Author's Note: A big inspiration for this oneshot was "feel the outside turning in" by anthrop, which I highly recommend. Unlike that fanfic, however, there's no Danny Phantom in this story. There's no superhero to make it all better. Just angst. Lots of angst. I hope that's your thing! Please read and review!
I also want to take this opportunity to offer a warning: as part of my initial research, I searched Google Images for "exit wounds." DO NOT search Google Images for "exit wounds." What I saw cannot be unseen.
The Accident to End All Accidents
Chapter One: Ashes to Ashes
It's hard to tell whether you're dead or alive.
Darkness surrounds you. You're clearly aware that it's dark. You're also aware of the fact that you're lying down on something. You're still thinking and asking yourself questions. You wouldn't do that if you no longer existed, would you?
But then, how would you know? You've never died before. In fact, how do you know you're dying now?
As you ponder this, no information reaches your senses. No light hits your eyes. No soundwaves crash into your ear. No fibres scratch your skin. You feel nothing at all.
Not for long, though.
Your body is rocked by a string of explosions. They start in your head and race down your spine to your feet. Then the chain goes in the opposite direction. It happens again and again, faster and faster, until every inch of your skin is corroding at once.
You have no choice but to scream.
At least, you think you're screaming. You can't hear anything. You feel your lips moving – that's good, you still have lips – but no noise comes out.
"Help!" you try to shout. "Somebody! Anybody!" You force the air through your mouth with all your might, a wind strong enough to uproot trees: "SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON!"
Still not a sound.
The world shakes. You're coughing silently. There's … stuff coming out. What sort of stuff? Phlegm? Vomit? Blood? Your own severed tongue?
Invisible hands push you down. Who is it? An angel? A demon? In this gloom, you'll need something other than sight to work out which. You try to touch him or her or it. Your arm brushes against stiff fabric and whacks a head of hair. There are no feathered wings, but no horns either.
The mystery person forces you onto your side. A needle pricks your neck.
That small action has the power to sever all connections to your body. No more bombs go off beneath you. You're no longer attached to your deceptive mouth or to your heaving chest. You're floating away from all these confused feelings, and you don't know whether to be relieved or terrified, because maybe now you'll be free of the pain, but maybe now you really are dying…
You drift into something halfway between a dream and a memory.
…
"Smile!"
A white flare assaults your vision. Sam's camera whirs as a picture of you – eyes half-open, standing under three dials, clutching a black-and-white jumpsuit to your chest – slides out the bottom.
You blink a few times (while Tucker sniggers at your wimpy inability to have your picture taken) and lower the unusual garment. "Okay," you sigh, "I showed you the portal. Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute." You scan the sterile, grey, windowless basement in case they're sneaking in as you speak. You turn back to the octagonal hole in the wall, the device the three dials were hooked up to. "Besides, they say it doesn't work, anyway."
"Come on, Danny, a Ghost Zone?" Sam scurries past you to admire the mouth of the cave. "Aren't you curious?" The flashing lights on the surrounding ghost sensors make her violet eyes twinkle. "You gotta check it out!"
A few weeks ago, your parents brought you and Jazz, your big sister, in front of the Fenton Ghost Portal, promising adventure and scientific exploration the likes of which had never been achieved before. The Fenton family would come face-to-face with those odd manifestations of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness. Dad plugged it in, an ivory lightning bolt fizzled in the air … and not much else happened. Jazz rolled her eyes and left to check up on dinner. Your parents trudged upstairs, ate little and went to bed early. They were so sure they had the right calculations this time.
But what if you succeeded where they failed? What if you found the thing that stopped the portal working? What if you opened the door to a world unseen?
"You know what? You're right," you say to Sam. You allow yourself a childish smile. "Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?"
You slide into the jumpsuit's black boots, snap the black gloves onto your arms and zip the whole thing up to your neck. It's a little tight around your ribs.
"Are you actually going to wear that?" Tucker asks.
"Says the kid who's had the same red beanie since the third grade," you retort. "Look, if you're going to represent the entire human race as you make contact with another life form, you have to get them to think you mean business." You put your hands on your hips and lift your chin to demonstrate.
"Hang on." Sam grabs an oddly-shaped sticker and peels it off. "You can't go walking around with that on your chest." It's a picture of your dad's grinning face.
