Prologue
An alarm clock rang, the sound piercing through the air. Danny lazily shifted his head to look at the illuminated numbers. 7:30, time to wake up. Danny mustered up the effort to roll out of bed, and as he stood up his glazed eyes darted across his room. Dirty clothes thrown on the chair to the left of his bed, his books on the shelf above that. The chest containing his clean clothes and other personal items rested at the foot of his bed, covered in a thin layer of dust. He looked to the various artwork decorating his walls and released a detached sigh and proceeded to stretch. Everything seemed to be in order.
He tromped over to the bathroom, after retrieving clean clothes. He turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm. He began to strip off his pajamas and proceeded to look at his physical condition thus far. He looked at his scrawny legs, and his equally scrawny arms, which did show a small amount of muscle. He looked at his torso, and found no defined features other than the six pack, which was not made by muscle and rather lack of fat.
Danny, after doing a fair amount of flexing to see if the nights carrying and sorting his parent's junk was paying off, eventually worked his way up to his face. Danny didn't particularly like his face shape, he lacked a defined jawline, something that most males his age possessed. He did however have a defined chin and therefore strong cheekbones, giving his whole face a slender, meek figure. Danny went over everything, hoping that something had changed overnight: nose, still slightly pointy, ears, still slightly sticking out, eyes, still a glowing green colour, hair, still a silvery sheen. Everything seemed normal.
Danny trudged down the stairs into the living room, which he found to be empty.
Parents must be downstairs he thought to himself
Danny entered the basement lab to find the familiar smell of chemicals and the soft sound of beakers bubbling. His dad looked up and offered a smile, his sharp jawline contrasting against his equally sharp shoulders. His father was a well built man, however his most defined feature was his upper body strength. He usually wore a pale blue jumpsuit that hugged his body more than Danny would ever be comfortable with, and his slicked back hair was also a silver sheen. John's bright green eyes rested on Danny.
"How's it going, sport?"
"Oh, y'know, just wanted to see what you guys were doing," Danny replied
"This is going to be revolutionary Danny, we are working on a very special project." John said, bursting with elation.
"Yeah? What's it about?" Danny asked inquisitively, eyeing the beakers on the table.
"Inter-dimensional travel," a female voice replied. Danny's mom Marie stood up from the chair opposite John, putting the coffee mug down on the table. Marie was a very slender woman, her jet black hair falling to her waist and her blue eyes sharp and inquisitive. "We've managed to create the polar opposite to ectoplasm. Blood. If we find some way to harness this blood energy then we can enter a universe polar to our own."
"We've almost finished it, and now we're going to make some breakfast, Danny do you want anything?" John asked with extended vigor
"Nah I'm good, I'll come up in a sec." Danny replied.
Danny watched his mother and his father disappear up the staircase. Danny then turned to see the workings of the portal, it appeared to be a reversed star inside of a circle. Danny reached out and touched the red substance that made up the portal. Blood, he thought. Danny's eyes followed the contour of the circle which broke off at a point and led to a button. IGNITION was written in big block letters over the switch. Danny looked around, I wanna try this thing, if we can actually go to alternate universes the possibilites are - endless. Danny hovered his hand over the button, Guess I'm the test subject. He pushed the button and a spark flew from the switch, igniting the trail of blood. Danny watched the fire dance its way over to the circle and start to encompass it. It consumed the circle and then flickered to the inside of the star. A bright purple light ignited from the star and shot forward. The beam struck Danny and he immediately felt immense pain and heat entering his skin. Danny felt like molecule by molecule he was being ripped apart and put together again. He tried to let out a scream, but to no avail, all that succeeded was a small release of air. The pain was unbearable, and the colours started to fade until Danny was plunged into darkness.