Sorry for delays. I lost my jumpdrive and had to write the whole chapter twice. Helpful advice: BACKUP jumpdrives. xD Lines aren't working again, so live with my hyphens.
--
Pits
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria
--
Page 15
--
It was in the darkest depths of my unconscious dreams that the lights danced; a dozen blue and green dots that swirled and captivated me. I could hear their carefree laughter as they raced, hell-bent, through the air and circled around my body like a dizzy merry-go-round. It brought a small smile to my face as I watched, drifting in the impossible blackness.
We were all trapped in the depths of hell, and somehow these twelve souls had found some semblance of peace.
I wondered, briefly, why I was seeing them, unable to remember what had transpired to get me into such a dark place. Something to do with Walker and Valerie, maybe. Was I dead? Was I just another ghost light now? A tiny firework of concern flared inside of me as I watched them move around me. Quickly, one of the tiny blue lights resolved into a small girl in a dirty blue dress. Giggling, she held out her hand to me and the bit of worry that had managed to form washed away as she smiled at me. In this world, emotions such as anxiety, fear, and anger had no reason to exist.
Reaching out to grab her hand, my smile mimicking her own, I hesitated when I saw the glint of the blades on my arms, remembering when I'd seen her last. How she'd hung onto my leg, believing I'd save her. And then I killed you.
It's okay, she said in a not-quite-real way, forgiveness radiating from her like a sun. Come see this.
I took her hand and she grasped it tightly, laughing softly as she started to pull me through the blackness. She dragged me through a path filled with dives and twirls, the other eleven lights following behind us like a train, hundreds of other tiny lights sparkling in like stars in the distance.
When she pulled me to a stop, she pointed out into the darkness and I followed the line of her finger with my eyes. What is it? I wondered, noting the odd thing in the distance. It was a soft glimmering light – not a ghost light, something different – that shone through the black like a beacon.
We're all connected, the girl answered solemnly. What one can see, we all can see, Danny. Your rat friend can watch through our eyes and can see what we show him. And so can you.
I glanced over at her, not really sure if that answered my question. But in the strange world of the ghost lights, I couldn't find it in me to care. Why are you showing me this? Peering into the distance, I squinted my eyes, trying to bring the strange object into focus.
She let go of my hand, drifting peacefully beside me, a contented smile on her face. We have been waiting for you, Danny. For hundreds of years, we have been waiting. And now you have come.
Waiting for me? The soft light suddenly seemed to explode. I started in surprise, watching the light race towards me like a million rainbows and fill up the darkness. Within seconds, it had obscured half the blank void. I still felt no worry, however; worry and fear didn't exist.
Yes, she said. And for what you have yet to do, this is our gift to you.
I couldn't tear my eyes off the beautiful supernova in front of me and I didn't have time to question the girl's latest cryptic remark before the strange light ate up the rest of the blackness and slammed into me. Brighter than the sun, I was forced to close my eyes. I had no idea when the girl disappeared. The world swirled around me like a dizzy tilt-a-whirl. When I was finally able to open my eyes, I was somewhere I wasn't expecting.
Home.
--
"He looks really bad," Valerie whispered. Her arm was obviously heavily bandaged, her shirt bulging weirdly at the shoulder, her arm resting in a sling. "He can't weigh very much – I could see his bones poking through his skin. And his sunken eyes… they're just so… When he looked at me…" she shook her head, unable to come up with the words to explain.
My parents were sitting on the other side of the kitchen table, their hands clasped together as they listened to her story, my mom reaching up to brush a tear off of her cheek.
"I was so… afraid… when I saw him. He's got death in his eyes and this aura…" Valerie trailed off, staring out the window. "He's still Danny. But he's… not. There's something about him that's just different."
"But he's alive," Mom breathed, hope in her voice.
Valerie nodded, slowly, her answer barely a breath. "I hope so."
I stood in the doorway behind them, trembling, my back to the door that lead into the backyard. None of them were looking at me. I swallowed heavily, finally taking a shaky step forwards, and I tried to figure out what was going on. Was this just a dream? Was it a hallucination like the other ones?
"Mom?" I whispered, terrified that she wouldn't answer and terrified that she would at the same time. I was a murderer and a killer and a monster. I was a fighter. Would I even have a place in my parents' world if I really were back? I wasn't so sure I wanted to know the answer to that question.
Her head whipped around so fast that I was afraid she was going to snap her neck. Face draining of color, she stared at me, mouth moving silently for a moment before a single word escaped. "Danny…"
My gaze travelled to my dad, who didn't appear to be breathing. I swallowed again, my mouth dry, and took another cautious step forwards. I had some idea of what I looked like – skinny and broken and some strange half-ghost thing with murder in my eyes – and I didn't want to scare them.
That, and if this all was just some strange, crazy dream, I didn't want the bubble to pop. I stared into my parents' eyes, drinking their images in like a man dying from dehydration. But when their emotions swirled from shock and disbelief to something else, something more piercing, I couldn't keep eye contact. I didn't want them to know what I'd gone through; I wanted them to be able to have their little boy back… even if he didn't really exist anymore. Biting my lip, I dropped my gaze, noticing that the blades were still on my arms.
I also noticed how transparent I my arm was. My hand came up almost unconsciously and I studied it for a moment, seeing the kitchen tiles through the blue-green glow of my skin and I knew; this was just like last time, I wasn't really home. My body was still locked in Walker's hell. It was just my mind that was allowed to wander.
Just a dream? A hallucination? I clenched my hand and closed my eyes in frustrated defeat. Taking a deep breath, I let my hand fall back to my side. I might not be home for real, but I might as well go with it… there was always the potential that I really was home. Looking up, I tried for a smile when I noticed that none of the three had moved a hair. "I can't stay," I said softly, "I'm not really here.
"No." Mom was on her feet then, across the room in three steps, tears sparkling in her eyes. "You're staying." She hesitated when she was right in front of me, obviously unable to decide if she could grab me and hug me. Oh, how I wish she could.
"I'm not really here," I repeated dismally, raising one of my hands to pass it straight through my mother as evidence. "I'm still in the Ghost Zone."
"Astral projection," my father put in softly, getting to his feet and dazedly walking over to where my mother was standing, wrapping an arm securely around his shoulders. She leaned into my father's bulk, a million emotions staining the aura that shimmered around her.
I shrugged, not knowing how it worked – if it was really working at all – my gaze flipping from one to the other, unable to get enough of seeing them. "Walker's coming," I warned them. "He's coming to bring you into the Pits too. You can't let him."
"We'll destroy him when he shows up," my mother said, fury sparkling in her eyes, her face set in determination. She obviously knew who Walker was. "And then we'll come rescue you. We've got a plan, Danny."
