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CHAPTER 2
Algor Mortis
Reputably, Nasty Burger was where students came to grab a bite and hang out, whereas dropouts came to grab an apron and burn out. Like most fast food restaurants, it generally wasn't touted as a particularly healthy place. But in recent years, Amity Park locations had gained the bragging rights to having spearheaded the chain's vegan offerings - courtesy of the incessant lobbying led by a certain teenager.
It was into one of these early adoptee Nasty Burgers that the infamous teen activist herself trailed after her friends, each out of breath but in good spirits.
"I win," Tucker wheezed.
With a shaky hand, he ripped his red beret off and used it to fan himself while they queued up to place their orders. He grinned at Sam, who, to his private frustration, was somehow still breathing more evenly than he and Danny could possibly manage.
"And you…"
"Lose. I know. Round of shakes on me, but it's not my fault if you get a stomach ache from it," she said flatly. Despite her tone, there was a hint of a repressed smile as she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.
Tucker and Danny high-fived each other, grins childishly triumphant. Their shared perception of being generally untalented, coupled with years of enduring school bullies physically far stronger than they, had taught them to take their precious few victories wherever they could. That occasionally even meant versus their own best friends, though they knew it was usually all in good fun.
"I can't believe we ran all the way here," Danny groaned. "My legs are jelly."
Tucker patted him on the back. "You're telling me. These stunning legs weren't made for anything longer than treks to the fridge," he said sympathetically, flourishing a hand at his own wobbling legs.
Sam snorted quietly and pursed her lips in an attempt to not to bring up the fact that by the end of the race, they'd actually barely jogged faster than some of the athleisure-clad grandmas power-walking along. Though it was plenty of ammo to needle them with, she figured she could be hard on them another day. After the freaky lab accident earlier, she felt it was only right to let Danny off the hook today - and Tucker, by proxy.
The sweaty trio reached the front of the line and placed their usual orders. On an impulse, Sam stepped forward to pay for all their meals instead of just the milkshake penalty, to which the boys had no objections and high-fived again. The two thanked her and jokingly hailed her as their savior as they all plopped into a secluded corner booth to await their food.
"You're sure being a good loser today, O Benevolent One," Danny teased, lightly jabbing her in the side with his elbow.
Sam shoved him back, scoffing. "You guys try running in steel-toed boots. They're no gym shoes," she said wryly, a subtle attempt to spare her notably less fit friends their meager dignity.
After a pause, her eyebrows knit together.
"Hey, are you really okay, Danny? Shouldn't we have called a doctor or something?" she asked in a more somber tone, common sense belatedly nagging at her.
In response, he sat straight-backed in the booth seat with a prim expression and threw a hand against his ear, thumb and pinky extended in imitation of a phone. "911, what's your emergency?" he said in falsetto, mimicking a female emergency operator.
Switching hands as he slouched forward, he sarcastically continued in his own voice, "Yeah, so I got in an accident in my parents' ghost portal, and now I'm falling through solid objects."
Switching back to his other hand and the high-pitched voice, Danny replied to himself in mock alarm, "Oh no! Hold on, sir, we'll be right over to cart you off to a loony bin!" He theatrically hung up his imaginary phone on the table, then threw his arms up in an exaggerated shrug and stared pointedly at Sam.
She sighed in defeat, thoughts heavy. His fears were valid. Exorcisms, witch hunts, religious executions. Historically, humans feared what they didn't know, and prosecuted those they deemed threats - particularly in the case of supernatural phenomena.
This only added to the creeping guilt she felt from being the one to suggest checking out the portal, thus indirectly causing the accident. Danny might be acting fine and healthy right now, sure. But it was undeniable that the portal shock had changed him in ways still unknown and extents yet undefined, and that was frightening.
Shaking her head, Sam refocused on the world around her and flicked her eyes back to the exasperated Danny.
"I don't think they'd cart you off. Let's be real, even if they wanted to, I'm pretty sure they've gotta do a full mental assessment or prove you're a threat to yourself or others before they can do anything like that," she said, rhythmically drumming her fingers on the table a few times. Shifting tone, she corrected firmly, "Anyways, it's 'psychiatric hospital,' not 'loony bin.'"
"Not like it'll matter to me once I'm thrown into one," Danny retorted.
Then his eyes grew wide. "Hang on, I could just walk out through the walls," he said in awe. Tucker snickered at the thought, its dark plausibility aside.
The three moved onto more mundane subjects, idly passing time til their food was ready. Once it was, they each dug in eagerly, Danny reaching for his chocolate shake and fries first, Tucker wolfing down his no-veggies cheeseburger, and Sam ripping into her all-veggies tofu-chickpea burger.
