Earworm

—You're being controlled—

—He's not holding the staff anymore, you are—

Thump.

—What's your name, child?—

Danny?

Phantom. NO. My name is—

—WRONG! You are a ghost. A ghost has no name.—

—I am a ghost. I have no name?—

—You'd make a useful little minion—

—I have no friends—

—Fight it, Danny—

Danny?

Thump. Thump. Thump.

What is that noise? It reminds me of—

—A train's pistons pumping, propelling through the night sky; a treasure trove of glinting rubies, gold bars, and diamond rings upon each of my fingers. The heavy weight of a crown upon my head—

I reach for it, but my arms are unresponsive. I can't move. I stare blindly in front of me and see nothing but red. It's haze is a wet blanket, ever present, cold, unnatural, all laugh explodes from behind me and my insides freeze.

It's happening again. He's here. How? How can he be here?

—What? You thought you got away? From me? You thought your friends came to save you? HA! WRONG! They're dead. Don't you remember? You should. After all, you killed them—

"NO!" I scream, but only a choked gasp escapes. The red haze dissolves into my bedroom ceiling. His piercing laugh dims. I pant, disoriented, and try to claw at my ears to rip his laugh right out, but my arms are pinned. An involuntary whimper gets drawn from me before I realize I'm entangled in my own sheets. Bile rises in my throat. I can't breathe. I hate not being able to move. I can't— In a fit of panic I wrestle my way out, nearly ripping my sheets in my haste.

It's only when I'm free that I calm down and remember that I'm fine. The staff was broken.

I glance at my clock. 3:24pm. My head drops onto my sweat-drenched pillow and I let out a long shaky breath. My heart thumps, my eardrums roar with the sound of my frantic blood.

Thump. Thump.

I flop my head to the side and look at my door, which rattles under the force of someone's knocking.

"Danny?" Sam's voice. "I'm coming in, ok?"

Not ok. "Uh... hang on!" My voice is shot, hoarse. "Just a second."

I sit up and run my hands across my face and neck, wiping away the beads of sweat. I try and comb my hair with my fingers while simultaneously swinging my legs over the edge of my bed and searching around for a shirt with my feet. I hook my toes into a rumpled grey crewneck sweatshirt and kick it up into the air, grab it, shove it on while stumbling over to the door, and yank it open.

Sam's huge lilac eyes stare up at me. "Hey," she says softly. Her gaze wanders past my shoulder. "...Were you asleep or something?"

I glance back. My bedding is strewn apart, sheets kicked off the end into a heap on the carpet. No point in lying. I shrug. "Took a nap."

A look of guilt flickers across her face. "Did I wake you up?"

"No," I say, too quickly. "I was already awake."

Sam blinks, then frowns and pushes her way past me into my room, her eyes scanning the floor for something. "You lose your phone?"

"What?" I close my door with the back of my heel.

Sam unhooks her backpack and throws it down, before plopping decisively onto my bed like she's about to pitch a tent and camp out there. "Tucker and I have been texting you for the past two days." She kicks her boots off, tucks her feet underneath her, and glares at me.

I know. I've been ignoring her. I've spent the last two days in my room trying to figure out what's real. My gaze focuses on my window, to the tree outside. Anything to avoid looking her in the eye. The wounded part of me wants her to leave before she figures out how messed up Freakshow left me, but now that she's infiltrated my room I know she's here to stay.

"Sorry," I mutter.

"You missed school again," Sam continues. "I brought you notes."

"Migraine."

Sam's brows scrunch together in worry. Her lip twitches, before she sniffs, looks around the room, and sighs. Her fingers lace together in her lap. I scour all these little movements for something out of place, something un-Sam-like that'll prove she's not real, but I don't find any.

"You have a migraine?" Sam asks gently.

I play with the hem of my sweatshirt. It's unraveling around the cuff. "It was the only excuse I could think of when my mom asked me what was wrong."

Out of the corner of my eye Sam slumps. "We're worried. What happened, with Freakshow, it was… You can't shut us out, Danny. You need to talk about it. You can't just lock yourself away and pretend it didn't happen."