"I'll help," Valerie said from her spot at the table, anger coloring the air around her. "That ghost deserves to die."
"I don't think you can kill him," I said slowly, rocking back on my heels. "He's powerful and he's got hundreds of ghosts that work for him. You should…"
My dad interrupted me, his dazed air vanishing as his eyes hardened. I recognized the look – it was the same one that he'd worn when he defeated Vlad and when he 'rescued' me from the monster ghost fish during that fishing trip. "A Fenton doesn't run from a ghost."
"Danny, we'll be fine," Mom agreed, her hand waving once to dismiss the topic. "We've-" She was cut off by a wailing siren. Valerie jumped to her feet, startled, but Mom and Dad just glanced at each other. "The ghost alarm," Mom breathed.
My breath caught in my throat. "Walker," I whispered. "You've got to get out of here!" When neither one moved, I felt the first stirrings of panic deep inside of me. Walker was coming, my parents would be captured, they'd be thrown into one of my pit fights, and I'd be forced to…
Forced to…
I couldn't even complete the thought. "Please," I begged, "please just leave."
"We'll rescue you," Dad said stoutly, looking me straight in the eyes. He believed what he was saying down to his very core and all I could do was shake my head, unwilling to accept the answer. "Don't worry."
"But…" Something weird was happening; the world seemed to be fizzling around the edges. I felt a thrum of fear as I realized that this dream, this hallucination, this possibly-could-be-real moment was ending. "Leave," I pleaded one last time, knowing that my parents, despite the technology and my mom's abilities, wouldn't be able to stand up to Walker's armies.
I twisted around, meeting Valerie's gaze. "Valerie, don't let Walker get the key," I gasped out, but I'm not sure she heard me. As I was speaking, the shadows were lengthening, the darkness growing blacker, the lights dimming and swirling and beginning to dance as the vanished back into the darkness of the shadows. The world was gone and I was back in the darkness.
Was that real? I wondered to myself as I floated, watching the lights dance around me. Something in my stomach was twisting and churning and a deep sense of despair and loss was causing an empty feeling inside of me that not even the abyss of the ghost lights could chase away.
It was real.
Glancing over my shoulder, I studied where the small girl in the blue dress. How did you do that?
She tipped her head to the side, a small grin on her face. We are all connected. What one can see we all can see. Where one is, we all are. There is really no difference between us. We are one.
Am I one of you then?
She just smiled. Come and dance with me, Danny. She held out her hand, the small fingers glowing against the complete blackness of the dark.
I looked back towards where my parents had been. I want to go back. I need to find out what happened.
No. There was a note of finality in her not-really-there voice. There is no going back. There is only going forwards.
A hand dropped onto my shoulder, startling me. The girl reached up and brushed her hand against my face, wiping a few tears away. I blinked, reaching up my own hand, unaware that I'd been crying. But…
There is no going back. She smiled, her blue eyes glowing in the darkness. You'll see them again, Danny. Now, come dance with me, hero. Her fingers wrapped firmly around my hand, her skin deceptively warm for a creature I knew was dead.
I looked back one last time.
Then I danced.
--
Waking up was a bit of a shock. I'd managed to half-convince myself that I was dead – which caused a moment of confusion by itself – and the vertigo of going from dancing at break-neck speeds in my dreams to lying flat on my back was sickening. I moaned, rolling onto my side and curling up a little, closing my eyes tightly and fighting back a wave of nausea. Oh yes, and there was the fact that I'd also been electrocuted to unconsciousness. When that memory came sliding back into my head, I groaned. Stupid Walker and his stupid collars.
"Where. Is. My. Key."
My eyes flickered open. A ghost – a boy not much older than me – was sitting in the air, legs crossed, his blue eyes glaring at me. Lying across his lap was something that looked like a very sharp spear. The whole cell was thrumming with furious power.
I sat up, swallowing back a moment of queasiness, and scooted backwards until I hit the wall, startled. "What? Who are you?"
His glare deepened. "Azera, hybrid. Quma este menuos pectusari?" His fingers moved down to clench tightly around the black wood of his spear. "Referaro miji!"
"I don't know what you're saying!" My own eyes were narrowing as a wave of ghostly emotion rolled into my mind. Too-impossibly-strong-to-believe anger coiled through my stomach. I let it flow through me, not bothering to try to contain it; if my parents were really being attacked by Walker and I couldn't do a thing about it, I had more than enough reason to be furious – and now some ghost was yelling at me in some strange language. I snarled as the intruder leaned forwards, drifting into my space. "And back off." Spectral energy was seeping out of me, staining the air with my power.
If the ghost took the message, he didn't seem to care. "My key. Where is it?" he snapped. He unfolded, his feet touching the ground as the spear swung around. The sparkling silver metal point sliced through the air and came to a rest inches from my face.
The blades appeared on my arms in a heartbeat, swinging through the air to bat the spear out of the way. While the ghost was off balance, I got my feet underneath me and attacked. My hands slammed into his shoulders before he could get the haft of the spear between us and we tumbled to the ground, him on his back and me holding his down. The spear clattered to the ground beyond his outstretched fingers.
"Not much of a fighter," I hissed sourly, easily pinning him to the ground when he finally started to struggle. "Now, answer the question. Who the hell are you?"
"L'Tradeshijai, son of M'Trakamadeshi," he muttered, falling still, his glowing blue eyes glaring into mine. "I am a Guardian and you will answer my question."
I chuckled darkly, still reveling in the rage that was rushing like adrenaline through my veins, clenching my fingers tighter around his shoulders. "As if. Why are you here?"
"Where's my key, hybrid?" he asked.
Energy curled around me for a moment before zapping down my arms and burning into his skin, causing him to yelp and squirm. "You attacked me. You are in my room. You are the one currently pinned to the ground," I snapped. "Thus, you answer my question. Why are you here?"
In response, the boy seemed to melt and shrink, the strange blue-black hair on his head spreading to cover his whole body. In just a few moments, the boy was gone, replaced by a familiar-looking blue-back rat. The total impossibility of that caused the ghostly fury that was running through me to vanish, leaving me to scramble to my feet in surprise.
"I'm always here," the rat muttered. "And as it's my key you lost, I feel like I am free to ask the question."
"You're… not… really a rat?" I asked, startled.
He snarled. "Of course not, idiot. I'm not really a rat, the jewel's not really a jewel, and the Pits aren't really Walker's. Stop finally drawing idiotic conclusions and answer my question. Where. Is. ?"
"I… gave it to Valerie," I stuttered, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that the rat wasn't really a rat.
"Who's Valerie?" he snarled angrily.
