Chapter 10

She lay awake in bed for what had to be countless hours. If only there was some way to feign an emotion... But how? It seemed impossible! How would one fake sympathy? Sorrow? Compassion? Love?

Wait.

Love? No. No, no, no. She hated Phantom, not loved him. She already had two kids; two beautiful, living children whom she would give everything to protect. Phantom wasn't one of them. He wasn't even living! Well...he was at one point, but now was different...right? In a certain, confounding way he was alive. Even his organs... They were, in the same baffling way, alive. But how? How was that possible?

No! She silently chastised herself for trying to get back into her scientist mode. Yes, she was curious, but she needed to sleep. If she couldn't sleep, she would never get any insight into what exactly had happened to Phantom to make him the strange ghost he was now.

Sighing, she turned over to her side. If only someone else was here with her... Knowing her children were gone had made her, as a mother, quite edgy and definitely nervous. Phantom was extremely distracting, thank goodness, but there were still times when she thought about her children's safety. Jack was overseas, but she knew he would be fine. Yes, he messed up frequently and normally did more harm than good, but he knew how to take care of himself and be safe.

NO! She had to stay focused. Getting to sleep was imperative if she ever wanted to find out more about Phantom's psyche. The secrets he had to be hiding were big, she just knew it. She got the feeling that he knew what happened to make him such a stable ghost of unreal power.

It had to be another hour and a half before she finally began to drift off. At first it was all bits and pieces of future research on Phantom, along with other ghosts, and the discoveries she would be able to show to the government. Of course, Phantom would still be her property should they want to take him into custody, which meant she had the choice to give him up or not. She honestly still didn't know what she would do with him once her research was complete.

But finally, the dream she was praying for came to her, which meant she had felt for Phantom whether she wanted to or not.

"Wait! What did I do wrong?!" Phantom cried out to his parents as they walked away, his father holding his mother and trying to comfort her "I-I'm sorry! I shouldn't...! I...I shouldn't have...gone into..." He let his voice trail off, realizing that his parents weren't coming back no matter what he said.

The ambulance still hadn't gotten there yet; he was alone. He was alone when he went into the demolition site, he was alone when he died, and now he was alone in his afterlife. He had nobody.

Phantom looked to sky before settling his eyes back on the retreating forms of his parents.

"What do I do now?" he choked out, clearly trying to make his voice louder but failing.

She knew all the emotions that were flashing in his eyes. He was wondering what he should do, where he should go, and ultimately...how to survive. Getting lost in a demolition site was one thing but now he was lost in the world with no one there to help him. In other words, he was sentenced to suffer through this on his own...for the rest of eternity...

Amazingly, he didn't try to follow his parents. Instead, he climbed back onto the pile of concrete, looking at his exposed body as if he was expecting it to wake up any moment, start laughing at the joke it had pulled on him, and welcome him back into his body. Then his parents would be happy again and he would remain a member of the family.

Then he did something that she didn't see coming at all.

He lifted one hand and looked at it, almost seeming to glare at it. He brought his palm to a sharp protrusion on the edge of a concrete piece...and jerked it across. Ectoplasm flowed freely from his hand and he was immediately shocked by the color; but he quickly braved the thick, green liquid and used his newly injured hand to clutch his body's chest. Dark red soon mixed with green. It was a sickening sight to see two opposites enter the same body. Why Phantom was doing this was a completely mystery to her.

A thought struck her. Could it be that a major part in Phantom's true creation came from this very moment? Was it possible that his new ghost body, which at this time was still unstable, had actually accepted his human DNA as it combined with his ectoplasmic matrix? It would explain a lot about how he became like he was now. His human blood could've solidified him more than other ghosts', which perfectly explained his odd density. This would have to be due to the introduction of DNA into his newly formed body. Because this body was so fresh, the acceptance of DNA as it merged to his ectoplasm, possibly fusing to it, was causing an abnormality that in theory wasn't supposed to happen. Then again, she had never seen or even thought of anything like this before.

It was ultimately his death that explained most of him. He remembered his life because of the overwhelming pain he felt as he was being crushed. He was emotional because of the brutal rejection he had faced soon after seeing his own dead body. He had such a stable, permanent density because he had unknowingly transferred his own DNA, which was why his new body was able to accept it.

Traces of his DNA would probably be found in his ectoplasm... If only she had a sample...!

Wait... She did have a sample of his ectoplasm. She still had the needle he gave to her. Although it was unlikely to help any research, it would be interesting to have a look at Phantom's ectoplasm and blood mixture. Even a trained eye, looking at it from the outside, would see no blood due to the small amount he had in him. But under a microscope, crystalline strands of DNA and possibly entire cells should be found.

