It was morning. Sam could feel the sunlight streaming in from behind her eyelids. She groaned. Her body ached and half remembered dreams of flying skittered through her mind, fleeting yet still in real in the space between sleeping and waking. She pulled the thick blankets over her head and buried her face in her pillow, trying to lose herself again in darkness.

But it wasn't her pillow.

Sam sat bolt upright in bed, perfectly awake as bolts of shock raced through her body. She wasn't in her room. For that matter she wasn't in any room she'd ever seen. She turned her head slowly, taking it all in.

Gone were her thick red curtains, the purple carpet, the cast iron bed. The room she was in was light and airy, with hard wood walls and floors, light curtains, and patchwork quilts.

Holy Better Homes and Gardens, Sam thought. How did I fall asleep in gothland and wake up in Little House on the Prairie?

The whole night came flooding back to her. She remembered Danny coming into her room, with those strange eyes, saying those strange things. She gently ran her fingers over her lips. She remembered her kissing him intensely. The memory made her shiver.

Disturbed and disoriented as she was, however, Samantha Manson was never one to sit around when something was so obviously terribly wrong. Instead, she forced herself to confront her situation. And that meant getting out of bed. She flinched as her feet touched the icy cold wood floors. She ignored her discomfort, however, and continued across the room. The first order of business was to look out the window and see if she could get any bearings.

Unfortunately, peering outside neither assisted nor comforted her. She was on the second floor and had a good view but the view told her almost nothing. The landscape was almost completely bare, miles of small hills, covered in spiky yellow Prairie grass and sage stretching into the distance. On the horizon she could make out the blue shapes of mountains against the sky. So, she was in the West somewhere, she reasoned. The rustic decoration of her room seemed to support this assumption.

Sam's shivering distracted her from her thoughts. She was going to need something else to wear beyond the t-shirt in which she'd slept. She was glancing around the room looking for something to wear, when her eyes fell on a dark purple bedspread, neatly folded and placed on a wooden chair in the corner of the room.

Sam approached the blanket and lay a hand on the familiar fabric. She vaguely seemed to remember being wrapped up in her bedspread, just before she had dreamed of flying- which was apparently more than a dream.

A tall chest of drawers stood next to the chair. Sam pulled open the drawers, hoping whoever lived here had some pants she could borrow. The first two drawers were disappointingly empty but the third contained a few skirts, sweaters, and tights. Whoever had kidnaped her had obviously been thoughtful enough to bring some of her clothes. She wasn't sure it that was creepy or reassuring.

The question of, course, the girl mused while she pulled on a skirt, wasn't who had kidnaped her, that much was obvious. The questions were why had he done it, where had he brought her, and who was controlling him. Danny had said something about a master. What did he mean by that?

Fully clothed, Sam looked around for a brush. She found one sitting on a vanity across from the bed. After a few quick strokes, which amounted to her best attempt to control the thick black mane on her head, she assessed herself in the mirror.

She looked somewhat dour, dressed in black but without jewelry or even anything remotely interesting about the outfit. She looked more like a nun than a goth, she thought. She wore no make up, save the traces of yesterday's eyeliner and her hair refused to settle down into anything that looked like it might belong on a girl and not a circus cat. She stuck her tongue out at her image. Plain Jane, plain Jane, she teased herself. Look how ordinary and boring you look.

Sam shook her head and sighed. She wasn't really this vain, she was just avoiding doing what she needed to do, which was figure out what the hell was going on. That meant either exploring the house or waiting for someone to come get her and Sam wasn't very good at waiting.

She walked over to the door, taking a deep breathe and allowed herself just the barest moment of panic that would have descended on anyone else who had been kidnaped by a ghost and woken up in an alien location. Tightly closing her eyes, the girl muttered some colorful curse words at her current predicament and felt her body tense slightly from fear. Then she promptly forced herself to stop, assuring herself that in seventeen years she hadn't yet come across a scrape that couldn't be solved somehow.

Sam pressed an ear to the door, not wanting to blindly walk into something dangerous. Muffled through the thick wood she heard three voices. Two were definitely male, one young, one old, while the third belonged to a child. The voices were far off, however, so she opened the door, carefully peaking around the corner. She breathed a sigh of relief, finding the hallway empty. Walking as quietly as she could, she made her way towards the staircase to see if she could find the source of the conversation.

Peaking over the railing Sam could see down into the entry way of the house. Two ghosts were being addressed by an old man, who spoke animatedly, despite the fact that he was bent over a cane. Danny stood there, still dressed differently, still acting strangely. Next to him floated the boy from the fight at the Nasty Burger, his face buried in another comic book.

"And come back as soon as you get it, my boy. It will be unstable if left alone for too long," the man was saying.

"I understand completely," Danny replied.

"Do I have to go?" The boy complained looking up from his comic.

"Yes, you do," the old man scolded gently. "This is a big job and I don't want anything to happen to either of you. Understand?" The boy nodded. "Right then. I will see both of you this evening." He waved a hand dismissing them both and the pair flew up, disappearing through the ceiling.

Sam's heart beat quickly and heavily in her chest. At least now she knew who was controlling Danny and apparently comic book boy as well. But it only barely answered her questions and furthermore she had no idea what to do about it.

"I know you're up there," the old man's voice rang up the stairs.

Sam jumped at the sound of his voice. He knew she was here. Would he try to have her killed? Or worse?

"Would you like to come down? We can have some breakfast and I could explain some things to you."

The teenager slowly stood up and peered down at him. He looked harmless enough; an old wrinkled face, worn with sun, the texture of sandpaper, wisps of thin neatly cut hair adorning his head. He simply wore jeans and a western shirt, not exactly the costume for an archvillian, she thought, thinking of Plasmius in his cape and boots.

"Please," he said, "I think we should talk."

Sam thought for a moment. What were her other options? No good ideas springing to mind she agreed. "I think that's a good idea, " she snapped. "And I think you have a lot of explaining to do."


I know this is kind of an incomplete chapter. I'll probably put up the next one very soon. The only reason I stopped here was in the interest of keeping up a somewhat uniform chapter length. Don't worry, to those of you who are confused, the next chapter actually has exposition!

- Daphne