#Danny is going to be in a hefty haze of depersonalization and denial

[void-of-unparalleled-chaos]

hmmm yeah I can do something for this. I know some other people have already replied but I wanted to go a different route and jump from where we left off.

I can't write much since I have an exam coming up but here is a short piece!

TW for mentions of torture! ______________

   Danny swallowed as the ramp finished its ascent, closing him off again from the outside world. Danny had only ever flown in a plane once or twice to visit his Aunt Alicia. The memories were blurry, fuzzy with age like an old photograph left out in the sun, but he was fairly certain that the jet was more spacious than the typical plane. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that the walls were closing in around him, locking him away from the dirt and fields and fresh air. 

   His fingers clenched the armrests of his seat. The vibrations of the jet traveled up from the pads of his fingers and into his ribs as it took off. His teeth clacked with the force. The plane felt cold. 

   Danny took a deep breath, allowing the tension to leave through his lungs. His fingers released the plastic and metal beneath them. This was a dream. There was no GIW in here. There were no cattle prods to overload his nerves with electricity. There were no muzzles to dig harshly into his cheeks. There were no scalpels to cut into his chest and allow entrance for gloved fingers to take take take.

   This was a dream.

   The hero from the field -Kon they had called him- is sitting beside Danny, fingers playing with the sleeves of his jacket. Across the cabin, the blue one and the dark one talk in deep conversation. The dark one is tense and apprehensive about something. He doesn’t physically show it but Danny can taste it on the air. Kon’s brow furrows as he watches the two.

   The boy turns to him, smiling. Danny only cocks his head in response. Kon’s lips falter ever so slightly, and Danny almost feels a little bad. This dream hero had been nice. He was helping him hide. He was helping him pretend that everything was okay. Still, he can’t bring himself to smile. No matter how much he pretends, his lips are sewn shut by the weight of the waking world, so Danny simply hums.

   The crickets beyond the porch had such nice songs. It reminded him of Before when he was free to run and fly to wherever he wanted to go without a wire around his neck. Some nights Danny would fly to the fields just outside Amity. There he would lay in the soft grass to look up at the stars, eyes tracing constellations as the crickets chirped a symphony around him. 

   It’s their song he hums now, hoping to achieve the same peace. Kon seems to enjoy it too, listening for a few seconds before joining him in humming the tune of freedom. 

   Their song eventually peters out, Danny blinking in the confinement of the jet once more. So far up in a metal box, there are no crickets to sing with. Except for the boy beside him. 

   Danny can’t help but feel a strange sense of camaraderie. Perhaps he is just starved for human connection. He’s spent so long trapped in GIW facilities with only the cruelty of scientists for company. Danny is desperate for companionship. Desperate enough for his synapses to construct somebody to fill a void left by gunshots and a bag.

   It's a dream.

   Danny shouldn’t get attached.

   He resolutely turns away, focusing his attention on the window across from them. The occasional dark grey shape of a cloud drifts by on a tapestry of night sky. Danny has never been so close to the stars before. He watches as they sparkle. He can see the distant shape of Jupiter, suspended among them above the Earth

   “Do you like the stars?” Kon leans forward to peer out the window as well.

   Danny watches as a meteor trails across the sky, combusting in the atmosphere. A shooting star.

   “Yes,” he replies after it fades.

   “Can you tell me about them?”

DP x DC Prompt/Plotbunny #6

After days? weeks? months? years? in this mercy-forsaken lab, Danny finds himself slipping; his core straining under the weight of what he's been subjected to. In a last ditch effort to save his fracturing soul, his brain simply stops processing the pain and allows his mind to escape into a waking dream.

Danny knows it's a dream. If he thinks about it; he can still hear, see, feel the scientists at work. He doesn't think about it; instead embraces whatever false world his mind decides to concoct for him.

.

Several states away, a young boy opens his eyes to the inside of a strange pod in an abandoned lab. Though he cannot see it yet, a strange metal tag dangles from his ear, stamped on one side with the word 'CADMUS' and on the other with 'R-13'.