:: 7 minutes ::

He had to get out. Danny leaned back against the smooth steel wall and swallowed. He tasted metal. His teeth had snapped shut on his tongue earlier and now blood coated the inside of his mouth. His left hand twitched in time to his heartbeat, making a steady tic-tic-tic against the glass door. He was too exhausted to move it away.

He wouldn't survive much more of this.

He'd die here, alone, and his family would never find out what happened to him.

That thought galvanized him. He shifted his weight forward and fell against the glass. It pressed cool against his forehead, buzzing faintly like a wet battery. He had to break the glass. Ghost powers couldn't do it, but this wimpy half-dead human might. Danny pressed his fingers into the floor, forcing the twitch to stop, then wormed his hand into the cargo pocket of his pants. There; the miniature blowtorch he'd borrowed off Mom's work bench.

He'd brought it along for petty vandalism, but hey. Not dying sounded good too.

Ghost plasma burned cold, not hot. Ghost proofing wouldn't hold up against real heat. He hoped. Maybe.

Shoving himself back again, Danny rested the tip of the torch against the glass and, covering his face with his other arm, switched it on. The little flame hissed and the claustrophobic pod heated up. The air grew suffocating. It reeked with the burnoff of butane. Sweat ran down his forehead and stung his eyes. Danny grit his teeth and held the torch steady.

A terrific crack sounded. Sharp pain peppered his arms and legs. Cold fresh air swirled into the pod.

Danny crawled out and his knees hit the floor—not a second too soon, as energy arced over his limbs and yanked at his core. The instant the shock subsided, he was up and flying, going invisible as he streaked through the thick concrete wall, up through the earth beyond and into the woods beyond. Only one person could help him, and she was over a hundred miles away.

:: 5 minutes ::

Everything hurt. Head throbbing, fingers tingling with a painful, prickly numbness. His chest hurt, like an iron punch to the chest from Skulker's suit. Had he been fighting Skulker?

That didn't sound right. He furrowed his brow, trying to remember. There was darkness, a lot of it. Trees, bushes, houses, roads flashing by in streaks of white and red. He'd been flying top speed, because he was running out of time. The urgency had eaten into him, a sharp, biting anxiety. He had to get help—before—

The sound of a phone dialing cut into Danny's thoughts, yanking him back to the present. For some reason his hazy brain realized that was a very, very bad thing to happen. His eyes flew open. Mom. Mom kneeling next to him, a phone to her ear, the other hand resting on his bare chest, her face pinched with worry and fear.

Fear sent adrenaline spiking through his nerves, setting his numbed limbs buzzing. The electric hum of his core sang a warning at the back of his brain. He licked his lips and tried to grope for her hand—his arm rolled to the side and knocked into her knee.

"Mom… what are you doing?" His voice came out as a strained croak.

She started, eyes fastening on her face. A smile appeared briefly, but it did nothing to ease the worry in her face, or Danny's growing uneasiness.

"Hey sweetie," she said softly. Her hand moved up from his chest to stroke his hair. Her fingers were shaking as she did it. That… was not like Mom. Mom could handle anything. Nothing fazed her, not ghosts, not monsters, not falling out of a plane, so what was she scared of now?

"Who… what are you doing?" Danny said again, stupidly, wishing his brain was actually working. What did she know? What was she thinking? What was going on? He scowled in frustration.

"Calling an ambulance, sweetie." The hand kept stroking his hair, mechanically. "You've been in an accident. You need—"

"No," he reached for the phone, alarm spiking through his overworked nerves. "Don't—" A bright green spark erupted from his fingertip and struck the phone. Mom jumped and dropped it as it sizzled, smoke leaking out of the cracked screen. She stared at him wide-eyed.

Danny let his head drop back on the ground and groaned. Whoops.

"Why would you not want me to do that?" She said it incredibly calmly for someone whose son had just used ghost powers two inches from her head.

He pressed his lips together and stared stubbornly at the ceiling.

"Danny," she stroked his hair again. "I need to get you help. Talk to me."

So much for secret identities. "...half ghosts don't mix well with hospitals," he admitted.

The hand in his hair froze, tensed. "Half ghost?"

A faint smile wandered onto Danny's face. "Beware." He chuckled, and the chuckle turned into a cough. Air refused to come into his lungs. She helped pull him into a sitting position and he hugged his ribs, gasping. "Why does everything hurt?"

"You suffered some kind of electrical shock," Mom said. "You… phased through the ceiling." Something in his voice made him sure he wasn't human at that point. She squeezed his shoulders. "Your heart stopped. I had to resuscitate you."

His arms were still wearing his shirt and sweatshirt, which hung open down the front. He grasped at the edges of the torn fabric. "Oh."

He glanced around the room and realized he didn't know what time it was. His heart raced. That internal countdown, his best estimate of the minutes in between, has gotten lost somewhere between hitting the floor and waking back up. How much time did he have?

"What time is it? How long was I out?"

"I don't know," Her voice trembled. He looked up at her, startled, and realized there were actual tears in her eyes. Oh, man. "I don't know, sweetie, I—how can you be half ghost? What does that even mean? What happened to you?"

Something buzzed inside his chest, like a cell phone vibrating under his breastbone. Danny shuddered, fear spiking through him. It was about to happen again. He grabbed mom's hand. She had to understand. "Listen, Mom—he stuck something in me. It makes me transform—I can't—"

White-hot pain burst from his chest and Danny doubled over, gasping. The edges of his vision turned red; red lightning raced down his arms and legs, he felt like something had taken his core and twisted it—cold washed over him and he collapsed onto his side, shivering. Ghost again. Better, in a way; it pushed back the black spots crowding at his vision.

"I can't control it," he rasped. He couldn't see Mom's face; he was too tired to lift his head, and the crosscut of teal-clad knees and black boots told him nothing. Her right hand jerked toward the ectogun on her belt; if she decided to shoot him he couldn't do anything about it. "I can't phase it out, I tried. You have to help me, Mom. He's really going to kill me this time."

"Who? Danny, who did this?"

"It's shredding me—both parts of me." Danny's voice cracked. He must sound freaked out. He was freaked out. Terrified. Vlad really didn't care if he died this time. He'd actually sounded like he'd enjoy that outcome. "Please, mom, I promise I'll tell you everything—just— get it out."

tbc...

A/N:

Hey guys! What is this, a regular update schedule? How interesting. I'm going to stick to the short chapter length I think, but on the upside that should mean weekly updates aren't too unrealistic. Hopefully some of you are catching on to the actual meaning of the numbers preceding each section...

I definitely wanna say thanks for the reviews, wow! I'm really touched to see old readers returning, I've missed you guys. I wish I could get back to you all personally, but just so you know I read every single reviews and it means so much to me to hear your thoughts. I've missed this. Thank you.

-Hj