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There was a click, a sudden shock, and Danny opened his eyes. Sucking in a breath, he looked around. There was nothing but a swirling expanse of endless green.
“Hello?” He called out. “Is anyone there?” He tried to think back to what he had been doing, even a moment ago, but found nothing. Looking down at himself, he realized that he was wearing one of the family’s HAZMAT suits. Had he been in the lab?
“Hello child.”
The voice, somehow both booming and quiet, filled the space, and Danny's eyes darted around, trying to find its origin. From the green nothingness, a figure came into being, its form emerging from the swirling colors.
It was vaguely humanesque, with its skin in pallid pastels reminiscent of the endless void surrounding them. Danny thought it might have a face, but found he couldn't look at it without the world falling out of focus. Even when he tried, he couldn't remember a single thing about its features. Instead, a word struck his mind.
A god.
The realization settled on him, and Danny tensed up, his fight or flight instincts going haywire in the presence of such a being.
"Do not be afraid," the god said gently, and what fell from their lips next was something Danny had never heard before, yet could recognize without a shadow of a doubt.
His name.
Not given by his parents, but the name of his self, his being, his core. He could feel the weight of it curl in the center of his body, it settled there both comforting and heavy.
"How?" He asked, finding himself inexplicably gasping for air.
"Your name?" The god asked, and Danny nodded. They smiled, "It is obvious young one, you are marked by your faces."
Danny moved to touch his hand to his cheek, yet found he couldn't. He turned his gaze, now panicked, back to the god. He was short of breath and gasped in again, hard, then once more. When had it become so hard to breathe?
“Try not to fret now, you shall understand in due time.” Danny thought it had said something more, but his senses were becoming overwhelmed.
Pain blossomed in his hand, the one he had tried and failed to move. He looked down and could see it there, the pain manifesting in electrical sparks flickering in the shape of a circle against his gloved palm.
His breath shuddered with every intake, and a sound filled his ears. At first it had sounded like static, but slowly it was evolving, changing. Into what, he didn't know. He could only tell it was wrong. Off in some way that didn't quite make sense.
“Ah, not long now, is it? It is catching up with you.”
What did that mean? Danny tried to move, to speak, anything, to no avail. Only the increasing pain and sound were his reward.
He tried to grit his teeth in frustration, determination, trying to push through and do something. He couldn't. His mouth wouldn't close. Had he closed it once since the sound started? He couldn't remember, and that sound was changing again, beginning to sound like…shrieking? Though the static undertone still remained.
The static was inconsistent, brief pauses followed by heavy, pulsating noise. It was hard to focus on it with the odd shrieking noise. Danny turned his attention back to the god. Maybe they could help? He tried to pour all his emotion into a look, praying they would understand like before. The god chuckled, either unknowingly or without care for Danny’s panicked state.
“Listen closer,” they urged. “Find both your voice and theirs.”
His voice? Little shocks of electricity began to crawl up Danny’s arm, traveling down his torso when it met his shoulder. The pain was nearly unbearable. Yet through it all, he focused as the god requested. It was all he could do now anyway.
The sound was more defined now. Shrieking wasn’t the right word for it, maybe screaming? Wailing? It sounded miserable, like agony given shape. Pain, and suffering, and loss, rolled into one note, and it…sounded like him? As the electricity gave another wave of shocks to his system, he noticed the wailing move with it, fluctuating with his pain.
How had he not noticed? It didn’t make any sense, this place didn’t make any sense. Where was he? Where were Sam and Tucker? Were they still outside the-
The portal.
The static in the background finally became legible. Shouts and cries, not as loud as his own. Nothing could be, in this vaporous space. Sam and Tucker, yelling, crying out for him.
“Danny, no, no, no!”
“Danny, please! Get out of there!”
Something sparked in his chest. His friends, they needed him. They were in pain because of him, and he needed to help. He had to.
“Good,” the god said, satisfaction evident in their tone.
Danny felt the spark spread throughout his chest, faster than the electricity had. It was cold, burning cold, and soon it had consumed his being. His will, his need to go back, to help his friends. It filled the entirety of his thoughts. Suddenly, his vision began to go fuzzy, the corners fading to black as his focus, his mind, his purpose shifted to one thought.
He had to help.
The thought fueled him, his determination, his existence. There was nothing else that mattered anymore. Not the void, not the god, not him. He had only the one purpose now.
As the boy forced himself back from the inbetween, the god smiled.
“Best of luck, little Janus.”