The Epitaph of Dusk and Dawn
Night
Non muoia, Danny! Gli spettri funziona in difficoltà !
~(*)~
Hallo, everyone! Well...decided to not wait another...three and a half months before updating once again. *Smiles nervously, ducks tomato pile.* Sorry about that! Am doing my best to finish as much as I can with the time I'm given.
This segment should be a nice bit of fun...probably not so much for Spectra, though. If any of my audience is still clutching rotting vegetables, by all means, feel free to hurl them at her. She's quite possibly my least favorite character in DP...well...actually...
...hmm. Actually, Spectra wins term of my least favorite character. I think she beats Paulina and Dash by a long shot.
In the meantime, please take care, kay? ^^
Quote:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
~(*)~
"Be a good little boy and die now, mmm?"
And, with that, Spectra cheerfully pushed a stunned Danny Fenton off the cliff, directly towards the raging spray of the dark waters below, with several slabs of jagged rocks beneath it.
)(
SPLASH!
The water eagerly consumed the boy's body, and Spectra watched with interest as the small waves below began to whip back and forth, made wild by the excessive rain Northern Wisconsin had been experiencing lately. Mmh. Spectra's eyes, now restored to a serpentine emerald from Maddie Fenton's soft violet, narrowed, and glittered slightly as the rampant water below the bridge began to smash itself against the enormous pires of stone slab that littered the riverbed, foam and spray churning about as the female psychologist closed her eyes, and listened to the waves pound into the rocks with broken bits that looked as razor-sharp as broken glass.
Slam. Slam. Slam.
A small, cruel smirk began to inch itself up Spectra's lipsticked mouth as she mockingly crooned, underneath her breath,
"Sorry, honey pie. Mommy wants you to die, now."
(~*~*~)
Looking at the chaotic rush of the dark river beneath the cliff, Spectra wondered vaguely if the boy would resurface. It was most unlikely, seeing as how the current had most likely locked the little freak in its clutches by this point, and Danny's body probably still refused to phase into his little super hero-counterpart. She had to give herself props for worming her way around the older hybrid's defenses to conjugate just a delicious seasoning of misery in the boy's heart. Ultimately, Danny had been unable to fight back the infection, and the boy's condition had slowly degraded into pnuemonia.
Spectra pulled out a compact powder puff from her pocket, and anxiously began to dab at her cheeks with a generous amount of rouge, now feeling slightly anxious, even as the waves continued to churn past the stones, down the enormous, snakelike route of furiously churning, midnight blue waves made darker by the coming of nightfall below.
That older hybrid...wasn't like the little brat. Most certainly, he was an abominable freak as well, but...
Spectra yelped, and her dyed crimson nails flew to her neck as she remembered the older phantom sneering at her while he steadily strangled her. The phantom child would never kill an opponent...which was one of the many reasons she enjoyed toying with such a weakling. But Vlad, her brother's ex-employee...
She glanced down at the racing waters again, as a starkly white crack appeared in the dark skyline, like that of a crack you might see on a broken looking glass. A moment later, thunder boomed overhead, and the waters began stirring about more frantically then ever.
Vlad would tear her apart if he found her here once again, as he had nearly done once before. While his misery was luscious, exotic, and aged like that of a classic vineyard's bottle of port, she could not touch it, much as she wished to. It was a shame, but in between having just one taste of that deliciousdeliciousexquisite suffering, and enduring on...
Begrudgingly, she had to choose enduring. She would have to leave soon, but only once she confirmed that the brat had kicked the bucket at last. She and her brother had tried to kill the brat at least four or five times by now, and every time, every time, the kid's self-appointed guard-dog came to his rescue!
Spectra faintly noticed a beetle scuttling upon the rocky slope of where she still stood. Without a thought, she smashed her red heel into the small creature, grinding out its life without another thought before gliding off the rocky slope, her malice-filled eyes fixed on the river below. Hesitant, she glided to the spot where the boy had fallen, as the rain continued to trickle about her in the darkness.
Had the boy drowned by now? Shame. Spectra shook her head, somewhat disappointed. Plasmius had not come for the boy. She really should have deadlocked Danny in a cage of his own guilt, his own fear, his own overwhelming sorrow that he had locked inside. It would have been the equivalent of several face-lifts for her, in any case, before she left the boy's lifeless body lying around like the stupid and insignificant toy it was. Plasmius liked to play with it well enough, but Spectra only played with her toys until the fun part came around, and she broke them.
"What a waste..." she murmured, savoring the memory of the boy's own potent anguish when his own 'mother' had shoved him into the eager river's depths.
A minute had gone by. Then five. Ten. And still, even as the specter slowly floated over the dark river, in the same direction as the ripping current, her uncertain frown soon transfigured into a gloating smirk. If the boy had escaped being shattered against the rocks, he had most likely drowned by now.
Spectra smiled charmingly, and let out a girlish giggle as she stared eagerly at the waves below.
"Danny, darling? Mummy says she'd like it very much if you'd send her a postcard when you're swept out to the Great Lakes," she taunted, pleased by the fact that Danny's head had not popped the surface at least once before the tide could take him.
She thought for a moment, before jeeringly shouting out, as thunder roared overhead once again:
"Or, at the very least, you could tell me what it's like to be brushed onto a bank, and then wheeled off to a morgue, via body bag!"
Still no answer. Spectra's smile almost faded a bit. How she would have liked to make the boy suffer for every hundred years Walker had decreed that Dazzler be held in prison...
But, in the bigger picture, she'd avenged her brother, and tortured the child before knocking him off. That was what was important. And Ma was probably smiling proudly from below.
