LOST

Chapter 25: On the run again

The darkness had swallowed me, had pulled me under and seemed to cling to me like it had substance. Like I had substance. There was no difference between me and my surroundings, I was one with the cold concrete of the floor, the steel bars of my prison, the pulsating ectoplasm that was infused in everything to prevent me from escaping as a ghost. I knew I should be able to see, that I had seen it, but I couldn't now. Sounds were there, touch, smells – a stale, moldy smell, combined with sulfur and the foul stench of decay. But no sight.

Something, someone, moved, I could hear scraping on the floor and then a soft sigh. I tried to move too, but found it almost impossible. The muscles in my arms and legs just wouldn't cooperate. The only thing I could do was twitch.

Other sounds. Distant shrieks, something dripping, small paws furrowing. Rats? I shuddered and pushed away the image of small rodents nibbling at my bare feet, because I knew that had actually happened. I remained perfectly still. Maybe they wouldn't notice me.

Then another sound added to the familiar background sounds, and I wished it hadn't. As long as I could hear the rats and the shrieks, as disturbing as they were, I was being left alone. I wanted to be left alone, in fact, it was really the only wish I had left. Everything else had disappeared, every desire had been brought back to that one simple thing: leave me alone. And they never did.

Footsteps. There shouldn't be any, ghosts didn't need feet, they could fly. I was sure he was doing it on purpose, to strike fear into me, to increase the dread I was feeling. He was doing an admirable job. I whimpered.

"Danny!"

A voice, hoarse, coming from the other side of the space I was in. Not close, but not too far away either. I tried to move my head, tried to see who was talking, but all was dark. There was a hole in my head, all images were gone, what remained was just feelings and impressions of something... terrifying. I didn't want to remember.

"Danny, get up, he's coming, Danny come on, try to get up, get up Danny, get up, get up, get up..."

I jumped up and stumbled backwards until my back hit the wall at the back of the classroom. My chair fell down with a clatter. My breath caught in my throat as I looked around fearfully, expecting a huge white presence with cruel black eyes looming over me. Twenty students stared back at me, surprise, disdain, mockery on their faces. Mr Faluca looking over his shoulder, his hand still hovering at the blackboard, halfway through a complicated looking formula.

"Mr Fenton," he said, "Please sit. This is not a circus."

I tried to get my breathing under control, tried to will my hammering heart to slow down. For a moment, I just couldn't move. My hands were flat against the wall and they wanted to stay there, feel its rough structure with the small holes, remains of something that had long ago been removed from the wall. Yet I had to move. I clenched my fists, bowed my head in order to avoid the stares of my classmates and bend over to pick up my chair. And then my ghost sense went off.

I froze. One panicky thought led me straight back to the dark prison, and again I saw the white ghost, coming at me, only I hadn't really seen him. Imagination, I thought, only my imagination. I knew better of course, but it seemed to help. Slowly, I righted the chair, but didn't sit down.

"Mr Faluca?"

The small teacher turned around, irritated. "Yes, what now, Mr Fenton?"

I swallowed a few times to make my voice sound less raspy. "I need to use the bathroom."

I was already on the move when he waved an impatient consent, already forgetting about me when I reached the door. I heard him scribbling on the blackboard when I softly closed the door behind me. In the hallway, I just stood for a moment, trying to sense which direction I should go to find the ghost. Right, I decided, in the direction of the stairs. But first...

Two steps brought me inside the boys restrooms, which happened to be just across the hall from Mr Falluca's classroom. A bright flash and a chilling feeling later transformed me into Danny Phantom, and I immediately felt better. Mostly, because with the chill of being a ghost also came the numbing of any unpleasant – or pleasant, for that matter – feelings. It was the basis of my so called 'courage'. I seemed fearless when I was a ghost and it was true. Jazz had called me a hero, but there is nothing heroic in being reckless because fear seems a distant feeling at best. There is no courage without fear.

I turned myself invisible and floated through the empty corridor. Vaguely, I could hear teachers lecturing, one class seemed to hold a discussion because several voices were trying to make themselves heard, and I could feel agitation coming from them. I ignored them and searched for the ghost.

Movement at the end of the hallway. Somebody was walking, gliding, towards me. Dark, curly long hair, huge green eyes, flawless skin. She swayed her hips and let her fingers brush the lockers as she moved slowly towards me. She looked straight at me, as if she could see me. Paulina.

