Saving Sam: Chapter 6
A/N: Whoo! I got a new chapter up. Much thanks to my reviewers: Wiggle Lizard, autumngold, Sakura Scout, and Mrs. Granger-Weasley. Oh, and I have nooz fo' yoos! As of Ch. 7, I am Sakura Scout's beta reader. She's got mad skillz. Check out her 'Untitled Danny Phantom Fanfic' for a good read. On with the show!
Danny raced across the city, searching the streets below. He watched the street lights glow beneath him as he passed overhead. The buildings stood over the streets and alleys as stern, indifferent sentinels of glass and steel, watching with darkened eyes.
Danny glanced up from the city and away toward the docks. He had to find Sam, and he was going to find her tonight. He wasn't going to choose between Sam and Jazz. He would keep both safe. But where to look? Danny remembered Sam's comment about the smell, or lack thereof, and darted down among the clustered buildings. He looked in several lit windows, but their occupants were typically lonely-looking men, a drink in hand and a sitcom on television. Most of the time, the room was empty. Besides, what was he doing looking in lit windows? She'd said it was dark, a basement.
He continued down into the streets. A few bums huddled in the recesses of doorways and loading garages, but there was nothing he could see that was of any use to him. Danny dived beneath the pavement and flew through the ground, ignoring the grungy filth and examining every underground floor he came across. He could feel fatigue creeping through his limbs, and he was vaguely aware of a gnawing in his stomach, but he paid no attention to either. He settled into a fixed pattern: fly through the dirt, look in basement, fly on to the next basement.
When he finally surfaced, the dark sky overhead had lightened to navy blue. Danny pulled himself out of the sidewalk and zapped back to his normal form, resting his back against a mail drop. He was tired beyond belief, and he hadn't found Sam. Danny took another look at the sky. Skyscrapers bound him on the ground, but the sky above them empty and free. With a strong twinge of shock and curiosity, Danny realized that he'd never seen a city sunrise. Danny drifted up into the sky, halting just above the tallest buildings. He looked to the east.
The Sun had just begun to make its presence felt in the eastern sky, a faint halo of orange. The city was beginning to rouse itself, a sleeping beast awakening to nourish and entertain. Danny watched it, feeling very much apart from it all. His friend Sam was down there, somewhere. More than a friend, actually, but she still remained lost.
The city, mindless of Danny's contemplations, continued to awaken. It blinked, and windows brightened with light. It sighed, cars instead of air emerging from underground garages and spilling into the streets. The sky reddened brilliantly in the east, fading off across the sky into orange, neon red, and finally into violet and indigo. The city sat up and stretched as people began passing more thickly on the sidewalk. They left their apartments and returned with mail, coffee, and plastic grocery bags. Danny smiled, seeing that one or two were wandering and weaving down below on the sidewalks. There were his parents' party animals.
The traffic thickened as the east grew brighter. A small spark of the Sun peaked over the cityscape. Clouds nearby burned a brilliant tangerine orange, and the western sky brightened cerulean. The city remained dark compared to the glowing fireworks in the sky. Cars and passers-by traveled in the shadow of the concrete mammoths towering above them, blinded to the nascent day's fireworks. Danny wished that Sam was with him to see it.
Danny took one last look at it before turning to fly home. He still had to scratch together a plan to rescue Sam. His parents would be waiting and he would have to be at school in an hour or so. He frowned and looked away into the horizon. If only he could find the words to say what he meant, to paint a glowing picture of city sunrises, night skies, and happy memories that would show Sam, beyond a doubt, that vivid life was so much greater than a false death.
A/N: Yes, she of the short chapters continues to sit on her rumpus. I have college apps, summer work, and all kinds of crazy crud to catch up on, so cut my lazy self slack. Oh, and drop a review. Reviews are important to keep lazy Rabbyts writing.
