Day Twelve: Callback*/Summoning

*Callback is the selection of any previous Phanniemay theme. Summoning is Day 26 for Phanniemay 2016.

Genre: Suspense

Words: 2011

The three anxious figures sat on the cold, dusty floor of Casper High's basement, eyeing each other warily. They were sitting in a triangular formation, all surrounding a sketchy chalk sigil on the floor lined with sickly, odorous candles purchased from the Skulk and Lurk. The light from the candles cast cryptic shadows onto their faces, intensifying the already abhorrently somber mood.

The first figure of the trio, Lester, spoke first. "A – are we sure we want to this? We don't really know what we're doing here, a – and it might be really dangerous! What if we get hurt or – or-"

"We don't really have a choice," the second one of them, Star, declared boldly. "We screwed up, pretty badly, and according to that weird box man, this 'Ghost King' is the only person who can help us."

"But, we don't know i – if he'll be okay around humans," Lester reasoned. "After all, the last Ghost King invaded the city and sent us all to die in another dimension!"

"I don't like any of this ghost stuff, and I'm gonna be honest: all of you Amity Park people are nuts for sticking around here!" Elliot, previously known as Gregor, seethed. Today, he donned a varsity jacket in lieu of his goth guise. "But... Star's right. We made a big mistake, and even I recognize that what we did was really wrong. So if this King or whatever can help us, I'm in for it."

Star made a 'tsking' noise, "Sorry, Lester. It's two against one. And if we don't do this, what would we have done? Do you really want to live with our screw-up for the rest of your life? It's already bad enough as it is."

"This Ghost King is the only person who can hopefully save us," Elliot agreed.

Lester slid his hand against his face before giving a resigned sigh. "Fine," he said in a small voice. "You guys are sort of right, but you have to admit that there's a lot that could go wrong."

"If something goes wrong, I'm sure Phantom will save us," Star said confidently.

"He's a ghost. Wouldn't he, y'know, have to obey the king too?" Lester argued.

"Guys, stop fighting and let's just do this already!" Elliot proclaimed impatiently.

"Alright," Star resumed. "According to this weird book you had, Elliot, all three of us have to say the incantation at the same time for the summoning to work. I printed out a copy for each of us."

She handed her two accomplices two separate scripts.

"Is this Latin?" Lester squinted at the text. "I don't know if I can even say this."

"Well, practice it under your breath so you don't say it wrong," Elliot deadpanned. "It'd suck to summon the wrong ghost or something from a different dimension."

"Wait, are there different dimensions?" Lester's eyes widened.

"Hell, like I'd know," he rolled his eyes. "I only posed as a goth for a year, I'm not that smart."

The three of them read the incantation a several times in their head until they all felt confident with their recitation. Seeing no reason to further postpone, the trio finally put the final preparation in order to proceed with the summoning.

"Alright," Star said, "we'll all say it on the count of three, agree?"

"Yep," Lester nodded, still visibly nervous.

"Let's get this over with," Elliot groaned.

"Three... two... one..." The three teenagers spoke in perfect unison, "De industria mortuorum et gratia, qua invocaverimus te petitionem, Ghost King, vocamus tibi de interitiónibus eórum!"

The first change in the room was very subtle. As soon as they finished the incantation, the temperature slowly plummeted at least ten degrees, before the candles surrounding the chalk sigil on the floor blazed with at least three times more intensity. A gust of air threatened to push each of them backwards, before changing direction and spiraling into a visible funnel of wind in the center of their circle. In the eye of the small cyclone a cluster of green lightning originated, quickly expanding and forking outwards. The trio of teens sat paralyzed at the immense display, and only moved backwards when the lightning flashed rapidly, forming the vague silhouette of a ghost. Slowly, the form of the ghost materialized, and the lightning and wind vanished, leaving only a solid figure in the center of the now dimly lit basement.

Star, Lester, and Elliot were undertaken by unforeseen surprise as the figure made it's identity immediately known. They exchanged equally confused glances when they realized that what they had summoned wasn't a ghost, nor any kind of king, but a seemingly normal human boy. Not just any boy, but their infamously weak classmate, Danny Fenton.

He was crouched down on his knees, wearing a slightly overlarge NASA shirt and tattered jeans. As usual, there were dark circles under his eyes, tainting his unnervingly pale complexion and there were a few spotty bruises along his arms, presumably from Dash Baxter, but none of that was out of the ordinary. All in all, the kid looked a little disoriented, but there was no doubt in the trio's mind that it was still him. And it didn't make sense.

The spell was specifically supposed to summon a ghost, the ghost king himself! And Danny Fenton, who was notoriously afraid of ghosts, was clearly not one! Nothing added up!

"Ugh," Danny groaned, not yet noticing the three boggled teenagers, and apparently talking to himself. "That felt weird. That's like the third time this month too..." he looked up from where he'd been 'summoned' and instantly spotted Star, Lester, and Elliot staring at him in perplexed terror.

His expression equally rivaled their state of surprise. "Oh... shit. This uh... isn't what it looks like! Uh – how much did you guys... how much do you know? Besides, why are the three of you together?"

"We don't owe you any kind of explanation, Fenton!" Elliot spat, defensively. "We were trying to summon the Ghost King and instead we got your freaky ass! So what the hell?!"