She shrugged, and tugged out a small tube of lipstick to dot at the corners of her smug smile. Glancing at her compact mirror, she smiled at her own reflection, well-pleased by the young, malevolent specter simperingly smiling back at her.
This had been amazingly easy. Show Danny his darling Mummy, and the boy goes to pieces. Perhaps she could find the woman in Amity Park if she was interested in a bit more fun, and pretend to be Danny Fenton.
And then, she could tear poor little Mummy's heart out. How, Spectra didn't know, but the possibilities were endless, and so many wounds to suckle on.
Spectra descended a little bit over the river, to the point where she was an exact ten or fifteen feet above. She couldn't sense the boy's energy, nor his misery. And...
The woman peered suspiciously at the shore lines, but Danny didn't seem to have pulled himself up onto one. Still, she'd 'almost' destroyed the boy in the past one time too many. She'd stay for another fifteen minutes or so. If the boy popped up, maybe she could still have a little fun with him.
The thought made her stomach flutter. This was more fun then breaking jocks' hearts back when she had been but a human high school girl, and needling her clique's girlfriends against one another.
Bertrand really should have come with her. Fat, pompous coward. The female specter distastefully shook her head as she circled around the river to do a double check. She really needed to find better help.
"I love you, Mom."
"I love you too, Danny."
"Surprise! Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!"
"I'm already proud of you sweetie. I do love you, and I do trust you."
"I know you would never do anything...bad."
~(*)~
Falling and flying are two very different things altogether. Admittedly, Danny had once as a three year old boy, attempted to 'fly' by springing up off of the bed.
But, he'd only crash-landed into the rug, which resulted in a large bump on his head that he had sobbed over for a little while, while his mother ran a soothing hand over his aching forehead.
Flying meant freedom, once the boy had actually experienced the real thing as a half-ghost. It meant freedom and infinite possibilities while you rose to the depths of the sky to see just how high you could possibly go with the world exploding below before your eyes, and the skyline going into the unreachable forever with stars that were thousands of miles away, at the 'ceiling of heaven,' as a teacher of his had once called the sky, yet looked close enough to grasp.
Falling meant that you had no control. Danny knew by now that he was about to plummet, and unable to stop it, he was going to get hurt.
Badly, if he wasn't already.
But Danny felt none of this has he fell from the cliff, his blue eyes dilated and blank as his mother cheerily waved at him from the top of the cliff, her brow creased with disapproval and disdain, as if she had been forced to handle something repulsive.
The roar of the wind or the crashing of the waves below him was lost to him. He clung to the cold numbness as he shot towards the dark water, aching body refusing to transfigure into his ghost form.
And his heart was likewise refusing the desire to as he plunged into the darkness below, ice overtaking his body, breath whooshing out of his lungs at the chill racing downside his spine.
Water rushed into his mouth and eyes, and the boy gagged as the current almost immediately recognized its new toy, and abruptly rushed it forwards, rocking him forwards and backwards and sideways and-
^EO:(I+_(^$$#?
It was indiscernible. Danny gasped as he forced open his eyes in the darkness, but even with his vision so more acute then a normal human's, there was nothing TO see but the light flickerings of light somehow worming their way in to fluctuate underwater, making ripples dance in every direction as the current eagerly tore at the struggling teenager, sending him speeding along in a helpless, wild circle that had no beginning, and no end.
It was dark. He thought he might have seen seaweed, a plant that normally dreamily flickered and waved about underwater fluttering wildly as the current tossed him into colder, and darker waters, which was a clear sign that Danny was now being forced downwards-
No...that wasn't quite right...
Danny fought ferociously against the water, attempting to find the surface, but to no avail; he couldn't tell if he was right-side up, sideways, or even upside down!
No...
His ghost form wouldn't come forward. Sparks burst to life in a glowing hue underneath the water, but no matter how desperately he tried, nothing succeeded. His lungs were burning for air, and while Danny kept pushing against the tide, it only continued to indifferently knock him backwards, sufficiently knocking a bit of the remaining breath he still had his lungs.
Where was he?
Where was he going?
If he was in his spectral form, escape would be simple, but...
He couldn't free himself.
He was helpless in the tide of the storm.
He couldn't move. Not of his own free will, any way.
He couldn't see.
And, his vision of the darkness was flickering, now, descending into a deeper darkness Danny had seen once before; one that had pulled him into blissful oblivion while Vlad's scream had rung in his ears...!
Frantic, and now near terror, Danny tried again and again to phase into his ghost-form, but the boy was being buffeted downwards...downwards...
The water grew colder, and the teen gasped at just how freezing the water now was, which was a mistake. Cold, stale water rushed into his mouth, and his aching hands were now two stinging stars of pain as he forced his sprained ankle to cooperate, wincing at the ache.
Someone, anyone...Danny thought desperately, lungs now ablaze He needed air. He needed air.
Vlad...!
But Vlad did not come. No one did. His luck had run out. Burning trickles escaped from Danny's eyes to the freezing, suffocating darkness around him.
No help was to be found. He was going to die.
As if to affirm his statement, a particularly violent wave sent Danny spinning into the depths.
Danny's eyes closed, and, not at all sure of what to make of the odd, flickering figure swimming in and out of his vision a few feet away, the boy no longer felt anything; even the cold.
Two chapters left! And...well...can you guys guess who? ^^
Poor Danny...I'm being so awful to him in this story...*Sobs.* But he'll get his payback, soon enough. And make a very important discovery on his own, trust me. Vlad may have come to save the day, but it will be someone else stepping in when everything looks hopeless...