Their comfortable silence, punctuated with hungry munching, didn't last long.
Leaning back on the padded seat, Tucker rubbed his belly. "Best baby: food baby," he declared, sighing contentedly. He watched with serene, half-lidded eyes as the others demolished their meals at a more reasonable pace.
Sam finished next, followed shortly by Danny. He scraped his last fry into the dregs of his milkshake, downing it with a flourish.
"Ready to head back and actually do that homework?" he asked resignedly, edging out of the booth. The others nodded with mutually grim expressions, then took care of their waste and food trays before heading outside.
They took their time walking back, soaking in the last of the afternoon sun's warmth and each other's company.
A few blocks away, Danny stopped short, gasping involuntarily. The others turned to look at him, curious.
"What's wrong?" Tucker asked.
"Wh-why did it get so cold just now?" Danny shuddered, hugging his bare lower arms to himself and squinting at the cloudless sky. The others, however, just stared blankly at him as he shivered. "Don't you feel it?" he asked, staring back.
As he usually did, Tucker had opted to wear a long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants in his lazy effort to always be prepared for light chills and carry all his gadgets. On the other hand, Sam had on little more than a dark crop top, short skirt, and spiderweb leggings that seemed as thin as her patience with society. Danny looked her up and down, concerned how she, despite being the one most exposed to the elements, hadn't even noticed the bizarre cold wave.
His friends shook their heads. "You alright? Maybe we really should get you looked at," Sam began, reaching for his forehead to check for a fever.
Before she could make contact, a startled expression flashed across her face and paused her hand. A sudden chill, now tangible to all of them, had descended on the deserted side street, and the back of their necks prickled with the sensation of being watched. They looked around warily, spooked.
"Who's there?" Danny called out, an unsettling fear knotting his stomach. Well aware of how small and unintimidating he was, he nonetheless stepped protectively in front of his friends as he scanned the narrow street and alleyways.
Something bright moving in the dark alley across from them caught his eye. He rapidly blinked several times in disbelief, hoping he'd seen wrong.
As the thing came clearly into view, he gasped again and instinctively took a step back, scraping the sole of his shoe sharply against the sidewalk. The sound alerted Sam and Tucker to the threat, and their faces contorted in terror as they followed his line of sight. Time slowed enough for them to absorb the details of the monstrous thing stalking closer, and their blood ran cold, leaving them rooted in their tracks.
A glowing, almost fluorescent green creature floated towards them, nearly the size of a man but entirely limbless. It was vaguely reminiscent of the colorful blob-like enemies from the Snack-Man arcade games they'd played when they were younger. But this thing, similar in shape though it was, had slitted red eyes instead of wide white ones, a body that seemed somehow both solid and melting at the same time, and snarled at them with a mouth that had too many fangs. And most importantly, it wasn't a video game character.
It was real, it was menacing, and it was getting closer.
Like a cheetah closing in, the creature sailed across the street in a heartbeat and lunged at them with eager jaws.
"No!" Danny screamed, jolted into action by the imminent threat.
He jumped into its path and managed to shove it away with both hands, narrowly avoiding its snapping mouth but getting its glowing ooze stuck to his hands upon contact. Disgusted, he attempted to shake the almost slime-like goop off as he backed away, keeping an eye on the creature. It, in return, kept its attention locked on him, ready to pounce again.
"Get away from us!"
Sam dashed forward and brazenly kicked the creature, fully intending to incapacitate it.
Instead, she grunted in surprise as her steel-toed boot sunk straight through its body with no resistance, only feeling an ethereal chill permeating her leg as it passed through.
For a moment, she was the one stunned. Her shin slammed almost full-force into a fire hydrant that she hadn't noticed was just beyond the creature, sending a shock of pain up her leg. As she stumbled backwards, wincing, the creature's searing green body conjured an image of the active ghost portal from earlier into her head, and it dawned on her that the colors were eerily similar.
In abstract leaps, her mind connected the dots.
"Guys, we gotta run! It's a ghost!"
She spun on her heel and raced away, ignoring her throbbing leg. Without question, the others took off after her, the hostility following them setting their hair on end.
They had only covered a short distance when Danny fell with a yelp. Turning in alarm, the others saw that his left leg had apparently sunken past his knee into the sidewalk by no will of his own, throwing him off-balance onto the concrete.
He frantically attempted to scramble to his feet, but try as he did, his leg refused to become solid again. It merely passed through the ground again and again, each time making his gut lurch like he'd missed a stair.