Only my ghost sense told me differently.

I shimmered into view, raised my hands and let out a moderately strong ecto blast. The ghost that posed as Paulina was hurled backwards, and with a howl disappeared through the lockers into the locker room. I followed him.

The locker room was dark, the only light came from the high wired glass windows near the ceiling. One of them was slightly ajar, and I felt a soft, warm breeze coming from it. Outside, the trees rustled. Inside, in the shower room, a tap was dripping water, the splashes echoing faintly in the tiled space.

Nothing moved. I smiled a feral smile. Slowly, I moved forward, over the benches, looking around as if I was searching for him. I could feel my green eyes glow in anticipation. This was something I knew. Hunting a ghost, in the school. If I couldn't beat up Dash, at least I could beat the crap out of the foolish ghost that had dared to come within range of my ghost sense.

Suddenly, I shot forward, reached through the lockers and grabbed the ghost that was hiding there by his throat. He squealed and tried to turn himself intangible, but I only had to tighten my grip to prevent him from doing that. Ghosts can go through anything in the real world. With sufficient power however, a ghost can hold on to another ghost. And power was something I had in abundance. I pulled him out of the lockers and stared into his... non-face.

I almost let go in surprise. He whimpered and started protesting in a whiny voice. I shook him to shut him up as I contemplated who I had caught.

Amorpho.

The ghost Jazz and I had been looking for when we had gone to see Clockwork the night before. And here he was, right in front of me. I couldn't believe my luck.

"Amorpho," I said.

My voice was cold and emotionless. I felt the anger rise again, boiling just beneath the surface, but I suppressed it. I needed answers. I could always strangle him later, not to kill him – it'd take something else to actually destroy a ghost – but just for the satisfaction of feeling my hands around his throat. I kept my eyes level as I stared him down.

He didn't so much as avert his eyes – he didn't have them after all – but he managed to give the impression that he did. His lack of a face was creepy. It gave me nothing to latch on to, and I found my eyes trailing the outline of his head instead. I shook myself.

"Maybe," I said, "You want to tell me something."

I had a hard time keeping the anger out of my voice, and I think he saw it, because he started to ramble on about being chased, being hunted, not having a choice. I shook him again, hard.

"Shut up. I don't care about your excuses." I drew him close and tried to stare at the part of his face his eyes should be. "You attacked Mrs Crown. As me. And now they're going to put me away for it. WHY?!" I screamed that last part, suddenly loosing my temper.

Amorpho shrieked and started struggling again, but I squeezed and he started choking. I held on for a moment, contemplating the strange fact that ghosts could choke. A reflex, probably, something that remained from the time they were alive. Squeeze a throat, you choke. I tilted my head and loosened my grip somewhat.

"Please," he wheezed, "I... I was looking for you."

I just stared at him.

"I heard you were looking for me... tried to hide... knew you'd find me anyway... blasted Clockwork."

"You went to see Clockwork?"

I was still angry, but surprise calmed me down somewhat. Amorpho nodded. He looked miserable. I lessened my grip even further, but didn't let go.

"Yes," he said, "Please... you're hurting me."

"Why Paulina?" I asked, thinking about his rather good impersonation in the hallway.

"You... you like her, right?" he said, uncertainty coloring his voice, "I didn't want you to blast me right away, and she's pretty, I thought..."

Somewhere from deep inside of me came the desire to squeeze again, to feel my grip tighten around his throat, to snap the bone inside of it. My hand started to glow green and I knew something must have shown in my eyes because Amorpho suddenly went very still.

...my hand tightened around her throat, and the little girl started making choking sounds as I squeezed and squeezed until her body went limp...

With a scream I pushed the faceless ghost away from me. He slammed into the lockers at the other side of the locker room. I just floated there, clenching and unclenching my fists in a fruitless attempt to dissipate the feeling of breaking bone under my fingers. Amorpho looked dazed for a moment, but then peeled himself from the lockers and hovered in front of them. He seemed ready to bolt and I didn't blame him. If it were possible, I'd have run away from me too. A small voice in the back of my head started whispering that that was in fact possible, but I ignored it for the moment.

"I'm sorry," I said.

All fight left me. I let myself sink down on the floor and sat on one of the benches, leaning forward, my elbows on my knees. It was my turn to avert my eyes. I still didn't know what had driven the ghost to impersonate me and then beat up my psychiatrist, but I realized that the impersonation hadn't been that far off. I was a freak, a monster. He had seen it. I looked up and found him still there.

