Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2000 21:02:50 +0100
From: AKN <potolo@user.bip.net>
Subject: The Ghosts of Christmas - chapter 2 (boy-bands)
The Ghosts Of Christmas, The Labyrinth Of Lives, The Windings Of Love,
And The Coil Of Fears
by
Andreas K N (an@altavista.net), 1999
INTRODUCTION
I'm baaaack! I have made the decision to post this story in
reasonably frequent short chapters instead of long ones with
really long waits in between. As a reader of this kind of stories
I have found that I prefer that type of publishing.
This leads me to something I forgot in the INTRO to the
first chapter.. givin' ya'll some tips about what you should
definitely be reading and doing these days.. Not that most of you
care, or even read the INTRO, but I'll do it anyway. I'm having a
crappy Christmas and this gives me *something* to do at least.
Nifty Stories To Read
- Justin's Dark Angel *****
Great story. One of the most mysterious ones
in the celeb section (I *love* mystery).
Beautifully written in a very different style
that enhances the very special mood of the
story. Read it, now!
- NSYNC - Lance n JC *****
Oooooh!! Sooo romantic! Love, love, LOVE that
story. *giggles uncontrollably* :D
- When U Say Nothing At All *****+
Very, very good story. It is also one of the
few stories in this section that has a definite
ending. Otherwise, the stories published here
tend to go on and on like soap-operas. It's a
must-read!
- Ryan and Lance ****
Mmmm.. Good story and also the story that
inspired me to post Ghosts Of Christmas in
short chapters.
- Salvaged Grace ****
Oooh! Scary! One of those lovely supernatural
stories. Very well thought through. Immensely
interesting.
- N SYNC And The Vamps *****
Another supernatural story. One of my favorites.
- Busta *****
The most original boy-band fanfic I've ever come
across. Soooo much fun! Absolutely fabulous!
there are more, of course, but they seem to have vanished
from my memory right now... next time perhaps.
Things To Do
- SING!
Even if you're no good at it, sing simply because
it's FUN!
- Enjoy the sunshine - even when you cannot see it.
Songs To Listen To
- Cher: If I Could Turn Back Time / The Shoop Shoop Song
- Celine Dion: Power Of The Dream / Le Memoire D'Abraham
- N SYNC: God Must Have Spent.. / Love's In Our Hearts On Christmas Day
- Dolly Parton: Hard Candy Christmas / Straight Talk
-----------
Chapter II:
Flames Of Transition
--------------------
They all ignored him. He was at the traditional Christmas
party with his family and they all ignored him. He staggered
around in some kind of haze. Was he drunk? Staggering around with
blurred vision and no recollection of what has happened in the
last ... oh gosh, he didn't even know how much he didn't
remember. That could be a strong indication that he was indeed
quite, quite stoned. He, James Lance Bass, was officially drunk
out of his mind.
And no one was paying any attention to him.
He just wished they would at least acknowledge him.
If an unknown drunkard had crashed the party they would
surely have thrown him out. Lance, however, they just ignored. He
was gay and they didn't want to recognize him as a family member.
Not even when he was completely plastered did they even care to
look at him. Not even glare at him or yell obscenities.
Nothing. As far as they were concerned, he was no one.
He tried to find the exit. He spotted it somewhere far away
and moved towards it. Actually, it was more like he floated
towards it. He had no idea how he did that but it didn't bother
him too much. He was stoned. Quite stoned.
As if on cue, all the people at the party turned to stare
at him. He stopped floating and felt more uncomfortable than
ever. Yes, he wanted some attention but not this much.
Why were they all staring at him? Why were they staring
primarily below his face? Oh no. No, no.
He looked down to find himself completely naked. How did
this happen? He didn't know. He did however know that it was
extremely embarrassing and he quickly snapped a silver plate off
one of the tables and hid as much as he could behind it.
Unfortunately, the silver plate quickly turned into a
roasted turkey which dropped to the floor and scurried away.
Lance felt someone tap on his shoulder. "Care for some
tea?"
Tea? Who could be offering him tea when he is standing buff
naked in front of ..... a lineup of .. Santa Clauses? This was
getting too weird. "Tea, sir?" Huh? Tea? Who IS that?!
