A/N: Written for Ectober 2021, Day 24: Sweet Dreams/Nightmare

Dash finally has everything he wants—until his dream melts into a nightmare.

I'm proud of you, son.

Dash had waited so long to hear those words from his father, and now, it had finally happened. It had taken leading the Ravens to a victorious state championship, but he'd done it. His family had acknowledged his success, the school was hosting a parade in his honour, people who saw him were genuine in their congratulations, their voices glowing with an echo of his pride because they respected him and not just feared him….

It was nice. It was beyond nice. It was what he'd always wanted but hadn't been willing to admit.

Dash picked up Pookie and hugged him close, falling back onto his bed between his pillows and his teddy bears. "We did it, Pookie," he whispered as Pookie nuzzled into the crook of his neck. Dash laughed, closing his eyes as he squeezed Pookie even tighter. "We finally proved ourselves."

Well, Pookie hadn't needed to prove anything. Pookie was still and always had been a very good boy, something Dash was sure to tell him every day, but he liked to think that Pookie understood what Dash was going through.

"This is the life, isn't it?" Dash murmured. Pookie had been a warm, comforting weight on his chest for years whenever he'd hidden in his room instead of dealing with anything he didn't want to deal with, but this was the first time he understood what it meant when people talked about feeling at peace. Things were going his way, and he was well on his way to having it made. He wasn't worrying about what was coming next or what people were saying behind his back or what horrible things might come out that could ruin everything for him.

That was all behind him now. In hindsight, he could appreciate how much he'd felt the weight of it trying to drag him down every day, the fear of that other shoe dropping and irreparably crushing everything. But now? Now, he might finally be able to close his eyes without that bringing to the surface every terrible thought of what might happen and how every choice he made was ruining his life, even when he felt forced into it.

"That therapist was wrong. I'm not going to wind up pumping gas for the rest of my life. With this scholarship opportunity, I've got the in I need to get recognized by the people who matter."

Pookie licked his nose, and Dash wrinkled his own at the inevitable whiff of dog breath. "I'm gonna get your teeth cleaned again," he promised, "and get you some more of those treats that are supposed to help you stay healthy. We're in this for the long haul, Pooks."

Pookie let out a quiet whuff in response and leaned into Dash's hand, wanting more scritches behind the ears.

Dash was nearly asleep when he felt the first tremor, just the slightest shaking of the bed beneath him, the sort usually caused when there was a loud, heavy truck speeding by on the street. There had been no such noise, though, so he thought he must've imagined it—until the second tremor came, pronounced enough to make it clear he wasn't half asleep. Dash opened his eyes and sat up, cradling Pookie to his chest. Pookie licked his face again, but he wasn't whining or barking, which had to be a good sign, right?

There was another tremor, this one strong enough to cause the various football trophies on his shelf to shift and rattle. Some wild part of Dash wondered if this was what an earthquake felt like. No. That was ridiculous. This was Amity Park. They weren't near any fault lines; any earthquakes they had wouldn't do much more than tip over a lawn chair, right? This had to be a ghost attack.

Only, it couldn't be a ghost attack, because Pookie would've known, right? He always knew when a ghost was going to attack before Dash did. If they were in the same room, he'd either stand in front of Dash and bark wildly or whine and tug on Dash's jeans to try to get him to hide.

"Pookie? What's going on?"

In his arms, Pookie snuffled.

There was a high-pitched tone sounding in Dash's ears now—not a buzzing, but not quite a whistle, more a whine or a drone or—

The accompanying tremor was enough to knock him from his bed, and instinct alone kept him from crushing Pookie as he cradled his dog like a football to his chest. Dash scrambled to his feet and stumbled out of his room, muttering, "It'll be okay, Pooks. It'll be okay."

Pookie, the good dog that he was, wasn't fussing.

