Hey there, sorry for being late today! This week has been weird with all the snow.
I've been asked for some explanation for the cheese thing. Well... The Digressed Tower was originally built as a place to run psychological and behavioral experiments. What is one of the most stereotypical such experiments? The maze with the mouse and the cheese. So... Yeah. I did that. Yep.
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Chapter 117:
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Sam rolled over again, aware that she was getting ever closer to the edge of the bed She should be asleep. She was exhausted. She should have been asleep the very moment she dropped on the bed.
But she hadn't. She knew why.
It wasn't because of Danny. At least, it wasn't only because of Danny, although that was what had kept her awake the previous night. No, what was keeping her awake now was Tucker's comment. Or was it Jazz's? She couldn't remember who had said it, and that bothered her almost as much as anything else.
Other interests. She had other interests. She did. She was defined by her interests. Everyone who knew her defined her by her interests. She was a goth, vegan, plant-loving, animal-loving activist. She loved poetry and darkness. She loved violent movies with strong female characters. She was a feminist. She was this, she was that... And she was interested. She did like these things. She loved being these things. But...
So much of her 'personality' was a reaction. A rejection of her parents and their suffocating ideals. Most of the things she liked, most of the things she was into, she got into to spite her parents. She called Paulina shallow, but she spent so much time worrying about being deep, about being real, about not caring.
Her plants were the only interest that didn't fall under that header. She was such a fake. She liked things, but she didn't like them quite as much as she made out. She wasn't passionate.
She liked dark colors, the gothic style, but she'd be just as good with navy, dark green, or deep purple as she was with black, and she really wanted to experiment more with neon. Neon was cool. Ghostly. Danny's eyes were neon.
Violent movies were nice. Action was great. Loud action was great. Blood and gore were amazing. But... She liked romantic comedies, too. The good ones, anyway. The ones that weren't stupid and sexist.
Being dark and grim had it's good points. The aesthetic was great. But she couldn't handle being pessimistic all the time, couldn't keep that 'I hate everything' vibe going on. She could slot into the 'cheerful goth' box, but, ancients, she hated boxes. That was almost what she had been trying to get away from in the first place, and she hadn't managed it at all. She'd only managed to put herself in a box that her parents didn't like, which was a start, but not good enough.
Was she really so... Empty?
She didn't want to be empty.
What would her grandmother say? Her grandmother was always so helpful. She always understood, was always willing to listen to Sam's rants. Other adults couldn't measure up. Ghosts especially wouldn't get it. They were always so themselves. Even when they had identity issues, like Danny, they had purpose. Drive.
Maybe one of her causes? She did believe in her causes. Her arguments with Tucker about meat were real. She was invested in civil liberties and animal rights, in keeping the environment healthy, viable for life. She wanted the world to be good.
But that didn't feel right. Nothing felt right. Her plants were the closest, but she just couldn't recapture the feeling she had back when she'd been under Undergrowth's control.
She had to have something else. She had to have some other hobby.
She sat straight up in the bed when she realized that she did. She did have another hobby, but...
Her thoughts were full of 'buts' tonight. Her hands curled around the blankets, bunching them up in her fists.
Photography.
She used to carry a camera everywhere, all the time. She had wanted to be part of the yearbook staff. Now, well, ever since the Accident, there were weeks when she just couldn't bear to look at a camera. It reminded her of why, precisely, Danny had died. On the other hand, there were days when she was just as glued to it as ever, and she had been keeping up those scrapbooks (with Jazz's help, of course). Maybe her talent would lie with photography.
Which brought up other problems, because she didn't have a camera with her. Things could never just be easy for once, could they?
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"Mia? Is that you?"
The girl, who had been wedged into the corner, crying, looked up. "Danny?" she said.
Danny and Ellie came closer, rounding a dusty table. "What happened?" asked Danny. "Why are you all alone?"
"I don't know," said Mia, miserably. "I thought I was following them, but then it turned out I was following a ghost, and they yelled at me for being a stalker and pushed me down, and then I was all alone, and I can't see anything, and I couldn't figure out where I was, and what is that smell? It's everywhere."
"It's cheese," said Danny.
"What, like dairy?"
"Yeah?"
"It's legal here?"
"Basically everything is legal here," said Danny, offering a hand, "let me help you up."
"Wasn't your leg all screwed up before?"
"You mean on the last floor?" asked Danny.
"No, before that. Before we came here."
Danny shook his head. "We must be using slightly different universes. I hurt my leg a while ago, but I got it treated. I'm still all beat up because of Spectra, though, so it isn't like I'm at one-hundred percent health or whatever."