Someone shook him lightly and suddenly he found himself in
his hotel room, sweating in bed. The room was dark. He felt
someone's hand on his shoulder. 'Must be one of the other guys,'
he thought.
Lance slowly sat up and looked towards the person who had
awoken him. There in front of him stood a tall man with a teacup
in one hand, his head in his other hand, and a boiling teapot on
his shoulders. 'Oooookaaay.. I'm still dreaming,' was the first
coherent thought to enter the blond singer's mind after the
initial, and quite considerable, shock.
"Strange dream," he muttered while turning to look around
the room.
"The way you are perspirating it would seem so, sir," the
decapitated one spoke up calmly, "Care for some tea?"
Lance turned slowly to look at the other man again. 'This
is a dream.. isn't it? Must be.. But.. it sure seems awfully
clear for a dream..'
The head spoke up again. "I assure you, sir. This is not a
dream.." He reached over and pinched Lance's cheek forcefully.
Lance let out a startled shriek before turning completely
speechless. He just sat there, staring at the headless man. He
needed something to drink. "Tea sir?" the head said.
Not very strong, but something to drink none the less. He
took the cup and downed the tea immediately. He looked up in
hopes that the man would have disappeared or at least turned
anatomically correct but his uninvited guest was still as
decapitated as ever.
No, not nearly strong enough.
Lance felt ready to pass out just as he heard a deafening
roar from the other end of his room. At that moment he got his
wish and the other man simply vanished before his eyes. Mere
seconds afterwards, the opposite wall exploded and a wall of fire
came rushing towards him.
"Damn" was the last words this young southerner managed to
get out before the fire reached him.
He felt his skin being ripped from his flesh. The blood in
his veins boiling and his internal organs ceasing to function,
one by one.
Then there was darkness. A cold and terribly lonely
darkness.
He was falling.
-----
Meanwhile, in the mechanical bowels of the Crester Palace,
or the ventilation system if you like it straightforward, our two
friends from the alley were crawling about. The young man was
ahead of the woman, shining a flashlight into the darkness before
him.
"I just love this part of the job!" he exclaimed, "Crawling
around like rats in a sewer.."
"I must say though, it's a very dry sewer.." the woman
said.
"Yeah, as dry as your sense of humor!" the man laughed.
His partner was just about to retort as the flashlight
died.
"What the--?" the man said as he made futile attempts to
reactivate the light.
The woman tried her flashlight. "Mine isn't working either.
. . well, just keep on movin', we're on a tight schedule!"
"Sure," the man said and continued to crawl forward. Not
four seconds later he screamed in surprise as he fell forward
over an edge which, to the best of his knowledge, had not been
there five seconds ago.
Two milliseconds after he had begun falling he swiftly
swirled around, stretched out his arms in the opposite direction
of the g-forces below him in the hope that he would find the
edge. Several milliseconds later still, he felt slight shift in
particle densities and air dynamics that indicated an edge. He
moved his hands towards the source of this disturbance and felt
the edge against his palm. He grabbed a hold of it and just over
one second after he had gone fallen into this strange hole from
nowhere, he was hanging there with the short scream of surprise
just leaving his lips.
The edge was not the same as the one that had caused his
fall. He could feel a wall with his fingertips. Because of this,
he drew the natural conclusion that he had grabbed onto an edge
somewhere just below the first one. Perhaps half a metre or one
metre below.
The woman was at the upper edge a second later, peering
down into the darkness.
"Felix!" she hollered.
"You don't have to shout! I'm right underneath you!" a
voice came from below.
She tried to activate the flashlight again and to her
surprise it worked just fine. After attaching the small light to
her headband she directed the beam of light towards Felix. She
stretched out for him and he quickly grabbed her hand.
Just as she was about to pull him up, something made a
swishing sound as it fell past her into the darkness below. 'This
must be some kind of huge shaft or something,' she thought to
herself.
"Something grabbed my foot!!"
She felt Felix being pulled down by something. Was it the
falling object? She couldn't be sure, but whatever it was it was
heavy. She felt herself being slowly pulled over the edge.
Felix felt something grab his foot and drag him down. He
looked up to see Alexandra, his partner, having great difficulty
holding on to him. 'She's going to fall too!' he thought.
"Let go, Alex!!"
"No! I'll just get a better grip!"