"My friend," I said and dropped down onto my cot, "the girl I was fighting. I gave her the key to get through the portal…"
"And now you don't have it anymore."
I shook my head. "Valerie's alive though…"
"I don't care!" Energy flickered around the rat as he glared up at me. "The key was everything, can't you see that?" He stamped his foot furiously against the ground, his tail lashing back and forth. "Do you really have no ability to think things through? Do you really just act on the moment with no thought to the long term effects of your actions?" He snarled. "I don't care about one human girl. Because of your actions, the whole plan isn't going to work."
I blinked, started at his vehemence. "But we can…"
"No. We can't. Without the key, we can't destroy Walker's hold over the Pits. Killing him will accomplish nothing now – someone else will just fill his place and we'll get nowhere. Thousands of innocent ghosts and humans have just been doomed to a terrifying death in the Pits, because of your actions."
"I couldn't kill my friend."
His eyes were glowing a rage-induced icy blue. "Yes, you could have. And now, you, and everyone you hold dear will die because of it. Walker will go after your precious friend. You've done nothing but buy her a few days of life and destroy a plan I've had in motion for a century."
"I couldn't…"
The rat bounded forwards even as I was talking, vanishing under my cot, leaving the spear behind. "You made your bed, now lie in it," he muttered darkly. I dropped to my knees to answer, but all I caught was a glimpse of a blue tail vanishing in the dark corner of my cell. The rat was gone.
"I couldn't kill Valerie," I said to the empty cell, but tiny bits of doubt were crawling in and around my mind. Had I done the right thing by saving her life? Was LJ right – had I doomed hundreds of people by allowing her to live? Should I have…
I shook my head sharply, cutting off my mental rambling, frustrated and annoyed at the line of thought. Was I really contemplating whether or not killing one of my friends would have been the right thing to do? "I did the right thing," I said, hoping to sound confident, but my voice came out trembling and weak.
The truth was that I no longer had the key and the rat – my one real chance at escape – was mad at me. Walker was bent on capturing my parents in a bid to convince me to tell him where the key was. In all likelihood, when Walker pressed a knife to my parents' throats and ordered me to tell him where his knife was, I probably would. Then it would just be a matter of hours before Valerie would be dead and Walker would have his key back.
Which would leave me with no key, no rat, my parents in the next cell over, Walker back in control again, and every chance in the world of meeting my best friends in the next Pit fight.
"I did the right thing," I insisted one last time, but it sounded hollow even to my own ears.
--
I rolled over groggily when my door slammed open, shaking me out of a restless sleep. I was hovering a few inches above the hard wooden planks of the cot in an attempt to get some sleep, but my mind had been refusing to shut up. I'd just managed to fall into something resembling sleep… and now I was awake again.
"Morning, Punk."
Scrambling to a sitting position before he could shock me, I noted the almost happy smile on the warden's face. Various ideas of why Walker would be so pleased scuttled through my mind – every one of them twisting my stomach into painful knots. I took a deep breath to ask him why he was here, but he took a few steps forwards, his boots echoing on the hard stone floor, and I instinctively scooting farther away from him. "What do you want?" I asked when my back hit the wall.
"You've got new neighbors," he said, his grin growing. I shivered at how his smile didn't reach his raisin-like eyes, the desiccated skin of his face cracking and shifting at the uncommon expression. One of his fingers traced down to touch the small box on his belt, the control that would activate the collar around my neck, and I couldn't fight down a flinch. He saw it and his smile grew again. "They'll be able to hear you scream," he added pleasantly.
I flicked a glance at the wall, hoping against all hope that my 'neighbors' weren't who I thought they were. If my dream was real, than my parents had been captured by Walker.
"Bullet was, unfortunately, unable to find your sister," Walker said slowly, his voice sending a thrum of despair through me. "But they did drag back two humans, unconscious, one in blue and one in orange."
The floor felt like it had been yanked out from underneath me and I'd gone into freefall. My stomach clenched and my heart skipped a beat. "My… my…" I whispered as the world started to spin.
"…parents," Walker finished. "They're next door, waiting for you, Punk."
No. Disbelief was the strongest of the emotions that swamped me when Walker acknowledged my fears. There was no way that Walker could have captured them. Not after I warned them. Not with all the inventions. Not… "I don't believe you."
Walker didn't even blink. "You don't?"
My trembling fingers slipped underneath my pillow and pulled out the burned, purple scrunchie, trying to prove my desperate denial of his claim. "This isn't my friend's," I said softly. "You told me I killed them, but this isn't hers. Her scrunchie is green." Oh please no, don't let him have my parents…
"So you think," Walker said without any sort of surprise. "Girls aren't allowed to have more than one color scrunchie?"
I licked my lips, shaking my head. Whether it was denying Walker's words or answering his question I wasn't sure. "I don't believe you." I can't believe you; you can't have my parents and I didn't kill my best friends. No, no possible way.
He seemed to consider that for a moment, then he turned to the partly-open door. "Guard," he ordered before turning back to me. Arms came to rest behind his back, eyes focused on me. He looked like he was enjoying what he was seeing – no doubt a trembling, scared-looking teenager.
A voice came from out in the hallway and I froze completely still. "Let me go!"
No, no, no, no, no, no… There was only one word echoing around in my head as my door suddenly swung open and four guards came into view, dragging a struggling form between them. Her blue jumpsuit was torn and bloody, her hair disheveled, her normal utility belt missing in action. Fear and rage were billowing off of her – her emotional energy so distinctive that I knew in a heartbeat that this wasn't some illusion. This was really my mother. I couldn't breathe as I watched her try to wrench her arms out the guard's grin, pure terror jumping into my throat. He's got my parents.
Walker chuckled.
He's got my parents. My gaze was watering as I stared at her, my heart beating loudly in my ears. What am I going to do? He's got my parents… no… no, no, no…
Suddenly, Mom's eyes jumped up to meet mine and she stopped struggling for a long moment. "Danny!" she gasped, her gaze locked on mine.
"Mom?" I pushed myself away from the wall, unconsciously getting to my feet and taking a few steps towards her.
Then I collapsed to the ground as the collar around my neck sizzled into life and seared through every molecule of my body. "Ahh!" I screamed, twitching and curling into a ball in an attempt to escape the agony. Somewhere beyond the pain, I could hear my mother yelling my name, but I couldn't do anything but wait for the eternity of agony to end.
When it finally did, I could feel Walker's chill presence leaning over mine. "I do have your parents. You did kill your friends. And you have a decision to make."
I struggled to get some air into my lungs, my muscles shaking and twitching uncontrollably from the energy that had been racing through them. My breath was coming in low gasps, pain shrieking through every cell, my mind effectively turned off to any sort of thinking. But I could hear Walker's threat just fine.
