Danny finally looked around. Indeed, this place wasn't normal. It wasn't his house, not Ty's house, and nowhere he'd been in... years. "It... kind of looks like that old house near where my parents lived. A bit of a shack, I looked around it a few times when I snuck away from time to time. This'd be the attic. Not much downstairs. I mean..." Danny paused. "If that's where we are."

Now he knew why he not only saw no other buildings outside, but no trees. His parents lived in a rather large field in the country. Neighbors were few and far between. "God, I hope this isn't where we are." He sighed at last. "I said I'd never go back there."

He went to the door, passing Ty and pushing it open. Indeed, all he could see was a very narrow hallway, and an equally-narrow series of stairs that led into a rather deep darkness. "Looks like we're... alone." He muttered.

Danny reacted more in surprise, immobile for an instant as he feared his friend would go right through the floor. Shaking away the initial terror, he stepped over Ty and went around him, to his back. "Jesus, hold on." He said, bending down and holding on to Ty's leg. "There's a lot of rusty nails holding these floors together, and I see one. Let me..." He maneuvered Ty's leg away from the diabolical-looking point right beside his skin.

"Lift up, point your toe down so your foot doesn't get caught." Danny said. He worked the leg out, but before allowing Ty to stand, he grabbed the boy and dragged him to the door. "We have to get downstairs. The whole upper levels may be rotted completely. Tetanus isn't exactly a good thing to have in this situation." He chuckled nervously.

The house around them was settling. From deep within the walls Danny could hear the quiet creaking, moaning of old, rotted boards. "It's not always you." Danny sighed. Studying the several-step hole in the staircase, he figured it wasn't terribly large. In fact, he was more than sure. And the steps below it looked sturdy. He sat himself down on the edge of the hole, the deep treads of his shoes catching the other edge, and he managed to stretch all the way over. "I think it'll hold." Danny said, and tested the steps. They didn't bounce back, and indeed, they seemed very solid.

"I think I can help you over. Grab my hand, and lead with your..." he glanced down, and in the monochromatic area, could see the sudden splash of red from Ty's blood. God, he hoped it was just a scrape, and nothing that could get infected. "... Lead with your uninjured leg. It'll hold." Danny raised a hand, reaching for Ty. They had to get out of the house. It was too strange, and too familiar a place. There could be many things hiding away where they had yet to visit...

Danny held onto Ty's hand tight. He couldn't quite keep his balance at such an odd angle, and put up his other hand to counteract the lean he was forced to endure. "I don't know, but it's better than staying in one place forever, I'm sure." Danny said quickly. "Just jump, then jump again. It feels strong enough to hold for a moment or two, long enough to get down the rest of the stairs."

His right foot was on the edge of the stair below him. It almost slipped suddenly, the wood breaking off without warning and nearly sending him backward with Ty. "Damn it! Come on, Ty, you're lighter than I am. You'll make it, just get down here!" He looked behind him. There was a nice flat floor behind him, five steps away. However, it was still a pretty harsh fall below the steps, and it would take a while to fish him back out again. Of course, there was no telling what was below the steps. It could harm Ty worse than what that simpler fall before had done.

Danny almost rolled his eyes at his young friend as he muttered. But decided not to reply as he came down with Ty. Several steps away, however, he lost his footing on the loose step and fell on his backside, sliding the rest of the way down. Growling at the sharp pain in his tailbone, Danny pushed himself up and huffed at his friend. "There's no time to be going on about this." He said, forcing himself to keep his voice even. "If there's some kind of time limit in these dreams as long as we're in the same one, I'm pretty sure we can't waste time bickering." He stalked forward, entering a new room. A living room, sparsely furnished with very old, ripped, and generally decrepit furniture. An old stone fireplace was beginning to fall down. The sight itself was horribly familiar.

"That old shack of a house." Danny muttered, running a finger along the short bookshelf against the wall to collect a bit of dust. "About a mile from my parents' house. Maybe that's where we are now." He looked around to the door that led outside, and the narrow arch beside it that led to the little kitchen. "I don't think I want to go outside." He breathed.

Danny's eyes widened. What the hell was he doing...? Thinking of himself, that was what he was doing! "Okay." He sighed. "Okay, okay! God, I'm such a stupid... idiot." He went to the door, not hesitating to push it open. Outside, there was more color, but it looked a bit faded and surreal. A trashed yard of mostly dirt, some far-off trees that formed a wooded area, and a couple old, junk cars beyond a small porch. "Okay, it's a bit of a walk there, and the road that leads here isn't paved whatsoever." He glanced toward Ty and grimaced a bit at his injured leg. "My parents always kept a full medical stash in case of an injury, and since we'd lived so far away from town, they were worried about more serious wounds."

