Nightmares

Chapter Three: Rollacoasta

Phineas's POV

"Dang it!" he exclaimed out loud, over the sound of Ferb's constant hammering which quickly came to a stop after the outburst. It had taken Phineas most of the morning to get Ferb on board with his plan, which was unusual to him since Ferb had already built these things to him. For whatever reason he doesn't remember, Phineas had been repeating that to himself over and over but found something that only increased his stress. Ferb raised his eyebrow, quizzically, at the sight of his perhaps crazy brother.

"I've done this already and I forgot to get more peanut butter!" the red headed boy spoke as his older sister marched into the yard.

"Phineas, what is this?" she exclaimed with her hands over her head. Phineas simply rolled his eyes. Come on, seriously, was the only thought that crossed his head.

"Oh when mom sees this-"she started but was quickly interrupted by Phineas.

"Yeah, Yeah, yeah, we are going down! Down, Down, Down! We need more peanut butter…" Phineas finished her sentence mocking her voice, leaving her in a stupefied state, refusing the let his vision remove itself from the box he was shuffling through. The smile he wore everyday had disappeared, but even though he didn't care to admit it, he didn't much mind rebuilding the rollercoaster. It made him feel infected with nostalgia but he enjoyed it, rollercoaster's are awesome. The only thing that made this hard and frustrating was the fact that no one remembered the summer, and how everything was telling him it was the first day of summer. He had spent the morning with others thinking of him as a crazy person. Maybe it was all in your head, maybe it was your subconscious trying to tell you what you want to do with your summer, his mind offered up the explanation but it was quickly turned down. I refuse to believe this, he finally screamed, non-vocally of course. Then he heard a soft voice penetrate the yard, one that for some unknown reason calmed his nerves.

"Hey Phineas," it called out to him and a smile spread across his face.

"Hey Isabella!" he replied as he waved her into the yard. She gawked up at the beautiful thing Ferb and I had created out of the simplest materials. We still need some more peanut butter, was the only negative thing Phineas could bring forth from his mind.

"Building a rollercoaster!" Phineas spoke proudly, with his arms open in the direction of the coaster hoping that she would at least remember.

"In your backyard?" she replied, causing Phineas's hopes to quickly dwindle.

"Some of it…" he muttered sadly, something Isabella had failed to catch.

"Wow! Isn't that kind of impossible?" Isabella exclaimed, her eyes glued to the rollercoaster.

"Well….no….not really…not compared to some of the others things we've done," Phineas mumbled as he began to turn away. This time however, Isabella had heard every word that had left his lips.

"What?" she replied quizzically, with no memory of the amazing summer the two had shared with their many friends. It's not worth going through the craziness again, Phineas reasoned with himself.

"Never mind…" he answered, avoiding another awkward conversation. Isabella turned towards Ferb.

"Hey Ferb," she screamed up at him and he waved his hammer in response, "Does your step-brother ever talk?"

"Uh, he's more of a man of action…" Phineas replied hastily, still digging through his tools.

"I was gonna go to pool, you want to go swimming?" she asked cheerfully. This wasn't enough to numb the empty pain he had gnawing inside of him.

"No thanks, have fun though!" he replied, flashing the best smile he could.

"Ok then, I'll see you later!" Isabella answered him as she walked out. Phineas screamed his goodbye and quickly got back to work. Despite Perry's absence, Phineas had been too busy to notice that his favorite pet had disappeared again. Instead he remained focus on building the coaster to prove to both himself and everyone else that he wasn't making this up. Sweat began to overtake his small body as he and Ferb continued their exhausting construction, Phineas refusing the let Ferb quit. He made sure they built it exactly the same way they had the first time. The only thing that stabbed at Phineas was the fact that Isabella, his best friend since kindergarten, was not at his building the rollercoaster. I hope she's having fun, Phineas thought to himself as he slopped some gooey peanut butter onto the framework. How did this thing manage to stay up, he asked himself.

"Because we're just that good!" he accidently answered out loud, smirking. Ferb offered up an eyebrow but eventually just shrugged it off. After awhile Ferb got tired of all the manual labor.

"All right, well last time we got some gadgets from the assembly line, the manager was a real nice guy!" Phineas explained as Ferb began to give him the questioning look.

"Fine, you go do whatever we did to make this easier…" he spoke with doubt stamped into his words.

"All right, could ya do me a favor and grab my guitar, I like to wail on it sometimes during a montage…" Phineas said as he began to walk away only to be stopped by Ferb putting his hand on his shoulder.

"We do montages too?" he asked, this time with less cynicism in his voice. Wow, Ferb sure can change his mind awful quick, he thought to himself and it was something that in all honesty was not unnatural in the Flynn-Fletcher family. They always seemed to be able to switch subjects, opinions, and political view points in a moment.

"Yes, yes we do. I'll be right back!" Phineas called back in reply as his brother left their unfinished coaster to grab their band instruments.

Meanwhile in the Real world

Isabella sat there for hours, hours after Lawrence managed to pull Linda away from the hospital in an attempt to preserve her sanity, hours after Ferb got tired of being the strong and silent type and left to break down in the serenity of his own home, everyone had to leave in some attempt to stay alive, mentally, even though all their hearts cried out for Phineas. Everyone…but her. She had gotten so used to listening to her heart that she couldn't ignore it then, and even though it killed her to see him like this she couldn't bear to look away. So she sat there, grasping on to his cold hands, staring blankly at his face with horribly blood shot eyes she had developed after hours of crying. He looks so peaceful, she thought to herself as she once again felt tears well up in her eyes. She slowly lay her head down on his chest, the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest the only thing that calmed her, the only thing that reassured her that he was alive.