Dash yelled for his parents to meet him outside in case they were still in the house, but he was barely three feet from the stoop when the ground bucked beneath him and threw him to his knees. He rolled backwards onto his butt as the ground swelled up beneath him again, and he watched the asphalt roll away as if a monster were trapped beneath it, threatening to break through. Overheard, the light posts tilted and the power lines swung about, and the buildings started to lean like Jenga towers that were about to fall.

The sound in his head grew louder, deeper, and he held Pookie in his right arm while pressing his left to his left ear and pushing his right ear into his shoulder, trying to block out that sound.

That only seemed to make it worse.

Dash couldn't see anyone else outside. He didn't know where his parents were, where his neighbours were, where anyone was except Pookie. This had to be a ghost, didn't it? Phantom would show up and save them any second now.

The shaking didn't let up.

Phantom didn't show up.

Ten feet away, the ground finally opened up, splitting apart to swallow his neighbour's car whole.

The gaping maw closed again within seconds, its appetite sated for now.

Dash screamed and tried to hug Pookie closer, only to realize Pookie wasn't there anymore. He looked around, but there was no sign of Pookie anywhere, and he couldn't help but fear—

The screaming was outside of him and inside of him, not just his voice but this howling in his head, finally ripping free so that it could be heard.

Wake uuuuuuuuuuuup!

Dash jerked in bed, the cry waning as he shuddered awake. His heart galloped in his chest, seemingly strongly enough to shake the bed, but he didn't know if that was his imagination or remembered tremors from his dream. He gulped in a huge lungful of air and held it, hugging himself and trying to coax his heart into slowing down. The beat thundering in his ears eventually slowed and faded, but not until he'd repeated the process.

It had seemed so real.

Why couldn't it have been real? The first part, obviously. The good part. The bit before it had turned into a nightmare. He wanted that part to be real. As hard as he was trying to make it a reality, he wasn't making much progress.

It wasn't the first time he'd had a dream like this, and that only made it harder. The last one hadn't turned into a nightmare, exactly, or at least not the sort of nightmare that this one had, but….

Dash sat up and reached to turn on his lamp, squinting at the brightness as he grabbed the glass of water on his bedside table and chugged half of it. Pookie was curled up at the foot of the bed, snuggled into a nest of the spare blanket. Dash leaned forward to stroke him and realized poor Pookie was shaking. He hadn't been sleeping, or at least he wasn't anymore; he'd been hiding. "Hey, it's okay, Pooks," Dash cooed. "You're here with me. I've got ya."

Pookie whined and twisted his head to lick Dash's hand.

"Ghosts again, huh?" Dash started scratching Pookie behind the ears. "I bet Phantom drove them away for us."

Phantom always did. He was reliable like that. Just like Pookie was.

Pookie got to his feet and padded over to sit on Dash's lap, so Dash took the opportunity to check his phone before rubbing Pookie's belly as the dog flopped over. There was radio silence from Paulina but a message from Kwan, so if this had been a town-wide attack, then Paulina was still caught up in it.

Or still texting Star about it, anyway.

He probably wouldn't hear from her until tomorrow.

Dash clicked open the text from Kwan. Lay off F may b overshadowed. V looking in 2 it

Fenton? Overshadowed? What had given Kwan that idea? Fenton had fit just as nicely into his locker today—yesterday, Dash realized as a glance at the red numbers on the clock told him it was just past one thirty—as he had into the dumpster the day before.

And why had Kwan brought Valerie into this? She'd dated Fenton. She wasn't going to appreciate this. Dash had no doubt Kwan had told her about their prank, maybe shown her a bit of the footage if there was anything that could be seen—

Wait.

Dash went back and checked his previous messages. Kwan had only told him that the video hadn't turned out. He hadn't elaborated. Dash had brushed it off, knowing they'd have plenty of other opportunities to jump Fenton, and asked if it was the lighting so he could start thinking about how to fix things for the next time. Kwan hadn't said anything, and Dash hadn't thought anything of it at the time, but….

