Part XIV

Wednesday 22nd November

Danny took in a deep breath, the air smelling strange. He wasn't sure how long they had been kept in this room, strapped to these tables. His eyes no longer hurt when he opened them but why would he? He knew what he would see, the one light always shining down at them.

A part of him wanted to know who was holding them, the part of him that couldn't let go of hope. They hadn't heard from whoever it was since they were brought there, the unrecognizable voice replaying in his head still all these days later. The only evidence they had that the shadow-looking creature was still holding them was the fact that food would be lowered down by a mettle pole from beyond the light, if he could call the mush food. A few feedings ago the food had turned so liquidly now, there was no need for the pole to lower the metallic tasting water soaked into a sponge anymore.

The hopeful part of him tugged once again at the straps holding him down, hoping that throughout his time being held here he might have loosened one of them to no avail. They were ghost proof, weighing down more than he could lift. As far as he could see, even if he had been a peek performance when they had capture him, he still wouldn't have been able to break free.

A shiver ran through-out Danny's body, his ghost sense forcing its way out of him once again. It wasn't constant enough for him to believe the shadow was always in the room with them, but constant enough to know the shadow always visited them. His ghost sense gave him enough time to prepare as the acid rain fell on them. When it had started, it had stripped them of anything made of cotton. Danny was partially grateful his jeans were new, sure they now looked more like ripped jeans instead of what he liked, but his shirt had gone fairly early and sores had appeared on any bare skin exposed to the rain.

By now, Danny realized, his skin had cleared up and healed from the rain, but what was next? What more could they take physically or emotionally? He worried for his two friends as the rain ended, getting him to slowly open his eyes. He looked at the back of Sam's table, realizing sometime since he had last noticed their tables had been moved slightly so all he could see was of her hair and a bit of her shoulder. He couldn't see Tucker anymore. He wondered if it was that the tables had been inclined more than he had last payed attention to it.

Sam coughing pulled his attention out of his thoughts and back into the world they now lived.

"Sam?" Danny asked, his voice hoarse from lack of use.

"Alive," Sam managed to say.

"Tuck?"

"'ere," came a response that was barely recognizable as Tucker's voice.

"'ive up," Sam sighed.

"No," Danny ordered, forcing his voice to work properly. "We'll make it out of here."

"Danny we've-" Sam broke off in a coughing fit for a moment, stopping her from saying more until it passed. "We've been here for at least a month."

"I'm not going down without a fight," Danny demanded, bringing up enough strength to call up the rings to change him to his ghostly persona. Instead of a full change, he only managed to recreate his shirt like it had looked when his dad had shrunk him and Dash. He glanced up, seeing his shaggy bangs hanging white, as he warned, "I'm going to try it again."

"Quit it!" Tucker ordered. "My left ear is still numb from when you last tried your wail."

"I have to try something," Danny defended, trying to struggle against the bonds that held him.

"Give up, Danny," Tucker ordered, his voice low. "We have."

"No you haven't," Danny growled, anger giving him energy. "You're still alive, aren't you?"

"You call this living?" Sam asked, almost sounding like her old self. "We're all tied to tables in God knows where with some lunatic holding us here. We've been stripped of most our clothes and fed only one messily slop of a meal a day and you call this living!?"

"Let us GO!" Danny ordered, bringing up his ghostly wail on that last word to scream it up into the rafters above the one light. He had already determined to put all his energy in the scream, but was disappointed when it forced him to lose grasp of his ghostly self so quickly, dropping his head against his chest out of how heavy his head now felt.

"Thanks man," Tucker said sarcastically. "Now my left ear is totally numb again."

"I had to do something," Danny defended, trying to catch his breath as he closed his eyes tight to the tears that threatened to come.

"What?"

"I had to do something!" Danny repeated louder, throwing his head back to yell towards his friend.

"Great, you've gone and made me deaf!" Tucker moaned. "And what'd that accomplish, nothing. Absolutely nothing!"