She never let go of anything. He knew that. He would never
have to get a Pitbull - he had Alex. That was quite enough.
She was just about to tip over the edge as he made his
decision. He lifted his hand and hers out from the wall, turned
it around so that her hand faced the hard surface, and slammed
her hand into it. She yelped in pain and in that moment of
confusion she loosened her grip just enough for Felix to let his
hand slip out.
And so, he fell.
Alex hauled herself up to rest safely on the other side of
the edge again. She leaned forward and peered into the darkness
once again. "Bastard!" she muttered.
Without further a do she got a device out of her backpack,
pulled a thin wire from one end of it and attached the little
cubic contraption to her belt. She pulled out shaded glasses with
extra equipment attached to the bows. With a chord she then
connected the glasses to the box in her belt and put them on,
pushing them up on her nose with her index finger.
She placed a high-tech suction device on the wall and
attached the silvery wire to it. With a final tug at the wire,
she jumped into the mysterious dark shaft to begin her quick
descent.
Somewhere down there was Felix and the number one priority
was always to keep the team intact. The loss of one of them was,
as their boss always said, completely unacceptable.
'So HIM to find such a remarkably rude way to be noble,'
she thought.
-----
Lance fell, fell, and fell through the darkness. It was a
strange fall though. He didn't accelerate one bit. His mind told
him that was not possible but it was happening nonetheless. But,
he had just gone from being burned to death to defying the laws
of physics so he felt no real desire to try to logically analyze
his current situation.
The one thing that went through his mind over and over and
over again was 'Am I dead? Did I die? . . . Am I falling towards
hell?'.
He swirled around from time to time. It felt as if he had
been falling forever when he saw a faint light far below him,
rapidly growing closer and brighter. 'Hell?'
He heard faint voices. There were people there. He started
flailing his arms around and just as he fell past the light with
incredible speed his one hand grabbed a hold of something and -
he stopped falling.
He was holding onto someone's ankle. Maybe he would be all
right after all.
No such luck this time. He soon felt considerable
gravitational forces tugging at his body. The person above him
would fall as well. Might as well let go.
Just as Lance was about to loose his grip of the ankle, he
found himself falling again, still holding on to the unknown
individual above him. Startled, he let go and was alone again,
but not for long.
-----
Felix fell and, like Lance had before him, he noticed the
lack of acceleration. Before he had time to contemplate this
though, he stopped falling.
Inserted into the wall of the approximately four metres in
diameter cylindrical black shaft were a ring of elliptical bright
lights. Felix quickly drew the conclusion that these strange
lights somehow counteracted gravity and made this particular
section of the mysterious 'black hole' a place where 'fallers'
such as himself could float around peacefully in zero-G. However,
what the purpose of this floating could be was as shrouded in
mystery as the purpose of the falling, or for that matter the
whole contraption.
Before he had had any more time to consider these
questions, he turned to his left and was surprised to see another
young man floating in midair beside him.
It took a few milliseconds for Felix to figure out who this
surprising new acquaintance was. The spiky hair, the nearly white
skin, the green eyes, body frequently engaging in straining
physical activities. His mouth is open. Ah, yes. Very well
developed vocal chords.
"Mr. Bass, I presume?" Felix said, stretching out his right
hand, "Fancy meeting you here.."
The other man just stared at him with his mouth hanging
open. 'Hmm.. That face gives new meaning to the word
'bewildered'..' Felix thought.
"You ARE Mr. Bass, right?" he said, still no response,
"James Lance Bass of NSYNC fame? IMPOOFU as you Internet
screen-name? Bass singer? Called Scoop? Stealth?"
No reply. Still that stupid face. Felix waved his hand in
front of the unresponsive one's eyes. "Hey! HEY! Hellooooooo!?"
Finally, Lance snapped to. "Oh! Yeah.. Hi!" He took Felix's
hand and shook it. "I'm Lance!"
"Yeah, I think even the walls know that by now.. I'm Felix!
Nice to meet ya!"
With a very suspicious look and tone of voice, Lance said
"What.. are you doing here?"
"Ooh, just hangin' around!" Felix replied chipperly as he
stretched out and put his hands behind his head.
"Ehm.. What am *I* doing here?" Lance said, still as
confused as ever.
Felix turned his head slightly too look at Lance with a
look that seemed to say simply 'Duh?!'.
