The dark-haired boy held up the hazmat suit for the picture, feeling uncomfortable. They weren't even supposed to be down here.
"Okay," he said, a little annoyed, "I showed you the portal. Can we get outta here now? My parents could be back here any minute!" He looked over at the empty portal. "Besides… they say it doesn't work anyway."
"Oh, c'mon, Danny," the goth girl said, walking over to the portal, "A ghost zone! Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out."
Danny walked over to the portal, a smile on his face. "You know what? You're right," he said, looking up at it, "Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?"
He promptly started stepping into the white-and-black hazmat suit. The boots were black, the belt was black, and the gloves were black. The rest was white, with the exception of the emblem on the chest of Danny's father's face. It was tight, but, in a way, very comfortable. It moved with him, as if it already knew what he was going to do, as if it was him. It was actually creepy, in a way.
He finished zipping it up, realizing that the collar was, also, black. He looked at the portal with a determined look on his face.
"Hang on," the goth said, seemingly noticing something obvious that the two boys had missed. Danny turned toward her as she reached for his chest. She ripped the face off of Danny's chest, saying "You don't want to walk around with that on your chest." She pointed at it, in case the boys were more stupid than she thought.
Danny, with his skin-like suit, gulped and looked over at the portal. He gingerly took a step in… nothing happened.
He looked around. It was really cool. There were all kinds of electrical things covering the walls, and at the end of the portal there were metal beams leaning in toward a centered dot. It was very mesmerizing.
He walked in further, almost losing his balance, he was thrown off by the entrancing design. He reached over to lean on the wall. Before he put his weight on it, he noticed it didn't feel like the wall, it felt more like a button... but he leaned too fast to do anything about it.
The next few seconds were the most painful moments of his life.
It felt like each individual cell in his body was being dissected. He felt like a million little knives were cutting into him, and at the same time, he felt like he was being twisted around, pushed, pulled, and pressed together; like his limbs were being disfigured and broken, his hair pulled out bunch by bunch. Of course, he let out a blood-curdling scream.
All he saw was green. There was green swirling in front of him, around him, and it felt like the green surrounding him was the culprit of his pain. He felt like the knives cut wounds into his skin, pushed a marble in there, and closed it again. It even felt like that on the inside.
He did all he could to get out of that portal before anything else happened. As soon as he was clear of the greenness, the pain stopped, but he didn't cease his shaking. He knew he was going to remember that moment forever. He was light-headed, and it felt like all the energy had been drained out of his body. He was too busy being sore, shaking, having a headache, and altogether trying to recuperate from the accident that he didn't notice his friends or their reactions.
The boy felt something on his arm, but he was too busy gripping his head to do anything about it. He rubbed his temples with his gloved hands, trying to get the headache to stop. It was harder to move than usual, he was so tired. Finally, he turned to look at Sam, who was the one who had touched his arm earlier. She had the strangest look on her face, almost like horror, but also with a little concern. Pain was written all over his face, he knew that.
"Danny," she finally said, her voice cracking a little. "Are you okay?"
He looked at her like she was crazy. Is he okay? Did he look okay? Had he sounded okay when he had screamed as loudly as inhumanly possible? He was as pale as a ghost, he knew that. How could he possibly be okay?
He tried standing up. Halfway through, he fell again, Sam catching him. The headache was smaller, but he was also light headed. He felt like he was going to pass out. Sam helped him reach his feet and walk a couple of steps. Tucker, who had been standing there gaping, shook out of it and ran over to help.
Soon Danny was sitting, his legs resting and his hand on his forehead. His friends backed away a little, looking at him.
"What?" he had the courage to say, looking at their expressions. He wasn't dead, actually once he got some sleep he would probably be perfectly fine. But what were they looking at?
A little white tuft of something drooped into his line of sight. He stared at it, a confused look in his face. Slowly, he reached up to his hair and pulled some of it down to look at it. It was stark white.
Forgetting about his symptoms, he let out a little yelp and jumped up from the chair, which, being one with wheels, rolled away harmlessly. He panicked, looked at Sam and Tucker, the former trying to calm him down, then he started running back up the stairs.
He didn't hear or feel the floor under his feet, and he was traveling unnaturally fast. He ran straight to the downstairs bathroom. The door was closed, but he didn't have any time to slow down. He braced himself for a collision.
When there was a collision, it wasn't against the bathroom door it was against the sink behind the luckily empty bathroom door. He turned around, seeing that the door in question was still closed.
He turned back toward the mirror hanging over the sink. For a second, he forgot to breathe.
His hair was just as white as he was hoping it wasn't. His hazmat suit's colors had inverted, and his eyes were... green. He flinched. He didn't have much of a likeness for green right then. After a closer look, he noticed they were glowing green. His whole body was glowing. Had he died? Was he a ghost?
He passed out right then, going through the floor and into the basement where his frozen friends were. As he fell to the floor, he didn't have legs, more like a wispy tail. He didn't notice this, however; as soon as he touched the ground, he was out cold, and blue halos of light surrounded him and turned him into the Danny they knew.
Sam and Tucker looked at each other, speechless as before.