It was pain worse than usual pain, the kind that ripped into something far more important than his body.
Grundy had learned that this was normal in the White Place.
Grundy did not like the White Place.
The White Place was full of People in White, who liked to hurt Grundy and stare as his body knit itself back together. They talked to each other about recovery time, and so much ectoplasm, and how is this possible, and other things that didn't make sense to Grundy.
Grundy hated the sounds of their pens on their clipboards. He hated the metals that burned where they squeezed his wrists, or ankles, or neck. He hated when those metals were sharp and in the hands of the People in White, cutting through him layer by layer and hurting in ways he hadn't yet grown immune to.
A pulse of familiar energy poked at him.
The Little One was nice, friendly, despite being small and weak and cold. When Grundy felt that way, he only wanted attack things, scare them so they went away. The Little One was good in a way Grundy could not understand.
Grundy let out a groan from somewhere deeper than his chest, the sound carrying greeting-pain-monotony, responding to the Little One despite being far away.
He did not understand how it worked, but he didn't have to. It was instinctive. Probably the most natural-feeling thing he could remember doing since⊠since a time he couldn't remember.
The Little One pulsed back sympathy-pain-solidarity. Grundy only felt saddened.
The Little One was far too good for a place like this.
Dani wasn't sure how long it'd been. It was kind of hard to tell time when you had no senses other than pain.
She knew that she'd lost a considerable amount of mass both during and after her capture, and she felt every missing milliliter like an unhealing burn.
The GIW had been siphoning her off bit by bit, probably to run experiments on, or make weapons with, or whatever. She hoped whatever machines they were using blew up in their faces.
There wasn't anything she could do but stew in resigned anger.
Not until she'd felt the telltale chill of another ghost's presence sweeping through her.
They were BIG, whoever they were. Not quite yeti-sized, but still much larger than most ghosts she'd met were. That, and they were absolutely packed with ecto; like they'd been absorbing it for decades, but it had no place to go.
She dreaded to think how the GIW had managed to capture someone like THAT.
Though they'd definitely startled at her first attempt at communication, they'd seemed very eager to return it, and the two of them had been pinging emotions and sentiments back and forth ever since.
It was a welcome reprieve from the dark, silent, painful void that Dani now existed in.
The People in White hurt the Little One. They hurt Grundy. He did not like them.
They were no longer white, smushed red beneath his hands and feet.
The hallway was red as Grundy trudged down it. He did not need to think about where he was going; it was as instinctive to find the Little One as it had been to communicate with them.
The door that blocked him from the Little One was closed. He punched it, but it was made of the Metal that Hurt. He broke the wall down instead. The door was too small, anyway.
Grundy did not care about the machines and rubble and fragile things he crushed as he walked. There was a table in his way, so he smacked it aside, ignoring the clang it made when it hit the wall, the shattering noises, and the papers fluttering to the floor.
There was a small tank, made of metal and thick glass, on the far side of the room.
In it, a blobby green substance lay, barely enough to cover the bottom of the tank. Something about it made Grundy feel like his skin was being torn off.
Hello?-how?-friend?! Disbelief and excitement came through, clearer than ever before. Pain was as ever-present as it had always been.
Grundy had torn off the lid before he even felt himself doing it. It joined the table in crashing into the wall and falling to the floor, significantly more crumpled.
Grundy reached his hand in, hesitating for just a second before setting it down on the surface of the Little One.
Greeting-friend. Grundy did not know what he was doing. It was purely instinctive, but he knew he had to do it. Offer-comewithme?
Dani's excitement gave way to confusion.
She⊠couldn't. They knew that, right? She couldn't really feel what was supposed to be her body, just formless pain, but she was pretty sure she was just a puddle of goo right now. She couldn't even move; there was no way she could go anywhere.
Their ectoplasm tugging at hers.
That was new. She'd never felt anything like it before.
It was inviting, though. She felt⊠safe.
Like a miracle, the pain stopped.
It was shocking, the sudden lack of something that had burdened her for so long. The other's ectoplasm surrounded her like a cocoon of warm blankets, soothing as a balm.
"Solomon GrundyâŠ" A deep voice drawled, coming from all around her.
Those were words. She could hear!
She would totally be crying right now if she could. She wasn't even ashamed to admit it.
Wait, shit. Had he been introducing himself? Shouldn't she try as well?
"I'm⊠Dani. With an I."
It was weird, hearing her voice but not feeling any actual sound. It seemed her friend had heard her, though, responding with a grunt.
Dani exuded joy, the phantom sensation of a grin on her non-existent face.
"Well, then⊠shall we go, big guy?"
