For once, he was actually awake and alone when he felt the familiar tug low in his gut. It slithered through his veins like smothering smoke, and his breathing caught as the fabric of reality tore him into pieces and stuffed him through the gaps between atoms at a speed that defied physical boundaries.
Rematerialisation was, somehow, even worse. His core formed first, and then he felt every painful tug as flesh and bones began to melt back into corporeality. His nerves wrapped back around every millimetre of every single layer of organs and muscles in a nexus of screaming, boiling pain, and then skin slipped into place in a final layer of torture…
When he could finally breathe again, his newly-formed ribs felt like they were going to split open his sides, and Danny hunched over and wrapped his arms around himself, blinking in an effort to clear the haze from his vision. He heaved in a few choked, desperate lungfuls of air, bracing his palms on the floor, and realised that as usual, he'd fallen to his knees.
"Alright," he wheezed, "who the hell are you this time?"
There was no answer.
He coughed, looking around at the… very familiar room.
Danny frowned. There was no summoning circle on the floor, no acrid stench of burning herbs or the flickering of candles, no otherworldly chanting from people in cheap black robes typically made from plastic garbage bags or scavenged from the post-Halloween bargain bin…
No. Instead he was kneeling on his own bedroom floor, the soft afternoon light streaming through the window and falling across his unmade bed just to the left.
He got to his feet, staggering a bit with the residual weakness, and turned in a circle a couple of times as though whoever had summoned him would magically appear. Everything was how he had left it, with dirty clothes on the floor, his window slightly ajar, and homework and birthday presents mingled on his desk.
Something moved out of the corner of his eye and Danny spun. He immediately overbalanced and had to grab the bedpost to steady himself, mouth going dry as the soulless plastic eyes of the toy on his desk blinked with a whirr.
"Danny," it drawled, and vertigo sent him back to his knees as his core fluttered with the recognition that the thing that had summoned him had just said his name. "Daaannnnnyyyyyy, u-nye-loo-lay-doo?"
He swallowed, mouth dry and throat tight. "Jazz," he rasped. He swallowed again as the toy's ears twitched with another tiny whirr, and prayed that it wouldn't say his name anymore. "Jazz, come here now!"
He heard a heavy sigh through the wall and the sound of her chair rolling on its wheels before Jazz's footsteps stomped into the hallway.
"What?" she snapped, throwing open his door. "I have a test to study for, and I thought you went out an hour ago!"
He raised his hand dramatically, pointing at the thing on his desk. "Burn it."
"What?! Danny, why… why are you on the floor?"
"Daaannnnnyyyyyy."
He moaned, massaging his chest. "Damn it, Jazz," he croaked, "I told you those are evil. It summoned me!"
She froze. "It… it what?"
He gripped the bedpost and forced himself back onto his feet, legs trembling with the effort. "It's evil! I told you I didn't want it! But no, you thought it was a cute, retro birthday gift, a blast from the past, a—"
"Daaannnnnyyyyyy."
His name, uttered by the chunk of plastic and wires, drove him to his knees again, and Danny choked down a cry as his core squeezed painfully.
Jazz giggled. "This summoned you? This?!" She broke off with a truly wicked laugh that Danny felt was entirely unwarranted.
"Burn. It."
She snorted, but crossed his room and picked the offending item up off the desk before flipping it over and rooting around its control panel. There was a tiny click, and the immense pressure on Danny's core evaporated like it had never existed in the first place.
He took a deep, unrestrained lungful of air. "Stop laughing. You know that summoning hurts me."
"Sorry."
"You're still smiling," he accused, standing up yet again with the help of the bedpost.
She held out the item. "Are you sure you don't want to do the honours?"
He shied away. "Don't touch me with that," he whined. "Just burn it. Now."
She laughed again and headed for the door. "Sorry. I'll go do that."
He scowled as she stepped out into the hallway. "I said it was demonically possessed when you gave it to me!"
Her soft laughter turned into downright cackling, and as he collapsed onto his bed Danny could only hope that none of the other ghosts ever found out that he'd been so thoroughly beaten by the accidental summonings of a furby.