"Not enjoying the fact that at least you've stopped
falling?" he said plainly.
Lance sighed. "You have no idea where we are, do ya?"
Felix leaned back again with a carefree smile. "Absolutely
no idea what so ever!" he said happily.
"And you don't care?!" Lance asked, mildly shocked.
"No. Alex is already on her way down to rescue us so I'm
just going to enjoy this little break as much as I can!" He
looked at Lance's confused face and thought it best to explain.
"Alex is my partner. She and I were .. hmm.. breaking into the
Crester Palace when suddenly I fell into this hole and you came
along and pulled me further down. She's not too far above us and
she's got excellent climbing equipment.."
Lance let out a sigh of relief. "And I thought I was
falling towards Hell!" He laughed weakly.
This got Felix's immediate attention. He looked at Lance
and said "Now why on Earth would you think that??"
Lance squirmed a bit and mumbled something unintelligible.
Felix quickly searched through all facts he could access
about James Lance Bass in the hope of finding a hint as to what
the answer might be. Three seconds later he blurted out "Ah, I
see, you're a Southern Baptist and you thought you were going to
hell", he studied Lance briefly and the young singer could almost
feel Felix's eyes seeing right into his very being, "because . .
you're gay..," Felix finished, knowing he had found the answer.
Lance looked utterly shocked and stared at Felix. "Wha--
How d-- I mean.. I'm not--" he stammered.
"Gay? Of course you're gay! Do I look like an idiot??"
Lance just continued to stare.
"On second thought, ya don't have to answer that.." Felix
added. After a moment of silence, Felix spoke up again. He was
now completely serious. The joking and carefree Felix had been
replaced by much more mature and caring version in just a few
seconds. "Do you wish you weren't gay?" he asked.
Lance inhaled deeply. "God, yes."
"You don't have to bring Him into this talk, a simple 'yes'
would have been quite sufficient!" Felix muttered before
continuing, "Now let's set th--"
Felix was rudely interrupted by Lance.
"Do you believe in God?" he asked.
"Huhn? . . Depends on which one your referring to.." Felix
said, clearly annoyed.
"The Christian one, of course.."
"Still depends . . but to answer your question - yes, but
not as you might expect and the nature of that answer still
depends on which one and which aspect you're referring to.. I
believe in a higher power but I don't belong to any religion but
my own.."
Lance was only slightly satisfied with this answer and was
about to continue the discussion as Felix steered back to the
original one.
"But back to you, Mr. Bass.." He gracefully moved his
weightless body so that he was floating about one foot above the
fair-haired singer. "Gay is not What you are," he clasped Lance's
head with his strong yet slender hands and stared into those
green eyes, "it is WHO you are! Get it?"
Lance merely grunted. Felix wasn't sure if he should take
that as a yes or a no but before he had time to investigate
further, Lance spoke up again.
"You can't tell anyone!" he sounded scared, "I mean, you're
not going to, are you??"
Felix let out a loud laugh which only managed to confuse
Lance further.
"Lance, trust me, in my line of business we tend to stay as
far away from the press as humanly, or superhumanly, possible!"
he assured the green eyed one.
"Superhumanly?"
"Let's sing a song!" Felix said, now back to his former
carefree self and completely ignoring Lance's question.
"A song??"
"Yeah, one of Cher's hits!"
"One of Cher's hits??"
"The Shoop Shoop Song!"
"The Shoop Shoop Song??"
"Is there an echo in here?"
". . Is there an echo in here??" Lance replied with a smirk
and the both burst out laughing. If sentient, the walls would
probably have found the two boys most obnoxious but luckily these
walls were as dead as most walls in our dimension. The walls in
the 64th dimension though, that's a whole other story. Those
walls have even formed a Union to help protect them against
obnoxious beings and creaking doors.
When their laughter finally died down, Felix started
singing in a deep and very powerful voice.
"DOES he love me I wanna know, HOW can I TELL if he loves
me SO?" he began.
"Is it in his eyes?" Lance sang with a smile that seemed
ready to crack his face in two. They continued the song, both
having a hard time trying not to laugh .. too much.
"It's in his kiss, that's where it is, oohoohh, it's in his
kiss" they sang as they neared the end of the song. Suddenly, a
third voice was added to this spontaneous arrangement. From the
darkness above them, a beautiful female voice answered "that's
where it is Yehah!"
