Chapter 2
He should leave, he should go down to the basement into the portal, grab anyone that is willing to help him and get rid of the place that has his sister prisoner.
He should freeze it over, cold enough that it feels like it burns to touch, ice that sticks to skin, killing nerves, muscles…bury the tundra that beats in his own chest into theirs.
Yet…he continues sitting on the stairs that lead up to their bedrooms, face buried close to his knees and arms wrapped around his head.
Danny can’t leave…not until the men his parents have called are gone.
The hand full of agents in their home rushed in like a stampede, making their own demands, passing the blame around to anyone and everyone that wasn’t them.
His mom and dad are screaming back at them, his father’s loud voice seems to shake the walls with his anger…no one questions it…
One of the men had made their way over to him, another reason he couldn’t just go, someone had their eyes on him.
“Don’t worry your head off lad, we’ll get your sis back, girlie might be smart as a whip but she didn’t get it from no freakish genes, not with the way she pours herself over those books, right?”
If only this man really knew…the one with the “freakish genes” was the one he was talking to.
Danny hates him, hates them…and he feels the worse for it…
“They’ll probably just run some harmless test on her and she’ll be back before dinner, yeah?”
He’s lying, lying to protect what ever connection they’ve made with his parents, lying to protect himself…
“Look it this way, if she does have something, she’ll be taken care of.”
Danny is fourteen, not even a year dead, has traveled through time and space, has fought the worst of himself and tries his best to keep a balance between his worlds.
Danny is fourteen and he wonders what idiot decided to give him responsibility of overwhelming powers. What force would want to bless him, curse him, like this? In a world of heroes, he still finds himself facing things someone his age shouldn’t be up against much less someone his senior.
He is fourteen and he wants to hate the man in front of him as much as he and the others he came in with hate others that are different.
The ghosts that escape the Realms are far different then the ones that haunt the living in the shadows. His head might be down but he can still hear the whispers of those these men have lead to death.
They too are filled with an all encompassing hatred, moments of pain forever tied to these people, of agony of force forfeited life. The lingering essence of death too soon hangs off their shoulders like stained cloaks.
He weeps, the thrum in his chest calls out to a creator that he wishes he was ignorant about, he keeps his head down, the coldness of his tears still flowing and numbing his cheeks.
There is a hand on his back, quick little pats that are supposed to be comforting instead leave the feeling of prickly bug legs squirming under his skin, “Ah, lad, they did say ya was abit of a soft heart, bet all this talk about spooks and mutants got ya feeling all worked up.”
The man continues to linger, awkward in the way one doesn’t know what to do with a distressed child, before finally just leaving the teen on the stairs and heading back down to rejoin the others.
Danny can hear him whispering to one of the suits, they think he is too timid to know anything, that he’s heart condition renders him unlikely to get possessed because of the strain and that any powers he had would have been activated by now.
The G.I.W has taken him running off to transform as a kid that is terrified of the world around him and they probably want to use that because that is what they do. They use ignorance and fear to grow their ranks and spread their own fear and hate.
His parents are the same.
Not quick enough, they finally leave, pushed out by his Dad, rage thick enough that even base humans would be able to choke on it, his mother’s fury, just as strong but quieter as she joins Danny an the stairs.
She curls around him, whispering about how they will get Jazz back, they’ll figure this whole mess out and everything will go back to normal.
Normal hasn’t existed for him awhile now and what ever thin line his family had been balance on has finally broken. There is no going back to the false mask they had put on as a ‘happy family’.
The barrier has snapped, something finally gave and the one that is currently paying the price his older sister.
He wants rage, wants to fling his mothers poor attempts of comfort away from him and show them, those men, everyone what his anger brings.
…but he can’t…he can’t because he knows it will just make things worse if he rushes fool heartily in…this is not a singular enemy to beat and what ever moves and actions he takes will effect the future and it’s balance in permanent consequences that could potentially spell out a terrible future for…everyone…
Danny weeps, the slow dissipation of the agents haunted ghosts and their furious whispers echo, his mother’s empty words holding nothing that could help him and his father’s smothering rage lingers even as the man himself is now downstairs in the basement.
He weeps, he hides he brightened blue eyes that swirl with color green, he pushes down his anger in attempt to be able to think and he wishes that he was able to hate those responsible for everything guilt free…
Mostly he doesn’t want the feeling to consume him like it has everything else in his life…he doesn’t want to become his parents…
So he let’s his mother find her own comfort in trying to encourage him while he takes a moment to mourn…he can only afford this moment.
They don’t notice the storm outside, the clouds gathering, spinning slowly, darkening, the air becoming icy, snow already gathering on the outskirts of town…someone else notices though…
Pure white eyes watch the weather above, a frown on her lips before she raises her hand and dissipates the incoming danger, as though she did a simple clean swipe of the air. The sun shining once again, warming the area quickly, she turns her attention to her companion.
He crouches over one of the rapidly disappearing snow piles that had just started to form, eyeing a half form deer skull made of ice that was already melting away. It seemed to have been emerging from the snow itself, forming out of the coldness…
It’s teeth were wrong though…meant more for tearing apart flesh then the what a deer’s usual diet is.
It melts into slosh, slipping between his fingers, thicker then water…feeling more like the spill of fresh blood…it seeps back into the ground.
They glance at each other and without speaking, move forward into the town.