The sound of water flowing gently nearby stirred Danny to consciousness, though he did not open his eyes. Along with the water, other sounds of nature filled his ears, from a bird chirping to a soft breeze rustling around the leaves above him. He could feel soft, patchy sunlight filtering through and landing on his face, helping him to fully get his wind back. After a few minutes he opened his eyes and sat up.
He was in the middle of a forest. The ground was soft and damp (but not muddy) and the temperature was mild. A small stream a few feet away from him provided the source of running water. The trees were tall, lush, green, and in good shape, ranging from deciduous trees to ferns to evergreens. The forest looked very old, with moss along the trunks of many of the trees and the foliage being so thick.
"What the heck…?" Danny muttered as he looked around. If this was that ghost's idea of sending his foe into a dimension where they'd be forever doomed, then he had a very unusual idea on what was horrible to go through. This place would have been a utopia for Sam.
Thinking about his friends and the ghost brought him back to his senses. He had to get back to Amity Park! He readied himself for take-off, but as his sense caught up to him again, he realised he had no idea where he was or which way was to the park.
"OK…" he said to himself, "This may be a problem," he dropped his take-off stance and looked around.
"Alright," he sighed, "I don't know where I am, a ghost is at my school, but at least I can think. I'll just follow the forest for a while and eventually I'll find something," his lower half becoming a ghostly tail, Danny floated up, stopping just above the treetops, and headed straight forward.
The forest seemed to go on forever in all directions, with no clearings and no signs of thinning out into open land. The stream seemed to be the same way, and from the sounds Danny heard in some places, it was filled with frogs. The sun seemed stuck up in the middle of the sky, neither rising nor setting, so he had no way of knowing which way was east and which way was west, which meant he couldn't find north. Then again, he didn't know which direction Amity Park was anyway.
He kept flying for several minutes. The sun still didn't move and the forest didn't let up. By now he was getting pretty tired of his lack of progress. He was about to try flying in another direction when a noise passed by his ear. It was the sound of some strange punk music. It wasn't anything like the type of music that was considered "in," but it sounded very close to several CDs Sam had. Looking around, Danny saw it was coming from a clearing in the forest.
"Huh," Danny shrugged, "Must've missed that before," he flew over and touched down.
In front of him was a gigantic castle, made in the Gothic style of architecture from the 13th Century. Though nowhere near as tall as any of the trees, the building towered well above him, the doors alone being ten feet high. The tympanum surrounding the door depicted some religious scene (which one Danny had no idea). Above the tympanum, an elaborate frame laid over it, was a rose window. Eroded gargoyles and monstrous statues adorned the sides and tops of the castle towers. Again Danny was reminded of Sam and her interests.
The music was coming from inside, so Danny assumed someone was home. He reached for the doorknocker and hit it against the door three times. On the third time, the door creaked open on its own. A strange hissing sound seemed to echo around over the music.
Danny hesitated for a moment. Something felt seriously amiss here. But this was the only sign of civilisation he'd seen, so this was his best chance to find his way back to Amity Park. With a quick gulp, he headed inside.
The interior of the castle vaguely reminded him of Vlad's home in Wisconsin, but the colours were very different. Purple, black, and green were the palette for this abode, with rich curtains and velvet rugs covering every window and piece of floor in the building. The lighting came from chandeliers and fixtures mounted like torches. The lights were dim and tinted blue, casting a soft glow on everything. The ceiling was higher and done in a more medieval style than Vlad's caste, and the hallways and corridors were longer and narrower, branching off into doorways and smaller corridors. The music seemed to come from no one room in particular, instead echoing throughout the building.
"Uh…hello?" Danny called, "Um, sorry to barge in, but I'm kinda lost, and…" there was no answer, "Do – do you know how to get to Amity Park, by any chance?" still no answer, "OK…um, do you know where the nearest town is, by any chance?" there was no reply, "Are you not here, by any chance?" Danny added in a sarcastic tone. When there was still no answer, any hope of someone actually being home vanished. Danny sighed, his eyes darting around. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere, everything was in excellent condition – there was no sign that the house was deserted. And the house was so big that if someone came back, they wouldn't necessarily have to know anyone had been inside while they were gone. Plus, he had ghost powers. Still…
"Well…" Danny looked around a bit more, then shrugged, "I'm sure they won't mind," closing the door behind him, he headed down the hall.
