The sand castle

25 year-old Danny goes with his parents and Jazz to the beach. Suddenly, things are just getting worse, and the Sand Castle is looking for a new Queen.

I don't own Danny Phantom!! This began just a weird idea with my sister, and then grew into a story. Reviews are very much appreciated!!! ENJOY!

There was not even a sad notice that welcomed them into the shadowy town. One would think that the place would've wanted to atract tourists and whatnot for the summer season, but no, nothing seemed to be at least friendly to them in that little piece of nowhere which happened to be called Sandville.

The streets were deserted, and the scarce trees showed them that, outside the van's windows, the wind was blowing wildly. Only someone as ghost-obsessed as Maddie Fenton would have suggested that place for vacation, and only someone as enthusiastic as Jack Fenton would have agreed. And only someone as resigned as Danny or Jazz could accept being dragged along.

Let me explain.

Sandville was set somewhere along the Pacific coast, in a place where the coast was plagued with accidents and curious landforms. Sudden cliffs and unsuspected coves sprouted as though they were a normal thing, and a spiderweb of legends had grown around the town and its whereabouts. The place had always had a rather hideous reputation, since from old days, sailors had been warning the people of strange lights to be seen at night roaming the shores, and otherworldly wailings could be told from the thundering of the unleashed waves against the cliffs. It was said that the town and the beaches overflowed with ghosts and ghouls, and, to top it all, some decades ago Sandville had been all over the papers due to some mysterious disappearance of a tourist.

Jazz sighed, totally into her book now that she'd seen how the infamous town looked like. Let her parents worry about finding the apparently elusive hotel. Danny looked, bored, out of the window, wondering again what had made him throw away his very well earned vacations in such a miserable place like that.

Jack and Maddie were, though, another story. They gushed about the place as though it was Heaven, and the little map of the streets seemed to appear to them like a salvation and a guidance through Terra Incognita. "Oh well, let them be," thought Danny, "they've not had a properly called vacation in many years. One could have gueesed they'd be tired of camping eventually."

The hotel they finally arrived at was modest, but rather cosy-looking. They learnt from the man at the reception that it was only half-full, which wasn't really a surprise. Their rooms were in the first floor, and after they'd left their things there (and Jazz and Danny had endured the embarrassment of seeing their parents take all their ghost-hunting equipment up the stairs), they decided to go check out the beach, since it only was mid-afternoon.

"So, what do you make out of this place?" Danny asked Jazz.

"Well," she said, "I make that we're doomed to a sunless summer". She looked resigned but not too sullen. "Besides," she went on, "Mom and Dad are quite happy, just look at them!"

Jack and Maddie walked ahead of them, holding hands. They'd changed into their too-retro-to-be-cool bathing suits, and were singing some last century radio hit. But, they did look happy.

"Yeah, I see that," Danny said. "I'm just a bit resented, thay they'd choose a ghost infested place for a vacation. It won't be vacation to me."

"Oh come on Danny," she scolded, "Relaxation starts in your head, so quit worrying a bit."

He sighed. "I don't know, Jazz," he looked around, "I'm not too confortable here..."

She shook her head with a slight you're-too-stressed kind of smile. "You'll see how a good night's sleep will wash away all your anxiety," she told him.

They both fell into silence after that. The wind was attacking them, even though they weren't in the beach yet. Danny was feeling a bit chilly through his jeans and t-shirt, and when they did get to the beach, the wind lifted the sand and threw it so hard at them, that he thought for a second that they might've come in the wrong season.

"I wonder," he said, "If this is this place's summer, what's the winter like?!"

Jazz shot him a meaningful glare, so as to say, "keep your complaints in your head, don't be a spoilsparty". Some meters still ahead of them, Jack and Maddie were taking pictures of the landscape. A very pretty, but rather monochromatic landscape.

Danny roamed a bit around the place, while Jazz busied herself in convincing a hermit crab to come out of a pretty seashell. The horizon was only a straight line in the sea part, but for the rest it was crowded with sharp-edged stones and not faraway cliffs, all which hinted at odd sea inlets. As he looked to his right, a colosal structure which wasn't there before caught his attention. It was an enormous sand castle, about a kilometer away from where he stood. The towers were a work of art, resembling seashells, and it told of immense riches and power, with its heavily embelished walls and superb merlons. Danny called Jazz for her to look at it, but when she and he himself looked again, there was no thing as a trace of the magnificent sand castle left.

As Dany described it for Jazz, she looked blankly at him. "Otherwise I wouldn't believe it, but given it was you the one who saw it, I'll give you half-credit," she joked.

Danny remained looking at the spot where the towers had banished into thin air for a long while, long enough and absentmindedly enough for his father to have to call him.

"Come on son, we're heading back," he said with that afable way of his. Danny yeah-ed and trailed after him, not before taking a last look at the innocent and empty-looking stretch of beach.

"That was just plain weird", he thought, with an ominous feeling.

So? What do you think? Worth reviewing, isn't it? =) The writer kisses your soul. Till next chapter!