Chapter 2
Shock (n): a collapse of circulatory function caused by severe injury, blood loss, or disease, and characterized by pallor, sweating, weak pulse, and very low blood pressure.
….
By the next morning, he had completely convinced himself that the weirdness of the previous day had just been brought on by a state of shock. He had even looked the condition up, right after his parents had shooed him out of the lab and his friends had left (they'd had a little too much excitement for one day).
Shock explained why he fainted, why he felt cold, why his heartbeat seemed so weak, and why it didn't feel like he was breathing. It just didn't explain why he had looked different or why his hand disappeared… But, after examining himself in the mirror and finding nothing abnormal, he just assumed those symptoms were because of a hallucination from a lack of oxygen or something. Besides, nothing else strange happened for the rest of the night.
Tucker and Sam might need to be convinced of that though, and that worried him. They had seen how different he looked and how he had begun to disappear. They might not accept his answer, but then again, they had probably been in shock too from watching him get zapped. He was going to try to convince them of that at school, but he had to get freshened up first.
There was one thing that was still bothering him though, and that was the chill. Although it wasn't as bad as the previous day, it was still bothersome. He hoped that the hot water would chase it away. Unfortunately, it didn't, but that didn't mean much. It was probably just the beginnings of a cold. And, that just what he needed.
That prompted him to dry off rather quickly. He was just about done when he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes, a glowing green. Hesitantly, he looked in that direction. What he found was a mirror that held his reflection, only with eyes of green instead of blue.
Startled, he stumbled backwards and fell. After landing, he looked up to find himself outside the bathroom, staring at the closed door.
That was strange. He was pretty sure that the door hadn't been open, and he knew that he hadn't grabbed or knocked the door in any way when he fell. It was rather perplexing. Did the answer lie within the strange feeling he had gotten while it happened?
He stood up and placed his hand on the door. It was definitely solid. Could he have…? He shook his head and hurried to his room. His parents' ghost hunting craziness was starting to rub off on him.
He definitely needed to get out of the house, but that was easier said than done…
…
The last thing he needed to do before he left was to get his favorite shirt on, but, no matter how many times he tried, it just stubbornly remained on his bed. What the heck was going on? It was just a shirt! It shouldn't be that hard to move, unless his parents had done something to the washing machine again.
Agitated, he glanced down at his hand, half expecting to find some weird residue from his shirt on it, but it wasn't there.
Not again! How did it…? Where did it go? As he began to panic, a feeling of emptiness began to come over him. His other hand was starting to disappear too. He backed up in a desperate attempt to get away from whatever was causing the problem.
His foot seemed to sink into something which caused him to fall again. But, unlike before, this fall seemed to be much longer. Looking around, he found that he was no longer in his room, but on the floor of the kitchen. He glanced up. There was no hole; no indication of how he could have fallen through. There were no words to describe the strangeness of the situation. How'd he fall into the kitchen? And more importantly, how did he not get hurt?
He checked himself. He felt solid, and both of his hands were there; clearly visible. He got up and touched the table; that was solid too. He sighed in relief. Whatever was happening, it definitely was not coming from him.
Maybe his parents had done something to his room. A new defense mechanism against their supposed ghosts…? It was a little more drastic than the average one, but it was possible. They had done stranger things. He would have to ask them later, once they decided to come out of the lab.
Speaking of which… He glanced at the doorway that led to it and frowned. His parents hadn't come out of it since they discovered that the portal was working. They even seemed to forget that he had broken the rules about the lab, which was a relief. After all the strange things that were happening, he doubted that he would be able to stand being grounded at the moment.
The sound of his sister coming down the stairs brought him back to reality. He was going to be late for school. After giving her an excuse that he was just looking for a clean shirt, he hurried back up the stairs.
This time, his shirt cooperated with him, and once it was on, he quickly left the house, praying his sister didn't notice. He didn't need her to ponder about it during the day and start asking questions about that too once he got home.
He had let it slip to her that he had 'accidently' been shocked by the ghost portal the previous night, which had been a huge mistake. It had caused her to go into her 'therapist mode,' which involved her asking annoying questions in hope of determining if he had been psychologically damaged by the incident. He practically caused her to begin analyzing him, to make sure there was no psychological damage from it. He had managed to somehow escape before she had gotten her answer, so he knew she was going to try again. He didn't need to give her any more fuel than she already had.
She believed that she was the only normal one in the family, which in turn made it her duty to look after him to make sure that none of their parents' insanity affected him too much. Her 'sisterly love', as she sometimes called it, was the last thing that he wanted to deal with at the moment. Well, last thing after mysteriously disappearing floors.
…
He barely paid attention to his surroundings as he hurried to class. He had to prove to his friends that everything was perfectly fine with him. The only way that he'd be able to do that would be if he showed up on time, without looking tired or anything. He had to appear to be normal. There was also another reason:
Even though the school year had just started, he had already managed to get on the bad side of his teacher, Mr. Lancer, by being late to class a couple of times, simply because his parents had wanted to show off some of their new inventions. He had already had a detention because of it and was not keen to have another, especially because his parents would chew him out afterwards. Fentons weren't supposed to cause trouble outside of the scientific community.
When he entered the classroom, he was surprised to see that his friends were in a deep discussion. What surprised him even more was the look of absolute disbelief that they gave him when they noticed that he had actually come to school. He just grinned at them as he took his seat.
"Do you really think you should be here?" Sam whispered, while visually examining him. It was like she was looking for that one thing that would prove something had happened.
"Come on! I'm fine! Nothing happened!" he told her as he ran his hand through his hair. He had a feeling that she was going to be indirectly asking him if he was okay for the rest of the day.
"Well, even if you are, shouldn't your parents be… I don't know… decontaminating you or something?" Tucker asked hesitantly. He then grinned mischievously. "I mean, you passed up the perfect excuse to play hooky!"
He regarded that for a moment. That would have been a good excuse, but doing so had actually held the risk of a real decontamination. And that was not the most pleasant experience. He should know.
After some invention blew up a couple years prior, everyone and thing in the house had to be decontaminated, even if they weren't anywhere near the explosion because his father was convinced that the 'ectoplasmic residue' somehow got on everything in the house whether it was alive or not. It was an experience that he did not want to repeat.
He frowned as he thought about it more. "I'm not actually sure if they realize anything actually happened to me yet," he slowly told his friends after a moment, which caused them to give him a strange look. "They've been in the lab since yesterday, and I'm not too sure they're aware of anything else other than that stupid portal right now. Well… that is, unless Jazz flipped out on them… But I don't think that happened yet."
"Why?" Tucker asked.
"I didn't hear the mandatory shrieking." That simple statement actually managed to both of his friends to smile.
It was right about then that Mr. Lancer began to take role. He was actually surprised to realize that he was thankful for it since it meant his friends wouldn't have too many chances, at least during class, to question him further. He knew that they were going to keep pushing until they were positive he was absolutely normal. And, that meant that it was going to be a long day.
Writer's note:
First, I just wanted to say thank you to those who commented and to those who favorited this. You have no idea how happy you made me (this particular work is more difficult to write than I had originally thought it would be…)
Second, I have this as a gradual realization for a couple reasons. Primarily, it's because I know enough about psychology to know that if a (stubborn) person thinks something is wrong with them, they will usually rationalize symptoms and/or push it from their mind until it becomes too big to ignore. It's also because I believe there was a nervous reaction to the accident as well, and that can take time to manifest. And, many times, major nervous events begin in the appendages.
