Pits
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Author’s notes version

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Page 16

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When Meli and I were plotting out this…mess… her biggest complaint was that you never know who the bad guy is for sure.  It starts as Walker, then shifts to the rat, and now shifts again.  Who’s the real bad guy?  Will we ever know?  This is one of my favorite concepts of the story.

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.

This is kind of a transitory section.

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.

Catch that little phrase: “see what we show him”.  Wonder what that means…

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.

We’ve been waiting for you.  Join us Danny.  Join us.

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.

The ghost lights are psychic… XD

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.

Where’s the jewel Danny gave her?  You’ll not find out this chapter.  :D

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…”

Angst…

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.

Blue-green for the two colors of the ghost lights sending him on this little trip.

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’d completely forgotten about astral projection until someone mentioned it a few months ago.  

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.

Will Walker get them?  I’ll tell you later.

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?

No, Danny.  But you’re definitely something.  There’s a reason you can see them.  As to what it is…

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 wonder how many of you remember this one.

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!”

He’s speaking a variant of Latin that I made up.  Don’t bother googling it, you’ll never find out what it means.  Something along the lines of ‘Where is my key? Answer me!”

“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.

Had to make him a bad fighter after all of this.

“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?”

Danny seems kind of… evil… doesn’t he?

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.

Ah… surprised?

“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. My.Key?”

“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.”

Justifiably angry?  Perhaps.  You’ll have to decide.

“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.

Now, the question will be: when Valerie shows BACK up in the Pits, will he save her?

--

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.”

Walker’s in here a lot.  :D

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…

Sad, little denial.

“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.

Well, crap.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.  *checks ending*  Crap.  Walker wasn’t supposed to ACTUALLY catch them.

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’.

Ooooh… low blow from a very childish rat.

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.

The lights are, yet again, showing some sort of personality.

--

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.

Angst.  XD  I just went to town on the angst this chapter.