Day 29: Courtyard

[traitors-smile.livejournal.com]

Though he hadn't been able to stomach much of the cafeteria food, as the day went on, he did feel marginally better.  The fever seemed to have broken and he'd held down what little he'd eaten.  It made him a little anxious, to sit around so much, and even if it was difficult, a walk outside sounded like a nice break from the usual.  He had no interest in the visitors.  Likely as not they were the same as the creature he'd run into a couple nights ago in the form of Aizen Sousuke. 

He folded his thin arms across his chest as he started his walk around the courtyard.  The air was crisp, getting colder by the day it seemed, but it didn't dissuade him from taking a leisurely walk while he gathered his thoughts.

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[son-ofkrypton.livejournal.com]

"We weren't out of school yet back in Smallville," Clark said, no longer smiling. "But I don't remember how I got from home to here...or how long it's been since then."

He didn't think Danny was lying. First of all, he just didn't seem to be the type. Clark liked to believe in the best of people if he could help it and he just didn't believe that Danny would be the type to go around lying. Or at least about stuff like this. He of all people should know that sometimes people had to lie for a good reason, like protecting others. But Danny seemed alright, so Clark didn't think he was joking or leading him on. If he said that it was summer back where he was, well, then he believed him.

But Clark had to get it out: "Do you think we've been here longer? Like months instead of days?"

It was a horrible thought. He was already worried enough about his friends and family, and that was just assuming that he'd been gone only a few days, not months.

[notaghostreally.livejournal.com]

"I don't remember either," he said, glad to find at least one other person who shared his experience. Although, in truth, all those other people he'd met--Hitsugaya and Artemis and Xelloss and Jean, and the ones he'd met the day before--might've been in the same situation. Danny had just never bothered to ask.

"I was just..." The last thing he was doing before he ended up here was...well, just taking care of the daily ghosts. After Freakshow and the Reality Gauntlet, the flow of ghosts wasn't very exciting. "I was just enjoying my summer as usual, but I suddenly woke up here." He grinned. It wasn't really a bluff, this time--he was enjoying his summer! Just...in between the ghost-hunting. That wasn't even a lie at all! Just omitting a few details that no one needed to know anyway! This conversation wasn't about ghost hunting, after all!

Danny had to pause and think about his next question, though. He couldn't imagine being here longer than three days. He would've fallen asleep a lot more, possibly during the day, if he'd been here longer. Come to think of it, had he even slept at all? Between pretending to be insane by day and bashing monsters by night, where had he found the time to sleep at all?

But he had to admit one thing: it felt much longer here than just days. One would think that with all the action during nighttime, it would move quickly. But when Danny thought back on it, the time seemed to trudge at an almost inhuman pace.

"I don't know how that would work, but it does feel a lot longer than just days," he said. It felt like he'd been here so long that his first day was slightly shrouded in a cloud of confusion and forgotten meetings.

[son-ofkrypton.livejournal.com]

That was how it'd been with Clark too - well, not the summer break part, but the waking up part. The last thing he remembered was walking down the stairs of the cellar, the glowing light surrounding him as he heard a voice without a body. And then nothing, just a jerk like he woke up from dozing off, and realizing he wasn't back home. As far as he could tell, it was instantaneous. Clark chewed this over, listening to the shorter kid's story. Danny seemed to be thinking the same thing he was.

"I thought it was bad enough before," Clark said, sighing. He hated to be the downer here, bringing up their kidnapping, but there wasn't really much he could think to talk about. "I bet our parents are really freaked out."

He didn't like worrying Mom and Dad; they had enough to worry about when he was at home and trying to act like a normal kid. But with their son just missing one day? And for possibly months, without any explanation?

[notaghostreally.livejournal.com]

Danny was lucky enough to have fallen asleep before being captured and placed in Landel's. It at least made the kidnapping a bit more sensible to him. Unfortunately, when he woke up, he thought he'd been captured and strapped down to a lab table, either in his parents' or Vlad's lab. Or, worse yet, trapped in a ghost's lair. The last thing he'd want to wake up to was Skulker leaning over him and telling him he was going to make a pelt of him. Yep, definitely his idea of a great morning alarm clock.

