No Exits Admin Mod (noexitshelp) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-10-09 00:59:00 |
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Where was here? It was becoming difficult to think, his mind was starting to cloud over. It felt like he was in a dream. Was this even real? Was he real?
Concentrate, he needed to concentrate. If he could astral project, he could reach out to Natasha… anybody… and let them know he was in danger. But each time he tried to cast the spell, brainfog set in to break his focus… the frustration was maddening… but even that emotion soon dissipated.
Could this be the Void? The in-between that the campus would find itself surrounded by when they weren’t grounded on other universes, other worlds? He had to try again.
Danny sensed someone crossing the Ghost Line—he didn’t know it was the Ghost Line when he felt it because before the arrival of the newcomers there was no Ghost Line but he knew immediately that it was something spooky—when he was in precalculus class. It caused him to miss the exam. And it made the teacher send him to the principal’s office. Well, it wasn’t the Ghost Line itself that made those things happen, but Danny’s response to it. Only Danny knew about the ghosts, after all. Or, at least, he was fairly certain he was the only one who knew. And thereby he was the only one who looked crazy whenever he saw the ghosts. Or heard them. Or felt them.
Once school ended, Danny hopped on his bicycle—an old fourth hand Schwinn—and cycled towards the Dunwich town limits. That’s where the line was. And that’s where he knew the stranger would be.
Not stranger, Tony said.
“Right,” Danny said aloud to his imaginary friend. “Not a stranger. A newcomer.”
There will be more after him, Tony warned.
“Great.”
By the time Danny made it to the town line, it had been almost five hours since Stephen Strange entered what couldn’t be described as much more than an endless fog. A mist. A foggy misty ghost zone.
Danny dropped his bicycle on the safe side of town and took a deep breath. Then he crossed the Ghost Line. Unlike Strange, he was unaffected. Unlike Strange, he could see both worlds. Well, sort of worlds. The real one and the ghost one. It was difficult to explain. But it caused the hairs to stand up on his arms. “Hello?”
The fog answered him with indecipherable whispers.
It would be far too easy to give in to Void, succumb to the numbing sensation and allow himself to drift away, merging out of existence. Was this what the Buddhists called Nirvana? Escaping the path of samsara? That didn’t sound so bad, after all. No more heartbreak, no more pain, no more anything. But each time he started to feel the boundary of his self start to fade, a jolt of fear shook him back into consciousness. He was not as ready as he thought, there were still attachments that tethered him to the material world.
Fingers… he had fingers. And legs… with feet. Stephen meditated on those to prevent them from fading, to keep his mind sharp.
Hello?
A voice, calling from what sounded like a far distance, muffled but incredibly distinct in this place where no other sound existed. But it wasn’t a sound… Stephen could tell this was a form of telepathy and instinctively honed in the best he could.
Hello? he thought, projecting that outward into the ether. Who’s there?
There were so many voices. So many ghosts. Most of them weren’t interested in Danny. Some were even afraid of him. Maybe because he could see them. Maybe because he was alive. But then there were others. The ghosts that waited for him in his dreams. The ones who watched him from behind corners and in dark shadows. The ghosts of his past.
He had to focus to block them out. Focus in order to find the one voice he was looking for. The one that wasn’t really a ghost. The one that was alive.
Albeit not for much longer. That’s how Danny could sense him. He sensed the flickering life that was still inside of him.
And that’s what he followed. Like a moth to the flame.
“I’m coming!” Danny called out in the fog.
(OOOOOOOOOOHHH, DANNEEEEE BOY)
(COME TO SAVE HIM, DANNNNEEEEEEE?)
(BETTER SAVE YOURSELF, PUP)
Danny picked up the pace.
Hurry, Danny! Tony whispered. He doesn’t have much time!
Danny broke into a run. Following that invisible sense he’d had since childhood. The sense that had brought his family so much pa—
He skidded to a stop. Sneakers squeaking. Then he looked up to see the long figure of a man with a goatee.
Strange. His name is Strange. Tony knew that. Tony knew a lot of things.
How strange?
No. Strange.
“Are you Strange?” Danny asked. He would have felt dumber asking but he was too afraid to feel dumb.
The sudden appearance of a young man before him was not as surprising as it was unexpected. Stephen glanced over the form in wonder and bewilderment. It was as if his eyes had already become unaccustomed to seeing forms and shapes, and this one was so defined, full of color… and life.