"My knife or your parents."
The door slammed shut a few moments later and I forced myself to my hands and knees, alone again. Walker was gone, but so was my mother. I coughed painfully, settling back onto my heels, and stared at the door in despair. The pain was vanishing, ebbing into my bones and throbbing in my joints and behind my eyes, but I knew that even that would disappear soon. Walker hadn't hit me very hard this time.
He's got my parents – what am I going to do? I can't rescue them…
"Wish you had the key now, don't you?" the rat whispered from under the cot, his taunting voice full of 'I told you so'.
My fingers clenched, the aching knuckles cracking and popping, and I twirled around. Rage exploded in my heart and cascaded through me like a forest fire. It was oh-so-much-more intense than any human would ever feel – it completely erased any other emotions I had been feeling. Despair, pain, terror, and sadness were eaten up by the pure flame of my ghostly fury. And, this time, I didn't bother to try to stem the tide; I let it burn like a wildfire.
"Shut up!" I screamed, my eyes blazing with the amount of power I'd collected around me. Energy swirled into existence in a flare of emerald light, the blades appeared on my arms without being called, and I was on my feet in an instant. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Power spilled over into my voice, making my voice drip with power and filling the room with painful echoes. I had no other thought in my head but to kill the rat.
Damn the plan. Damn the stupid rat. Walker was going to throw me in a fight against my parents and the rat was taunting me? Somewhere inside of me, I'm sure my human side was telling me I was overreacting, but my ghost side didn't care. I didn't care – I needed an outlet for my emotions and killing something sounded like a perfectly reasonable form. I was already a murderer, what was one more rat on my way to Hell?
The rat's sapphire eyes widened, his whiskers twitching, seeming to catch onto my thought process – not that it was hard to figure out, I'm sure the desire to kill him was etched on every feature of my face. He twirled to run but I was already moving. Spectral-born speed had me across the room in a heartbeat, the cot being tossed against a wall, the rat's hiding spot no longer hidden. There, beside where I'd hidden the spear the rat had dropped earlier, LJ was crouched. I reached down to grab him but he slipped out from between my fingers.
A sparkle of green light and the rat was gone, vanished through a tiny ghost portal in the corner of my cell I couldn't follow, chasing his own shadow back to the relative safety of his lost city. I glared down at the place where the walls met the floor, fuming, my fury feeding on itself in a painful arc.
I threw back my head and screamed as loudly as I could, flooding my voice with as much power as I could find. Energy raced out of me in a dizzying rush, the vibrating air molecules almost glowing in emerald waves as they bounced around my small cell, singeing the stones before they dissipated.
Walker had my parents.
Walker was two steps from having his key back.
Walker was winning.
And it was all my fault.
I collapsed to my knees, my voice fading away, tears streaking down my face. Walker has my parents. My rage was vanishing, being replaced with nothing short of complete despair. What am I going to do? I can't even save myself.
I'm going have to watch them die. I buried my face in my hands, my breath catching painfully in my throat, my chest heaving as I tried to hold in sobs of anguish.
Shifting a little, I got my legs out from under me and pulled my knees up to my chest, my back pressed against the cold wall. I was having a tough time breathing, unable to take in a full breath of air, my lungs working faster and faster to try to pull enough oxygen out of the air. The world grew black around the edges and the ground started to spin as my breath rasped in and out, faster and faster. My parents are in the Pits.
Three of the ghost lights drifted down to where I was sitting, holding eerily still a few feet in front of me. I gazed at them through watery eyes, the blackness creeping in from the edges to drown out more and more of what I could see. I'm going to have to kill my parents.
The smallest of the blue lights drifted closer until it was nearly touching my forehead, seeming to listen to my shallow gasps for air. I'm having a panic attack, I realized faintly. Then a sparkle of light jumped between the ghost light and my head and the world went black.
--
I pushed the cot back into its place, the rat's spear once again hidden from view if someone walked through the door, and settled down onto the thin blanket. Sam's burned scrunchie was sitting on top of my pillow next to the red notebook, which had its own collection of burn marks and wrinkled corners now. My family's picture was still carefully tucked into the last page of the notebook, but I hardly dared to look at it. My mother's face was engraved into my mind anyways – looking at the picture could have sent me spiraling again. As it was, I was having a tough time keeping my mind out of the depths of despair.
"What am I going to do?" I whispered as I picked up the notebook and paged through it without thinking. I'd already written on a number of the pages, writing down my story. It wasn't really helping me figure out what was going on, but I was keeping with it… if for no other reason than because I had nothing better to do. "I need to save my parents and myself and keep the key away from Walker."
I needed a plan. Not some elusive 'plan' that everybody and their brother seemed to have, but one of my own. And I needed one now – Walker could throw my parents into my next pit fight. The problem was that I knew so little about how the Pits worked. I glanced up at the door with a sigh.
Wish you have the key now, don't you?
I nodded, remembering the rat's words. Yes, yes I do. More than anything, yes I do.
I should have killed Valerie. The knowledge was heavy on my heart. I should have killed one of my friends – if I had, I wouldn't be in this spot. I'd still have the rat's plan and would have been three steps from being free of this place forever. Now… Now…
Now my parents are going to die, I'm going to die, and my friends are going to die. The Pits will continue and hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent souls are going to suffer. All because I couldn't kill one person.
Shaking my head, I dragged myself out of those thoughts. I needed to think about what was going to happen next, not cry over spilt milk. What's done is done. "What am I going to do?"
I reached a blank page in my notebook and stared down at the small lines as if the answer would write itself on the paper. It didn't.
--
"Phantom," came a burly, echoing voice. I glanced up from my almost feverish writing, having found a tiny bit of relief in spilling my story onto the thin pieces of paper. The guard was one of the tall ones, a black patch over his right eye. He studied me for a moment. "Fight."
Nodding faintly, I pushed the notebook under my pillow and got to my feet. The guard stepped to the side to allow me to leave the room. I took a single step into the hallway before I froze.
Ghosts were standing along the darkened corridor surrounding the one ghost that was lounging carelessly against the wall. Walker tipped his head to the side. "Your choice?" he asked simply. My knife or your parents? As if to prove his point, he raised his hand. Dangling from his finger was an old fashioned key that I had no doubt opened the door to my parents' cell.
I stared at the old key, almost mesmerized by it as it swayed back and forth. I had no idea what to do – I had never felt so incapable of doing anything. Always before when I'd been angry, frustrated, or outmaneuvered, I'd been able to use raw power to force my way out of losing. With just a few exceptions, it had been a working strategy. The collar around my neck completely negated that possibility. I wouldn't get more than a few feet before someone pushed a button and sent me collapsing to the ground.