Dash frowned, opened a new message to Kwan, and typed, U up?

It was only about thirty seconds before Kwan responded. The entire town should b up

Well, Kwan always had his phone on vibrate, but now Dash had even less reason to feel bad about phoning his friend. Kwan picked up after the first ring. "Dude, why do you think Fenturd's overshadowed?"

"I'll email you the video," Kwan said slowly, confirming Dash's suspicion that the entire thing wasn't ruined, "but don't share it with anyone yet. Val said she thought it was genuine when she watched it at my place, but she wouldn't guarantee it. I was hoping she'd get back to me tonight, but she didn't. Or maybe this whatever-it-was went through Elmerton first."

Or Valerie had caved early because of entirely natural reasons. When Star had brought something up earlier, Paulina had said Valerie had been acting weird for a few days, but Dash had figured, since Paulina hadn't said anything else about it, they weren't supposed to worry about it. Valerie wasn't on the A-list anymore. She had to fend for herself, and she'd done a decent enough job of it as far as he could tell.

"Do you know what it was?" Dash asked, giving Kwan a chance to head to the office as he eased Pookie off his lap so he could start up his own computer. (He was lucky enough to have one in his room, something he usually made sure Kwan didn't forget, but now really didn't seem like the time to bring it up again.) "I never saw anything."

"Neither did I."

That didn't mean much. This wasn't the first time a ghost had attacked the entire town before half the people in it knew what was going on. Dash grunted as he settled into his desk chair, resting his right ankle on his left knee, and couldn't help but smile when Pookie jumped up into his lap a few seconds later. He clicked into his email and waited for the message from Kwan, idly spinning the chair back and forth with his left foot. "What am I going to be looking at?"

Dash didn't like admitting that he couldn't remember the signs that someone was overshadowed, but Kwan wouldn't declare Fenton off limits for nothing. "He didn't act differently," Dash added when Kwan didn't answer right away. "If you think I gave a ghost a wedgy, how come he didn't turn around and throw me in the dumpster?"

"Maybe he was trying to keep Fenton's cover?"

Dash snorted, causing Pookie to raise his head and look up before settling back down. "Like Fentoenail would be a prime target anyway. He doesn't have any power at school."

"Might have more to do with sabotaging his parents' stuff."

Without setting something off? Not unless Fenton or his sister was in on it, and Dash seriously doubted either of them would exactly be keen on Fenton being overshadowed. Whatever. "If he's overshadowed and the ghost is pretending he's not, then why does it matter to us? No skin off our nose if he's not willing to reveal himself." If it wasn't going to come back on him, then Dash didn't really have a problem distributing the video as planned. There was clearly something to see if Kwan had shown it to Valerie to get her opinion on something.

His email chimed, and Dash opened the message from Kwan and started to download the file as Kwan said, "Just watch it first."

Dash watched it.

He had no doubt when he got to the part Kwan had been talking about.

Considering how loudly he swore when he saw it, Kwan had no doubt, either.

"Yeah."

"That's practiced," Dash hissed. No one moved that easily, that smoothly, without a buttload of practice. "It's gotta be." If this were Paulina or Star or one of the other cheerleaders? Sure. Someone who actively hunted ghosts, like Phantom or that Red Hunter chick? Yeah. But Fenton? No. As someone who'd once been stuck as Fenton's fitness buddy, Dash was confident in that. Fenton had put in the work to scrape a pass for the Presidential Fitness Test, but he had not done so gracefully.

That had been a while back, but if some ghost had been using Fentonia's body as their own personal track suit at that point and had been trying to keep it on the down low, they wouldn't have shown any kind of skill in case people cottoned on to what was going on.

Well.

Maybe they would've shown their hand, back when they'd first started overshadowing Fenton.

There had been that one time, back in the fall of grade nine, when Fenton had acted really weird at school and had somehow climbed way above his station. If that was when this had started….

If it was, then this wasn't new.

