So whoa. The first thing I've written since February is really angsty. Huh.
I got the idea for this story while drawing Maddie Fenton and it was stuck in my head, so yeah, here it is.
Please tell me how I did, this is the first time I've ever really written something like this before.
Thank you so much to caitgirl1 who beta read this. At 2am. There is gonna be mistakes cause i wrote then when i really should have been sleeping... lol Also my laptop hates me. With a passion. It really does.
(Also for readers who have read my other stories, I have finally gotten off my ass. There has been new rewritten chapters for Changes, and there is more on the way)
Anyway,
Enjoy ;)
Maddie Fenton was dead.
Yet as she stared at her lifeless body lying on the kitchen floor, that pictacular fact hadn't sunken in.
The limp form couldn't possibly be her. She was standing looking at it. She was alive, not dead and cold. Her brain began running in circles. If she was thinking how could she be dead? This must be a dream. A rather strange and disturbing one. It's creepy seeing what her deceased body would look like.
It was crumpled on the floor, eyes clenched closed, skin snow pale. The limbs were stiff and locked. This has been rather long dream. Rigor mortis and all that. The human body has intriguing chemical reactions when it shuts down for good.
It's quite fascinating, the scientist in Maddie was slightly curious. This dream was very livid. Maybe she ate something weird the night before?
Even the pain felt real. Stabbing needles and numbness and shortness of breath. Maddie felt like she had been drowning on dry land.
Jack walked in casually before turning stark white, rushing to the figure on the floor.
He started screaming.
Maddie wanted to wake up.
Maddie Fenton was dead.
Her corpse lay buried in the damp soil, cradled by a plain wooden coffin as in accordance to her will. She stood stiff as stone as they dig her grave.
It couldn't be real. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be real.
Raw grief tore through Maddie when she finally faced the facts. Claws of terror and anguish overwhelmed her. Why?
WHY!? She still had her family, her children, her husband. They had been left behind, or maybe it had been her left behind.
She didn't know which.
Forty-five was as far she got. It burned. Dammit she still had a life to live, kids to watch grow up and a husband to turn grey beside. The doctors had whispered in hushed tones. Heart attack, extremely unexpected for someone of Maddie's age and fitness. A freak incident they said. A true tragedy.
Maddie cried when she had realised that it hadn't been a dream. That her husband had desperately tried CPR on her. It was far too late. Hours almost since she had long passed on.
Passed on.
Passed on to where? How come she could see and hear and smell? Though she could not touch or be touched, could not be heard no matter how loud she yelled, voice hoarse and tears streaming down pale cheeks.
It had been three weeks since Maddie Fenton was declared dead. At first she had raged and yelled and screamed. Denial. She was so angry. Why was she stuck here? Forced to witness her loved ones grieve and hurt.
After her breakdown Maddie had a grim little smirk. Never before had she lost control. But then she had never died before.
She now despised that word with a passion. Died. She had died.
Now she hovered anxiously around her home, feeling out of place and so terribly alone.
No one could see her. It was torture. Unable to reach out. To comfort her son, her daughter. To hold her husband. Even not being able to say something, anything.
The world felt empty and grey and dull.
Maddie felt empty and grey and dull.
An ache grew in her soul and as time passed it grew.
It grew wide and hollow.
Maddie had gotten herself into a routine. In the morning she would check the kitchen. When Danny and Jazz came home from school she would ask about their day. (Of course she never got any answers) Maddie would then stay in the basement, as if trying to ease the crushing silence that Jack worked tirelessly in. She talked and talked and talked. Looked at notes, studied inventions and the portal.
Now and then she would stare at the swirling portal, wondering what lay beyond if she passed through.
Maddie had considered going through, exploring the unknown that she and Jack had spent years researching and dreaming about. It didn't seem so appealing now.
But most of all, she was scared that if she passed through, she wouldn't be able to return.