"What?" I asked.

Hesitantly, he came closer.

"Clockwork told me to tell you," he said hesitantly.

Impatience flared. I suppressed it. "Tell me what?"

He started twirling his fingers. "I was forced... he told me to be you. I didn't know what was going to happen. It seemed harmless, and he was threatening to put me in jail because of the cat I brought into the ghost zone... It was such a nice cat, her name was Alice, you know, from Alice in Wonderland, I always liked that story, except for that stupid rabbit, I could never understand why..."

I closed my eyes. Amorpho stopped, seemingly sensing that I was about to get angry again. He cleared his throat.

"Anyway," he said, "I only, I just had to walk there and be you, to get out of prison. I've done you before, and I know you told me not to do that anymore, but he was going to put me in jail and that's no fun at all. And then his goons showed up and they started beating that lady and I ran."

He was silent. I looked down at the floor again. "Who told you to do that?" I asked.

"Walker of course," he said, and the name send a shiver up my spine, "What other ghost prison wardens do you know?"

Spanish. Last period of the day. Mrs Guzman talking, telling us something with a smile on her face, a smile that only faltered briefly whenever she caught my staring eyes. I was trying to hear what she was saying, because it had occurred to me that if I could concentrate on something else, the tight feeling in my chest would go away and I wouldn't need the contents of the bottle sitting comfortably at the bottom of my bag.

I couldn't understand a word she said.

This was Spanish two, I should have been able to pick up at least some words, but all I heard was gibberish. Mrs Guzman's gaze wandered over the classroom again, rested on me for a moment and then quickly moved away. I realized I was making her uncomfortable. Then I wondered if I would be able to understand her if she just spoke plain English, or if even then all I could hear was an unrelated stream of words, without meaning.

I was losing it.

I looked down at my empty desk, then outside, then at the clock on the wall above the door. Minutes passed by slowly, and I could have sworn that every now and then the hands just stood still for a few minutes. The word crawling didn't even begin to describe the speed with which time was moving.

I thought about Amorpho. He had left soon after he had told me what he had to, and had left me sitting in the locker room, staring at my hands, wondering if I really could strangle someone with them. Sometimes I felt like I could. Finally, I had gone back to the restrooms, transformed back into my human form and had entered Mr Faluca's classroom just as the bell sounded. I hadn't bothered explaining myself for being gone for twenty minutes, but had simply gathered my things and left.

I glanced outside again. We were on the second floor, at the front of the building. I could see the parking lot, full of cars, devoid of people. The road beyond, traffic passing by, cars, trucks, some maniac on a motorcycle, its sound rumbling heavily, making the glass clatter in the window sill. A familiar limousine, pulling up.

I sank down in my chair, though there really was no need for it. Nate couldn't see me here, even if he knew I was up here. Besides, I didn't fear Nate. He was actually a nice guy. What he was doing working for Vlad I had no idea.

Nate got out of the car and leaned against it, watching the school. He was early. There were still five minutes of class left and I had to go to my locker to retrieve my stuff. He'd have to wait at least fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, I realized, when more and more students started looking out of the window, in which the whole school got to have a very good look at my present form of transportation. I sank down deeper and studied the edge of the table.

The bell rang in the middle of a sentence Mrs Guzman was speaking, and the sudden noise was almost overwhelming. I jumped at the sound and almost fell out of my chair, earning me a few giggles from two girls sitting close to me. I glared at them. They paled and quickly started gathering their stuff, looking away from me and avoiding my eyes. Good.

Slowly, I pushed myself up, grabbed my bag and slung it over my right shoulder. Then, intending to take my time going to my locker, I glanced outside once more. And froze.

Nate was talking to someone, two someones, and gesturing at the school. Two men in suits were standing there, the one slightly taller than the other. When Nate pointed at the school, one of them looked around and glanced at the entrance. My heart started pounding in my chest.

Detective Raskin. Somewhere, deep inside of me, the now familiar panicky feeling started to rise up again. There was only one reason the man would be here. He was going to arrest me again, throw me in jail and probably throw away the key. My breathing sped up, and I watched as the other detective, a smaller man with dark brown hair, pulled out a notebook and started scribbling something down.

"Daniel?"