The newest unanswered question now was: how did Phantom even exist? Yes, his form had been solidified, but that still didn't explain or even hint at why his matrix didn't just fall apart. Every ounce of her research said he shouldn't have been able to hold any form longer than a few minutes. He should've fallen apart but...why didn't he? While the DNA would stabilize certain aspects that would cause this kind of density, it couldn't stabilize the core of it all, his matrix. And it couldn't be a gene from his DNA being as he was dead and couldn't use that gene anymore.

Great, just one more unanswered question added to the still-infinite list...

The entire scene changed, not allowing her to view the next actions he took after combining his ectoplasm with blood.

It was vital to her research though; and to the invaluable insight into Phantom's deeper, more guarded memories. For this to enter her mind must mean he trusted her even more. Well, either that or the ectohol was still keeping an open door into his mind.

This was Phantom before he died; this was the boy who lost his life to a demolition accident. In fact...this was how it all began.

A young man, definitely around her own son's age, with brown, thick, messy hair, pale skin, and other features that she couldn't quite make out in the darkness, was grinning deviously as he stalked toward the demolition site.

She remembered from the last dream that his mother had told him not to go in there. He was being defiant now, not knowing what was to come of his disobedience. But she, knowing very well what this horrible outcome would be, wanted to scream at him to stay away from the site. However, being as this was a dream as well as one of his memories, she found herself unable to interrupt the scene about to unfold before her.

He slipped under the orange construction tape and began looking around. He was slow in his advances at first, clearly wary of his environment, but eventually became comfortable as he continued deeper into the site. He paid more attention and spared more glances to the machines than he did to anything else. All boys, it seemed, loved machinery. Even her son liked to look at trucks.

He turned in such a way that let him face the moon. She was able to make out a few more of his features. The most noticeable was his brown eyes.

He seemed to be unable to resist getting in one of the cranes. He was so excited he almost tripped getting in it. But he did, and she remembered Phantom saying something about messing with something. This crane must've been what he was talking about.

He gently ran his hand over a few switches before quietly laughing. Oh...if only he knew...

He reached for a lever but paused for a moment, trying to decide whether he should pull it or not. That lever had to have done something to the crane. Well...probably. Maybe. Anything could've happened here. For all she knew it was actually a different machine that did this. But...how would a machine play a part in this if they were all off and couldn't move? It had to be something else. Maybe he pulled on a girder or board that he thought was stable but wasn't.

He finally pushed the lever up and she held her breath. Nothing happened. He didn't seem disappointed or even expectant. So she was right after all; the machines here didn't do anything. He had messed around with something else to cause the collapse of the concrete.

He played around with a few of the switches and buttons before looking over to the side of what she assumed to be a crane's dashboard. She couldn't make out exactly what it was, but he seemed interested in it. It looked like something was jutting out of the dashboard and held some kind of...dangling...object...

Oh no. No! What was he doing?!

He turned the keys and smiled in excitement and thrill as the crane's engine started up. He held onto a stick and pretended to be moving it, creating his own background noises to help him imagine wrecking the buildi-

Wreck...! That wasn't just a crane, that was a wrecking ball! He had turned it on, he was holding onto the controls...! This wasn't going to end well! No, of course it wasn't! He died because he was too curious to let it be! He would die! Why didn't he get out of there?!

She wanted to scream at him to get out while he still had a chance but she just couldn't. This wasn't just a dream, this was Phantom's memory of how he died. It already happened, meaning there was nothing she could do to change it. But suddenly tapping into his memories didn't seem like a good idea anymore. She wanted out and she wanted out now! She had no desire to watch a young boy be crushed under tons of solid concrete.

"In rudderspect it prob'ly wasn't a good idea to mess with that...d'um...I-I think it was a...thing?"

He was messing with this crane right now. No more. She didn't want to see any more of this. How could she get out of here? Wasn't there supposed to be some kind of exit in a dream? Right? There had to be one.

The boy tapped on a lever for a second before deciding to test his luck and pull it.

He wasn't expecting the crane to jerk forward. The neck rammed a girder that was holding up what appeared to be a third story. And she didn't fail to notice that the girder had moved, causing dust to fall in a cloud around it. A tiny squeak was heard from the metal, but despite having moved, the concrete it held up put enough pressure on it to hold it still.

The boy immediately got out of the crane, forgetting to turn it off, and worriedly looked up at the spot he'd hit. Some of the concrete had cracked and chipped, and there was a dent in the girder, but everything was otherwise fine.

He seemed to realize this as well and his expression became one of relief. His muscles relaxed and he exhaled.