"Shut up, both of you!" Sam ordered, yelling loud enough Tucker should hear.

"Sorry Sam," Danny admitted. "I just… I hate this."

"You and me both," Sam said, a sigh in her voice.

"Sam," Danny started, leaning his head against the table as he focused his eyes on her shoulder and black hair. He thought he could make out her blonde roots, reminding himself he had no idea how long they had been there. He admitted defeat and said, "You might be right."

"What was that?" Sam asked, turning her head to try and see Danny only for him to make out the tip of her nose.

"Oh no, not you too," Danny said, worried he had damaged her ears as well.

"No, I just wanted to hear you say I was right again," Sam admitted with the hint of a laugh in her voice.

"At least we know you're still yourself," Danny said with a smile. His smile fell as he worried there might not be enough time to admit what he should have admitted to years ago. Forcing his voice to work through a throat thick with emotion he said, "Sam, I love you."

A moment of silence passed, giving Danny enough time to wish he could take his words back from the air and her ears.

"I love you too," Sam said quietly.

A small smile pulled at Danny's face, wishing he had given into his feelings long before their final days.

"Decontamination complete," a metallic voice said with an ascent Danny couldn't place. The straps holding him down released with a loud clank of metal, the sound also coming from the other two tables to signify they all had been released at the same time.

Danny found himself sliding off his table, his bare feet touching the cold floor only for his legs to give out. He quickly turned and struggled to grab the strap that had been around his chest before he fell all the way to the floor, every inch of his body screaming out in pain.

"What!?" Tucker exclaimed as his friends found themselves freed.

"Decontamination complete, what type of crap is that?!" Sam exclaimed.

Danny used the straps on the table to pull himself upwards, leaning belly first on the table to try and take a look at his friends. He saw Sam crouched on the floor in only her underwear with a hand on the slanted table that had held her and another on her face, under her matted hair. He leaned farther to look at Tucker, seeing his clothes had had similar problems and left him in only his shorts. The African-American had his head leaning against the part of the table that had held his feet, his eyes closed as he breathed through his mouth.

Turning back around, Danny dropped his weight on his feet once again. He gripped tight to the straps that had held his hand, using them to hold himself upwards as he took in what was beyond the one light above them only to realize they were in a white room. Taking a deep breath and swallowing down what was still in his throat, he demanded, "Show yourself! Why did you do this to us?"

"One moment, please," the same strangely accented computer voice said from speakers above them. "Take your time adjusting to our gravity. A representative will be with you shortly."

"Representative?" Sam echoed, raising her head to look at Danny. "Danny, where are we?"

"I wish I knew," Danny admitted. He looked back at Tucker, hoping his hearing was recovering. "Hey Tuck, how's your ears?"

"I'm not talking to you," Tucker grumbled, keeping his eyes to his feet as he tried to find balance.

"Fare enough," Danny mumbled. He looked towards the walls around them, looking for any type of windows or any way to see who might have captured them. Blue lights lined the edge of the floor, shining up the walls that looked to all have a geometric pattern. The ceiling disappeared into darkness, making it look like it might have been painted dark.

"Replacement clothing has been provided," the computer said as decompressing air released.

Danny turned towards the sound, finding a box in the wall was sliding in towards their room. He tried again to stand on his feet without help from the table only to fall onto his hands and knees, his head spinning. Closing his eyes, he let the ground under him stop moving before trying again. He carefully opened an eye, wishing his body would recover faster, before opening the other. He crawled to the drawer made of more of the white metal around them and sat on his knees to look inside. He pulled out a light brown cloth that felt weird on his hands but between the jeans, which were showing wear and tear from the acid rain, and lack of any other clothes he'd welcome any fabric. He dropped the fabric back into the box and used the edge to help himself up to his feet. He got his legs straight, closing his eyes so he wouldn't fall over, and gripped tight to the box edge. He raised his head and looked up, placing a hand on the wall to use its help so he could take the remnants of his jeans off. He used one hand to try and undo his belt, surprised it still survived, only to realize he needed both. Carefully he took a step aside the box, leaning against the wall, and turned so that he faced the room. Making sure he didn't look at his friends, his face red at knowing they both were even in the room, he struggled with the belt with his noodle-like fingers.