"You hurt it when you fought that whale," said Mia.
"What whale?"
Mia sniffed. "I guess it doesn't matter," she said. "As long as you're you." She finally took Danny's hand. "Do you know what happened to everyone else?"
"No," said Danny. "Ellie and I got into a fight, and once we managed to get away we realized that we had lost everyone else. Then we were chased for a while. Then we, you know, wandered around trying to find everyone. But you're the first person we ran into. Do you remember anything about how you got here?"
"No. I got all turned around."
"That's okay," said Danny. "I'm sure we'll find them all eventually." They had to find them all. He had to find them all. Gosh, he hoped that they weren't gorging themselves on cheese right now. People died from cheese-burst stomachs all the time!
More importantly, they could get killed by ghosts. That would be bad.
He looked around the room, trying to figure out where Mia must have come in. If they could figure that out, they might be able to trace her path back and figure out where it had diverged from the others.'
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Vlad 'the Dairy King' Masters felt off balance. This floor always made him uncomfortable. He suspected that the change the Bends had attempted to apply to him didn't fit very well. He couldn't imagine why, but that was likely because he had yet to identify the change this floor made.
He slicked back his hair, and adjusted his suit. He might be uncomfortable, but he was loath to show it, especially as Daniel was up here somewhere.
That boy would become Vlad's apprentice. He would be his heir in all things ghostly and secular, no matter how he whined about the cheese trade being 'unethical.' Vlad would make sure of it. It was inevitable. It had to be. Daniel was the only other stable half-ghost in existence, and Vlad refused to accept a inferior successor.
The door to his right opened by a hair, and two sets of glowing eyes peered through the gap. Vlad got ready for another fight. But then the door opened, revealing Daniel, Danielle, and one of Daniel's insufferable classmates. The blind one.
"Hi, Vlad," said Daniel, giving a little unenthusiastic wave. "Thanks for, um, your help down there."
Vlad raised an eyebrow. "I see you're missing some of your little friends, Daniel."
"Most of them aren't really my friends," said Daniel. "You haven't seen them, either?"
"No," said Vlad. He suppressed a smile. "I don't suppose that you want my help now, do you? After you rejected it so vehemently outside?"
"Vlad, none of us actually know what happened outside," said Danielle, fixing him with a glare that could have melted steel. "That's kind of the point."
"Yes, my dear. I know. Remember who taught you. But we are all still the same people, are we not? There is no reason to restrain ourselves except the truce. Which, as you might have noticed, has been broken." Vlad examined his fingernails. "Do you want my help now, Daniel? I have been in this maze before. If anyone could find your classmates, I can."
"Yeah?" said Daniel, a touch of hostility rising to his surface like cream on some fresh, high-grade dairy product. "And what's the price tag on that help? Because I'm not getting involved in the drug trade."
Vlad sighed. Of course Daniel would balk at that.
"Drugs?" squeaked the blind girl.
"Not important right now," said Daniel. "What do you want?"
"What will you offer?" countered Vlad.
Daniel pursed his lips. "Help get us all up to the 77th floor and out of here, and I'll, I don't know, spend a weekend with you, and let you train me, or something."
Vlad smirked. "Make it a week," he said, "and Danielle has to come as well."
"What?" said Daniel and Danielle in harmony, clearly incensed. They looked at each other, and had one of their silent conversations.
"No drug things," said Daniel, after a moment, sounding reluctant. "Nothing else illegal, either."
"Very well," said Vlad.
Daniel and Danielle exchanged another glance, and then nodded. "We agree," they said.
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Nephthys glared at the hole.
There should not be a hole there. In her lair. In the lake.
The ex-lake.
All the water had drained into the hole.
She bent down, and traced her fingers along the smoothed rim of the hole. This would take but moments to repair for a ghost of her power, age, and skill, but still. She did not like coming home to snag a moment of relaxation only to find that someone had drained her lake.
She straightened, the edges of her robe and veil heavy with mud, her eyes narrowed. She was not what she, personally, would call well versed in the art of paradox, but she could tell when one had been present, and she knew the taste of her brother's power.
He would pay for this. Preferably with cookies. And an apology. Yes, she couldn't forget that. Maybe throw a shoe at him, too. She knew that he could fix paradoxes without damage. Perhaps this was revenge for breaking his reverse-entropy stove? No, he wasn't that petty. Or was he? He could be. He loved that stove.
Well, Nephthys loved her lake.
Clockwork was getting the shoe.
