Round 3 - Not All Bad

BlueDragon007: Hm... Didn't we set a world limit per writer?

AstroPhantom: We did, we did. We must have lost it somewhere... *looks under chair* Nope, not there.

Maddie's head bolted upright, dazed and disoriented, as she took in her unfamiliar surroundings. There was no Jack next to her, and no warmth of her bed comforting her. Her eyes finally landed on an object in front of her, and she shook the cloud of confusion away, letting her mind clear and wake up.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, a half-filled mug of cold coffee forgotten nearby. The clock on the wall read 7:13 am. She must have fallen asleep at some point while waiting for Danny to come home last night.

Danny. He surely must have come home by now. He had to get ready for school within the hour, and she was sure he didn't have spare clothes at his friends' houses. After all, she did his laundry. Just as Maddie stood up from the table to go check his room, Jack walked in. His groggy face had a contorted twist to it as his hand lunged for the coffee pot.

Maddie sat back down and nervously picked at the blue sleeve covering her arm. "Morning, honey. Have you, by any chance, looked in Danny's room yet today?"

"Yeah," he cleared out his throat, watching his wife's eyes fill with hope. "And he's not there. But you look like you could use a new cup of coffee." He gazed over her form; obviously sleeping in a chair did not get her any fulfilling sleep.

"He's still not home?!" Maddie's nerves were alarmed by this news. Something about all of this wasn't boding well with her. They would have heard from him somehow by now, if he wasn't already home.

After a few sips of coffee, Jack could sense that he needed to reassure. He put down his mug and began to gently massage her shoulders. "I'm sure this is all just a freaky matter of coincidences. He must have been overloaded with schoolwork, and perhaps his phone died before he had a chance to call. We'll have to talk to him about all of this though when he comes back, okay? He can't just let you worry like this."

"Oh, I don't even care about that right now," she responded. "I just want to know Danny's okay."

"I'm sure he is-"

"Well, I'm not. Something feels...off. I'm going to try calling him again."

Jack watched as Maddie picked up the phone that had been lying expectantly on the table all night and took it to the adjoining living room. She dialed in her son's cell phone number, waiting for him to answer. Her face fell as she once again heard, "Hey, this is Danny. I can't talk right now, so please..."

Without hesitating, Maddie began to call Sam. She hated to have to call this early, but if there was anyone who would know where Danny was, it would be Sam or Tucker. On the second ring she heard a curious "hello?"

"Hi Sam. It's me, Mrs. Fenton."

"Oh, uh, hi...what's going on?" Sam asked, confused by the unexpected call.

"Have you seen Danny since school yesterday? Did he spend the night at your house?" Once again, there was hope in her question.

"No...why?"

Maddie sighed. She didn't want to spread her worry to Danny's friends, but she didn't have much of a choice. "He hasn't come home yet, and he won't answer his phone. Do you know if he spent the night at Tucker's?"

"No, I haven't talked to either of them since school. We're all busy with our term projects. But you could try checking with Tucker." There was more alertness to Sam's voice now. Alertness and concern.

"Okay, thanks Sam. And if you see Danny at school, can you please tell him to call me?"

"Sure thing, Mrs. Fenton." Click.

Maddie called Tucker next and proceeded to ask him the same questions, but no luck. According to him, the last he heard from Danny was in a text message about working with Paulina on their project, after he had already left her house. Which means she wouldn't know anything about his whereabouts either.

As she numbly put the phone down on the coffee table in front of her, Maddie's chest began to tighten. There was still the chance that Danny would show up at school, but the fact that no one had really heard from him since yesterday troubled her deeply.

Something was up with her Danny.

Danny was feeling sleepy. He didn't know when Rob would get to his destination, so he decided to rest his eyes a bit. But when he closed his eyes, not soon after, he felt some strong force and then nothing.

Danny realized that the van had probably stopped moving. He looked where Rob was supposed to be, but he wasn't there. He probably went out of the van while Danny wasn't looking.

He didn't know how long he was waiting for something to happen, but he assumed that it had probably been one hour. Darkness was all he was watching this one hour, until some bright light blinded him. He put his hand in front of his eyes to protect them from the light.

When Danny's eyes finally adjusted to the light, he noticed Rob, smiling evilly.

"Hello, punk. Guess what? We're here," Rob said with a dark voice from outside. He was happy on the inside though; he finally got rid of that annoying ghostly rat.

Rob put some kind of blanket on Danny's cage before he had a chance to say something annoying, but what Rob didn't know was that in the blanket was a small hole, which Danny noticed.

Danny felt Rob lift the cage and he peeked through the hole in the blanket. He didn't see much, except a round building that looked like some sort of arena. What he didn't know, however, was that below the building was a prison and that around it was a ghost shield, even more than one.

Rob walked into the building and straight to some brown wooden doors that were at the end of a hall. He opened them and inside was a man, sitting in a leather chair at a wooden desk,upon which was a white Chinese porcelain vase with a blue dragon on it. The floor and the walls were also wooden. A skull, from some kind of animal with horns, was hanging on the wall above the man's head and all over the walls were pictures of ghosts, most of them fighting each other. Danny shivered at the sight; if this was how this room looked, then he didn't want to see the rest.

"Hello boss, I got him," Rob said as he put the cage on the desk while Danny took a look at the other man. He had a brown cowboy hat on and black hair that was sticking out of it. He had a cigar in his mouth and when he smiled when Rob said that he got Phantom, Danny saw a golden tooth.

The man wore a black jacket with a skull on one shoulder, but he didn't wear any kind of shirt. Besides that, Danny didn't see anything else on the man.

"Excellent...and what did I tell you about calling me boss? I don't like it," the man said. He just didn't feel comfortable when someone called him boss.

"Yeah, sorry boss." The man glared at Rob. "Sorry...Jeff," Rob corrected himself and the man, Jeff, smiled.

Jeff took out a brown envelope from his jacket. "Here's your money," he said, and handed over the envelope.

"You can choose now. You can go home free, or you can do one more task for me," he added while Rob was opening the envelope and starting to count the money to see that everything was inside the deal. He needed that money for his daughter. Her mom had died in a car crash and now he was the only one that could look after her. The only problem was that he didn't have much money for the surgery that his daughter needed, and without it, she would die next year.

Seeing that Jeff didn't trick him, he decided to accept the deal. "What kind of deal?" He asked and Jeff let out an evil grin.

"Well, since you took care of the first job so well and you were also the only one that signed for it, I was wondering if you would be interested in watching and taking care of Phantom, like he is your pet," Jeff said.

At that, Rob screamed in his head. But if the money was good, then he would accept the deal. "And how much will you pay me?" he asked.

"Ten thousand bucks per month if the show is popular," Jeff answered.

Rob eyed him suspiciously. "And if not?"

"Then our deal is off and I will dissolve him, personally," Jeff answered and Danny winced. In his mind right now was only one thought: he needed to escape and fast.

Rob looked at the cage Phantom was in. Little did he know, he would soon grow to have a soft spot for Phantom.

"Can you please get out of my office now? I want some privacy, and leave Phantom with me," Jeff said and without any word, Rob left the office and closed the doors.

Jeff removed the old blanket from the cage and looked the ghost straight in the eyes. The only thing he saw was a beautiful specimen.