A flare of hot anger sears through me. "I'm not pretending it didn't happen," I snap. I suck in a sharp breath. I've never sounded like that before. All defensive and raw. Who is that? This terrified person that huddles in their bed all day… that can't be me. So who is it? My hands unbiddingly rake through my hair, into my scalp. Did some part of Freakshow linger? Which thoughts were his? Which are mine? I feel gross. A little belatedly, I realize that I've been staring blankly at the floor for several minutes. I let out a long breath and try to think about something else. My gaze finds Sam's spider backpack. I count the furry legs, even though I know there's eight. "Sorry," I say, again.

"How are you doing?" Sam asks.

"Fine," I say, automatically.

Sam gets up off the bed and walks towards me. She tilts her head, her bangs falling across her pale forehead. Swiftly, she grabs both my arms at my wrists. Her grip is tight.

My back hits the wall as that red haze invades my vision. His laugh spirals through me. —HA! What is that? Is that free will? How pathetic. Do you even remember why you're fighting me?—

Get out of my head, get out of me— I gasp as the red wavers and my room snaps back. Sam's standing above me, her palms held up like there's a gun pointed at her. I'm on the floor.

Sam drops her arms to her side. She's made her point. "Yeah, sure you are," she whispers.

I struggle to catch my breath, rubbing my wrists to try and rid myself of the feeling of shackles. I can't even let a friend touch me without flinching. I really am pathetic.

"It's not your fault," Sam says. "Danny? Look at me."

I crack one eye open.

Sam crouches down across from me, looking just as lost and uncertain as I feel. "None of it was your fault, okay? That monster made you do it. I can't even imagine..." she trails off.

"I'm fine," I croak.

"No you're not," Sam states, loudly. "Stop saying that."

I lean back against the wall, not even bothering to try and get my feet underneath me. Her glare pisses me off. She just barges in here and picks open all my scabs? Calls me out on my bullshit? Just comes in here and knocks me to the ground after I've spent two whole days trying to patch myself up? "What?" I growl. "What else is there to talk about? What do you want me to say?"

"Anything other than 'I'm fine'," Sam grates.

"Fine. Fine," I snap."How about this? How about that I've been pulling my hair out trying to get his laugh from my head? That I can't tell which memories are fake? It's like he was this disease in my head and now every cell in me is somehow dirty because he.. he forced me to do things I didn't want to do, and he made me like it. Made me want to do it."

Sam clicks her mouth shut and stills as I rant.

"I can't sleep under a blanket without feeling like I'm suffocating or having a nightmare. I can feel the weight of that stupid gold crown and the rings on all my fingers and hear the train…"

"I thought you said it was all a blur," Sam pokes.

I draw a hand down my face, my fingertips pressing into my eyelids. Blue dots erupt behind my eyes. "It's coming back, bit by bit."

Sam's gaze softens. "It's done. Freakshow's gone and the staff was destroyed. It's over."

It's over. So why doesn't it feel over? "I thought you and Tucker were dead." My voice hitches, cracks. "I thought... He said, told me… I knew... I remembered murdering you?"

"That never happened," Sam insists with a shake of her head. "You caught me. You—"

"I heard the sound of your head hitting the cement," I interrupt, "It sounded like an egg cracking. Your blood was everywhere. Pooled under your head, in your hair. Your neck was bent at a weird angle."

"He implanted that memory, Danny. He lied," Sam says shakily, eyes wide. "It wasn't real."

"What's real, then? What's fake?" I ask, voice high-pitched and hysterical. "That's what I've been trying to sort out."

"I'm real," Sam insists.

"Really?" I shoot back.

Sam falls back on her heels. She stares at me for a moment, stumped. It's a paradox. For all I know she's dead and I'm a murderer still under Freakshow's command. My memory has been compromised. She plops down fully onto the carpet and sits cross-legged. "You're right," she murmurs. "Even if I told you a bunch of secrets that only you and I would know, who's to say I'm not just an extension of your own mind?"

I eye her critically to see if that's the case.

She scoots closer until she's sitting next to me, her back up against the wall where the molding of my door meets the drywall. It can't be very comfortable, but she merely hums, then drops her head onto my shoulder. It's heavy. I can feel her breath against my forearm and her radiating body heat; I smell the lavender scent of her shampoo. She feels convincingly real.

"Guess you're just gonna have to trust me when I say I'm real," Sam says cheekily after a moment.

I pause and consider that. Between a reality where Sam's dead and I killed her, and one where she's alive, I'd have to pick the latter. My head tilts to rests atop hers. "Okay," I breathe.