You don't respond. You break your fighting stance. Your bubble of energy bursts. You've just been reminded, once again, that Mom and Dad would kill you if they found out that you and your friends have been in their laboratory – unsupervised!
Tucker shares your facial expression: slightly raised eyebrows, knitting together in concern. "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this," he says, voicing your fears. "Wanna go back upstairs and play Doomed?"
That sounds nice. Video games are safe. You've enjoyed them for years. By contrast, never in your entire life have you introduced yourself to a parallel dimension full of spooks. Despite your parents' zeal to make it happen, you've never met a ghost in the flesh – or, rather, in the ectoplasm. You don't have a script prepared. What will you say to the spectres, beyond the "We come in peace" cliché? Will they even let you get a word in edgeways, or will the filthy creatures just rip you apart molecule by molecule? You know they could do it. Your bedtime stories were full of such horrors.
Sam takes advantage of your paralysis to state her case. "We can play Doomed whenever we want. This is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get into the Ghost Zone. It'll be like the wardrobe to Narnia, only more Gothic and a million times cooler! But," she adds, turning back to Danny, "if you're too chicken to do it, I will. Sure, my parents aren't ghost-hunting experts who've passed their superior knowledge down to me and made me the most fitting person to go through the portal first, but-"
"I think I can handle it," you say instantly, sick of her shaming you. "I'm still not going to try turning it all the way on. We probably can't, if it's broken. But I want to at least see what the problem is. If it's a loose connection that Dad hadn't spotted, I might find it and fix it. And then my parents will be so glad to see their greatest invention working that they'll forget to be mad at us. Maybe."
You take a deep breath, pushing against taut material to do so. You move under the archway. You cross the threshold between worlds.
"Go get 'em, buddy," says Tucker.
The jumpsuit, once white, is now illuminated by eerie cyan bulbs, like the fabled Ghostlight in one of your dad's favourite legends. You raise your leg over bulky criss-crossing cables; the movement is comically exaggerated, but that's better than dislodging your parents' months – nay, years – of hard work.
Once you're clear of the trip hazards, your left hand brushes against the wall, rising and falling as it traces the thin wires and shiny panels. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. You glance back at the lab, which now seems so far away, at the end of a long tunnel. Sam has her camera poised, ready for another killer snap. A smile is creeping onto Tucker's face as he waits to see what you'll do (and admires you in that jumpsuit). They're expecting something big. They don't want to see you bow out. There's no turning back now.
While you're looking away, your hand sinks into something.
BEEP!
You whip your head around. What have you just done? You hand is next to a red OFF button. You move it away from the wall, revealing an identical ON button (identical except for being green) under your palm.
This is bad, instinct tells you. Run. Get out. You don't know what you're doing.
But you don't run – because something flickers in the centre of the cavern. It reminds you of a galaxy, a spiral galaxy. You like galaxies, don't you? You know everything about them. You've always wanted to be an astronaut.
Come here, the will-o'-the-wisp calls to you. Follow me. I can show you a whole new world.
And then, in a flash, everything changes.
A river of glowing green fire engulfs the chamber and washes over you. No, not just over you. Through you. In the eyes of the whirlpool, you're nothing.
Your feet are glued to the ground. Your cries are swallowed by the flames. No healthy air reaches your lungs – only the slime that's gushing out in front of you and trying to kill everything in its path.
With each zap from each snow-white bolt of ecto-energy, the agony increases. You throw your arms in front of your face in a vain attempt to stem the flow. Your molten fingers blacken and curl in pain. Your skin crackles. Your hair is smoking. You're turning to ash.
There's a WHOOSH behind you. You're suddenly shot out like a bullet from a gun.
You hit the floor.
The world disappears.
…
A soft cerulean haze is rising. Falling. Rising again. You blink a few times. Rise and fall. Rise and fall.
The cloud thins out. Before you is a white rectangle – a door? Yes, a door. The haze wasn't a haze at all, but the painted walls of your bedroom.
Two figures guard you on either side. Your eyes dart between them. The one on the left is short and slender and wears a bright blue jumpsuit; the one on the right is tall and rotund and wears an even brighter orange jumpsuit. The one on the left is talking, and the one on the right is listening.
"We should probably haul a couple of monitors up here to keep an eye on his breathing and his heartrate. We've got to be on the lookout for irregularities. And if he still hasn't woken up by the time they're fitted, we may have to start feeding him through a tube."