I couldn't move. I just stood there, staring, frozen on the spot. The classroom was quiet now, everybody had left. I could see the first students spilling out into the parking lot, walking in groups of two or three, finding their cars by holing up their keys and pressing the door open button. All over the parking lot, lights were flashing. I had no idea how they thought to find their particular flash between all the others. If I wasn't so scared, I'd have found it funny.

"...Daniel, can I help you with something?"

I managed to turn away from the window and looked at the woman standing a few feet away from me, wringing her hands. I blinked at her. Who wrings their hands these days? It took me a moment to remember her name. Mrs Guzman. Spanish teacher. I just spent an hour listening to her. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was already five past. I should leave.

"No," I croaked, "I'm fine. I... I have to leave."

I brushed past her, almost fell into the hallway and then practically ran into the nearest bathroom. I reached the stall just in time, and spent a few minutes emptying my already empty stomach. I hadn't had a chance to eat my lunch, and the last thing I ate were the two pieces of toast Vlad had forced me to eat that morning. I dry-heaved for a while, gasping for air and suppressing the sobs that threatened to choke me. When my stomach finally quieted down I let myself sink on the floor next to the toilet, half leaning on it, and shakily wiped the sweat off my brow.

This wasn't working. I couldn't go on like this, I was completely wiped out. They would start looking for me soon, I knew, and I needed to get out of there, needed to keep myself together. I needed... something to sustain me, if only for a little while.

Weakly, I grabbed my bag and started feeling around in it. I almost panicked again when I didn't find it immediately, but then my hand closed around the familiar smooth, cold surface of the small bottle of Vodka. I took it out, unscrewed the lid and quickly took a swig before I could change my mind. Like that morning, the alcohol burned in my throat, and I started coughing. My stomach lurched, and for a moment I thought I would throw up again. I took another swig. My stomach quieted down.

I sat there for a while, staring at the bottle, every now and then taking a sip until I felt the effects of the alcohol take a hold of me. Then, before I could get too drunk, I screwed the lid back on. There was only a little bit left. I might need it later and besides, I couldn't escape if I was drunk. I needed to be calm and collected and mostly sober.

I left the stall, splashed some water in my face and studiously avoided my reflection in the mirror. I had a pretty good idea of what I looked like and I didn't want to find out that I actually looked worse. Then I stood straight, squared my shoulders and transformed into Danny Phantom. For a moment I hovered. Then I grabbed the hinges of my bag tightly, turned myself invisible and intangible, and flew through the roof.

I had no idea where to go, so I ended up going back to the 'scene of the crime', as they always say. I flew all the way out to Lake Eerie, weaved my way through the woods until I reached the small, secluded campsite. It was deserted, the detectives and the forensics people had taken everything with them. It was just a clearing in the woods now, a quiet place right next to the stream and the waterfall. A pretty place. The sun was barely able to reach the ground, but did manage to light up the waterfall, giving it an almost golden shine. Birds were singing. Something living rustled the bushes. Ghosts were nearby, but hiding.

I sat down on the same rock I had been sitting on before and dropped my bag in the grass. Being Danny Phantom had several advantages. Flying was one, obviously, as was being able to escape any police officer ever by going invisible and intangible. It also made me feel more distant from the world. Emotions were somehow dulled. I didn't feel pain a strongly, not only physical pain, but also, more importantly at the moment, emotional pain. Being a ghost sort of put things in perspective. I could think more clearly.

Of course it also prevented me from feeling happiness, but as I hardly knew what that feeling was like I didn't feel too bad about that. Happiness would come later, when I'd found Sam and Tucker. And since my life had just gone down the drain, with me making it worse by running away, that was the only thing left to me. I could never go back, not to school, my parents, Jazz... Vlad. I shuddered at the thought of him. He'd tear me apart if he found me. I couldn't fight him, he was so much stronger than I was. The only thing I could do when I spotted him was run like hell.

I chuckled bitterly. Some hero I was.

I watched the stream, the waterfall, the trees. Time passed by, the shadows of the trees moved and got longer. Then, with a last glint, the sun was suddenly no longer shining on the waterfall and the place seemed to darken. I could feel the ghost stir, but I wasn't worried. They were small ghosts, animals, scurrying around in the shadows and the darkness. I could handle a few glowing green rodents.

When it got really dark, I transformed back into Danny Fenton, and immediately shivered. It was still summer, but the evenings definitely got colder by the day, and I was only wearing a t-shirt and my cargo pants, no jacket. Without a second thought, I stuck my hand in my bag, retrieved the bottle and quickly drained it to the last drop. I was beyond caring.