He stepped outside. A light breeze blew through the old shack of a house and its ratty yard. He glanced back at Ty. "You think you can walk on that foot?" He asked. "I really don't want you to, it'll just put too much strain on it." He studied the boy. "I might be able to carry you somehow. Or push you, if there's a wheelbarrow nearby... Come outside, I'll go look!"

Danny ran outside. There was so much junk all over, and a disgusting little henhouse. Nearby, however, was indeed a wheelbarrow. It was full of dirt, which Danny dumped out, and he used a folded tarp nearby to cover the dirt.

Danny tucked the edges of the tarp into the bucket of the makeshift gurney and directed it to where Ty waited. He was glad to see Ty had at least a bit of mobility, but could still see the strain it had caused to get that far. He thought about the request. Ty looked about Millie's weight, and he'd picked her up plenty of times. Of course he could, but wouldn't it bother Ty that he might feel weak in this situation? Danny knew he hated feeling weak---many people did.

Instead of mentioning it, he pushed the thought from his mind. neither of them could afford to second guess the other's simple requests or put any extra thought on the subjects. "Sure." Danny said quickly, and stepped around the wheelbarrow after making sure it was set on solid, even ground. It was, and wouldn't budge until Danny lifted the legs. Going to Ty's side, he scooped his friend up and stepped lightly the few paces back to the unit, depositing Ty onto the relatively clean tarp easily. "All right, kid, we're off." He went to the back and grabbed the metal handles, bringing up the entire thing on its single low wheel and pushing it off.

The road was generally uneven, but the truck tracks in the packed dirt made for a good line to trace. As they moved away from the shack-like house, Danny glanced around. The fields and high trees surrounding them moved lightly in a breeze that blew Danny's hair into his face. As both hands were balancing the wheelbarrow evenly, he couldn't spare a moment to brush it back. It was good to see he was no longer losing hair anymore, though. The thought of possible resolution had probably saturated him already. He, and Ty, couldn't afford to think this wouldn't work. Glancing up, he saw very thin streaks of pale blue between the thick cover of clouds and an odd creaking that seemed to simply carry on the wind but come from nowhere in particular.

After a while, Danny couldn't be entirely sure how long, he could see the highest chimney of his parents' house. There was no smoke emitting from its top, however. Thinking about it, he'd never noted how large the place really was. It used to be an old plantation house, which they'd gotten at a very low price because it was in such a massive need of repair. From behind the tall grass that shifted in the breeze, he could see that the gray roof was in its restored form. That was good, considering if it had reverted back to its post-renovation state, there would be no electricity, no food in the cellar, and no first aid in the chest in the main living room.

Be there soon. Danny's mind sounded relieved, but he wasn't straining to push Ty. The relief came from soon being able to take care of that leg before it could get infected. That would be the worst possible happening...

Danny glanced down as Ty spoke suddenly. "What?" His confusion was more than evident in his tone. "What should you be sorry for?" He couldn't think of anything his friend had done. Not recently, and not throughout the years he'd known the kid.

Danny rolled his eyes, and would have flicked his friend in the back of the head if he could afford to let go of one of the handles. "Stop putting yourself down, it's not flattering." He scolded lightly. "You couldn't have thought about those boards falling through, it wasn't your fault. It'd be more annoying for me if you weren't so accepting of your predicament right now. Fighting just wouldn't make this any easier." He sighed. "You're actually very light. It's no bother to me, and really, where else would we go regardless of if you're hurt or not? My parents house is the only one nearest, the only one I can get a good landmark on."

He glanced up, following Ty's gaze as he leaned back in the wheelbarrow. It was true. No birds. He didn't even hear a cricket calling in the grass, and there was always a congregation following along, so it seemed, even during the height of day. "I... dunno." He took his eyes off the sky. "Probably an effect of the dream's reality. Silence is more unnerving than noise, after all. That's playing on a subconscious fear everyone tends to have." He hoped what he said was accurate, or at least near the mark. In this reality, nothing could conform to one's initial idea of what's accurate and what's a randomized event.

Biting back the desire to stop and set down the wheelbarrow, Danny puffed out a breath. "It's safer, physically, at my parents' old house." He said. "And it's not your fault you fell. You're not a fortune teller, you can't predict the immediate future. I just don't want to be there because of what I left there. Memories, the like. They tend to come to life when I don't want them to." He stared around them as the road became paved, but a bit bumpy, and turned sharply to the right. At that point, they could see the open gate that led into the overgrown yard of the renovated plantation house. Its windows were intact, its porch was well painted, and the siding was white and orderly. The only indication of no human activity was the tall grass and weed-infested garden.