Which also meant that it was highly unlikely that this was the first time Dash had targeted the ghost, even if said ghost's overshadowing of Fenton was an on-and-off gig, which only increased the chances of him getting caught up in some inevitable backlash.

Crud.

He'd woken up from one nightmare and found himself living another.

Crud, crud, crud.

He couldn't afford to have Fenton—or some ghost—ruin his life, but it's not like he could change his tune in an effort to appease the ghost without jeopardizing everything himself. He needed to stay at the top of the school food chain with Paulina, and suddenly cozying up to a loser like Fenton for no apparent reason would not exactly keep his reputation intact.

"We need to know if this is real," Dash said. "You said it might not be real."

"That's why I asked Valerie to look at it. It's not like I was gonna ask Foley."

Right. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to ask any of the nerds who might be able to tell them, either. It would give them too much power. Geez, no wonder Kwan had told him the video hadn't turned out. They could not show this to people. He'd told Paulina they were doing it—and had then had to tell her it was a bust—and Star might know, but they'd kept it quiet otherwise.

What the heck were they supposed to do if Valerie thought— If Fenton was actually—

"If Val's not sure…. If she's not sure, I'll talk to Fenton."

"And say what?" Dash did not squeak. That had not been a squeak.

Kwan knew better than to laugh. "I dunno yet. I'll figure something out."

"We could tell his parents. Anonymously."

"That's not going to work if this ghost has been at it long enough to fool them. You even said he's acting the same as he always has."

"We can just show them the video. It's not that hard. We don't have to convince them when we have proof."

"And you think Fenton wouldn't hear about it and deny everything? Claim Foley did edit it or something if they confronted him? Even if we clipped you out of the video, Fenton would spill the beans when they asked him how the heck he wound up there in the first place. All we'd be doing is handing them evidence to get us kicked off the team. To get you kicked off the team. The Ravens can't afford to lose you."

Crud. He had a point. But it's not like he could confront Fenton—or the ghost overshadowing him—and demand to know what was going on. Or apologize and beg for mercy. They needed to talk to someone else who wouldn't immediately out them but who might be able to help. "How about we ask Phantom?" Phantom could keep a secret, and they'd kinda bonded that one time they'd been puny. He'd help. He'd know if it was a ghost, anyway.

"We're as likely to find him as the Red Huntress, and she's bound to have some ghost tech to see if someone's being overshadowed."

"If you just want tech, why don't we buy something from the Fentons? We can send some nerd to do it so they don't know it's us." Even as Dash made the suggestion, he realized why it wouldn't work. This ghost could already fool FenonWorks technology. Having it wouldn't help them at all.

Which brought them back to the other resident ghost hunters in town, neither of which had an address they could actually go to and ask for help.

This sucked.

"We need something we know we can trust. Look, I'll see if Valerie has any ideas and keep you posted. I'll text her now. She might be up anyway. I'm sure they heard that over in Elmerton."

Yeah, quiet was one thing that cry had not been; the tremors from that thing had even invaded his dream. But if Phantom—because it must have been Phantom—hadn't yelled at him to wake up, probably repeatedly, Dash wasn't sure he would have.

He didn't want to think about that right now. He didn't want to think about what it meant if Fenton was overshadowed, either, but that might at least be relevant. "Yeah, okay. Do that."

"Try to get some sleep."

Dash snorted. Fat chance of that. From Kwan's nervous chuckle, he knew what Dash was thinking, so Dash wasn't surprised when Kwan hung up with a quick see ya tomorrow.

Even if Dash hadn't been jolted awake from that nightmare, this was little better.

Dash knew it wouldn't help, but he started the video over again. If this wasn't some elaborate prank to make it seem like theirs had backfired on them, if Fenton was actually overshadowed, then Dash needed to glean whatever he could from the ghost's actions.

Maybe, if he could figure out enough, he could stop this nightmare from getting worse—and destroying any chance of his dreams coming true.