Thin black fingers, poised like claws, rested upon the symbol blazoned on my chest. She cut the suit with the other hand.
"I'm going to enjoy this, Phantom," she sneered with a strange gleam in her eye, " I've been waiting two years for this kind of opportunity."
Desperately, I tried to struggle, to say something, anything. But I found that it was still beyond me. Whatever device she had used on me had left me completely immobile other than my facial muscles, and it didn't seem to be wearing off anytime soon.
Once the top of my suit was removed and tossed aside, she gently lifted a scalpel, brought it to my bare chest, and-
Stopped..? I certainly wasn't complaining, but I didn't understand why she didn't continue the procedure she'd been fantasizing about for years.
Maddie was scowling at me, "Don't look at me like that."
I silently pondered that. It wasn't like I could do anything more than watch.
"I said," the scientist growled, "Don't look at me like that!"
Hurriedly, I directed my gaze to anything else that I could see without moving my head. The metal walls of the lab, a small cage I had the sinking feeling that I was going to become awfully familiar with, a few containers, the stairs to the door, the tray of tools Maddie expected to use, the scalpel still near my pale skin…
Inevitably, my gaze was drawn back to my mother's face. What I saw there wasn't the calm scientific detachment or irrational anger I expected. Instead, it was a gleeful smirk, settled under eyes that danced with an unpleasant sadism.
"Oh, well," she drawled mockingly, "You couldn't listen. I guess I'll just need to teach you a lesson. If this method can't teach a ghost, nothing will."
'Oh shoot, what is she gonna do?'
She brought a hand to my face and forced my left eye open wide.
'Ohhhhh no.'
She lifted the scalpel, and I blanched.
'No, no, no no no no no!'
The blade stabbed into my eye, thankfully not penetrating all the way through to my brain. I knew, intellectually, that I shouldn't have been able to feel anything from the injury, but in that moment the pain was so intense that I didn't have the presence of mind to consider why I could. It burned like acid - maybe worse - and I wanted to scream. I know I tried, but not a single sound was produced.
With a wet shlup, Maddie removed the scalpel. I quickly closed my eyes, causing the wound to sting even worse as it was flooded with salty tears. I didn't care. I just didn't want to risk meeting her gaze again, in case she stabbed me through the brain next time.
"Finally!" Maddie said, sounding downright jovial considering what she had just done, "Now I can get started."
Expecting more burning pain, I squeezed my eyes shut harder. Before anything else was done to me, however, I heard the screech of the lab door opening. A familiar voice called down the stairs.
"Mom?"
'Thank Clockwork for big sisters.'
A sigh sounded. "What is it, Jazz? I'm in the middle of a very important study right now, sweetie."
"Yeah, I understand that-" Jazz cut herself off. She must have spotted me, though, because she soon kept speaking, "That d-dissecting Phantom is important to you, but Danny is missing!"
"What!?"
"He hasn't answered his phone for three hours, his friends haven't seen him since lunch, and he isn't hiding in his room this time!" Jazz elaborated, sounding increasingly frantic.
There was a metallic clatter nearby and I felt gloved hands removing the unnecessary restraints from my immobile limbs before I was roughly picked up and tossed to the cold metal floor. I released a noisy breath when my right arm was trapped beneath me. A loud clang resounded - was I in the cage? - before there was a soft beep of an electronic lock and footsteps thundered away.
"Where are we going to loo-" The lab door slammed shut, cutting off Jazz's inquiry.
All was silent.
I was unaware of how long it took, but eventually I began to regain control of my limbs. I warily opened my undamaged eye and watched my left hand's ungloved fingers as I tried to curl them into a fist. When they did so without a hitch, I smiled slightly and began struggling into a sitting position.
After two tries that ended in my arms giving out on me, I finally managed to prop myself up against the wall of the cage. Taking a deep breath, I lifted a shaky, glowing hand to my closed eye. I softly touched my fingertips to the eyelid, but recoiled with a hiss of pain at the light contact. Instead of continuing, I began to carefully clean multicolored blood from my face.
Not long after I finished, the door to the lab creaked open. My core released a pathetic, frightened whine as I hid my face behind my arms.
"Danny!"
Abruptly, my muscles relaxed and the whine ceased. I lifted my head. "Tucker! You're here! Where's Sam, is she okay?"
Tucker nodded as he began to hack the electronic lock on the cage with his trusty PDA. "Sam is helping Jazz distract your parents. They're looking around by Casper High, then walking to the mall and across town to here. If you wanna be 'found' we're gonna say you were captured by Skulker - Ghost X, as they'd call him. If not…"
"Not. I distinctly, one hundred percent do not want to be found."
"Then we're just going to my house tonight," The lock beeped and popped open, and I shakily crawled out of the confined space. Tucker helped me to my feet and addressed me with concern, "Should I put you in the Thermos and take you home that way?"
I nodded and gave him a tired grin. "Don't want too much dead weight for the walk."
The next thing I knew, I was enveloped in a blue light, then plunged into another dark, confined space. This one, unlike the cage, was relaxing, though. Nothing could hurt me here. Maddie couldn't hurt me here.
The thought was far more comforting than it normally should have been, but normal mothers don't stab their teenage children in the eye. Probably.
I was jarred out of my reverie - how long had I been zoning out? - when I suddenly tumbled to the floor of Tucker's bedroom, changing into my human form a moment later. Tucker capped the thermos and helped me to his bean bag chair.
"Hey, dude," He said gently, " Let me take a look at what your mom did. Knowing your parents, we don't have a moment to lose."
Nodding, I lightly touched the closed eyelid again, pleased to find that it hurt far less than before. "She didn't actually do much before Jazz distracted her, but what she did do…" I paused and met his concerned gaze, "It probably doesn't look good."
Tucker shot me an easy grin and pulled out a first-aid kit, "I'm sure we can handle it, bro. So can you, uh-" He gestured to the shut eye I was covering.
"Alright." I hesitantly lowered my hand and opened my eye, trying to ignore the hot pain throbbing through my face.
Tucker nearly dropped the kit.
Hello, SkyeAedus here! This is going to be a multi-chapter story, evidently.
For the record, I tend to write details about ghost cores making sounds that betray feelings, such as purring for contentment and whining in fear. It's not a really huge important thing, but I figured I should clear it up.
Thank you for reading, and have a nice day/evening!