The tone of Peter's voice was heavy with sorrow as the emotionally stunted psychologist sat in the darkness of the collapsed mine just a few feet from his friend. It seemed the weight of his voice was just as heavy as the fallen beams that had the two men trapped and defenseless inside the cavernous ruins of the long abandoned mine.

It took a moment before Egon decided to respond to the odd question. "I merely assumed that your chiroptophobia and nyctophobia were the result of childhood trauma, as it the most common manifestation of the two phobias." Egon paused as he waited for Peter to respond but his friend remained uncharacteristically quiet. "But now I believe it is save to assume that your phobias have a much deeper root beyond commonplace childhood experiences."

"Yeah, you assume right." Peter admitted in a low voice. "You, uh, you know how when I was a kid I lost my mom, right?"

"Yes." Egon confirmed in a soft, sympathetic tone. "You're mother was very ill when you were young and unfortunately her illness took her life."

"Yeah. Well after that it was just me and my da-" Peter abruptly paused and corrected his term of choice. "me and my father from then on."

Egon knew that Peter and his father, a professional conman and unreliable deadbeat, had a strained relationship. Although Peter had for some unknown reason refused to give up on his father entirely, the emotional drain it took on Peter was pushing him to his limits.

"My father was always trying to make a quick buck and was always focused on the next scheme." Peter began to timidly open up about his childhood, a time in his life that he rarely ever acknowledged. "For the first three years after mom died I spent my days at school and my nights alone in the apartment. If I did see him he was either talking 'business' with a shift partner or going to bed at four in the morning. The only time I had clean clothes is when I washed them myself or if my friends' moms helped me out. Same with food. At school I always made sure to get a really big lunch since I never had breakfast and rarely had dinner. It was tough and I was alone. A lot."

Though Egon shielded his natural empathy well out of a sense of self dignity he found himself not caring if anyone could see him tearing up and sympathizing with his friend. "I can only imagine what it would be like to grow up without a mother's care. I imagine it to be quite unpleasant."

"You imagine correctly," Peter answered dryly. "as usual."

"I do not understand what these bleak moments in your past have to do with your current phobias."

Peter scoffed a little before continuing. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes." Egon nodded unseen in the darkness. "I do."

Ecto-1 reached the edge of the city at a quick speed. The bright city lights began to dull as the distance began to drain the illumination from the unnatural light and steadily gave way to the natural starlight that rarely broke through the skyline over the massive city.

"Anything change?" Winston asked as he and Ray left the city limits and steadily encroached on the forest still several miles away.

"No, the tracking device is resting at the coordinates."

Winston shook his head lightly. "Let's just hope they aren't too far from the truck. I'd hate to think-"

"Then don't!" Ray urged impatiently as he stared at the transceiver in his hand. "We can't let anything cloud or affect our judgment."

"Yeah, you're right." Winston agreed as he focused on the road that stretched out ahead of him. "Let's just find the truck and work from there."

Peter coughed a little as the dust in the air began to dry out his throat. Egon was fighting to stave off the extreme cold that was beginning seep through his skin and chill him to the bone.

"Well, one night when I was about twelve years old I was studying in my bedroom when my door was kicked open and my father grabbed onto my arm," Peter resumed his sad tale as he choked to speak through the uncomfortably dry air. "I was dragged out of the apartment and thrown into the backseat of our crappy car as my father took off like he was being shot at!"

"Your father had tried to scam the wrong person, hadn't he?"

Peter sighed remorsefully. "We drove to the Canadian border and kept driving until dawn. My father only stopped after he found a camp site that had been abandoned for the winter." Peter suddenly let out a groan of discomfort as a sharp pain shot through his shoulder and down his arm.

"Peter?" Egon could hear the pain and reacted accordingly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing..." He lied quickly. "My shoulder's sore and my arm's falling asleep. I'm fine."

Egon doubted Peter's claim but didn't press it. Even if Peter did admit to being in pain or suffering from a more severe injury there wasn't anything either man could do until they were freed from the mine.

"Anyway," Peter forced himself to continue his story. "my father took me to a large cabin and told me to wait there until he came back for me. He drove off and I had no idea where he went or why I was left behind."

From the mournful tone Peter had taken Egon knew where Peter's story was going.