Who are they talking about?
"Mom?" you croak. "Dad?" You blink at the sound of – no, that's not your voice. It belongs to a swamp monster, not a fourteen-year-old boy.
The conversation halts. Both figures turn in your direction and look down. You realise why they're looking down: you're lying in bed and they're standing up.
"What happened?" you growl. "How did I get here?" You press your lips together. Now you sound even worse. It's as if your throat is lined with barbed wire, and the words are being pushed through the tunnel against their will. They stagger out of your mouth covered in bleeding gashes and seeking vengeance for their rough treatment by attacking the listener's ears.
"Danny," Mom starts. "You're awake." Her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. There's a film of anxiety glazing over those purple orbs. "How are you feeling?"
You stay quiet for a moment. You picture a red line passing over your body, recording size and shape and position, like a retina scanner in a spy movie. No alarm sounds in your brain. You're completely numb, in fact, as if you're floating in a special treacle that blocks your senses. "Weird," you finally say. You don't explain yourself. You don't want to use your nasty little vocal chords for any longer than necessary.
"Does anywhere hurt?" asks Dad.
"I don't think so."
Mom sits beside you on the shiny black chair that used to go under your desk. "Are you sure you're all right? How good is your memory?" she asks.
"Um – I remember going down to the lab … with Sam and Tucker…" You trail off. Your parents' expressions are unreadable. "And I know you told us not to," you rush on, "and I'm sorry, it was stupid-"
"We're not interested in that right now," Dad interrupts. "Just tell us the truth about what happened."
You avoid his frown and stare at the ceiling. "I put the jumpsuit on and took a look inside the portal. I wanted to make it work, to make you happy. I turned it on – by accident – and then it sort of exploded. It hurt. A lot." That is an understatement. "And then I got thrown backwards and it was really dark and quiet. I cried for help, but I couldn't hear myself. Then I felt someone pushing me down. After that … nothing."
Mom nods. "That someone pushing you down was me with the anaesthetic. You were making a lot of noise and thrashing about. It wasn't helping us put you back together."
"Oh." You probably don't want her to elaborate on what she means by 'putting you back together.' "I'm sorry," you say.
"No need to apologise," says Mom. "You didn't know. You'd obviously been badly blinded and deafened."
"I guess so. Not anymore, though. I can see you. And hear you, obviously." You smile. "Maybe knocking me out helped."
"Hmm. If only it helped with the other things," says Dad.
"Jack!"
Your smile fades. "What other things?"
"Well … how do I say this?" Mom sighs. "Your hands were, uh, the worst affected by the explosion. They took the full force of the blast when you shielded your face. You saved your head by doing that, actually. You're very lucky that the blood flow to your brain wasn't cut off. Sadly, we couldn't save your hands."
"But they feel okay. I can wiggle my fingers." Can't she see them quivering under the sheets?
She shakes her head. "No, dear. Those are probably just phantom limbs."
"Not to be confused with limbs belonging to phantoms," Dad pipes up.
You have to prove them wrong. You bend your arms, raising your hands to your face, letting the quilt slide off – and oh, how you wish you hadn't.
You have no hands. Not really. Just sickly yellow stumps. Some fingers have been incinerated, leaving blackened bulges, like an inky bubble bath. Others have melted into unsightly lumps on your palms. You recognise the shape of the thumb on your left hand and the pinkie on your right hand. But that's about it.
"They're gone," you choke. "My hands." The room blurs. You blink back your tears before they spill.
"We're so sorry."
Why is Dad apologising? It's not his fault you've lost two of your most important limbs.
Lumpy red spots gather around your wrists and spread up your arms, where the skin is unnaturally pink and peeling away. "What are these things?" You poke one of the protrusions with your surviving little finger. It sinks down and springs back up, pulsating. You yelp as a fresh spasm jolts along your arm and through your shoulder.
"You've got ecto-acne," says Mom. "It's all over you: on your face, on your back, even on the soles of your feet. That's probably the major source of your pain."
You touch your cheek. It's coarse and chapped, but not spotty. Is it? "Where's the mirror?" You spy the pane of glass to your right, balancing on the white chest of drawers. You try to throw the covers off.
"I wouldn't walk anywhere if I were you," Dad warns.