My gaze switched back to Walker. I'd never been much of a planner; thinking two steps ahead wasn't my strong point. Right now, it wasn't any point. My options were so limited that they were almost nonexistent.
One – I could lie to him. Walker would, no doubt, uncover the lie in a matter of minutes, my parents would end up dead, and Walker would find someone else to dangle in front of me. Two – I could tell him the truth. Valerie would be dead in just a few hours, Walker would have his key back, and my parents would probably end up dead anyways. Or three – I could chose to not answer. My parents would die and someone else would find their way into the Pits.
I don't think I'd ever felt as young as I did as I stared at him just then. Walker had experience; he'd maneuvered me perfectly into a corner that I couldn't escape from. There wasn't a good solution and I had no clue what to do next.
My eyes dropped to my feet. "I don't know," I whispered, somewhat truthfully. I don't know what to say.
"What was that?" Walker's voice was hard. "One must speak up when spoken to."
"I don't know!" I said, louder, frustration seeping into my voice. There was only one thing I knew for sure – I had to stop being a pawn. I needed to do something, make a move. I had to take the initiative. My parents are dead anyways.
Stomping down on the emotions that came with that thought, I tried to get my mind to work. I needed to tell Walker something to buy some time for me to come up with an actual plan, talk to Former, and find a way out of here. I couldn't tell him the truth, so I had to lie. I had to tell him a lie that he wouldn't be able to check quickly. Stick as close to the truth as you can.
"You do know," Walker snapped.
I took a steadying breath, closing my eyes for a moment. "I don't know where it is," I said softly, letting the all-too-real-fear color my voice. If Walker figured out I was lying to him, my parents would be dead in minutes. "But I know who has it."
Walker's dried-up eyes narrowed, his glittering gaze focused on me from inside the dark sockets of his skull. I shivered a little, fighting to keep from taking a step away from the warden. "Who?"
Licking my lips a little, I stomped down on a few tendrils of fear that were snaking up my stomach. "What do I get if I tell you?"
The warden seemed to think about that for a moment, his raisin eyes studying me, his fingers brushing over the box on his belt that would activate my shock collar. I tensed, waiting for the agonizing electricity, but it never came. "Why should I believe what you tell me?" Walker asked slowly.
"I'm sick of being a pawn," I answered, keeping my eyes trained on the ground and fighting the desire to edge away from Walker.
He gazed at me for a moment longer. "All you've got is lies." Turning away, he waved his hand over his head. "Throw him in a Pit with his parents."
No! "Blue eyes," I called out desperately, hoping that Walker knew about the rat. "Black hair with blue streaks. Calls himself a 'guardian'."
The warden's back stiffened in surprise. "L'Jai," he hissed, his fingers clenching so tightly I could hear his ectoplasmic bones snapping and groaning. When he turned to face me, his eyes burned with hatred. "The rebel has my knife?"
"Had," I answer softly, one of my feet moving backwards to keep myself away from Walker's growing spectral presence. Swallowing heavily, I glanced up into his eyes.
The warden was swelling, his head seeming to brush the ceiling, his shoulders touching the walls. "Where is my knife?" Walker screamed, stalking up to me and glaring down at me.
Locking my knees, I kept my gaze locked on his, struggling to keep Walker from knowing just how afraid of him I was. Huge, menacing, and very dangerous, it was all I could do to not collapse to the ground and cower. "What do I get in exchange?" I responded, my voice trembling slightly.
"Your life," Walker snarled. He pulled the box off his belt and waved it in my face, his huge fingers nearly as big around as my head.
"Not good enough," I answered. "My life's not worth that much."
Walker slowly shrunk back to his normal size, seemingly taken aback by my response. He stared at me for a long moment, but I just met his gaze. I was sure that my fear was leaking through, but I had no doubt that he could see the truth in my answer. I'm a murderer; I'm not sure what home I have to go back to even if I do survive this. Life as I knew it, for all intents and purposes, was over.
What was left of my life isn't worth the knowledge Walker was asking for.
"Your parents' lives, then," he said slowly. "You tell me and I'll free them."
My gaze drifted away from Walker and landed on the nearby door. The sign painted in blood red clearly showed that two humans were being kept inside, my heart skipping a beat. I have to tell him something. "LJ brought me the knife," I said quietly.
Walker rocked back on his heels, then a strange grin slipped onto his face. His skin rustled as the expression twisted his skin. "Leave us," he hissed to the guards. "Wait for us around the corner." After the three guards had vanished, Walker chuckled. "I thought you knew about the rebel – he's been plotting around behind my back, poisoning the minds of my workers. He's been behind the little ghost rebellion as well, I've learned." His eyes narrowed dangerously, his fingers dancing over the box at his belt. "Before, he was just a nuisance. Now that he's stolen my knife… I assume you know what my knife really is."
"The jewel is the key to the Pits," I answer, nodding my head.
"Exactly," Walker said with a small, almost pleasant smile on his face. The effect of his furious eyes and the smile made me want to race in the opposite direction as fast as I could. "And you then realized why I want it back. Where is it?"
I shivered, dropping my gaze back to the floor. I can't tell him the truth; he'll go check the moment I tell him where it is and find out that the jewel is missing. "Let my parents go, then I'll tell you," I said, my mouth dry.
"No." His rebuke was hard and quick, his eyes narrowed and his tone booking no argument. "I want my knife back now, I want that rebel on a stick, and I will have those before anything else happens."
"But-"
"You are a child, Punk," he hissed, "and I have been doing this longer than you can imagine. Don't bargain with me – you will lose. Tell me where my knife is. Now." Fury sparkled in his words, energy flaring around him in lethal swirls of power. "My knife for your parents. Either I get mine, or you lose yours. Choose."
Taking a small step backwards, my breath caught in my throat. I couldn't tell him where the knife was. But what could I say? "I…" Walker snarled, cutting off what I was about to say, and I glanced down at the small box on his belt, licking my lips.
Something was churning down in my stomach. I wish… Closing my eyes, I didn't know what I was really wishing for. Everything was falling apart and I didn't know what to do. And to make it all worse, I had this strange feeling brewing inside of me… almost like I wanted to tell him. He was stronger and faster and… he was the ruler.
I understood the feeling almost as soon as I realized it was there, my mind connecting the dots without a problem. My ghost emotions and instincts were coming into play. Walker was talking directly to something inside of me – something my human side had always been able to override. Now, locked in the Pits and terrified and unsure of myself, he was playing the 'boss' card and my ghost side was falling for it. Gritting my teeth and fighting against the growing feeling, I looked down at my feet. I wasn't going to tell him anything.
"Now."