I stared at the empty bottle for a while, feeling the loss. Of what, I wasn't exactly sure. My innocence, the last remnants of my former self, my dignity? Or maybe just the alcohol I had run out of. I staggered a little and cursed. In a sudden fit of rage I threw the bottle in the air, pointed my finger at the rotating thing and blasted it. It shattered and shards of glass rained down on me, luckily not injuring me too badly but only causing a few minor cuts. They'd fade away quickly, as was the bruise on my face, which I knew to be coloring a yellowish green by now. A day, two at the most, and it would be completely gone. Another proof of my weirdness. Good thing I ran away. I wouldn't have to explain myself now.

When I realized what I was thinking, I started laughing again. Like that afternoon at lunch, when Dash had grabbed me, the irony of the situation hit me full force. I felt the hysteria rise up in me and I laughed even harder. The police was after me in the real world, Walker was after me in the ghost zone. I had nowhere to go. The magnitude of the mess I was in was staggering. And ridiculously funny. Then the pain in my chest kicked in and I wanted to cry, but managed to stop myself. It did help me to get myself under control again though.

I climbed back onto my rock and wrapped my arms around my knees. I was really getting cold now. I wanted to leave, but somehow I couldn't. I was waiting for something, some epiphany, a piece of lost memory perhaps, something. Because I couldn't accept the fact that there was nothing. We disappeared here. There had to be a clue. Not a physical one, the police had searched the area pretty thoroughly, but a metaphysical one. Something only I could see.

I reached, and let the two white rings travel over my body again. My senses were better that way, the alcohol didn't bother me as much and besides, when in ghost form I couldn't get cold. Even the hunger was less prominent. And it didn't look like I was going to get something to eat soon, unless I was prepared to catch and roast a squirrel or something.

It was getting really dark now. The forest was a wall of trees at the edge of the clearing, slowly filling up with sounds of the night. An owl in the distant. Crickets, chirping. Ghosts, drawing near, sending shivers up my spine and causing an ever increasing blue streak of mist to escape from my mouth.

And something else.

It had been there before, I had felt it before, but dismissed it. It was another fissure, a remnant of a portal, remnants I could feel when close by. An ability, I realized, I hadn't had before. It hadn't been on the list of things I could do, the list stored on the memory stick which Jazz kept for me.

It was nothing. There were many temporary portals to the ghost zone here, the very reason this forest was haunted. They were small, thin lines, like scars on the fabric of reality. When I moved through the forest I only had to extend my hands and feel around for a bit, and then I felt one.

Which made it strange I could feel a fissure from thirty feet away.

I got up and hovered. I stared at the waterfall. The feeling I had seemed to indicate that whatever it was exactly I was feeling, it was coming from there. Slowly, I moved forward. The water looked white against the black background of rock. It splashed down from great hight, and for a moment I looked up to the top of the cliff and beyond, noting the staggering brightness of the stars in the sky. Then I turned myself intangible and moved through the waterfall.

Somehow I wasn't that surprised, finding myself in a cave behind the waterfall. I held out my hand, formed a small glowing green ball and used it as a makeshift torch. Then I looked around.

I saw it almost immediately. A shimmering at the back of the cave, hardly visible, like looking at a hair that's right in front of your eyes. In fact, I couldn't focus on it at all, which made me realize I wasn't actually looking at it with my eyes. I was looking at it with my mind. If I had a heartbeat, it would have been hammering in my chest. It was huge. No wonder I had felt it from a distance.

My eyes drifted through the cave, taking in the details, the uneven ground, the dents and holes in the wall, and ceiling... and a battered, blackened Fenton thermos, laying half buried all the way in the back, right beneath where the opening to the ghost zone had been. With a cry, I darted forward and knelt-hovered down by it. The cap was off. It was covered with soot and dust and half filled with grains of sand and small pebbles.

Tentatively, I grabbed it and pulled it out. I stared at it for a while, but other than telling me that a fight probably had taken place here in the confined space of the cave it didn't help me much. I started searching the floor more thoroughly, and after a while found two damaged ecto guns. Both were blackened and dented and probably could never be used again. Then I studied the walls more closely and found almost immediately what I expected to find: scorch marks.

