Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

6. Danny the Party Crasher

Danny

I'm curled up in a ball on the floor, shivering, head against my knees.  I keep shouting for Mom in my head, but I'm still too mixed up to say it out loud. 

I guess I'm in the VR thing now, in the place where the guy named Freddie Mercury lived (copycat, I bet he stole the planet name idea from Bruno Mars).  I know all of this stuff is gonna be fake, and all in my imagination.  But I still don't know what to do except finally look up.

I can't see anything though, and my eyes still hurt really bad from the bright light that flashed in my face. But I'm starting to hear stuff. A lot of stuff, mostly people talking, but I can hear music in there too. The closer I listen, the more I recognize the song. It's that weird German dance thing about ninety-nine red balloons starting a war or something. Not my favorite song- but at least I know it. That makes me feel a little better.

Slowly, the spots start fading away. Now I can see. It's not as dark to me anymore. I'm in a sort of small dim room full of hats, bags, and coats that have tags. Not price tags, though; they've got handwritten names on them instead of numbers. I remember this is virtual reality stuff; I wonder how real everything will seem.

Hey!  Maybe there's a chance I can still get out of here. I'll try sending Mom a text.

So I pull out my cell phone, but before I get to the texting, I turn on the reverse camera, make sure I don't have snow white hair and glowing green eyes.  Don't laugh; if it happened to Danny Phantom when he messed with a weird machine, it could happen to me.

Luckily, my hair is still black, though a little messier-looking, and my eyes are still boring and brown.  Reassured that my molecules have not been rearranged, I clumsily type in, too frightened and tired (why am I so tired now?  That's weird) to punctuate like I should, "Im scared will u pls come 2 get me Im in secret lab wth big metal door HELP"

But when I try to send it, a little dialog box pops up that says "No service."  Even when I search for Wi-Fi connections, there's nothing at all.  That makes no sense.  I'm sitting in a great big computer room but even so there's no Wi-Fi signal.  Angry, I flip my phone closed and stuff it back in my coat pocket (yeah, it's one of those reeeally old flip phones that I have- but I'm the only kid in school who has one, and Lauren says that's actually pretty cool, so I don't mind).

I'm feeling so alone and so scared I almost start crying.  Then I remember what Mom says to do whenever I'm confused or really frightened.  That is, "Say a little prayer, sing a little song.  It won't fix it right away, but it sure does help."

So very softly I mouth, my hands shaking, God, thank You for today, and for all Your goodness and stuff- and, um, I know You're probably kinda busy right now, but if You could please tell Mom where I am, and help me out of here, that would be very nice of You.  Because I don't know how I'm supposed to wake up from this place and I'm actually pretty scared right now.  Thank you.  In Jesus's name, Amen.

Then I start singing the chorus of "When I Was Your Man" because I was just thinking about Bruno Mars, but that song doesn't help at all; it just makes me feel sad, so I sing the first verse of "Count on Me" instead. 

But then suddenly I start singing something else. It's a song Mom used to sing to me when I was little.  She doesn't sing it anymore.  I don't know why.  But it always makes me feel safe for some reason.  I think it's called "Let Us Stay Together as the Years Go By," or something.  I know I'm getting it mixed up with an Al Green song, I don't know the lyrics as well as I used to.  Still, I remember the melody well enough to hum in the places where I can't recall the words.