"Bad enough before?" he asked. "Wha--no, nevermind," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not going to ask." Sometimes it was better not to. And besides, that wasn't really the point here (even though Danny wasn't usually the one to stay on topic).

But Clark was right--what about their parents? Danny hadn't even thought about them that much (that was normal for a teenaged boy...right?) since coming here, but now he was worried too. What could his parents have done in the meantime? Sent out a search party across town, across state--across the nation? Ohman, he hoped not--that'd be really embarrassing. But, if it was nationwide, they might just find him. He hoped. If Landel's was in America. They might've gone looking in the Ghost Zone. Or worse--somewhere else that Danny didn't think about!

"Ohman, you're right," he said worriedly. "I don't even want to think about what they might be doing to find me." In fact, they might even be going into the Ghost Zone themselves to find him. The idea of his parents in the Ghost Zone made him nervous.

[son-ofkrypton.livejournal.com]

Now he felt kind of bad for bringing it up.

"I bet they've probably called the cops by now," Clark said, trying to sound comforting. Getting kidnapped and having your parents worry about you didn't really leave much room for comforting words, he thought, but he still had to try. "For all we know, they could be close to rescuing us any day now."

He didn't believe it himself, but it couldn't hurt to at least have some hope. What he did believe in was the fact that his parents wouldn't stop looking for him, whether it was days or months, and that he had to at least have some faith in that, even if it looked like he couldn't have the same faith in himself. Not with his abilities on the fritz - to put it lightly - like this. He couldn't trust himself if he was in danger of lighting people on fire just by looking at them. Sighing, Clark reached up, rubbing at the back of his neck as he searched about for something to say. Talking about how trapped they were seemed like it would only be depressing.

"There's so many different people here," Clark said after a moment of searching around. And it was true: okay, so he was from a small town, he got that. But he'd been to Metropolis too and he hadn't ever seen so much variety. The hair colors he'd seen alone was kind of dizzying.

[notaghostreally.livejournal.com]

Danny hadn't considered a cop search. For all the work the Amity Park Police Department did, he'd completely forgotten they even existed. Sure, the police drove around, but most of the crime was ghost-driven. And who hunted ghosts in Amity Park? Him. Of course.

"I guess," he said, not sounding entirely too confident in the idea of the police. If they couldn't stop a single ghost from playing a few pranks, how would they shut down a place like Landel's with monsters terrorizing an enormous population every night? "But that kinda depends on where we are too." He could only hope they were close to home, but the evidence was scarce.

Danny looked around the crowd too. Different indeed! The most normal-looking person he'd seen since getting here was Artemis. And maybe Jean. But everyone else had these strange traits and this odd aura about them--either literally or figuratively. Not even in the Ghost Zone had he seen so much diversity. There, everyone at least had the same thing in common: they were all dead. But here...he struggled to find a common factor between all the people he currently knew here.

[son-ofkrypton.livejournal.com]

"I think someone said we're in New Jersey," Clark said. It wasn't like he knew the area though; that trip to Doyleton hadn't exactly rang any bells for him. The town had just looked like the kind of quiet, sleepy place that Smallville was, if you went and replaced the sprawling farmland with mountains and trees. "I'm pretty sure we're still in the US though."

Not that he could say how he was sure, aside from just having a feeling. Maybe Kasady would know something - the drifter he'd met a few nights ago just seemed like the kind of guy who would know about stuff like this.

[notaghostreally.livejournal.com]

"New Jersey?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. He knew it was a state, but...was there anything in New Jersey? It was kinda just a state to the east, and that was all he really knew about it. Why would something like Landel's be in New Jersey? Then again...it would be inconspicuous there.

"But yeah, it does seem like the US. I just...can't figure out how we're still in the US." Doyleton did look pretty American-y. Except Amity Park was more urban, but hey, close enough. It had a fast-food restaurant, and the girl behind the counter was barely older than him. It pretty much had to be America...right? Okay, well, that was unfair. But everything sounded American, at the very least! None of those posh English accents and cups of tea everywhere yet.