The boy moaned as he dumped his backpack on the floor and faceplanted into his bed. Once again, school had sucked. Sam and Tucker were fighting again, over some vegetarian thing or something. Lancer had assigned an entire book to be read by next week. And worst of all, Dash had picked today to start his new "Adopt a nerd" campaign. Which mostly involved singling out Danny for as many swirlies and locker shoves as possible. Basically, everything sucked.

He rolled over, to stare at the ceiling, taking a few minutes to just do nothing. The reverie was broken only by the growl of his stomach. With a sigh, Daniel Fenton sat back up and started to make his way towards the kitchen. Dinner was hours away, assuming someone actually remembered to cook tonight, and he would starve if he had to wait that long.

To his disappointment, however, the fridge was almost barren. He grabbed a container from near the back, frowning at it. It might have held leftovers, once; anymore, it was a brown and green sludge. And it was probably just a trick of the light, but Danny could have sworn it was... glowing. He pitched it in the general direction of the garbage can, a look of disgust on his face. Nothing else looked particularly edible either.

The pantry wasn't much better. Stale cereal, canned beans, a box of mac and cheese that he didn't know how to cook... nothing that the teenager wanted or could eat. It was a bit weird, honestly. His mom was normally really good about having plenty of food and cooking big meals and all of that. But she'd been working with Dad on some secret project in the basement for the past week, and everything else seemed to have slipped her mind. Jazz didn't even know what they were doing. All they knew was that their parents were making a whole lot of noise downstairs, and apparently didn't have time to be parents because of it.

Right now, though, it was quiet. No whirrs or clangs or booms from the forbidden level of the house. Danny chewed on his lip for a second, considering. Maybe that meant they had finished whatever they were working on. Besides, he hadn't seen his parents leave the basement for more than five minutes in the last five days. They had to be down there. And he needed something to eat. Glancing behind him once, he pushed open the door, and started down the stairs.


Disclaimer: Danny Phantom and all related characters and ideas belong to their respective owners. This is a work of fiction, and all resemblance to real persons, living or dead or somewhere in between, is purely coincidental.