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Corruption
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"You- You planted them in the portal?" Danny squeaked. The only one of the flowers his parents were experimenting with that could bloom in the portal were...
Graveflowers. Oh no.
He cast a wild look down at his hands. Sure enough, they glowed with a soft, white radiance. A sort of whine made its way out of the back of his throat. "I- I can explain," he said, backing away.
Maddie looked stricken. Jack looked- Danny twitched his head to track his father as he moved across the room to stand by Maddie. Every part of him vibrated under tension, ready to react to any threat. Were they going to attack him? Reject him? He should have been more cautious, he should have gotten rid of the graveflower seeds when he first saw them, he should have made Jazz come down instead, he-
The lab shook again. Jack and Maddie whirled to face the portal, and, for a split second, Danny contemplated running.
"It's destabilizing the portal," said Maddie.
That sounded bad.
"It shouldn't have grown this fast!" said Jack.
Oh, that sounded worse.
They both turned to look at Danny. He cringed, holding his hands protectively in front of his chest.
"D-Danny," said Maddie, her voice breaking on his name. "I think- I think this is happening because of your accident." Her voice grew steadier as she continued. "Between that, the ectoplasm, and the portal, it must-" she broke off. "According to my research, you should be able to control it."
After living with his parents for his entire life, Danny knew how to spot when they were being less than truthful. Maddie's voice was higher pitched than it normally was. He couldn't tell what she was trying to hide, though.
Maybe he was just paranoid.
"If they aren't stopped soon, they'll destabilize the portal," said Jack. "They portal will explode."
"It'll what?"
Forgive him for being on edge, but his parents had (possibly) just found out that he was a ghost, and they were talking about explosions.
"Explode," repeated Jack.
"But you should be able to control them, Dan-ny," she stumbled over his name again. "Just- tell them to go back. To shrink."
Ghost plants were weird, and ghostly abilities numerous, but Danny didn't think it would be that easy. Frostbite had mentioned something about 'communing' with the plant, but he had sort of tuned out after deciding it wasn't a threat because no way would his parents try to plant something inside the portal. Except they had.
His thoughts swirled, chasing each other pointlessly. Finally, it latched onto the danger. The danger to himself and his family.
"Go back," said Danny at the plant, trying to sound authoritative. The vines kept creeping outward, digging into the seams between the wall panels. Danny bit his lip and then grabbed the cutting on the lab table. He held it out, feeling it, the ectoenergy in it tickling his palms. "Go back," he said, more firmly. "Let go. Get back." He took a step forward, and the ground rumbled again. "This is my place. Go back."
The vines and their hanging flowers trembled and, miraculously, began to recede, pulling back through the portal's rippling surface. Danny stepped forward, following, and watched as the huge plant wrapped around itself until it was just a shrub, lying on the torn and warped surface of the portal floor.
Danny walked to it carefully, avoiding tripping hazards. He had no desire to die here again. He picked up the plant and carried it out of the portal.
His mother had sunk to the ground. Jack was half bent over next to her. She struggled to her feet as soon as she saw Danny. She hugged him, stiffly.
"Thank goodness," she said. One of her hands found its way to Danny's wrist. "I'm so glad. This was just... a bad stroke of luck, sweetie. Just a bad stroke of luck that your accident simulated the conditions for that to bloom, that's all." She patted him on the shoulders and took the graveflower. "Well, disaster averted, so why don't you, um, order some takeout for us, okay?"
"Sure," said Danny. He glanced at Jack who looked deep in thought. "I can do that." He brushed bits of bark off of himself. If his parents were going to be in denial about the whole 'dead' thing, who was he to stop them?
He escaped as quickly as possible.
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"Maddie," said Jack, "are you sure that's a smart thing to do? If he's- Maddie, it's a ghost, just a corrupted copy, and we have- we have no idea how far that corruption goes."
"It- He hasn't done anything yet," said Maddie, barely holding back tears.
"That we know of," said Jack, his voice was broken, too, "and now... if it didn't know before... I just don't think letting it keep playing this game is a good idea."