She had learned early on that she was naturally intangible. Now that she had died Maddie could stick her head through cupboards she couldn't grasp and check their contents. If there was little to no food Maddie fumed. It hurt to see her family barely looking after themselves. After an angry, desperate attempt for contact Maddie had stumbled into Jack's body. She had felt his mood, low and lost and lonely. Maddie had been able to feel her husband's hunger and fatigue. She screamed in her head about how starved Jack was, how Jazz and Danny hardly had any energy, Maddie tried to will Jack to go out and buy food.
She stepped out of the warm alive body, shaken and scared. Then the most wonderful thing happened. Jack flinched like he had been slapped. He walked slow and sluggish grabbing the keys, his wallet. Ushering the kids to the GAV, Jack tore off down the street like a man on a mission.
Maddie watched from the door, certain if she had a heartbeat it would have been throbbing. Had that been her?
Maddie Fenton was a ghost. (She had always shivered when she thinks of her existence. After all of the years that she and Jack had treated ghosts as mindless things running on instinct…Despite how Maddie yearned to be seen, she was terrified by how Jack would react. (He was already hurting enough)
She had been watching over her family for six months and in that time she had learnt several things.
One: She could influence thoughts.
It felt like she's invading when she had done it though, so it was a last resort. Like when Jack forgot to eat or Jazz studed so hard that she would fall asleep on her desk. Maddie would try to gently nudge her family into taking care of themselves. Sometimes she felt like she succeeded.
Two: If she focused enough, Maddie could muster enough energy to make a limb or two tangible for a few fleeting seconds. She had tried this right in front of Jazz once, who hadn't reacted at all, so she couldn't be seen. But she could move objects. Doors, picture frames. It was a small thing, but Maddie finally felt at least a little connected to the world.
Three: Other ghosts couldn't see her. Except one. Desperate to have a proper conversation, not just talking to to alive people who never answer back, Maddie had actively searched out other ghosts. Just once had another ghost given her the briefest of glances, a split second of recognition. Of course it had been the one ghost she despised the most. No matter how much she longed for interaction, she really did not want to talk to him. Maddie had hid as he came to look where she had been. It had only been a flash, a mere moment of eye contact as Phantom had been sent flying from a kick to the face.
He had the weirdest expression however. Maddie felt shock as she saw tears gather in his eyes, face pinched tight with some unexplainable grief.
After that Maddie had made it her mission to avoid Phantom at all costs. Unfortunately that meant no interactaction with anybody. She would be alone.
No matter how much she convinced herself that she was okay with that, she really wasn't.
At all.
It had been a week since Phantom had caught that glance of her and Maddie had been trying to avoid the bastard constantly. (Even if her heart begged her not to. Maddie was stubborn. Distressingly so)
He popped up at random times during the day, though he was much more active at night. Which was annoying because he had zeroed in on the house. Maddie often had to go up and down the street, ducking into houses and one time a bin to hide from the persistent ghost boy. Phantom would give up at around four am, finally disappearing to wherever he goes to when he's not picking fights and annoying the hell out of Maddie.
Why was he so interested in her anyway?
None of the many ghosts that Maddie had seen have even acknowledged her presence. She wondered how this whole being dead thing worked anyway. Why was she so powerless while a teenager had the power to destroy a street?
She felt useless when she followed Jack's ghost hunts. Every injury he picked up was like a stab to the heart.
No matter how much she tried, she could never protect him.
Tonight Phantom had yet to show, and Maddie was greatly relieved. There had been a string of violent robberies around Amity lately and she wished to guard the house. If they came she would make as much noise as she would be able to create. To wake Jack or scare the thieves off.
She hadn't been worried that the house would be robbed. The Fentons had a reputation for being fighters and inventors with crazy weapons. No local in their right mind would think that burgling the Fenton household was a good idea.
However you should never let your guard down.
Dark strangers, clouded in black and shrouded in shadows whispered down the street. Maddie felt her heart sink with terror and dread. The accents were funny. Out of town. Foreign. Tools were in their hands. Pipes, crowbars, a lone baseball bat.