Strange, he repeated, the name nearly forgotten… his identity nearly lost. Strange… he said again, but this time with more confidence. Yes. I have a name. Dr. Stephen Strange.
Another jolt of fear ran through his whole body like a muscle spasm to help him focus, but it wasn’t easy. This Void, whatever it was, kept pulling him under, and for the first time he recognized there was a subtle pressure on the places that he’d call his body which felt like grabbing hands, holding on tighter, unwilling to let him go. That was when he recognized he needed to reassert his identity even stronger.
“I am Doctor Stephen Strange.”
“Wow. That’s the weirdest name I’ve ever heard.”
A ghastly wail skimmed through the ghost zone. It caused goosebumps to form on Danny’s skin. He exhaled. His breath was visible in the air like frost.
We have to go, Danny. This is bad. Real bad. He’s going to find us if we stay here too long. Tony’s voice sounded scared in Danny’s head. Too scared. Tony was never that scared.
Except when it came to him.
“Okay, Doctor Stephen Strange. I’m Danny. And we have to get the hell out of here ASAP. Because there are some nasty critters in here and they’ll—”
(EAT YOU ALIVE, YOU LITTLE SHIT)
“—do something real bad to us if we don’t skeedaddle.”
Danny reached out and tried to take Stephen by the hand. It wasn’t easy. At first his fingers slipped right through Stephen’s. Then Danny pursed his lips and focused. He focused hard. Focused like when he called Mr. Hallorann to help save him from the Overlook Hotel. He tried again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Deep breath. FOCUS. Again. This time he managed to lock onto Stephen’s hand and pull him along behind him.
“We have to get back to the town line. They can’t hurt us over there. We’ll be safe there. Safe as houses.”
But not hotels. Never safe in hotels.
Under ordinary circumstances, Stephen would’ve at least rolled his eyes, or sarcastically quip like he’d done all his life that his name wasn’t weird, but Strange, but he was in no position to do much of anything. Now that the entities which dwelt in this dimension realized that their meal was going to be taken away, they began tightening their grasp, making it even more difficult for Stephen to concentrate.
However, now that he had an inkling of the danger they were in, he exerted all his effort to fight against the forces that were set against them. When he realized that the boy was trying to take his hand, he likewise focused and the combination of their wills caused his body to materialize, and once Stephen held on, he did so tight.
“Which way?” he asked, trusting that Danny knew how to escape the Void.
“Hold on. I have to think.” It wasn’t easy. It was so loud in Danny’s head. Not just his own thoughts, but Tony’s, and the ghosts. Not to mention the incessant weeping and wailing that went on in the ghost zone. His head was buzzing. Like it was full of bees.
He didn’t know how he knew the way back. Maybe because, unlike Stephen, he could still see fragments of the normal world layered beneath the ghost realm. Maybe he just had a natural instinct. Maybe it was Tony.
Tony knew a lot, after all.
Regardless, he didn’t let go of Stephen. He held on so tight that his fingers lost sensation. He pulled. The closer they came to the town line, the more difficult it became. Like he was sinking into quicksand. Eventually he had to use both hands, walking backwards as he tugged on what was left of Stephen’s essence—desperately trying to pull him back from the hungry darkness.
“Just a little further,” he said through gritted teeth.
(YOU WON’T MAKE IT)
(HE’S COMING FOR YOU)
(MUNCH MUNCH)
(SOOO HUNGRY DANNNNNEEEEEEE)
(GIVE US THIS TASTY MORSEL AND WE’LL LET YOU GOOOO)
“No!” Danny tugged hard, pulling them both over the town line just as a dark shadow swooped by them.
He hit the pavement on his back, scuffing his elbow. It was bleeding but he didn’t notice. He was too busy catching his breath and checking to make sure the stra—newcomer—was all right.
In this all encompassing void, Stephen couldn’t tell which direction was where, so he relied on Danny to lead, holding on tight. Between the loss of his bodily autonomy and the complete lack of visual clues, it was also difficult to experience the sensation of movement, but there was something horrifying in this dreamstate… a distinct physical resistance grasping, pulling in the opposite direction. Then there were the shadows that materialized, faint, indistinct in shape, swirling around him… or maybe it was a trick of his eyes?
