Heyyyy. Shout out to the person in Finland who speed read this whole thing in one day, I love you and you are valid.
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Chapter 131:
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The Mailman was getting close. He could tell. He could practically smell his quarry. He could certainly see the destruction and chaos that seemed to spread in the wake of said quarry. However, he knew there were still floors between him and... it. Them. Him. Her. He couldn't quite recall who the letter was for, and had thus far resisted the temptation to take it out of his pouch. His pouch protected the mail from tampering, would protect it even from the Tower, but it had its limits. If he kept taking it out and putting it away, he would erode the protection, and then the letter be altered, useless unless taken outside the Tower to be read.
The reason the Mailman was now hesitating was that he now faced the 'broken' floors. They would be... unpleasant, to say the least.
There was nothing for it. He squared his shoulders, and started up the stairs.
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Daniel was being carried again, this time by one of the humans, the large, blocky Asian boy named Kwan. It was a temporary, practical matter. Vlad needed both hands to properly protect the group from whatever might be on the next floor, and, after what they all said had happened on the previous floor, combined with Daniel's personal feelings, neither he nor Vlad trusted the ghosts to hold him.
Kwan, for his part, kept repeating that Daniel was so light. Daniel was half-tempted to just say of course, he was light. He was half-ghost. He could have floated, if he had been healthy. He had tried to do so, surreptitiously, during their rest. His core hadn't cooperated.
But he was only half-tempted to do that. It was a stupid idea, anyway, one that would eventually get him killed, or worse, if he followed through with it. Daniel had nothing if not good sense, drilled into him by his father. Of course, this next floor might render all his good sense moot.
"Be careful with this next floor," said Vlad. "It is what's known as a broken floor."
"Like those ones a couple floors down?" asked a boy named Mikey.
"Yep," said Ellie, popping the 'p.'
"It isn't really broken," said the doctor ghost, who had introduced (reintroduced?) herself as Prunella. "We designed that one this way on purpose. Not all of the floors are studies of alternate timelines."
"So... What does this one do?" asked Paulina, twirling the end of her braid around her finger.
"The original concept was to make it swap the id and the superego." Prunella made a face. "Unfortunately, not even human psychology is that simple in practice."
Some of the humans frowned at that. It was a bit of an insult.
Prunella continued, "That idea was scrapped, and, after some other... difficulties, we settled on removing inhibitions."
Daniel sighed heavily. He and Vlad usually avoided this floor. He could only hope that common sense and self-preservation instinct didn't count as 'inhibitions.'
"What," said Dash, whom Daniel had pegged as a bit of an idiot, "like, all inhibitions?" He didn't quite leer.
Daniel sighed again.
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Danny very nearly clawed his way out of Kwan's arms. Kwan, for his part, promptly dropped him, while the rest of his classmates scattered and Mr Lancer hid under a beanbag (the furniture on this floor appeared to consist mostly of beanbags and cushions). A large number of the ghosts fled as well, returning to the lower floor, simply running off, or hiding.
Danny, meanwhile, screeched, "Vlad, I'm gonna hit you in the face!"
Vlad had embraced Ellie from behind, and was swinging her around while, exclaiming, "Danielle, Danielle, my beautiful child, how I love you!"
Danny finally managed to distract him by throwing a smaller pillow at him, but then Vlad just went and swooped him up into the hug, the 'hug,' it was really more of an assault, as well. Then Vlad started to try to go back downstairs, only to be blocked by the ghosts still coming up.
None of the hiding places were very good, neither those of the humans nor those of the ghosts. This was partially because of the beanbag furniture, partially because several of them started shrieking at each other, and a couple started flirting. Badly.
Then Dash and Dale got into a fist fight, and Valerie started throwing things at Cujo, Vlad and the other two half-ghosts. Not just pillows, but the larger, heavier, beanbags. She was yelling something about revenge, and evil ghost dogs.
Well, Cujo got upset, and when Cujo got upset, he got big. Unfortunately, the ceiling was a bit too low for Cujo to fit, so he got wedged, stuck, in between the floor of the ceiling. This added to the general chaos and noise, which spooked those persons not already spooked, causing them to spread out even further.
Danny was unhappy about this, and attempted to lunge after them. He did not like that they were spreading out, that they were getting farther away from him, that they would be harder to protect, he did not like that Cujo was stuck ad scared. He hissed, and struggled, though he knew that he wouldn't be able to actually get anywhere except by crawling if Vlad did release him.
Then some of the ghosts began to approach Danny, Ellie, and Vlad. They had a look in their eyes that Danny couldn't identify. It wasn't hostile, it wasn't angry. It was... hungry, maybe. No. That was wrong. Longing? Yearning? In any case, they were getting closer, and they started to argue angrily with Vlad. At Vlad? Vlad wasn't really responding. Danny didn't really understand what they were saying, but they were all talking over each other.
The wisps had already squished themselves close to Danny, Ellie, and, presumably, Vlad. A number of them had slipped into his clothing, or were half-phased into his flesh. He hadn't really minded that before, but now, on top of everything else, it was uncomfortable and offsetting.
Then one of them brushed against his spinal cord, directly against his spinal cord, and that was just too much. Too much input, too much sensation. It didn't necessarily hurt, there wasn't really any pain, it was just overwhelming.
On top of everything else.
