke up! Just now, about an hour ago! Walker hasn't found out yet, we're hoping he'll leave Danny alone for a bit. The portal thing is killing him.
He's not talking.
Day 28
They took him away again last night. He hasn't been back. It occurred to me that I'm not as worried as I was before, and that worries me. Tucker says he's worried about me worrying about not worrying enough. Weird huh.
Day 28, continued.
Danny just walked in. Walked. He looked like death warmed over, and that is being in ghost form. There is something wrong with him, really wrong. I tried talking to him to snap him out of it, but he just stared right through me with those eerie green eyes. I never thought of his eyes as eerie before. He's still staring at me. It gives me the creeps.
At least they didn't beat him up this time.
Maybe I should continue my story. I don't feel like it. I don't want to think about it anymore. Tucker keeps nagging me though.
Day 31
We play mind games all the time. Question. There's four people for crossing an unstable, dark bridge. It's so dark you need a flashlight. Only two people can cross at the same time. One person takes one minute, the second two minutes, the third five minutes and the fourth ten minutes. They've got seventeen minutes until the bridge collapses. How do they do it? Remember, they need the flashlight to cross the bridge.
Figure it out. Took me the better part of the day.
Day 32
Danny actually participated in a game of checkers. We drew a crude board on the floor and tore up a page of my notebook to make the stones. He lost. Badly.
Day 32, continued
OK, alright, shut up Tucker, I'll do it. Tomorrow.