"A – are you the Ghost King?" Lester whimpered in fear.

"Fenton's not a ghost, geekwad," Star frowned. "But something is reeeallly wrong here. And Elliot's right, you owe us an explanation, freak!"

"Don't yell at him!" Lester protested. "What if he's dangerous!"

"Danny Fenton is not dangerous! He's just a grade-A loser!"

"But – all the lightning and wind and – and-"

"You're not helping, Lester!"

"Will all of you just SHUT-UP?!" Danny cried. If only for a moment, their smallest fears were confirmed when Danny's eyes glowed a fluorescent green, before subsequently returning back to their normal baby blue. "I... you say you summoned the Ghost King, right?"

All three of them nodded with new-found silent fear.

Danny thoughtlessly rubbed against the back of his neck, "Well I, um, you can't tell anyone about what I'm about to tell you, promise?"

"How do we know you're not gonna lie to us?" Elliot challenged.

"You don't. Unless you can think of something that makes more sense," Danny replied, keeping his composure open. "But, you guys can not, under any circumstances tell anyone. Not Paulina," he looked to Star, "not Mikey," he gestured to Lester, "and you can't post it on the Internet like a douchebag," this was thrown at Elliot. "Oh, and not even my parents can know. No one."

"F – fine. Please don't hurt us," Lester pleaded, still convinced Danny was hostile.

"I'm not gonna – oh, whatever," Danny shrugged, seeming unaffected instead of his internal panicked mindset. "Anyway, the thing you absolutely can't tell anyone is that sometimes I help the Ghost King. I know him personally, and I'm sworn to secrecy, so I can't tell you who he is. If my parents ever found out I was connected to some ghost, they would kill me, and for everyone's safety I have to make sure that no civilians know as well. But how it works is..." he paused, coming up with a reasonable story, "I pretend to be afraid of ghosts, but I'm actually just getting more information on them for the Ghost King. You could call me an informant. Like, I just keep tabs on the ghosts that attack the human world like Skulker, Technus, Johnny 13, oh! – and Phantom too."

"Nice story," Elliot crossed his arms. He was pretending not to be scared of Danny, but in truth, everything odd about the boy he'd never noticed was starting to unnerve him, starting with how his eyes had flashed green moments earlier. "But how does that explain the fact that you appeared out of thin air, when you're not even a ghost?"

"Well, the Ghost King can't control if he's summoned or not, but he can send somebody in his place?" Danny answered, weakly. However, the perturbed teenagers didn't notice his slight contending tone and seemed to accept his faulty explanation. "So... uh, why were you trying to summon the Ghost King anyway?"

"You're not him, so why does it matter," Star stated. "He's the only one who can help us with our problem."

"I'm his informant, remember? I can tell him, and then he can help you," Danny said. "I promise. You get it, right, Lester?" he called upon the weakest link of the group.

"Well, uh..." the boy stammered. "It's a p – problem with another g – ghost."

"What kind of problem?" Danny pressed.

"Said her name was Desiree," Elliot explained. "She grants anyone's wishes. And the three of us... sort of made the same wish."

"I know Desiree," he nodded. "Usually the results of her wishes are really obvious. What did she do? What did you wish?"

Lester gulped nervously, while Star and Elliot shared skittish glances.

"Nobody remembers but us," Star began. "There's this kid in our grade, and he's like super annoying. He wouldn't stop asking me out, over and over and over-"

"He humiliated me in front of all my friends because I thought World of Warcraft was a movie series instead of a video game! I'm not a geek, I'm just a nerd. I don't do video games," Lester explained. "But this guy... he just kept rubbing it in my face like he was salting a wound."

"He ruined my chances with your friend, Sam," Elliot growled. "If it wasn't for him sabotaging all our dates with his stupid commentary and gross vibes disrupting our romance, I totally would've gotten her to fall for me."

"Ew," Danny said reflexively. He looked threateningly at Elliot. "Sam's my best-friend, don't talk about her that way."

"Yeah, Elliot," Star hissed, smacking the white-haired boy in the arm. "Shut-up. So, where were we?"

"The three of us were running away from a ghost attack," Lester said. "So we hid in this alley together. Thanks to Phantom, we ended up being trapped there for a while because a bunch of debris blocked the exit... and then..." he got a spacey look on his face, "we started talking about how we all hated that guy from school."

"It was an accident," Star said quickly. "We didn't know Desiree was still around! But she heard us and someone said 'I wish' and... and..."

All of them seemed to have trouble to continue the story. Elliot looked down, admittedly ashamed.

"He got wiped completely from existence," Elliot finished quietly. "It's like nobody even remembers he existed. I mean, I didn't like him, but... what we did was practically murder."

The other two remained silent.

"Who was he?" Danny asked, softly. He'd made plenty of mistakes with Desiree before, and if the wish wasn't automatically reversed when she was captured in the thermos, things were usually pretty bad. Not irreversible, but still bad.

Moments later, Star looked at him with teary eyes and gave a reluctant reply.

"His name was Tucker Foley... he was... your best-friend. You have to get him back, please, Danny. Tell the Ghost King to help, we beg you."

Suddenly, things got a lot more complicated.