"I don't think he knows."
"Maddie..."
"I felt a pulse," said Maddie. "When I held his wrist, I felt a pulse. A ghost shouldn't be able to do that. A ghost should be colder. Jack, I don't think he's dead. I think- I was lying, so he wouldn't know, but what if it was the truth? What if that's what's really happening?"
"That would be really unlikely," said Jack. "But we've seen more unlikely?" His voice tilted up at the end, as if asking a question. "We'll... we'll have to monitor carefully. Keep track, see if we can confirm biological functions. Make sure- Make sure Danny doesn't hurt anyone." He frowned deeply. "It might not be what you think, though."
"I know, I know," said Maddie. "I know. But- Even if he is a ghost. Maybe- Maybe what Jazz has been saying holds water. Maybe we've been looking at things wrong. Maybe he isn't corrupt, even if he is a ghost. He might not be able to learn new things, but he could be- he could still be Danny." Maddie was aware that she was rambling.
Usually Jack was the emotional one. He was shaking, too.
"That would- God, I hope you're right, Mads."
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They watched him.
They watched him eat. They watched him sleep. They took samples whenever they could. They caught him trying to sneak out at night several times, and each time they did, he spent the day moody and anxious.
The samples didn't seem to indicate that anything was amiss... Except, of course, that Danny was hideously ectocontaminated, to the point where it shouldn't be compatible with good health. Otherwise, they looked human. His hair and fingernails grew. His body dealt with food in a normal way. He slept as a human would, deeply and with dreams.
Maddie would have liked to take that to mean that everything was normal, that the only problem was a little ectocontamination, contamination that he had adapted to, but they caught glimpses of things beyond mere ectocontamination, now that they were paying attention. His eyes flashed green when he was angry. Small cuts and scrapes faded from his skin rapidly, sometimes in a matter of minutes. Some days he would have freckles, other days his skin would be perfectly porcelain white.
It only got worse when he thought he was alone, when he didn't know they were watching through hidden cameras. Sometimes he would do things. Ghostly things. They saw him stick his arm through a wall at one point. Another time, they saw his whole body flick invisible. Once, they caught him drift down through the ceiling, asleep, on camera.
Worse, it appeared that he was aware of what he was doing.
If he was aware that he was a ghost, that meant that he was purposefully keeping it from them. He wasn't just going through his day on autopilot.
But a ghost couldn't mimic life so perfectly, and they were certain that he wasn't possessed. They had tested him in every way they knew how, and he wasn't possessed.
Just as surely, he wasn't human. He couldn't be. So what was he?
Maddie didn't know, and it was killing her.
"We need some way of watching him while he's at school," said Maddie, drumming her fingernails on the table. "While he's not in the house. Maybe then we'll be able to- to classify his behavior." They hadn't even decided if his... ghostly characteristics had pushed his personality into malicious territory.
"A modified boo-merang, maybe?" said Jack. "Tell it to maintain a certain distance from the target, instead of hitting it, and add a camera? The mark one already keys onto Danny."
Maddie nodded and looked out across the lab, not really seeing it. They had pushed aside everything else to work on this. The only part of the plants project they were keeping up was the graveflower bush, which they had planted in a five-gallon bucket in the corner. For some reason, neither she nor Jack wanted to get rid of it.
As if detecting Maddie's thoughts, the plant trembled. The flowers began to unfurl.
"Mom? Dad? Are you down here?" her son's voice echoed down from the top of the stairs. "Is it okay if I come down?"
Jack tipped his notes over the side of the table and Maddie hastened to hide her own half of the research. "Sure, Danno!" called Jack. "Come right on down!"
Danny drifted silently down the stairs. He looked more nervous than he had since he had seen the graveflower that first time.
"Mom, Dad," he said, his fingers tying themselves into knots. "I have something to tell you. I-" He glanced at the graveflower and winced. "It's about my accident. The one with the portal. I've noticed you watching me, and I think- I need to tell you how it changed me."
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Do you guys think this is a good place to end this one, or should I do one more?