Lance was so startled he stopped singing but Felix
continues, backed up by Alex who descended into the dim circle of
light. The song ended and she decided to introduce herself.
Meanwhile, Felix moved over to Lance's side again.
"Hi there! I'm Alex! Nice to meet you Mr. Bass!" she
smiled, "And I'm here to rescue you two goofballs!"
Lance was once again utterly confused. "How come you both
know my name just like that?" he asked them.
"Well, you see.." Felix began to explain "we're worse than
twins really, we--"
At that very moment, half of the lights in the circle, the
ones nearby Lance, were turned off and not a second later Lance
plummeted once again into the darkness below. He fell in silence,
too startled to make even the slightest sound.
Felix, however, remained floating and turned to look down
into the mysterious darkness. "Damn" he muttered.
Alex pulled her partner towards the wall and attached a
wire to his belt.
"We need to climb up" she said, grimly determined, "we have
a job to do!"
"You can climb up if you want to," Felix said as he
detached himself from the wire again, "I'm going," he pushed out
from the wall and received enough kinetic energy to move through
the zero-G field, "DOOOOOWWN!!" he shouted as he fell into the
darkness below and disappeared.
"Aaargh!" Alex growled "I am SO going to kill him!"
The reply came almost instantaneously. "You'll do nothing
of the sort young lady!" the voice said - a voice only she could
hear. "I'm not paying you to kill valuable company assets, BUT
I'm not paying *either* of you to go chasing cute boy-band
members either so you get down there and find Mr. Hyper-A NOW!"
"Did you think I would do anything BUT what you just
suggested?"
"No. You're the responsible one. I just felt like ranting!
NOW MOOOVE!!"
Alex quickly resumed her descent.
"His nobility is REALLY getting on my nerves today!" she
muttered as she vanished into the darkness.
-------------
Somewhere between major dimensions we find a huge
underground room which looks like a cross between a sewer and an
old dungeon. The floor looks some kind of indoors swamp and at
least half of the ceiling is missing in favor of a big pitch
black cavity, seemingly the end of some huge shaft.
A blond youth suddenly appears from out of the darkness. He
falls face down into the 'swamp' and grunts in pain.
Moments later, a tall man dressed in a cloak as black as
the darkness above him walks up to the young man lying on what
could possibly pass for a floor. He hunches down to look at the
blond. The young man slowly raises his mud-covered face and tries
to focus on the cloaked one.
"Ah, you're conscious.. good.." Yerad said, "then I guess I
should be a good host and welcome you.." He stood up slowly,
stretching out his hand in an offer to help his guest up.
"Welcome to your appointment with Destiny, Mr. Carter!"
ToBeContinued
************************
That's it for this time. Well, not quite. I have decided to
try to write a new song for each chapter I publish. Sometimes
I'll incorporate it into the story and sometimes, like now, I'll
publish it at the end.
Later on, I plan to make digital arrangements and
recordings of the melodies and publish them as MIDI files on my
site but for now you'll have to settle for just the lyrics. :)
-------
'Falling Destiny'
by Andreas K N, January 2000
I am
Falling
I don't know where I am
Don't know where I'm going
Or even
Where I'm coming from
Don't know
Who I am
What I want
Why am I falling?
Is it something I did wrong?
Or is it me
Just me?
Am I not allowed to be
Me
I am
Fa- Fa- Falling
Don't know where I'm going
Tell me who I am
Am I not allowed to be?
Is that
My falling destiny?
I am
Falling
I don't know where I am
Don't know where I'm going
Please show me
Where I'm coming from
Is it something I did wrong?
Am I not allowed to be?
Is that
My falling destiny?
Is that
My falling destiny?
I am
Falling
Falling
-------
If you read this, PLEASE email me and tell me what you
think of the story or the song, or both. It doesn't have to be
much. Just a couple of sentences would be nice. :D
I LOVE FEEDBACK! ..... Now you know that, in case you hadn't
figured it out already. Email: an@altavista.net
Have an Absolutely Fabulous day!!
/ AKN
--------------------------------------
Copyright 2000 Andreas K N
Characters from XYXX(TM)
are copyright 2000 po'tolo Productions
--------------------------------------