"I'm not gonna put up with this," Ferb spoke through his accent, which was made worse by the fact that he was choked up at seeing his lifelong buddy this way. No, they were more than that, they were brothers, not in blood but in bond. Regardless this still managed to startle poor Isabella.

"Why did this have to happen to him?" she finally broke down, which didn't help Ferb's emotionally unstable condition. He had barely spoken to anyone after Phineas's accident but decided now was the time to talk.

"Isabella, listen to me!" he screamed through his own tears, shaking Isabella out of her depressed state, bringing her as close to clear thinking as he could.

"I'm going to fix this, I'm going to make sure we can at least talk to him." He muttered as his blank stare moved from Isabella to Phineas.

"How?" she managed to reply through gasps for air. Ferb simply shook his head, for he didn't know.

"I know what we're gonna do today…" he replied through gritted teeth. And even though everyone agreed it was too late to start a project and that they needed to get some rest, no slept. Instead they lay awake in their beds, wondering what Phineas was going through.

Phineas's POV

"Ferb, save the guitar!" he screamed as the cars of the rollercoaster went down another steep incline, something had pulled the rollercoaster and was dragging it through the air and the force of the thrust had caused the guitar to fall. Everyone screamed with complete fear, adrenaline coursing through their veins. Wow, we really should have charged more, he thought to himself as Ferb grabbed Phineas's guitar out of the air. Then he heard a familiar chirping in the back, and turned around to see Perry with Isabella at his side, wearing a fedora.

"There you are Perry! Nice hat Isabella!" Phineas quickly spoke as Isabella began to eye the fedora suspiciously. Everything happened just like it had the first time, from Mr. Slushy Burger, to France, and eventually space. As a satellite passed by them, Phineas couldn't help but think out loud.

"You know, that thing has never crashed to Earth." He muttered but no one, except for Ferb, listened they were still trying to recover from being flung around the world and thrown into space.

"That means Candace isn't in charge," Ferb replied, and Phineas could only smirk and nod.

"Hey, why couldn't we stop at the Slushy Burger for some lunch?" a voice piped up way in back and they all just rolled their eyes. Then, they quickly began to plummet towards the Earth and everyone resumed their screams, enjoying the thrill. Though it wasn't as fun the second time, that adrenaline rush that Phineas was chasing wasn't achieved since he'd already ridden his coaster. So he did what anybody else would do, he started wailing away on his guitar. He played a non-stop continuous riff that had members of the cars behind him rocking their heads, until they finally landed safely in the tree. Everyone began jumping out, applauding the young boys for such a fun day.

"We can't go again, we kind of wrecked the coaster…hope ya had fun though!" Phineas replied cheerfully when one of the kids asked for another ride. Then Isabella jumped down, and in Phineas's opinion she was amazingly graceful considering the circumstance.

"That was great Phineas. What are you gonna do tomorrow?" Isabella asked as she stared directly at him.

"Don't know yet. But I definitely have some ideas!" he replied with a smirk, for the first time that day he felt the frustration and stress dissipate and the fun and innocence of summer return.

"Maybe you can teach Perry some tricks…" Isabella suggested as she stroke their beloved mammals back.

"Well, he is a platypus, they don't do much." Phineas said in response and Ferb quickly spoke.

"They're the only mammals to lay eggs…" the response echoed through Phineas's ears as the feeling of De Ja Vu returned.

"Ma-Maybe he'll lay an egg-" Phineas stuttered as he tried to shut out his thoughts.

"Cool, see ya tomorrow!" Isabella replied as she made her way to the gate, "It really was the coolest coaster ever, you guys make a great team!"

"Well, a brother is a brother, and I couldn't have asked for a better one than Ferb! You know what I mean?" Phineas spoke out as Ferb let out a belch and stench of peanut butter filled the air. In an effort to break his De-ja-vu, Phineas decided not to mention it but did push Ferb playfully and laughed.

"Well that was impressive, see ya guys." Isabella muttered as she walked out the gate, and a wave of feelings and questions flooded Phineas's mind.

"So, now do ya believe me?" Phineas asked and he could see in Ferb's eyes he was starting to believe that they could do those amazing things.

"Well, I don't believe we did those things, but we can. You sure have a lot of ideas; maybe we could make a list!" Ferb replied, with optimism on his face. Even though it wasn't the answer he had asked for, Phineas had gotten his brother and best friend back.

"Yes, yes we will…" Phineas mumbled as he lay back to relax after a hard day's work.

Somewhere in Phineas's Brain

"All right everybody vote" the voice boomed across the long courthouse and a series of responses came from across the room.

"Pass"

"Pass"

"Pass"

"We really could have built that coaster better but Pass"

"FAIL" a voice interjected, and grunts of disapproval filled the room.

"But why?" one asked, "He shouldn't be locked up in his own mind!"

"He failed to realize the important lesson. All of you will pass him either way, but I still need him to realize something…"

"Council leader, ignore him. He's a deranged emotion and should have no voice here…"

"Enough. He is a legitimate emotion and an important one and his voice must be heard. Reset the dream sequence. According to the code all emotions must pass before we can restore his mind."