The chandeliers and torchlights continued down through the halls. The walls were covered with odd posters and paintings. Danny hadn't taken an art class since grade school, but he remembered enough so he knew that all the paintings were done in the style of Expressionism, Surrealism, or Romanticism; it alternated between the three. None of the paintings were bright, and none of them were necessarily what one would call "happy," but only a few were outright depressing or scary, and many were beautiful in a weird, quirky kind of way that reminded Danny even more of Sam's interests.
A door at his right was cracked open. Not really thinking about where he was going inside the house, he headed inside. The room was made of red brick, with pantries and cabinets abound, a refrigerator by the door on the other side of the room, and a table in the middle set with plates and silverware. It had to be the kitchen.
"Whoa," Danny felt his stomach rumble, "Guess I never actually ate that sandwich. I'm sure they've got some food to spare," he opened up one pantry, but the only thing in it was lettuce. He opened up another; carrots. Yet another; potatoes. Danny quickly began to reconsider his appetite.
"I'm not that hungry," he shut the pantries quickly. Not expecting to find anything, he opened the fridge. It was filled with fruit.
"Well, at least it's better than leafs," Danny took a handful of blackberries and headed out the other door by the fridge, finishing off his handful in one bite.
In this next room, the music echoing throughout the house changed. The main title for Edward Scissorhands took over. The room he was in now reminded him a lot of Sam's room; the same type of bed was here, the same posters, the same candles…everything. The only thing missing was her window.
"OK…" Danny said, a stunned look on his face, "This is getting too weird," this house, this forest…wherever the bloody hell he was, it seemed like that ghost had thrown him right into Sam's dream world or something. Still in shock, Danny quickly backed out through the kitchen and into the hallway, continuing down until he reached another corridor.
In this corridor, the music changed yet again. Another theme from Edward Scissorhands; the sweet, tender, non-creepy music that played during the romantic moments of the movie; began to echo through the building. A door ended this corridor; a DO NOT ENTER plaque was mounted on it and the door was locked.
"Wonder what's in here?" Danny couldn't help but smile mischievously. If this part of the house was as close to Sam's personality as everything else, he and Tucker could have some good mocking material. He prepared to go intangible. But, just then, a high, horrible screech, like the cry of a bat, overtook the house. A huge sweep of green and black plunged down through the ceiling, went over everything around Danny, and fell through the floor, taking the bat-screech with it. Danny stayed where he was for a moment, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. He shrugged it off and turned his attention back to the door, grinning again.
Suddenly, the ground started shaking. It was a slight tremble at first, but then began to erupt into a full earthquake. Chandeliers and lights began falling from the ceilings and crashing to the floor. Paintings shook off the walls. Tables and pots were tripping over themselves. Danny stumbled back, leaning on a beam to support himself and keeping away from any falling objects.
"If this is really one of Sam's secrets, and this is what she uses to guard it in her mind," Danny commented, "I don't think I'll bring this up any time soon!" the walls and the ceiling of the castle now began to crumble. The light from outside began to pour in as the roof fell to pieces, debris piling up inside and outside the castle. The locked door remained in place the entire time, thought stone around it collapsed like everything else. The beam Danny was supporting himself with crumbled away, and he found himself landing face-first into the ground. Finally, the ground stopped shaking. Everything settled down. Danny pulled himself back onto his feet. The only thing left of the castle was the mess of crumbled stone and the one door.