"I waited in that cabin all day and all night waiting for my father to come back. I ended up falling asleep on one of the empty bed frames in the cabin, shivering and hungry, until car headlights woke me up. I crept over to the window and looked outside and saw a second car pull up behind the first. Four men I didn't recognize got out of the car and I could tell that they were all looking for someone."

"They were looking for you?"

"No, they weren't looking for me. They were looking for my father."

"Oh."

"Like I said, I didn't recognize them but I knew they were mad. So I snuck out of the cabin and ran into the woods just outside the camp site. I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do if I had been seen, but being the scared kid I was I just knew I needed to keep running and try to hide."

Egon's eyes lit up as he realized why Peter was traumatized by this childhood event. "You hid inside a cave, didn't you?"

Peter was silent for only a moment before replying. "Yeah. I had no choice. I couldn't stay out in the snow and risk being seen, so I ducked inside a narrow and cold cave."

"How long were you there?"

"All night." Peter winced as he tried to push the heavy lumber from his aching shoulder to try and relieve some of the pain, but the lumber refused to budge. "It was the coldest, darkest night of my life. You know, except for the night my mom died. I spent the whole night hiding in the blackest, darkest place I had ever seen. I was afraid, alone, no one knew where I was or that I was even out there in the forest and I had no idea what was going to happen to me."

"What happened while you were in the cave?" Egon asked as tried to curl up around himself, despite his pinned leg, as the coldness began to gnaw away at his core.

"I tried to stay near the entrance and away from the pitch blackness but I could hear the voices of the men yelling at the campsite, and I could hear them getting closer. I figured they must've seen my foot prints in the snow and were trying to find me so I can into the cave as deep as I could go, tripping over rocks and holes, the icy walls and floors hurting my hands and feet the more I moved. I had to force myself to keep walking into the darkness until I couldn't hear the men anymore and that's when I heard a high-pitched squeak."

"Bats." Egon stated coldly.

"Turns out I disturbed them during their hibernation and didn't appreciate it. I couldn't see them but I could hear them screeching and flapping all around me and I could feel them brushing up against my skin and buzzing through my hair. I screamed and I ran through the blackness until I tripped and fell onto the cave floor. I couldn't get up, I was too scared! I just laid on the floor and cried in the darkness while the swarm of bats tormented me all through the night..."

"I'm sorry you had to suffer like that Peter." Egon had to fight against the cold to keep his voice steady and sound as normal as possible. "Had I known I wouldn't have asked you to come inside the mine with me."

"It's not your fault Spengz," Peter tried to sound reassuring but the painful memory had shaken him unexpectedly. "it's not like I told you this once before. I hadn't told anyone before. Not even the park ranger who found me the next morning."

"The men who were looking for your father never found you. That's good, isn't it?"

"Yeah, turns out they were part of some mob type of deal and my father stole money from them. If they found my father they would've killed him. If they found me they would've used me as ransom and when my father wouldn't pay his debt they would've killed me later."

"Why is it your father was able to maintain custody? Shouldn't you have been placed in foster care?"

"I would've if I had told the park ranger the truth. But I didn't. I lied. I guess I needed to protect the only family I had left."

"What did you tell the authorities?"

"That I had run away from home and my father was looking for me. That it was my fault I ended up lost and freezing the forest. I suffered from frostbite on my fingers and toes but no permanent damage. I was released from the hospital and my father, the conman he was, played along with my story like a pro. I think the proudest he had ever been of me is when I lied to the police to save his sorry..." Peter trailed off as a sob welled up in his throat and stole his words.

"Peter, you were trying to protect him." Egon soothed compassionately. "Any child would have done the same thing to protect a parent."

"If I had just told the truth then maybe I would've had a better childhood and my father would've finally been forced to own up his mistakes. I often wonder how my like would've been had someone else raised me. Maybe I could finally know what it's like to be truly, sincerely happy..."

Shaking his head sadly Peter hated himself for sounding so weak and ungrateful.

"Sorry Spengz. I didn't mean to throw my baggage onto your shoulders."

"Peter..." Egon guiltily looked away from the silhouette of his friend and stared at the dark floor around him. Hearing Peter's plight made Egon think of his own less than perfect childhood. A lonely, empty childhood littered with unfulfilled dreams and an overwhelming sense of disappointment. "You're not the only one who ponders the very same question..."

...to be continued...