"It's in my room still." The words jumped out of my mouth unbidden. For a moment, I just stood there, blinking and startled. Then, an empty feeling gnawing at my stomach, I whispered, "I can get it for you after the fight."
Strong, wrinkled fingers grabbed my chin and jerked upwards, forcing my eyes to meet Walker's eyes. He stared at me for a moment. "You're telling the truth, aren't you, Punk?" A grin split his face, his dry skin cracking at the movement. "I'm breaking you. Slowly but surely, I'm winning." His nose moved closer until it was inches from mine, his rancid breath blowing in my face. "Soon, you'll do whatever I ask, won't you?"
I shook my head, but Walker's strong fingers dug into my jaw and moved my head up and down for me. What did I just do? I gave in. Why did I tell him? WHY!?
"After the fight, then," he murmured, "we have a date. Die in the fight and your parents will follow you into the afterlife. Lie to me," he snarled, "and your parents will not see their next meal. Are we clear?" Fingernails dug into my skin as he tightened his grip.
"Crystal," I whispered painfully.
He let go, a small smile on his face as he placed a hand gently on my shoulder. "Good boy. Now, let's get you to your fight." He pushed my shoulder a little and I walked alongside without a struggle, still going over what had happened in my head. I'd given in – was it as simple as that? Walker knew I had the knife. He knew where it was. Walker knew I knew about the rat. Walker had my parents. He had me. The rat had deserted me. I didn't have the key anymore.
After all this, after everything I'd been through, was Walker going to win after all?
Dear reader, you have no idea how much pain that thought brought me. I'd been through so much, done so much to survive, given so many things to try to win… was I just going to lose anyways? Was I just going to give in and let Walker win?
"Tracing back the rebel's plotting has taken quite a while," Walker said almost conversationally as we walked down the hallway, the guards catching up with us as we rounded the corner. "The elephant was helpful – you remember her, correct? She was the one that brought you to me. She had a most interesting story to tell about L'Jai and how he helped her get you in here with some poisoned darts."
The rat…? I felt the ground drop out from under me, my feet moving mechanically down the corridor. The rat got me in here? Walker had to be lying about that. Why would LJ get me locked in here?
But, at the same time, it made a sickening sort of sense…
Walker was still talking, not apparently noticing how startled I was at that piece of information. "I'm surprised you kept his secrets as long as you have; I wasn't sure you even knew about the rebel. But after I knew that he had helped you get captured, I was sure that he was planning to use you on his latest 'overthrow Walker' plot." Walker snorted. "Idiot boy. When I get my hands on him, I will destroy him – he's been nothing but an annoyance. I haven't figured out how he gets around my Pits without being noticed, but I will."
Just an annoyance. I looked at Walker out of the corner of my eye. Is that all he sees me as too? An annoyance?
Walker, who had stolen the Pits from its original owner. Walker, who was busy unraveling LJ's supposedly 'secret' plot. Walker, who had, apparently, out-maneuvered me just minutes before. Excellent. I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to ignore Walker's victory speech, desperate for some kind of plan.
"I'm not sure what you thought you were doing, Punk," Walker continued, more to himself than to anyone else. "Mere children going up against me? What kind of world would this be if I didn't win? I'm bigger, I'm smarter, and I am the rules. I can't help but win."
The door to Former's office appeared before us and Walker dragged me to a stop. "One fight," he said. "Win and you live. Lose and everyone you hold dear will die."
I looked up at him for a moment, then nodded slowly in understanding. What else was I going to do?
"Good luck," Walker chuckled.
I slipped through the door, my mouth dry and my stomach churning painfully. I took a deep, unsteady breath as I looked around Former's office, searching for the familiar face. Former had some sort of escape plan…
Only there was no Former. A strange man with red hair was sitting at the desk, pen in his hand. He looked up when the door clicked shut, his eyes narrowing as he studied me.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"Joe," he said simply, not getting out of his seat. He looked back down at his book and started to write again.
I waited a beat, but when he didn't continue I asked the question that was floating around in my head. "Where's Former?"
"Dead."
For about the umpteenth time, I felt like a rug had been dragged out from under my feet. "What?" I breathed. My mouth was open, my mind not entirely sure what it was trying to think or feel. Too many things had happened in the past few minutes for my brain to keep up. Anything more, and my head would turn into mush.
Joe shrugged, looking down at his book and scribbled for a second, not answering my question.
"How did he die?" I asked.
"Pits."
A few moments of silence passed as I realized that he wasn't going to continue. "Thanks for being so descriptive," I muttered.
He glanced up at me, arching an eyebrow. Then he picked up a thick envelope and held it out to me, bouncing it a few times in his hand when I didn't make a move to take it. "Yours," he said simply.
"Mine?" I reached out and took it from his fingers, looking down at it. Neat handwriting was scrawled across the front of the old-style envelope. To Phantom, it read, please give it to him when you see him next. The envelope was thick, something hard inside. My world still feeling a little unsteady, my whole universe having been upturned in the past few hours, and I just stood there, staring blankly down at the envelope.
Joe grunted and I glanced up at him. "Open?"
Slowly, I ripped open the envelope and dumped the contents into my hand. The only thing in the envelope was something that looked like a dirty circuit board, hand-welded by someone who didn't know what they were doing, three buttons fixed to one side. I looked at it for a long moment before moving my thumb over to gently press one of the buttons.
Nothing happened.
The door leading into the Pits suddenly creaked and I jumped, stuffing the small object into my pocket. One of the guards stuck his head around the door and gestured at me. "Fight's ready. Come on."
Pulling my arm slowly out of my pocket, I walked over to the guard and stepped through the door, stopping next to the guard as he pulled the thick door shut. "How did Former die?" I asked after the door had banged shut.
"Rumor has it," the guard said as we started to walk the corridor towards the arenas, "he attacked Walker. Cut off a guard's hand before they even knew he was there." The ghost sounded startled that Former had been able to pull it off. "The guards that were there said he was screaming and yelling about how his brother was dead."
"So, Walker killed him?" My gaze had drifted to the floor, watching the well-worn rock pass under my feet.
"Nah," the guard said. "Knocked him out and threw him into a cell. Don't know when Former's scheduled to fight, but if he's not dead yet, he will be soon."
I nodded silently, swallowing heavily as we stepped up to the big arena. I could hear the screaming of the crowds, strangely quiet compared to usual, even before I stepped out onto the cold sand. "Thanks," I said softly.
The guard dropped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "Fight well, kid."
Then the fight was on.
--
My opponent was waiting for me, her head held high, black hair cascading down to her knees. "We despise these garments," she said haughty as I took my place and the guards flipped on the shield around us. "We would much rather wear our dress."