A gun was tucked into a waist band.
Terror froze Maddie as she spied the group of five. They had stopped in front of her house.
Her family's house.
Maddie burst into action. Energy buzzed in her arms. She punched the walls with all her strength. Growling with frustration as the power fizzled out, Maddie cursed as her hands harmlessly passed through the wall.
She tried her next tactic. The men and one woman had paused at the front door, examining the lock. Maddie felt a white hot rage burst from within her. Were they really that confident that they would go in through the front door, visible to all those on the street if they happened to look?
Maddie stepped into the person closest to the door. Horrible, unwanted emotion flowed through her. Greed. Cockiness. Anticipation. Bloodlust.
The last one shook her to her core.
Maddie yelled and screamed and shrieked through the person's mind this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
The person shivered and paused for a second, before resuming their work on scrutinising the lock.
Maddie cursed loud and long. Why was she so damn useless? Why hadn't that worked? Whenever she tried it on her family, it influenced their actions. Whether it was to get more sleep or eat or just go and do something enjoyable.
She walked into another person. Foulness greeted her, it slammed into her mind, seeped into her being. Don't do this. Turn around. GO HOME!
Nothing happened.
The door popped open.
The group eagerly darted inside, deathly silent.
Maddie was sure if she had contents in her stomach, they would have been spewed. She raced into the house, charging up the stairs. Danny's room was the closest. The buzz gathered into her arms again and Maddie banged on Danny's door hard and loud. She was terrified he wouldn't wake up fast enough. What if the intruders heard her?
Shit.
She rushed through Danny's door, to see him sitting up in his bed. Her son's breath clouded in the air, which was strange because it was the middle of summer.
Danny jumped and Maddie could faintly hear the rattling from downstairs. She was surprised that Danny had picked that up since he was just about awake. Instantly he jolted up.
A white light flashed. It bounced off the walls and caused sharp shadows.
Maddie was staring into the shocked face of Phantom.
"There is people downstairs. They have a gun," Maddie whispered. Phantom, no - Danny - nodded and plunged through the floor. Maddie heard shouts and yells, the awful bone rattling sound of a gun going off.
She dived down through the floor, to see five groaning bodies littering the sitting room. The table was smashed and picture frames lay cracked and crooked.
Danny floated in the middle of the room, a trickle of blood dribbling from his busted lip. There was a bullet hole in the far wall.
Danny grabbed a phone and dialled 911 speaking frantically, his voice pitched and scared. He hung up after he gave the address.
"I'll say Phantom swooped in and saved me," he said, turning to face Maddie.
She examined his face, piercing eyes locked on hers. Tears brimmed, threatening to break lose.
Maddie smiled a broken smile. She was dead, unable to interact with the living world and avoiding the one thing that could see her.
Who turned out to be son.
The dam broke and Maddie was crying, quite possibly for the first time ever in front of Danny. She had always tried to be strong for her kids.
Relief, pure and weightlifting flooded her. She could finally tell them. She had been here all along. It was her job after all.
A mother always watches over her family, and even something like death wouldn't stop her. A bittersweet laugh escaped her lips.
"I've missed you, so, so much Danny. All of you. No matter how much I would yell, you could never hear,"
"Mom?" A stray drop slipped from Danny's eye
He rushed forward, arms encircled her waist.
"I've missed you too,"
Maddie hugged Danny like he was a lifeline, her tears dripping onto his shoulder. She heard a slow heartbeat beating in his chest, felt his breath on her neck agonisingly slow.
Sirens flashed and Danny reluctantly pulled away. To Maddie it felt like a part of her soul left with him. As police boot's were heard, the bright flash returned and blue eyed and black haired, Danny sank to the wrecked couch.
As people swarmed the room Maddie already felt incredibly alone.
Until Danny caught her eye.
And the world didn't feel as empty anymore.
So what did you think?
I'm thinking of writing more for this because I really like the concept, I'd say there's a lot of potential there for a good story. I'll see what people say ;)
Thanks for reading!