The Real Ghostbusters Are Back

9: The Trance

I don't know how long I was in this state. It felt like both minutes and hours. Seconds and days. I have no clue where I was at. I remember trying to lift Peter. I had to move him to get the others back to the Firehouse. But I slipped into the trance they had been in. 

It had been dark at first. It felt like I was in another room. I wasn't in Ecto-1 anymore. I couldn't see anything. I took a step forward, than another. I was walking now. Though I was slow. I knew I was. It was like when you try to walk through water that comes up to your knees. But I knew there wasn't any water. Was I even walking? I didn't think I was. I kept going, trying hard to find something. I remember yelling for the others. At least I think I was yelling. 

What was this? Where was I? I know now that I never left the car, but it felt like I had never even been in the iconic car. I was alone. I didn't have my friends, my brother, nothing. I still had no idea what Egon was trying to tell me. It probably was about what was going on. I was alone. It was so dark... so quiet... slowly I started to think there would be nothing but this darkness, this foggy feeling. I was going to drown in it. 

Than I saw a light. It was so far away. I started to run towards it. After all, it had to be better than this endless darkness. Maybe I could move normally again. I was willing to take it. The closer I got to it, I could hear something. No, no, it wasn't a something. It was a someone. It was... it was... 

"Peter!" I called. It was Peter! 

"Natalie?" I heard him call back. 

"Yeah, it's me! Stay still, I'm coming!" 

"Wait, Natalie! Don't!" 

It was too late. The light wasn't another room. It was a cliff. A cliff Peter had fallen down and then I stupidly fell in after. Look, I was alone in a dark room and heard my friend. Excuse me for not looking to see if the strange trance light was a cliff that my dummy fell off of. At least I had a soft landing. A soft, brunette, green eyed landing. Yeah I feel on Peter. I looked at him with a shy smile. 

"Sorry." 

"It's fine," he chuckled. "Beats the other three falling on me. Any idea what this is or what's going on? I remember driving the car than all of a sudden being in a dark room. Than I fell down this hole." 

"You just kinda spaced out. Your eyes were glazed over and everything. We couldn't get you to respond at all. It was kind of freaky. What do you remember about the room?" 

"I couldn't hear myself talk," he explained to me. "I was just walking around, trying my hardest to yell for you guys. But nothing came out. After a while, I fell into this pit of light and I could talk again. It was really weird. You?" 

"I could talk just fine," I told him. "But it was hard for me to move. Heard you yell, and boom, we are together. Have any idea where the others are?" 

"Kind of hoping you would know that." 

We heard someone yelling and looked up. Landing next to us was the lovely Winston! He seemed to have fallen down the cliff too. While Peter was helping him up, I looked up to see what was in this light filled room. I noticed five holes in the wall above us. I figured Ray and Egon would be joining us shortly at this rate. 

"Boy am I glad to see you two," Winston told us. "That room was crazy! I couldn't think straight at all. I didn't even think to look to see if that was a drop! It was like my common sense ditched me." 

"That's great Winston," Peter told him. "I'm glad the basic thing all humans are born with decided to take a little trip." 

"Oh shut up," Winston grumbled. "Where's Ray and Egon?" 

"I believe there is Ray," I spoke up, pointing up to see Ray falling into the pit. 

Peter caught him, and he just blinked a bit. He looked around before looking up at us. 

"That was weird," was all he said. 

"Care to explain?" Winston asked him. 

"I think I kicked a puppy! I felt so mean and cruel in there! It was awful! I don't ever want to go back!" 

"You... you had a puppy and you kicked it?" Peter asked. 

"Wait... you couldn't talk, I couldn't move, Winston couldn't think normally, and Ray wasn't a nice person fro once. That is weird. I'm starting to think I know what Egon was about to tell me before he... wait... where is Egon?" I asked, looking up at the final hole. 

"I hope he's okay," Ray said before I saw him. Just like the rest of us, he fell into the pit. 

"Egon!" Peter cried. "Boy am I glad to see you! Are you okay?" 

"My head is ringing there. It was so loud in there I couldn't even form a proper thought. It was a strange experience for me."  

"Okay smart guy, what were you saying about what was going on." 

"You see, we haven't heard from Gozer for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if this was an attempt to remind us what their power is. At any time they can take us away any time they really want. They can take what we care about at any point. They can make us a shell of what we formally were without a second thought. After all, we are usually called something and those rooms made it nearly impossible to do what we normally do. It was a strange turn." 

"Okay, so when do we get to go?" Peter asked. 

Before Egon could answer, the room went bright white. When I blinked, I was back to sitting in Ecto-1, my hands on Peter like I was ready to move him. We all kind of just looked at each other. After all, that was a weird thing. 

I mean if that was Gozer just reminding us that they could take us out of the picture without a second thought, that was a weird way to do it. I mean it wasn't like any harm came from it. It was more of an annoyance than anything. 

In hindsight I should have seen this coming. But I did forget for a second where we were. You see, that whole thing that we went through only took a minute. A minute of time passed for us in the real world. A whole minute in the middle of the road. Next to a curve. We saw another bright light, those this time it was to our left. We all looked and saw a huge truck. It was turning the corner we were next to and didn't see us. 

We got a nice hit full force. It was all that I remember before I, and I'm pretty sure the others, passed out from the crash.