"Okay," I answered with a small shrug, pushing all of my problems to the back of my mind. Parents trapped in Pits, Walker about to ruin my life, my only chances of escape vanishing… not important at the moment. I had to win this fight. Shifting onto the balls of my feet, my blades shimmered into existence with a cool trickle of metal.
"Thou art merely a peasant." Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me. "We shalt not challenge one lower than us."
"Not really an option," I answered, walking in a circle around her, studying her, ignoring the odd way she was talking and the implied derogatory comments. She didn't have anything special that I could see – would Walker really throw me up against someone who couldn't defend herself?
Her head twisted, watching me move with a scowl. "We demand it!"
Rather than answering in words, I slipped towards her, flicking one of the blades towards her face to see how she'd react. Her eyes widened and she took a small step backwards – one that was a bit too small. The tip of my blade slid across her cheek and opened up a tiny slice that sluggishly started to ooze ectoplasm.
Her hand came up to her cheek, touching the cut with trembling fingers. "Thou hast hurt us," she whispered. She stared at the green liquid dripping down her fingers, then up at me, her princess-like eyes wide and surprised.
I crouched, ready to attack again. Getting rid of the ghost wouldn't take more than a few moments, and I could go back to everything falling apart. I tensed…
And she screamed. Power cascaded into her voice and created visible waves of an eerie red power that slammed through the air and crashed into me. I tripped over backwards, my hands coming up to cover my ears in pain. Suddenly, I realized that I was screaming as well – screaming in agony.
"Thou shalt not hurt us!" she shrieked, energy gathering around her in a visible haze, the power in her voice keeping me curled up in a ball on the ground. I watched through narrowed, watering eyes as the ghost's aura grew and surrounded her in a mist of energy. Within a few moments, it was so thick that I couldn't see the ghost anymore. "Thou shalt PERISH!"
A fierce wind raced through the small arena, blasting away the reddish fog and banishing the last of the agonizing shrieks from the ghost. Into the suddenly quiet, I could hear my own voice, still screaming. I forced my mouth shut and scrambled to my feet, staring up into the bloody-red eyes of my opponent.
Who was, not too much to my surprise, a dragon.
The black scales on her face pulled back into a snarl, two-foot-long fangs glistening in the Pits' lights. "Perish," she growled, energy flooding into the simple word, forcing me to stumble backwards a few feet. Throwing herself onto her hind legs and spreading her night-black wings, the dragon's head nearly brushed the shield flickering about two-dozen feet overhead.
I blinked up at her for a few moments, trying to figure out the best way to slay a dragon. My relatively short blades wouldn't be able to do much more than inflict surface wounds – nothing fatal. Gaze drifting over the lithe form, I finally centered on the dragon's neck. Ghosts didn't have jugulars, per say, but that was the thinnest place on the ghost's body. I'd be able to slice almost half-way through it.
She moved before I could. Dropping down onto all fours, her head slashed down, snapping at me. I backpedaled out of the way, slicing at her fangs with my blades. The sharp, star-silver metal bounced painfully off the dragon's teeth, sending a shudder through my whole body. I took a few more steps backwards and then threw myself into the air.
Her head followed me like a snake, twisting around to follow my flight, murder glinting in her eyes. When I came too close to her back, her wings suddenly shot out and bashed me out of the way, sending me skidding through the air towards a wall. "Peasant. Don't touch us."
I caught my balance in the air just before I hit the wall, my feet coming to a rest on the plants like it was a floor as I craned my neck up to look at my opponent. "How fast are you, dragon?" I whispered, pushing myself back into the air with a burst of speed. The sudden acceleration left my stomach feeling queasy, the air torn from my lungs, but I got behind her head. I twisted around and sliced towards her neck, confident that my fight was nearly over.
K-Cling.
The blades bounced right off the dragon's scales, without even leaving a scratch.
"Don't touch us!" the dragon shrieked, head coming around to snap at me.
I dodged with a curse, pushing myself up into the air. "What the hell?" I hissed as I twirled and looped away from the dragon's teeth, trying desperately to keep myself from getting caught. Why didn't that work?
A plume of cold air was my only warning; I threw myself to the left as the dragon snapped her jaws shut where I had just been. Then I had to swerve back to the right to avoid getting slashed by claws that were longer than my arm. "PERISH!" the dragon screamed.
Looping up and over, I caught a quick glimpse of the black dragon as I skimmed the ghost shield. She was on her hind legs, her front claws ready to strike, her head following my every movement. One of my arms came up, palm pointed towards the dragon. Emerald energy coursed through me, headed for my hand. The blade intercepted it and the energy curled around it like emerald lightning for a fraction of a moment before sizzling through the air, slamming into the dragon's face much more powerfully than I would have managed on my own.
With a yell of agony, the dragon dropped to all fours, pawing at her face. When she looked back up at me, there wasn't a visible mark on her. The twin eyes were glowing a murderous red. Her whole body expanded as she took in a deep breath, then she let it out in a shriek of power. Visible sound waves blasted through the air and slammed me, chest-first, into the ghost shield.
I screamed as electricity from the ghost shield zapped into me, trying to throw me back into the pit. The dragon's screaming, however, was keeping me in place, pain etching through every molecule of my body. My hands pushed futilely at the shield, desperately attempting to get me away from the arching energy.
Through the screams and the agony that had my eyes screwed shut, I felt something… odd. Something that, despite the intense pain that was attacking my mind, caught my attention. I probably wouldn't have been able to think through the pain if it weren't for all of Walker's zappings with the collar. I was, just a little, getting used to it.
The feeling was in my hands – warm and prickling. I worked my eyes open for just a moment, watching as silver light played over the hand that was in front of my face. My hand… my human hand… slipped through the ghost shield.
Then the dragon's shrieking stopped, my body succeeded into throwing itself away from the ghost shield, and I found myself dropping through the air, my hands back to their strange half-ghost, half-human state. I caught myself inches before I slammed painfully into the ground, stopping my fall just long enough to get my feet under me. My legs sagged when I put weight on them.
Where's the dragon? I looked up, my breath rasping in a throat that was sore from screaming. The dragon was studying me, her red eyes burning.
"Don't touch us," she snarled at me, her wings settling down on her back.
"That didn't work," I breathed to myself. "Now what?" The blades, apparently, didn't work against dragons. Neither did ectoblasts. I took a few unsteady steps forwards before pushing myself back into the air to drift closer to her, just out of range of her snapping jaws and sharp claws. "You like the cold, dragon?"
She growled in response, her tail lashing towards me. I had to dodge, trying to keep her face in sight, looking for that odd core of cold that was always inside of me. The only real problem with my ice powers was that I couldn't kill a ghost using it. Ghosts were too inherently cold themselves to be affected by it that much. Damage them, hurt them, trap them, yes. But I still wouldn't be able to cut through the dragon's scales to finish her off.