He managed to drop his pants, letting them fall to the ground on their own, and pulled out the first piece of fabric to find it a long shirt. The next piece was of the same fabric, a pair of paints with a drawstring coming out the front. He managed to get the new clothes on, looking back in the box as he left the remains of his jeans and the belt on the floor. He pulled out a pair of shoes, still in the same color but looking more like the canvas slip-ons Jazz used to wear, only to notice what looked like earbuds that lacked any cord. Dropping the shoes, he used the wall to keep his balance as he slid them on his feet before giving the earbuds more of a look. He held them in his hands, the outside gray with three blinking lights while the part that was to go into his ear was rubber. Giving a glance at Tucker and Sam, noticing them both forcing themselves through their own new clothes, he looked back at the earbuds in his hands. Tentatively he put one up to his ear as the strange language from the Shadow that trapped them filled the free ear.
Through the earpiece he heard, "Please respond if you understand this."

Danny looked up, not sure where the voice came from. "Where are you?" Danny asked, shoving the earpiece into his ear.

"The uhsuhvahqwdwlyh will be here soon," the voice said in the earpiece while the other ear heard the native language. "These translators were developed to the best of our ability but they are faulty. We apologies."

"Well apologize for kidnapping us!" Danny ordered, looking up at the speakers.

"Danny?" Tucker asked, turning to look at his friend yelling towards the ceiling.

"Put these on," Danny said, holding out the one he still hadn't put in his ear. He put in the second one and looked back at the ceiling. "Well?"

"The representative will for all offences," the voice said. Danny tried to figure out if the voice was male or female only to find the way the device translated it made the voice sound neither but also was better than the computer voice and its accent of the English language. "He is on his way."

Danny rested against the wall a moment, fidgeting with one of the ear pieces to get it conferrable in his ear. It was better than the hard plastic ones he had at home but it still felt like it wasn't designed for a human ear. "Hey Sam," Danny started, looking over at her as she fixed the shoulders of her shirt. She stood similar to how he was, using the wall as support beside the box that held her clothes beside her table. She looked up at him, letting one of the shoulders fall off, exposing her bra strap, as she waited for him to continue. "Do you have any idea what language they're speaking?"

Sam gave a shrug, one hand in a fist as it held tight to her earbuds. "Why don't you ask him? I only know basic languages."

"He's not talking to me," Danny said, throwing a smirk at Tucker.

"You tried to blow my ears out," Tucker whined, keeping his head down into the box as he finished digging out his clothes.

"I said I was sorry," Danny tried, looking down at his clothes only to slide down against the wall and take his belt out of what remained of his jeans. Pushing himself back up he put the belt around him and tightened it up, hoping to make the tail of the shirt less of a dress on him. "Did you recognize the language?"

"No, I didn't," Tucker admitted.

Danny took a second look at his best friend, watching him pull out his shoes as Danny realized he wasn't used to seeing him without his barrett or his hair grown out. For as long as he could remember, the African-American had had it shaved close but now he had the start of an afro atop his head. "How long have we been here?" Danny asked more to himself.

"Long enough Sam's roots are showing," Tucker said, showing he heard the silent comment.

"Shut it, Afro-boy," Sam retorted.

Danny ran a hand through his own hair, finding it longer than he liked to keep it with the back of his neck even being covered. Last time he remembered having his hair this long was during the weird split of himself he had done, using his parents Ghost Catcher.

Once again the sound of air decompressing caught Danny's attention, getting him to look towards the wall on his left. He quickly realized this was the only wall a drawer didn't come out of and did his best to stand his ground even though his legs still felt unstable.