He stopped fighting Vlad. Vlad was something of a known quantity, and he was scared. It was the same logic that had led him into a truce with Vlad in the first place, but now it was much more visceral. He was still upset with Vlad, of course, but, if he thought about it, the alterations made to Danny's life on the last floor weren't Vlad's fault. Okay, they sort of were, but Danny's desire to blame him for them was fading, and in the here and now, that was all that counted.
The other ghosts were coming closer. Some of them were reaching towards him. Danny realized with some horror that he was about to be the rope and prize in a tug of war. He went limp, some instinct telling him that doing so would prevent at least some of the damage he was about to receive.
"Ellie," he said, certain that he wouldn't be heard over the noise, but also needing to warn his twin about the danger, "we're going to be pulled."
She looked sideways at him, fear in her eyes.
Then she vanished. Then she reappeared. She had made herself invisible, strongly invisible, invisible even to other ghosts, and she had taken Danny with her. Danny didn't really see how that mattered, Vlad was holding on to them both. It wasn't like they could slip away.
"Wait for it," muttered Ellie.
Danny did, hoping that this would make sense sooner rather than later. He thought he had pretty good endurance for... stuff. But he was getting to the point, had reached the point, where he was really hoping that someone else would come and fix things. He was reaching the end of his willpower. He wanted to be safe. He wanted everyone else to be safe. He wanted to not have to worry. And he worried. Ancients, even if this level was only beanbags from wall-to-wall, it would be dangerous for humans, Cujo was stuck, and he could feel the wisps throwing off energy indiscriminately, just like they shouldn't.
Vlad went ghost.
"Phase through," hissed Ellie.
Phase through? How? He- Oh. Right. Humans could phase through ghosts here in the Ghost Zone, if the ghosts in question weren't alert, and the human had sufficient force of will.
The two younger half-ghosts phased through the arms of the elder. Ellie then threw Danny over her shoulder and ran. Well, flew. Danny, acting on impulse (that seemed to be the only way he could act, here), put his fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply.
Cujo let off a deep, rumbling, bark, then shrunk and ran off after Danny and Ellie.
The wisps followed.
Danny couldn't stop the frustrated noise rising in the back of his throat. That hadn't been a result he wanted. He liked the wisps, but he wanted a break, he wanted space. He wanted them not to fly through his skin and spine unexpectedly and without permission. They needed boundaries.
This wasn't the time or place to establish those boundaries, however, and Danny doubted that he would be able to communicate the need to the little ghosts in anything like a succinct manner. Danny wasn't eloquent in their language, and was still prone to misunderstandings.
He was upset. He wanted to cry, so he did. Then Cujo jumped into his arms, licked his face, and he was distracted. Ellie began to grumble as she ran, serpentine, through the beanbags, and finally threw all three of them into a particularly large, fluffy example. It hardly even crunched as the three ghosts collided with it.
"You're heavy," complained Ellie.
"Sorry," said Danny. "We've got to go get everyone."
"No, we don't."
"Yes, we do."
"No, we don't."
They glared at each other. For both of them, the effect was ruined by the wisps cuddling up to their faces.
Finally, Ellie said, "You can't go get them, anyway, and I'm definitely not. It isn't as if there's a lot of trouble they can get into here. There's just beanbags."
"You're kidding, right?"
"... Okay, I'm sure they can get into trouble, but they'd get into trouble anyway, and they're too annoying for me to care very much."
"Ellie, they're defenseless."
"No they aren't. Look, they're phasing through stuff. They'll be fine."
Danny peered up over the fluffed end of the beanbag. Some of them were phasing through things. "How come they're only figuring out how to do that now?" he complained. Both he and Ellie were full of complaints, it seemed.
"I don't know. Lack of inhibitions?"
"At least Mikey and Ricky look excited," said Danny, disgruntled. It would have been nice if they could do that before. His frustration bubbled up. "They aren't all stupid, you know. Why do they act like that?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's a mob mentality thing."
"Did you get that from Jazz?"
"Dunno."
"Ellie, we can't leave them here."
"It's not really a 'we' thing. You can't walk on your own. Now, shh. I think we can start going again."
Danny did not want to 'shh,' but he turned out not to have a choice about where he was going, because he wasn't going to fight Ellie just to get back to that mess, so he couldn't really want to go back that badly. Otherwise he would do it. Somehow. His body didn't hurt that much anymore. It was more of an ache.
That was a lie. That was a big lie.
He hurt a lot, actually.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Up and out," said Ellie.
"Wh-We can't do that! We can't- can't leave-"
"Yes, we can. We can come back and get them, or whatever, once I have my boat."
"But-"
"No."
"I don't want to!" wailed Danny. "Ellie, please!" This probably would have attracted more attention if not for the cacophony happening elsewhere.
"No."
"Please, please, please, please."
"No, Danny. I'm not gonna let you go get hurt. They'll probably follow us, anyway. You know, they know what the plan was. They'll get bored, or wise up or whatever. But we can't stay here. This is a bad floor. You'll wind up shouting your secret, or something."
"My secret's already shot. You know that."
"Then you'll wind up trying to fight someone, or trying to herd those jerks, or something even worse that I haven't thought of, and you'll forget that you're hurt."
"Ellieeeeeeeeeeeeeee."
"Why am I even trying to have this argument. It isn't like logic is going to stop anyone here."
