Don't close your eyes in the shadows of the night.


Shadows
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria


Chapter 7: Sleep


After only a few steps, Danny hesitated, peering into the night. Which way? he wondered silently, a half-thought to go back and ask Jim. He turned around, glancing back at the slight flickering of light. "No," he whispered softly. "I can do this."

But a few minutes later, he was still standing. Finally, he just sighed. "I'll find my way in the morning," he muttered, glancing up at the ancient building looming above him. A few hours of sleep will be awesome. "This is as good a place to sleep as any, I suppose."

A few steps down, the door of the abandoned apartment stood partly open, the black hallway a monster's maw in the deep shadows of the night. He stepped closer, blinking at the 'Condemned' sign posted on the door. Danny stumbled to a stop, staring into the darkness beyond the door. This is not a good idea…

Despite his thoughts, he stepped through the door and into the rickety building. The floor creaked under his light weight, the dead leaves scattered across the floor crackling under his feet. After a few hesitant steps, he slowed and came to a stop, the silent building breathing around him. A grin flickered across his lips. "A perfect haunt for a ghost," he laughed, the thick cobwebs dangling into his face.

Ducking a particularly thick strand of cobwebs, he slid farther into the building, his eye catching a dark stairwell. "Up?" he wondered, shrugging. He creaked the stairwell door open the rest of the way, ghosting up the rickety stairs. Coming to the third floor, he stepped out into the hallway, wandering down its crumbling length. Spiders and small insects scurried away from his footsteps, a mass of gnat-like bugs swirling around his head whenever he stepped into one of the decaying piles of leaves.

He skirted a hole in the floor, brushed past crumbling wallpaper, and leapt lightly over a mass of something on the floor. Peaking through each door, he moved farther and farther down the hall, a small hope of finding an old chair or some kind of mattress to sleep on. Finally, he gave up on that. It'd probably be disgusting anyway.

The last apartment had a small, brass seven nailed crookedly on the door. He pushed the door open, peering into the encroaching darkness. The three-room apartment was empty and quiet, the lone window along the opposite wall broken and letting in a breeze that was stirring the junk on the floor. He walked over to the shattered glass, looking out over the town. The park he had struggled through was barely visible in the cloudy night.

"Great," he muttered. Settling down into a corner, unconsciously dropping into the same position he'd been trapped in for weeks, he took a deep breath. "Well…" he trailed off, glancing around the room. Deep in his stomach, the soup was still blazing through his ghost form, its temporary energy fizzling and burning.

"Tomorrow, I'm going home," he whispered to the room. A small smile grew on his face. "Home." That one word brought little bubbles of happiness into his mind.

Grinning slightly, his eyes drifted closed. He yawned, sinking happily into sleep. Before he could let that comfortable heaviness surround him, there was a scuffling in the corner. "Jim?" he whispered. Sleepily, his eyes flitted open at the lack of an answer.

He gasped, pulling his stretched-out legs in against his chest. All around him, eyes glittered from the shadowed recesses of the room. A few of the beady eyes moved forwards, short, furry bodies highlighted by the dim light from the window. Long tails rasped against the floor.

Rats.

To be continued...