A fight. Short and intense. And having something to do with the portal that had been there at the time, I was sure of it. I ran my fingers over the thin line in the air, close to the back of the cave. I could feel its ragged edges, fused together again but leaving a scar. There was something familiar about it, something I should know. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. There had to be something in my mind, some memory of what had happened here. But if there was, I couldn't reach it.

I opened my eyes again and willed my weightless body to the ground. I put my back against the wall and leaned against it. I was tired and I wasn't thinking straight because of said tiredness and probably the alcohol. I could still feel it running through my system, even when I was a ghost. I closed my eyes. My mind started to drift all by its own, turning and swirling in an almost nauseating way. Vaguely, I felt my ghost form leave me, a wave of warmth washing over me followed by shivering because of the cold in the cave, and then I knew no more.

Awakening was slow and painful. First, I became aware of the sound of the waterfall, the ever present clattering of the water falling on the rocks. Immediately after that, I felt a pain in my back and more importantly in my head. My mouth was dry and I had trouble swallowing. I groaned and opened my eyes.

The cave was dimly lit, daylight shining in through the waterfall. I stared at the water for a while, trying to process the fact that it was in fact day. How long had I slept? I moved my arms and was treated with a stinging feeling in my left arm because I had lain on it and had cut off most of the blood supply to it.

Ten AM. I stared at my watch in disbelieve. I had slept the whole night without interruption and then slept well into the morning as well. I hadn't slept this long since... since as far back as I could remember. Which meant never.

I still didn't remember.

Coming here hadn't solved anything, hadn't brought me any insight into what happened at all, apart from the fact that some sort of fight had taken place. We had been taken right here to... to where? The ghost zone. Somewhere in the ghost zone were my two friends who counted on me to get them out. Who would probably resent me by now because I was free and they were still captured and I didn't make a move to get them.

Then I started thinking about Walker again, and I tried to remember what he looked like from the files on the memory stick Jazz and I had studied. There had been a sketch of him, done by Sam again, an impression of a white ghost with black eyes, wearing a hat. I had trouble picturing him though. I blinked a few times and tried again. From now on, I'd have to do everything from memory, because Jazz had the memory stick. Maybe I could go and talk to her later for a bit.

She'd probably tell me to give myself up. And then I would have to go back to prison. And they would find out about the liquor store, because I had run away from Vlad and he'd show them the tape.

I had some trouble pushing the frightening resemblance of Walker to the impression I had of the ghost in my nightmare away. After all, I hadn't really seen him. Maybe it was just a projection of my fear. But it wouldn't go away.

I pushed myself from the wall I had been leaning uncomfortably against, staggered to my feet and stumbled to the entrance of the cave, the waterfall. I held out my hands and splashed some water in my face, then drank some. I felt dizzy from the lack of food, but otherwise I felt a little better. I was just about to phase through the waterfall as not to get wet when I heard them.

Voices. Somebody calling out to somebody else, just outside the waterfall, somewhere in the clearing. I froze. This was a very hard to reach, extremely remote spot in the forest. This was no place for hikers to come. How had they found me?

I turned myself invisible and intangible, and phased outside, making sure to keep out of the way of the two policemen that were searching the clearing. One of them held something up, and I recognized my backpack that I had carelessly left laying there. He said something to the other man, and then the both of them started looking at the ground, which I had of course hardly stepped on.

Then they tried to search the thick vegetation that surrounded the clearing, but they had a hard time doing that. Nobody could come through there, not unless you were a ghost, and they seemed to reach that same conclusion very quickly. The policeman who had found my backpack pulled out his radio and started talking into it, but I couldn't hear what he was saying due to the noise the waterfall was making. I was just about to move closer when he put down my backpack and started rummaging through it, still talking into the radio, no doubt describing the contents of the bag.

Most noticeably probably it being my name in huge print just on the inside of the bag.

I withdrew into my cave. I watched them for a while as they kept looking around for clues as to where I had disappeared to, but they never looked twice at the waterfall. I was pretty safe where I was. Still, it was a stupid mistake to leave my bag out there like that.

When they finally left, I left the cave again, transformed into Danny Phantom and took to the air, gaining height quickly. While watching the policemen, a plan had formed in my mind. A dangerous, stupid, rekless plan. And since I had nothing left to lose now, I was going to go right ahead and do it. With some luck, it would lead me to Sam and Tucker. If not... well, I would probably deserve whatever happened to me then.