Danny let out a pent-up breath and shook himself slightly. The halls once echoed with screaming arguments between him and his parents, stomping footsteps, and the sound of an old typewriter tapping up from the basement at night. He wasn't thrilled to be back, but Ty was more important than his own feelings for the dwelling. He pushed Ty through the gate, and up the slightly curved drive. It took a moment to maneuver the wheelbarrow around and lift it up the several stairs to the porch, but Danny did, and turned to the door. As he examined the lock and dug in his pocket, he glanced at Ty. "Well, what do you think about the place?" He asked, inserting a hairpin into the lock. He'd practiced picking locks, and was rather skilled at it now.

Danny worked the hairpin into the lock and maneuvered it. For a moment it was stuck, and it took a while for Danny to recall how to get it back, but when he heard a click, Danny was happy to turn the knob and push the door open. A light musty scent of desertion hit him, and he stared into the dark, until Ty spoke.

"Stop saying that." Danny sighed, wheeling him into the entry hall. A stairway led to the top hallway and several doorways led off into various rooms both on the first level and the second. Danny turned the wheelbarrow to the right, nosing through the slightly ajar doorway and into the main living room. It was a large, high-ceilinged area, with a heavy stone fireplace that had several logs in the grate. "Looks empty." Danny said as he set the thing down. "Here, I'll help you up so you can sit here." He nodded to one of the couches. "The first aid's in the basement, so I'll have to go down there to get it and a couple other things." He out out a hand for Ty to grab. It'd take a couple hops, but he'd make it without having to put weight on his injured leg.

Danny knew about Ty and his mother's previous living quarters. It had been brought up generally, but never more than a few comments. His parents had been rather stuck up, almost as though they were better than everyone else. They'd owned a couple shipping businesses, and wanted Danny to take over after they couldn't. That was why they hated his writing obsession. They didn't believe that he could do both at the same time.

He shook his head as Ty managed to sit without falling anywhere but backward. "We all have to face our demons sometime." Danny said. "So stop apologizing. It's redundant." He nodded once, noting that he wouldn't listen to anything else Ty had to say on the matter, and shoved the wheelbarrow out of the way.

"Don't mess with it too much!" Danny added as he walked toward the entryway. "It'll make it worse until I can get some good lighting on it!" He passed the stairs, then went into the kitchen. past the appliances and counters, the counter island and refrigerator, which buzzed with electricity. Obviously the house wasn't cut off. Pausing to look into the freezer, he nodded at the ice that was sitting in its bin and shut it, going past the pantry door and to the door to the basement. Flicking on the light, he looked down the relatively-lit stairwell. The stairs were stone, and very sturdy. The basement itself was actually a wine cellar, among other things, and the first aid would be in its cabinet. But the place was oddly foreboding. Perhaps the feeling wasn't entirely odd... Swallowing the hesitation, Danny went downstairs, stepping into generally yellowish-orange light. Find it and get out. Just get the hell out.

There were several rooms to the basement. All were large, and one was especially small. It was the storage room, and it was near the back. Get it and get out. Get it and get out and get back to Ty and get the hell out... Danny muttered the same thing through gritted teeth as he passed mostly empty shelves. His parents had loved wine, but they usually saved certain bottles for a very long time. The floor was rather bent up from time and erosion, and the bare bulbs in the ceiling flickered every now and then. Reaching the old door to the storage room, he wrenched it open and flicked on the light there. The first aid bag was about as large as a suitcase, and he hauled it over his shoulder, flipping off the light and leaving the door open as he hurried back to the stairs.

A hiss resounded through the room, resembling a snake's scales sliding over rough stone. Freezing, Danny looked around and bit his bottom lip nervously. Taking another step toward the door, he glanced behind him, finding only jumpy shadows there. Turning back, he gasped at the massive creature, like a black snake, taking up the whole of the pathway. Its mouth opened as it hissed, sharp, hollow fangs dripping a yellow-red acid-like venom that, as it fell to the floor, sizzled. With a gasp, Danny struggled to back away, tripping when the snake lunged at his feet but missed, knocking him down to the ground and jarring him. Shaking his head and the fuzz from his vision, he looked back. The snake was gone, however, the hissing was still there. He couldn't quite see it, but as he gathered up the strap to the first aid kit, something scraped against his arm. Jerking away, he found a dozen large spiders.

With a yelp, Danny shot to his feet. The spiders lunged at him, their hooked legs grabbing onto his pants as he struggled up the stairs. Kicking them off as he reached the top of the stairs, he stomped the one that managed to stay with him. It crunched similar to an egg, and as he gathered up a bag for ice, Danny muttered angrily, ignoring the stinging that ran down his arm. No doubt one or two of the spiders had taken some skin off. Before going back to Ty, however, he studied the scratches. They were bleeding well, but were shallow. He ignored it, and with a sigh, stomped away from the basement door, which he'd made sure to lock. "Ty! Got the things... It's good I know how to take care of sprains and broken bones." He spoke with a huff, still rather shaken but hiding it well.