Something under the elevated concrete floor caught his eye and he walked over to inspect it. At first he was wary, looking it over just to make sure it wasn't some kind of construction doohickey or demolition bomb. He did pick it up at last, though, to proudly reveal a twenty dollar bill. She saw him smirk in triumph. He began looking around to see if there was more near what he had found. Apparently he didn't notice the second small squeak; or maybe he was ignoring it.

He didn't stop searching for more money until he heard a low groan followed by the sound of something cracking. At this point he shot his head up and stared uncomfortably at the point where the girder connected to the concrete. It moved just slightly. He took a few steps back.

She realized that this was it. The girder would cave in. The cement would crack, break apart, and crush him. And she would be forced to watch it all.

The girder moved again, slowly caving in, just as she had predicted.

He took a few more steps back but by now he didn't have a 100% chance of survival, of making it out before the whole thing fell on him. Of course, with his future already set in stone, he had no chance of survival whatsoever.

He was, sadly, directly under a wide cement roof; the cement loomed over him and the beam holding it up suddenly bent and literally caused an entire half of the cement to crack heavily.

He seemed petrified, but managed to turn heel and run.

"Yeaaahhhhh, I dun really know what happened, but sum'm started to crack apart."

The second beam bent to the point where it almost snapped in half. The concrete was miraculously still holding up, but already beginning to come apart. The edges were the first to go, small chunks of it dropping off and landing with a loud THUMP on the dirt.

One of the concrete pieces dropped right in front of him as he neared the edge. He turned around so fast that he tripped and fell. Thankfully that particular piece didn't hit him and he scrambled to go the other way. Unfortunately, with the whole thing starting to collapse, there was nowhere safe to run. By now there were smaller concrete pieces dropping off and landing in random places around him.

He stopped just in time to avoid another piece. Instinctively, he turned around again and ran back in the opposite direction. That was his biggest mistake. When he turned around, he had twisted his foot. After about fifteen steps, the foot twisted the other way. His legs crossed and he fell face-down.

She wished she didn't have to see the next part...

Just as he spread his legs back out enough to climb back onto his feet, a larger, heavier piece broke off. It landed with a sickening snap.

"Oh yeah! The buildin'! Um, I ran real fast but the damn thing gave way and felled on me before I could get out. Dammit you wanna talk 'bout pain! I could feel bones breakin'!"

He let out a bloodcurdling scream and grabbed his hair in agony. He stopped what he was doing just long enough to look over his shoulder. Immediately, a look of pure horror washed over his face. His lower leg had been crushed beneath the cement piece. The horror quickly turned to panic as he realized that the rest of his body would end up like his leg if he didn't get away soon.

"I...I did something I knew I wasn't supposed to, and suddenly I'm in just...I-I can't even begin to describe how much pain I was in!"

She could do nothing but watch as he desperately clawed at the ground. He knew he was trapped and he knew he would never be able to get away. He knew no one would be able to come in time to help him and even if they did, what could they do? The whole thing was coming down on him; there would be nothing to hold it up and even if there was, it would take too long to get it under the concrete. Unless the thing suddenly stopped, his fate was sealed.

She noticed something glistening in the moonlight and soon realized that he was crying. And who wouldn't be? Even in the dream, she could feel herself trying to get in there to try to lift the concrete piece just enough to free his leg.

But then something even more cruel happened.

As he clawed at the ground, moving himself in different directions in a futile attempt to free himself, another smaller piece of concrete dropped onto his outstretched hand. This time he was too frantic to scream or give any sign that he was in pain, even though she knew he was.

"Did you scream?"

"It's hard not to when you gotz like ten tons a' cement comin' down on ya!"

He tried to jerk his arm back several times but she was seeing this from an angle that let her see the skin start to rip. It made her want to throw up. He was now trapped under two pieces of cement; one of them was breaking his leg while the other was breaking his hand. He didn't give up and bucked as hard and fast as he could in a last-ditch effort to slip out of the concrete.

He knew he was going to die.

A much smaller piece of cement tumbled off and struck him on the back, causing him to stop squirming. At first she didn't know why, but it soon became clear that he'd had the wind knocked out of him. And not just that...

Looking closer, he began to cough. About four coughs in, red started to fleck the ground beside his head. Her best guess was that the piece had broken a rib, or perhaps several ribs, and that rib had punctured a lung. If that was the case then blood would've been flowing in. The only way to expel it would be to cough it out, but when a lung was punctured and no medical helped was provided, it was fatal.

She saw him close his eyes for the last time.

"I passed out from nerve overload or something...and then, BAM, I'm dead."