Just as Danny was starting to relax, he felt himself fall back as if he were standing on a carpet that had been yanked out from under him. A huge skyscraper had just shot out of the ground before him, smashing the door into pieces. The building was done in a very modern style of architecture; sleek, glass, and little in the way of design. Another tower shot out nearby. This one was smaller, but still in the same style. Another one popped up to the first one's left, this one the tallest of them all. Then came another. And another. Danny felt the ground directly underneath him shake, then shot upward, his back feeling like it had been rammed with a solid wall of steel. He was now on top of a skyscraper. He quickly jumped off and began to fly back down, but as he was looking back at the building he had ridden up on, he did not notice the one coming up below him. The edge of the building caught him in the jaw, knocking him to the side, where he collided with yet another building coming up. He began to plunge downward towards the ground between the two buildings, and he just barely managed to catch himself and go intangible before another one came flying up at him. He quickly flew out and headed straight forward, staying intangible as a city continued to shoot out of the ground.
All of the buildings were of the same kind; faceless, unimaginative, modern architecture. The kind that Sam hated. The streets and sidewalks seemed to roll out from nowhere as the city emerged, lightpoles and street signs growing out from them as they fell into place. The forest around the city was burning, the flames quickly dying away and leaving the trees disintegrated. Danny was now pretty sure that, whatever that bat-thing was, it wasn't the guard for that door.
The city continued to emerge, and Danny could begin to make out the interiors of these skyscrapers through the glass. All were either the standard cubicles of corporate America or apartments that were the perfect reproduction of everything Sam considered to be shallow. Pop music could be heard echoing out through open windows (and even some closed ones) and down below in the streets. As the last of the forest around him burned away and the city finally stood in its place, one song in particular caught his ear; Ember's. A whirl of hot blue and black caught his eye. To his right, a glowing blue flame with brief sparks of black began taking on definite shape.
The flame's final form caught Danny by surprise. It was not Ember; there was too much about her that was like Paulina. And it was not Paulina; there was too much about her that was like Ember. And there was something about her that was not like either of them; if he looked hard enough, Danny could have sworn that the figure looked like a seriously out-of-her-mind Sam. She was dressed in Ember's type of clothes, but the way they were made was like Paulina's outfit. Her flaming blue hair was styled like Paulina's when Ember was controlling Casper High. She had a guitar; it wasn't quite identical to Ember's, but it was damn near close.
She locked eyes with Danny and the stayed suspended in the air for a moment, shooting death glares at each other. Danny now had absolutely no idea what was going on, and his ghost-sense hadn't gone off when this girl appeared, but he could tell she wasn't friendly. The girl gave him a nasty grin, turning something on her guitar's settings. Then, slamming her fingers down along the strings, a wave of red spectral energy flew out from the instrument and rammed into Danny. His body soared back towards a building, crashing through the glass of the window and falling into an apartment that looked a lot like what he would imagine Paulina's room to be like. The girl came flying in after him, her guitar raised like a sword. Danny quickly conjured up a spectral dome to block the attack. Both pulled back, the girl glaring and Danny readying himself to attack.
"I don't know who you are, and I don't know where we are, but I know that you've really caught me on a bad day!" a spectral blast flew out of Danny's hands, knocking the girl back outside and up against a nearby building. She managed to get her wind back as Danny flew out toward her, a hard punch ready. She flew out of the way, his fist smashing into the support between the windows and leaving shatters in the glass on both.
The girl floated up across from him and let loose another blast from her guitar, which Danny quickly dodged. But the outer edge of the blast managed to singe his elbow.
"Augh!" he gripped his arm. For a singe, that sure stung a lot! He was really starting to get ticked off by all this. He raised his hands above his head and let loose a pure-white spectral blast. It made a direct hit on the girl, knocking her back into another building. In fact, it not only knocked her into it, but the force of the blast and her point of impact sent the whole skyscraper caving in on itself!
"Whoa!" Danny's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, "I'd better start watching how much I put into those blasts!" he watched as the building fell down to the ground, piles of smoke and ash billowing up. He was starting to worry. He hadn't meant to do that much damage to the girl. And now that she didn't seem to be coming back up, he couldn't get it out of his mind her resemblance to Sam.
Suddenly the sky started fading into black. The ground and the city with it seemed to drop down and disappear beneath him. Swirls of purple entered the black around him, and a powerful force below him seemed to be sucking everything down. Danny tried to fight it, but it was too powerful. Within moments, he was being dragged back down into the abyss.
