I woke up slowly, my head pounding in a way you wouldn't believe. My entire body felt like it had been stabbed with hundreds of needles per inch. But at the same time, it felt manageable. Like when you get a bad bruise but can ignore it at will. I tried to sit up, but gut-clenching pain from my arms forced me to go limp. Forcing one eye open, then the other, I rose my head slowly, and painfully. I forced my eyes open, to find horrified expressions on both of my friends, Sam and Tucker.
"Guys? What's wrong?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows in mixed worry and concern. Why were they so horrified? Why did they look so scared? "Danny... Is that you?" My more gothic friend, Sam, asked. Her violet eyes filled with the same emotions mine undoubtedly were shining with. Fear, confusion, and concern. "Yeah, why wouldn't it be me?" I wondered, summoning up just enough strength to sit up. My body was still in pain all over, but I could ignore it for the moment. Getting rid of whatever brought such fear into my friend's eyes had to come first. There were burn marks all over the cold, dimly lit lab of a basement we were in.
Something must have burned the place up, what happened in here?
"What happened in here?" I asked aloud, my words mirroring my thoughts without my realization. "The portal... You messed around with all of those wires..." Sam began, before the memories slammed into my brain like a freight train.
I had been messing around with my parent's portal to the Negative Zone, they just seemed to depressed after it didn't work. I figured that maybe if I could get it to work they would be happy again. My head pounded again, harder this time. I could feel my memories returning. I had messed up, put the wires in the proper places. Dad had probably been half asleep doing this. I had pressed the big red button, and everything had become pain only a second after that. Like my molecules had been broken and needed rearranging. Then I had passed out, and woken up again, asking my friends what was wrong. Now, here I was. Trying to stand up, my arms still felt like they were gonna break off by the way. Still, I needed to see just how bad it was, maybe I wouldn't even have to tell Mom and Dad about it.
I slowly walk to the mirror, my head felt horrible. But still, I stumbled forward, placing one hand on each side of the mirror, I looked up, expecting to see the worst burns I had ever seen...
Instead, I saw no burns. I saw tanned skin, glowing red eyes, and snow white hair with a single black streak. I was still wearing my jumpsuit, though it was now mainly black, and my gloves were red. My boots stayed black, though when I checked the bottom padding and tread, that had become red. It actually looked pretty cool.
"What... What happened to me?" I asked. "Why do I look like this!?" My voice level rose with my panic, as I began to feel quite a bit weaker. A black ring spun to life around my waist, splitting vertically in two and traveling up and down my entire body, returning me to normal... for the most part.
In exactly the same spot the black streak had been before I changed back, a white streak took it's place in my now mainly raven black hair. I placed one hand on my temple, plopping down right in front of the portal butt first. Just as the door opened up, my Dad racing down the steps. "Danny, are you alright?" Dad asked. "Yeah, I think so." I lied. "I think I got the portal working for a second... It shocked me a little and now my hair is a little white. Can't believe I look a little like an old man already." I whined, managing to tell the truth and lie at the same time. "Ah, don't bother with it Danny! It looks pretty cool!" Sam exclaimed. I shot her a small smile as Dad began messing with the controls.
A blood red swirl of mist flowed through the portal, followed by a flash of light so bright I had to look away. When we all looked back... The portal was functional. A gateway of energy inside my parent's basement. I didn't know weather to be scared, slightly proud, or just not to care. I did know I wanted to get out of the lab and into my room to talk with Sam and Tucker. Maybe together we could figure out what happened to me, maybe it wasn't even permanent. Yeah, no way it would be permanent. I mean, I did change back without difficulty.
So I stood up, wobbling slightly and dragged my friends out of the room. They just kept gawking at the portal. Not that I blamed them, it was a portal to another freaking dimension. A little part of me wanted to jump through it and into the unknown. That was definitely the part that wanted to be an astronaut.
When I finally managed to yank them into my room, plopping down to sit on my bed, I looked at them both. They still looked shell-shocked, like I had grown ten extra heads or something. I actually checked to see if they were still breathing. Thankfully, they were, or I would've had to attempt CPR. Which would have snapped them out of it for sure. But Sam probably would have punched me or something, and that would have hurt, like a lot.
Anyway, they did eventually shake their shock off. We began speculating what may have caused that... other me. And other things like: What if it was still there? If it came from the Negative Zone portal would that version of me have the powers that my parents said creatures from the Negative Zone wielded? Why did I have a streak of white hair?
All of these were questions that I wanted answers to. I didn't know what had happened to me, I didn't know how much I had been changed...
And I definately didn't know what I could do now. As far as I knew, I didn't have the powers that the inhabitants of the Negative Zone had. I certainly didn't know that I would become the greatest hero that Amity Park ever had.
