Were they still hunting him? He couldn't tell. They'd seemed repulsed by the very scent of his blood, yet dogged his steps regardless.
Danny panted, ectoplasm dripping down his wrist and into a bucket of white paint. He stirred it in with a brush, leaning his forehead against the disgusting wallpaper and trying to steady himself from the blood loss.
How long had he been there?
He painted the room in broad strokes, cutting himself with each new bucket, the haze cut through by ectoplasm and cold pain. White paint spattered the musty carpet, dripped down his arm, stung like fire in the long gash he'd given himself.
It was fine. It would heal.
He could feel their sightless gaze on him, bared his teeth at them through the wide windows of the room he'd claimed. They hung in the branches, long limbs outstretched, bodies crouched and coiled and ready to spring. He closed the windows, bristling as their faces snapped open into a dozen mouths screaming enough to make the glass shiver under his palms. .
The fog swallowed them, and Danny breathed in paint fumes and exhaustion.
In the distance, too close, far too close, he could feel the walls of this rotted place ripple. Like the Lair of a ghost disturbed, it shivered and focused inward, and the creatures aborted their harassment of his room to investigate. Danny just continued to hoard things, books, food, supplies. Anything he could think of.
He just had to survive. It'd been enough time that he'd tried to fly to the edge of the town, trying to see how far the rot spread. But… like a dome, or a bit of the universe curving in on itself, the forest he flew out of just turned into the forest he flew into, and all roads out of the city led back into it.
He'd leveled part of the forest with his own screams, tearing apart two of the bony, rotted creatures with his bare hands.
It was so cold.
He investigated the ripples, chased down the creatures as they fled to its source. Deep into the bowels of a building just as torn apart as the rest of the world. They ignored him when it called, and he slinked close enough to see them surround a gaping hole in the wall. Close enough to watch a man push through the fleshy barrier.
A human!
He was in a bulky safety suit, a light sweeping the area, staticky voices asking questions on his radio. Behind him, a chain dragged loud and heavy.
The creatures were silent, poised, waiting for some silent sign. His light swept over them, and Danny realized he probably didn't recognize them as anything but part of the scenery.
He stood without thinking, stepping forward and reaching out to call to him. To tell him to go back inside. To run.
The light snapped up to him, caught his eyes (glowing, green) and his pose (hand outstretched, pointing?) and Danny watched the realization and horror bloom on his face before he could even speak, the light shuddering for just a moment as the creatures swarmed in on him, mouths opening like countless flowers, teeth gripping and worrying and tearing.
"No!"
He'd tried jumping in, ectoblasts lighting up his fists, burning the dark flesh of the creatures, but there were too many of them, and they turned on him just as quickly. He felt their shrieks just as he felt their teeth split open his skin, ragged furrows opening up over his neck and shoulder in neat triangles - in the shape of those fleshy petals. They reared back, never taking more than one bite, but there were plenty of them. A few "just one bite"s was far too many.
Danny retreated, intangibility weak and flickering, invisibility doing the same. His blood left a glowing trail back up the building's many floors, a few of the, doglike versions of the creatures following him back up.
They chittered at him, but hung back once he passed the heavy metal gates.
Danny barely made it back to his apartment, barely managed to shut the door before his mind faded into senseless exhaustion.
He couldn't sleep.
He would heal.
He still dreamed of the man's screams as he was torn apart.
Danny really should reign in the hero complex.
This time, he'd been able to dive in before they'd killed the suited man. Acting fast enough to break his tether and steal him away. Not fast enough to prevent injury.
The man bled behind them as Danny dragged him through the fog, and he could hear the creatures on their heels. If he turned, he could see the dogs padding just inside the mist's swirling visibility. If he turned, he could have watched the humanoid ones leaping from tree to tree, or lumbering between the trunks like deformed apes, half-galloping, half-skipping, always tracking them.
He didn't turn.
He dragged the man up to his apartment, patched the bites to his neck, leg, as best as he could. The man shook in fear every movement Danny made, flinching at every glance. Soft words did little to soothe him, and the only time he left the apartment, he was welcomed back by a baseball bat to the face.
He'd felt his skull break, awareness sticking around just long enough to listen to the man limp out the door.
Just long enough to kick the door closed, and to hear the man's screams join the rattling ones that rose up to greet him.
He would heal.
He always did.
And he almost didn't.
A week later, and the majority of his powers hadn't returned. His healing had slowed. The energy for shields and flight and even his screams, had peetered out. Survival now included conserving his energy, carefully figuring out what he could and couldn't eat.
The rot of it turned his stomach, and after a hopeful can of canned sausages, he spent several hours puking out his guts until black chunks spattered the ground far below his apartment window. One of the creatures slunk up to investigate, and he bitterly spit the last of his stomach on their head. It startled and growled at him, and he snapped the window shut.
He would heal.
His travels were far careful after that. Edging around the creatures became habit. In a one-on-one fight, he found he could still take them- His hands were still strong enough to pierce their rotted skin, and if he conserved his energy, an ectobolt or two wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Eating hurt, even when he stuck to soup. His throat and stomach felt raw. All of the meat products had been thrown from his abode, greedily eaten by the creatures outside. He could hear them at night, when darkness bled like ink across the world.
He still couldn't sleep.
He would heal.
Danny had been scavenging when he felt the ripple. It had been…. Not from the north?
He followed a creature as it loped toward the source, keen ears picking up the faint echo of a gunshot. Or was he imagining things? Whoever or whatever had entered this place certainly gave the creatures the run-around. They packed up around an old house on the edge of town, crawling through doorways and over the walls, the vines thickening and spreading to encompass it more thoroughly.
He realized with an uncomfortable shift that the creatures and the vines were more than just cause-and-effect. They were… connected, somehow, deeper than that.
One of them seemed to have picked up a scent, bounding away from the rest.
He cast a nervous glance at a slowly curling vine spreading up the building's wall, and followed the straggler.
The boy… wasn't what he expected.
Then again, he didn't know what to expect. Either way, he certainly wouldn't have guessed he'd find a skinny kid, barely in Middle School, half-dead in a very human way. Despite all that, though, the kid was… spunky.
Well, that was a weird word. Not lively, but maybe… witty? Cautious? Possessing a tongue that could rival a knife in both its silver color and sharpness? What could he say, he was charmed.
He wasn't surprised to be brandished with a knife, but certainly was surprised when the boy opened up a little.
It was so good to talk about normal human things again, after so long. (How long?)
It was good to have someone to protect, who stuck to his side and let him shield them. Who might be wary, but still accepted the little gifts he offered. Comfort, warmth, that clean feeling only flames could give him. The boy even let him cook for him, and just about glowed with relief.
It satisfied something he didn't realize he'd been starved of.
His eyes glowed a little more green.
And for the first time in a long time…
He slept.
The next time he felt the world ripple, he was already sprinting out the back door of the boy's house, creature on his heels. It swung away from him, and he sprinted after it, hope springing anew that he might actually be able to save, whoever it was who had stumbled into this awful place.
The boy was safe, marked with his blood. They'd avoid it if he didn't draw attention to himself, just as they generally avoided the room he'd painted with it.
Please, let me be fast enough.
The boy had trusted him, let him protect him, let him provide for him, and let him fight for him.
His eyes flashed with green light, strides becoming longer, lighter.
He was Phantom.
He would Protect.