Hearing the air whistle as her black-scaled tail flew by inches from my ear, I twirled a section of that frozen cold up through my arms. It slid through my veins, curling into my hands to form an almost visible blue aura. Within a heart-beat, I had collected enough power and I threw out my hand, the energy flying away from me like a baseball. I twisted in the air, following the first blast of energy with the second I'd created in my other hand. They crashed into the dragon's chest at almost the same moment, exploding into blue, crystalline ice.
Encased in ice from her neck to her feet, the dragon struggled, throwing her head from side to side. "Don't touch us!" she screamed, flexing her body. When she took a deep breath the ice shattered around her, sliding to the ground like miniature ice burgs. Her head flipped towards me, her mouth opening to scream in my direction, but I was already moving.
Another twin set of blasts slammed into her before she could scream, one covering her head in a thick layer of ice, the other freezing her wings to her sides. "Enough with the screaming," I said, throwing another ball of the icy energy towards her, wrapping her totally in a frozen cocoon. "Now, how do I end this?"
The silence didn't last for more than a few seconds. Red energy exploded around the dragon, the scream that she'd created sending the ice scattering like tiny spears. I crossed my arms in front of my face, slipping intangible for the few moments it took the ice to fly through me and skewer into the walls.
I lowered my hands to see how much damage she'd received, and blinked in surprise. The dragon was wrapped in a red mist – one that seemed to be shrinking. After just a few moments, the mist scattered, leaving a dazed looking woman behind. "Don't touch us," she murmured, looking around in apparent confusion. "We will not allow peasants to touch us."
Whatever the cause of the sudden de-dragoning, I wasn't about to let it go. If she managed to turn back into a dragon, I'd be in trouble. I was almost positive that she was more vulnerable in this form. I was in the air before I'd even finished the thought, arrowing towards her.
She looked up, her red eyes having time to blink at me just once before I removed her head from her shoulders. In a cascade of ectoplasm, her body disintegrated. A small green ghost light formed above the pool of freezing liquid that used to be her, hovered for a moment, then danced its way through the ghost shield and off into the Pit.
--
I walked up the hallway leading out of the Pit, listening to the almost-silent crowd discuss my 'win'. The stands had been filled with silent, green-cloaked ghosts – Skulker's rebels. The few ghosts that hadn't been wearing green had been the only ones cheering the end of the fight, and even those had been quickly cut off. It was almost creepy. I was used to the loud screaming, jeers, and bets being called out overhead. The silence was…
"Phantom," a voice said and I jerked out of my thoughts, staring at the ghost being escorted down the hallway. "Nice to see you again."
It was the girl from earlier – the one I'd thought was Dani. White hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her green eyes filled with danger and sparkling with enjoyment. Her Pits-style uniform was loose on her small frame, but she moved with the lithe grace of someone who knew how to control herself.
"I'm Specter," she said when I didn't say anything, pausing to hold out her hand.
I took it, feeling the intense power that cascaded inside of her. She was nearly as powerful as I was. "Hi," I murmured before pulling my hand back. Shivers were running down my spine as she gazed at me like I was some sort of delicious desert.
She nodded to me, then turned to head towards her fight with a sort of sweeping, creepy grace that a normal girl her age wouldn't have possessed. "I will see you soon," she said to me before she vanished around the corner.
"I sure hope not," I whispered, shaking my head.
"Sure hope not what, Punk?"
I froze at the sound of Walker's voice, dread slamming into me like a brick wall.
"We have a date, remember? Let's go get my knife."
--
"Holy…" the young woman's voice drifted into silence as she let the notebook fall from her numb fingers. "Everything's falling apart."
Quietly, she picked up the notebook, paged to the back, and stared down at the photograph still tucked in the back page. The warm, human faces still shown through the scorch marks and the water stains. "I wonder if you survived," she whispered, then sighed. "Of course you didn't. The boy didn't live since Walker did, and you probably died even before he did."
She pressed the picture to her chest for a moment, grieving for two people she'd never met. Then, slipping the picture back to where it was, she paged through the notebook to where she'd left off. Flipping to the next page, her eyes scanned the short entry. At the bottom, the words ended in a scrawl, cutting off mid-sentence. Her forehead wrinkled for a moment as she turned the page again.
There was nothing more.
"Last page," she breathed, a little worried about what she'd do when there was nothing left for her to read. But, after a moment, she looked down at the final page of the boy's notebook and continued to read…
--
A few notes:
One: I might yet make this follow 'Final Exam'. Maybe not, though. The idea of killing off Danny after all of this has it's merits.
Two: I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. If you are as well, you can look me up on nanowrimo. org (same username, as always) and buddy me. If you are not, think about doing it. It'll be a lot of fun. NaNoWriMo will be an original fiction which I am calling 'Untouchable' - about a young girl who is half-human, half-faerie, and completely drenched in angst. If you want to read it, I will be posting it on deviantart. com for your enjoyment.
Three: Due to NaNoWriMo, there will be NO UPDATES from me during the month of November. This story, in all likelihood, will not get another update until December. Unless I get my lazy self moving and write the next chapter this week which is, in truth, rather short and could very possibly get done. After that, this story will fly since everything after the next chapter is already written. There are four chapters remaining. Well, three and an epilogue.
Enjoy November! I hope you check me out on dA throughout the month to read my original work! I've very excited about the chance to get to do my own story and I would love comments on how I'm doing on my first big try at non-fan-fic work. If you don't have an account on dA, it would be a REAL treat to get a PM from you with your thoughts - good, bad, or otherwise.
Also, don't forget that the author's version of 'Pits', full of my notes and comments, are uploaded onto dA through the last chapter.
Thanks to Piece of Toast, bluename, Nyghty, The Feral Candy Cane, Natasha, hermie-the-frog, Chopee, kdm12, TexasDreamer01, New Ghost Girl, Kinoshita Kristanite, Kit turned Mighty, ShadowedDarkness, fetchboy84, FreakLevel27, Miriam1, Enray, Invader Johnny, swordbunny4487, Rakahn, The Fatalist, HaiJu, bloodmoon13, Hiei's Cute Girl, Silver Child of the Sea, Writer's-BlockDP, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Rahne-Aamar, Hera Ledro, CatalystOfTheSoul, Thunderstorm101, KareBare, ImmortalPhantom22, Shadowcat, katiesparks, Me-agaisnt-the-world, skitzofrenic, DannysGhostWriter, DarkJobo, and ChaosDragon for sending me their thoughts. :D
Thank you for reading!
-Cori