Stephen fought against the forces that kept clouding his mind. Recalling his name had helped greatly, so he began to meditate on the major events of his life… fighting Thanos’ army culminating in their victory due to Tony’s sacrifice, handing over the Time Stone to Thanos just before he dusted away into oblivion, putting himself into a time loop to trap Dormammu and force him into a bargain, the car accident that left his hands shattered…
These memories helped, but somehow they were not as strong as the ones forged most recently …the first night he appeared in Derleth arriving at the pool party with Loki in a speedo wanting to stab him… trying to make a dent to help save an Earth with Carol Danvers by sending hordes of Quiet Monsters to the moon until a inattention on his part left him mangled, his illusionary marriage to Allison in a 1950’s universe that was later invaded by a race of space Lokis, dating Allison afterward and their emotional break up, a musical number centered around him, pirates and hot tubs, karaoke singing and zombies…
Breaking through to the material world was a shock Stephen was not prepared for. It was like he had been trapped in a sensory deprivation chamber for far too long, and then suddenly having being reintroduced to a flood of sight and sound and touch, it was extremely overwhelming. The prevalent sensations, however, were exhaustion and cold, my GOD it was cold. Laying on the grass, he rolled on his side, curling up his limbs, shivering, teeth chattering, both hands tremoring uncontrollably with nerve damage.
But as miserable as it was, he finally felt like himself again… alive... and now that his mind was clear he was able to recognize just how much danger he’d been in, how close he was not to dying, but to be completely erased, body, mind and spirit.
Squinting, letting his eyes adjust to sight, he saw the young man who saved him looming with an expression of concern. His response was to nod his head and croak out a strangled, “Thank you.”
The Cloak of Levitation, who had been inert the whole time in the void, sprung to life again, detaching itself from Stephen’s shoulders and floating independently around the two, awakened and alert.
Danny glanced back over the town line. He didn’t see anything. It looked normal. The mist, the ghosts, the whispers—all gone. Had it even been real? A figment of his imagination? It couldn’t be. Not unless he wanted to accept that his childhood trauma had also been a figment of his imagination. And then, of course, there was the newcomer. Danny could explain him away. His imagination wasn’t that good. He wasn’t that creative.
“No problem,” he said, crawling to his feet. He glanced down at his elbow and wiped off the blood with the palm of his hand. Then he wandered over to the side of the road where his bicycle was lying in the grass.
Thank goodness no one stole it. How long had they even been in that place? Danny looked up at the sky, but it looked pretty much the same as it had when he crossed the line. It could have been two minutes or an hour.
He shook his head. Weird.
“Okay. Cool. Well, I’m gonna go now,” Danny said, picking up his bicycle from the ditch. “Maybe don’t go that way again. You know. Just in case.”
“Wait!” The urgency in his voice, coupled by the way Stephen stretched out his arm, not to cast a spell but in a pleading sort of motion to get the boy to stop. Taking his cue, Cloak rushed from its master’s side to the front of the bicycle where it held a firm hold upon the handlebars to prevent him from riding away.
That short outburst had taken a lot of strength out of Stephen, and he had to pause for a couple of moments to breathe in and finally ask, “What happened to me?” There were more questions, but this one felt the most important.
Danny jerked backward at the sight of the floating cape and almost fell over. Then he shook the front of his handlebars trying to get the cloak to let go. No avail. He rolled his eyes and glanced back at the man.
“I dunno. I’ve never seen shit like that before.”
Danny narrowed his eyes at the cloak. Then he tugged his bicycle backwards. He was strong for a skinny teenage boy. Not physically strong, per se. But there was something about him. Something deeper.
Something that shined.
“I gotta go. I’ve got a report due in history tomorrow and I haven’t started it yet.” Danny climbed onto his bicycle. Then he gave Strange another backward glance. “Tell your friends not to go that way either. I don’t know what that place was, but it’s not good. It’s bad. Real bad.”
Then he skirted around the cloak and began pedaling down the road as fast as he could.
Cloak could’ve tried to prevent Danny from leaving, but it sensed the Shining inside him and hesitated, turning its collar to look back at Stephen to check and see if he felt it, too. Stephen was in no position to do much of anything after nearly having his life essence sucked out and devoured. He weakly dropped his arm and watched mutely as the boy sped away.
Real bad??
“Duh,” Stephen muttered. That was an understatement. He flopped down, back laying flat in the tall grass, looking up at the sky filtered through branches of autumn leaves that rustled in the breeze. Weakened by his experience, he closed his eyes and again muttered for Cloak to hear, “I’m going to just lay here for a little bit.”
And promptly fell unconscious.
The Cloak, knowing Stephen needed to rest, kept vigil for the rest of the night.
And the next.