Seizing its chance, the creature caught up to them and lunged at its prone target again. With no luck getting up, at the last second, Danny awkwardly rolled out of its path.
But he had acted too slow. He yelped in pain again as the creature snagged its fangs through his jeans and scraped his other leg, not quite close enough to take a proper bite.
"Why is it only attacking Danny?!" Tucker yelled as he grabbed his friend's arms and dragged him out of the way as fast as he could.
Staring at his leg still dangling in the ground, the spark of an idea abruptly made Danny wrestle himself out of Tucker's grip.
"Dude, we don't got time for this!"
"Wait! If it's a ghost," Danny said, more thinking out loud than speaking to anyone in particular, "then I... I'm going ghost!"
The others could only watch as he closed his eyes and searched within himself, desperately trying to summon the white rings of light again.
To his immense relief, they burst into existence with little effort, washing over his body to reveal his softly glowing ghost form. He brushed his now-white fringe out of his eyes and carefully rose off the ground, squaring up in the air against the startled creature.
"Come take a bite outta me now, punk!" he called, sounding far cockier than he felt.
As if it understood, it lunged, aiming for his head but latching onto his shoulder as he dodged too slow again. He screamed, pained and panicking.
"Let go of me!" he yelled, desperately trying to pry it off.
But despite its almost melting appearance, the creature's hold was solid, and its wide jaws threatened to have taken in his head whole if it hadn't missed. With a wild, guttural growl, it bit down harder and tensed in a way that made clear to Danny that it was about to violently twist away and rip a chunk of him out.
"I said, let... go!"
Without warning, his unnaturally green eyes seemed to flash brighter as he felt a channel of energy pass from the center of his chest and through his arms, tingling like a static charge. Acid green beams shot like lasers out of his palms, striking the creature and startling both of them. It released him and recoiled, hissing in pain.
Dumbfounded, Danny stared at his tingling palms for a moment. They looked normal now, but he was suddenly acutely aware of a well of energy within himself, heavily concentrated in his chest. The energy steadily coursed throughout his being in a sensation reminiscent of the flow of blood, but without the intermittent pulse of a heartbeat.
Whatever it was he just did, Danny was certain he could do it again. Gathering his courage as he glared at the creature, he put on a tough front and puffed up his chest like he'd seen countless Saturday morning cartoon superheroes do.
"Alright, get a taste of this!" he yelled, throwing a hand in front of himself and instinctively firing another blast. It hit the creature squarely, leaving a sizzling burn that made it roar. Behind, he heard Tucker and Sam cheering him on, filling him with real confidence that made him grin in earnest.
"Don't like it, huh, snaggletooth?!" he taunted. "Too bad! We're serving up seconds, and guess what? I'm not on the menu!" With surprising ease, he summoned more energy to his palms and aimed again.
But a long second passed, and his hands just glowed bright green as they held onto the charge, refusing to release it. He faltered, hoping the creature wouldn't notice, and words tumbled out of his mouth without thinking.
"Last chance! Leave us alone, or you're toast!" he bluffed.
The weakened creature regarded him briefly with apparent anger and apprehension, seeming to weigh its options.
With a decisive hiss, it turned on its tail and flew off above the buildings, out of sight within seconds. In its absence, the temperature began to rise back to normal.
"And stay outta my restaurant!" he yelled nonsensically, shaking his fist after it in a comic fashion.
Suddenly drained, Danny sank to the ground and collapsed. The twin white rings of light flashed around him unbidden, forcing him to turn back to normal.
His friends surrounded him, shaken but thankfully unharmed.
"Dude, are you okay?!"
Danny grinned weakly. "Well, I just got chomped by a floating monster ghost thing, and I haven't had my tetanus shot in a while. But all things considered, I'm pretty okay."
Shuddering involuntarily at the thought of getting a shot, Tucker muttered, "Ghost tetanus. Just what we need."
Spotting several pinpricks of color that had started seeping through Danny's t-shirt, Tucker jerked his head at his shoulder. "How's the damage?"
"Not a clue. Adrenaline's a hell of a drug," he laughed.
With his uninjured arm, Danny reached up and stretched his shirt collar open to offer a view. An arc of large, bleeding punctures lined both sides of his left shoulder and upper arm, almost reaching his neck. It was surprisingly more shallow and bleeding less than they'd anticipated, but the wounds were each covered in a strange, bright green liquid.
"Oh. That's freaky," Danny said, bewildered. He gingerly wiped some off and observed it, rubbing it between his fingers.