You sit up quickly. Too quickly. Now your back aches. And your front. And your sides. Your innards are trying to freeze you and boil you at the same time, with inevitably painful results. You wrap your arms across your belly, holding yourself together.
"Danny?"
"I'm okay," you lie to Mom. You'd squeezed your eyes shut, but now you peel them open. You ball up the quilt and reveal your feet.
You retch. They're hideous. All your toes have fused together into two burgundy tips, the colour of cold blood, and their texture resembles a bad case of goose bumps. Further up, on your ankles, the skin is bright and sore, practically scarlet, and broken up by darker cracks, like a harsh desert landscape. More shiny spots litter your legs.
"That's where we think the exit wounds are," Dad explains, covering the abominations again. "That's how the ecto-energy left your body."
"Where did it come in?" you ask, lying back down, cringing as a few bulbous blemishes are squished beneath you.
"Partly through your hands and partly through your face," Mom replies.
"Wanna see what your face looks like?" asks Dad.
Do you want to find out how much damage you've done to yourself? Do you want to know exactly what despicable creature your parents see when they look at you? Do you want to have yet another glaring reason to wish you could go back in time and prevent all this? "Not really." You changed your mind when you saw the state of your feet and wanted to puke.
Dad ignores your answer, retrieves the wide mirror and holds it over the bed.
A beast stares down on you.
"Gah!" You shrink away and hide behind what used to be your hands. You peek through the tiniest of gaps. The creature is copying you. "Is that … me?"
No. It can't be.
The beast's eyes are completely black: the pupils, the formerly baby-blue irises, and even the so-called whites are pitch black. Its lips are shrivelled and have turned an otherworldly grey. The right cheek is rough and seems to be smeared with soot, a black hole collapsing in on itself. Straight crimson lines have been drawn haphazardly across the whole visage, an attempt to scribble the thing out. The scratches stretch down the beast's neck and onto its chest. Outbreaks of ecto-acne fill the gaps. The tiny percentage of skin that hasn't been marked is paper-white. Much of the beast's floppy black hair has burned to a crisp, leaving sore, flaky bald patches. Stringy blue veins are visible through its forehead. It seems as though a ferocious monster has ripped its prey's face off, instantly repented, and tried (and failed) to sew it back on with its clumsy claws.
"Take it away," you order your dad. He returns the mirror to its proper place.
If only you'd never woken up. If only you could have stayed ignorant of your disfigurement. If only you hadn't gone down to the lab in the first place.
If only, if only, if only.
"That's not – I don't – I can't be – I'm a-" You've lost the ability to speak. "Oh, please be a nightmare – please be a nightmare-" Your breath is short.
"Calm down, Danny!" Mom grips the side of the bed and talks in a rush. "The surface area of your lungs will have shrunk from all the ectoplasmic particles you inhaled. If you keep up that hyperventilation, you won't be able to breathe at all!"
"Shut up!" you snap. She's not helping you in the slightest. All you're hearing is advanced science stuff about precisely what's wrong with you. Where's the emotion in their voices? Where's the care? Shouldn't they be holding you close and telling you it'll be okay? You don't want Jack and Maddie Fenton. You want Mom and Dad.
Funny colours dance in front of your eyes. Your bed tilts from side to side. Your tongue feels thicker. You're going under again.
At that moment, a redhead in black and blue peers around the doorframe.
"Danny!" She rushes into your bedroom. "You're awake!" She launches herself at you and pulls you into her chest. "I was so worried about you! I thought you'd never…" She squeezes you instead of finishing her sentence.
"Ah," you gasp. She's pressing a particularly tender spot on your shoulder blade.
"Careful, Jazz," Dad warns. "His back hit the ground pretty hard."
Your big sister dutifully lies you down. The funny colours have gone, and the world is steady again. Her arrival was a much-needed distraction.
Jazz shudders a little as she releases you. "You're so cold!" she comments, tucking you in tightly. "Did the ecto-energy freeze you?"
"It felt more like a bonfire," you say.
If Jazz thinks the sound of your voice could be replicated by someone using a cheese grater on her eardrums, she doesn't show it. But she does sit on the bed and lean over you, resting her hand on your heart, letting her long ginger hair fall onto your chest and tickle your neck. "I don't know how you survived," she tells you with watery eyes, "but I'm so glad you did."
When Jazz hugged you, it had been the first time anyone had touched you since you woke up.