"What's the green stuff? Is it that ghost's spit?" Sam asked, peering at the bite.
"Ew, hope not." Curious, Danny took a whiff, then grimaced. "It smells kinda sour, but weirdly… not terrible? Dunno what to make of that. And it's thicker than my blood is, sorta like cheap pancake syrup."
"You said it smells good?" Tucker leaned in with eyes closed and sniffed deeply.
Halfway through, he made a strangled noise and his eyes shot open. In revulsion, he coughed and sputtered loudly as he took a step back. "Bleargh! Ughh! That's gross, man, what are you talking about?!"
"I didn't exactly say good, just not terrible!"
Sam sniffed it cautiously, but she, too, wrinkled her nose at it. "Um, yeah. Besides all the blood, the green stuff's kinda strong and almost makes my head hurt to smell much of."
Perplexed, Danny smelled it again. "It smells fine to me. Who knows what this stuff is, though."
Tucker laughed nervously. "That bite better not get infected or something weird. Maybe you'll become a zombie or something." He paused. "Wait. Can ghosts even become zombies?"
"Oh my God, Tucker."
Choosing to ignore him, the others resumed checking their injuries. After a short assessment, it appeared that Sam's leg wasn't bruising too bad from kicking the fire hydrant, and Tucker was just tired. Danny, meanwhile, had otherwise only sustained a bruised knee and several shallow parallel scrapes on his shin that seemed likely to stop bleeding soon on their own.
Mutually, they agreed that it was great the incident hadn't gone worse. But the creature's likely ghostly identity and the strange green stuff in Danny's shoulder wound kept them uneasy.
"I'm sorry we were useless, man." Tucker clenched his jaw as he helped Danny up. "A bro's supposed to be there for his bros."
Grinning wryly, Danny replied, "S'alright, Tuck. Unless it was in the fine print, I don't think bro code covers supernatural attacks." Tucker shrugged helplessly, not quite conceding.
"Speaking of supernatural, those energy attacks were awesome, like out of an anime or something! I didn't know you could do that," Sam said enthusiastically, trying to diffuse the tense mood.
"Neither did I," Danny laughed, clamping a hand on his shoulder to stop the bleeding. "Am I an anime protagonist now?"
"Might as well be," she snickered. "Honestly, if there was a show about some superpowered ghost kid fighting spooky baddies, I'd watch it."
Danny began to laugh, but suddenly gave a start. Her words had clicked with a worry that had been pushed to the back of his mind, and he whipped around, anxiously scanning all the nearby windows. "Guys, we're in a residential area. What if someone was watching the fight? Or worse, got it on video?" he asked, getting antsy.
Looking around, Sam shook her head. "I didn't see anyone this whole time. This side street's pretty small, and at this hour, a lot of people are still coming home from work or busy with school clubs and stuff. We should be fine," she reasoned.
As he surveyed the area, Tucker nodded. "If anyone was watching, we probably would've noticed by now."
"But there were like, actual lasers shooting out of my hands? And we were so loud-"
A sudden long, low growl interrupted Danny's fretting, growing in volume for several seconds before petering out. They all stared at him, realizing the sound had come from his stomach.
Tucker burst into laughter. "Nice."
"I just ate, you stop that," Danny said to his stomach, frowning.
"Chill, you're just digesting," Tucker reassured. He thrust his own full belly out and proudly clapped a hand on it with a solid thump. "Trust me, I know all the sounds a stomach makes. Some even call me the Stomach Whisperer."
"Uh-huh. A likely diagnosis, I'll give ya that, but your title is debatable."
Before Tucker could respond, Sam sighed in mock exasperation and gave him a push on the shoulder. "Come on, dorks. Let's hurry back and take care of that bite before that thing comes back for seconds," she said, shoving them along impatiently.
The boys readily agreed, and the group set off as fast as they could manage.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
wOW, this is late. Sorry! Been getting ready to start doing artist alleys at anime conventions and, uh, playing multiplayer Stardew since the beta's out now. :'^) But thank you for the support thus far!
The original ch2 got cut in two cuz it was running like 6k words, but then I got stuck fleshing out this half and doing the cover art. The chapter art's aight now (please check out the WIP compilation on my tumblr, I'm actually p proud how much I learned doing this, haha) but the chapter itself could be better. [grimaces] If you agree, voice your dissent! If not, uhh. Rad. Voice that, too.
Ch3's pretty far along, just needs more editing and hopefully chapter art. See ya again sooner than last time, haha!
SuperSarcosmic
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