Chapter 3: Twilight Zone
Sunlight filtered through Danny's eyelids, dragging him back into wakefulness. He groaned and rolled over, stubbornly trying to go back to sleep. He probably would have succeeded if he hadn't suddenly heard someone else snore from the other side of his room.
Groggily, he lifted his head to see Dan asleep on a cot. With a huff, he flopped back down in bed. Dan and Vlad must have arrived yesterday. He paused in knuckling the sleep out of his eyes. Wait, yesterday... Did that really happen?
He still felt the cold spot in his chest when he thought about it. He laid a hand over his heart. Yep, that strange kind of revving was still there too. He swallowed. Welp, he really didn't know what to think about that.
So he decided not to think about it at all.
Danny threw his legs over the side of his bed and stood. He tried to circumnavigate Dan's cot to get to his dresser, but with his sleep hazed mind, he miscalculated a step and firmly banged his foot against one of the metal legs of the cot.
Dan's head instantly shot up, and he squinted angrily at Danny who was hopping on one foot like an idiot.
"Fucking watch it," he growled.
"It's not like I did it on purpose," Danny bit out.
Rubbing a hand over his face Dan asked, "What time is it?"
Danny set his foot back down and hobbled over to his dresser. "The clock's right there," he said nodding to the alarm clock on his nightstand. He hadn't looked, so he didn't actually know what time it was either.
Whatever time Dan read on the clock, obviously displeased him. With a drawn out groan, he slumped back down on the cot, half spilling into the floor. His long hair fell over the edge of the cot and pooled onto the ground. That was probably pretty unsanitary, seeing as Danny hadn't vacuumed his floor in moths. He wasn't telling that to Dan though. Let him get a dust bunny or a stray toenail clipping in his hair.
Danny pulled on a fairly clean pair of pants and a shirt and started to make his way down to the kitchen to scrounge up some breakfast.
Just as he passed Danielle's room he heard a loud thud that sounded distinctly like someone hitting the floor. He paused in front of her door.
They were both terrible klutzes so something like that didn't raise immediate alarm. Still he decided to check on her. Tapping a knuckle lightly against the door, he said, "Hey, Danielle have you fallen and you can't get up?"
There was a muttered curse then she said "screw you" a bit louder.
Danny turned the knob and opened the door peaking his head in with a small smirk on his face. He was about to say something on the lines of "should we get you a life alert?" but stopped when he saw how shaky and pale she was.
...
Danielle woke up with pain pulsing in every muscle. It was a deep throb like the kind of ache you get in your muscles during a terrible case of the flu. She groaned and rolled over onto her back. That was when she noticed the tremble in her limbs. It was like being electrified—or well no it wasn't really like that at all actually, seeing as she knew exactly what that was like due to her near electrocution yesterday. Oh yeah, that's right, that actually happened, she reminded herself.
She sighed closing her eyes. Of course it was just her luck to nearly be crisp-ified and then almost immediately come down with some sort of bug. She was pretty sure it was the flu or something—or she hoped at least. It felt like the flu. She even felt cold and hot at the same time, which she only ever felt when she had a fever.
She felt cold when she had a fever, ironic right? Was that even a thing that other people experienced? She didn't really know. She didn't get sick very often, anyway.
Oh well, it was nothing a little ibuprofen and chocolate orange juice couldn't fix. That wonderful concoction could fix just about anything. She thanked the muses for inspiring her to mix chocolate syrup in OJ.
Of course she probably had to tell someone she was getting sick so everybody could avoid her like the plague, but she would deal with that after she got her sweet, sweet chocolate OJ.
She pushed her covers off and twisted to sit on the edge of her bed. She sat there for a moment, blinking the remainder of last night's sleep out of her eyes, then tried to stand. She let out a startled yelp when she felt herself falling, almost like her feet were going straight through the floor. But instead of falling all the way through to the kitchen below, Danielle pitched forward, and caught herself just in time to prevent a bruised chin.
She glanced down at their feet and saw that they looked perfectly solid, though she could have sworn something was going on with the physics today.
Danielle started to pull herself up when she heard a soft knock on the door. "Hey, Danielle have you fallen and you can't get up?" Danny said, amusement in his voice. She could clearly imagine him smirking on the other side of the door, the jerk.
She let out a string of muttered curses as she pushed herself off the floor. As she righted herself and sat back on the edge of the bed, she said louder so he could clearly hear through the door, "Screw you."
She started working on pulling her hair out of her face with stubborn jittery hands when Danny poked his head into her room. He was smirking like an idiot just like she had guessed.
Though, as soon as he caught sight of her, the smile instantly dropped from his face. He quickly shuffled inside and closed the door behind him.
"Jesus, you look horrible," he said and he went to sit beside her on the bed. "Did you faint or something?"
"I just tripped, I think," she answered.
He put a hand over her forehead, which Danielle almost immediately pushed away.
"You've definitely got a fever."
"Yeah, I could have told you that," she said, as another shiver racked her body.
"And this is all just totally unrelated to what happened yesterday, right?" he asked sarcastically.
Danielle looked down. "I don't know."
Without warning, Danny grabbed her arm—the one that had a Lichtenberg figure (she had looked that word up last night) going all the way up to her shoulder now—and pulled up the sleeve of her night shirt.
"Hey—" she cut off whatever protests she was about to say when she saw what had happened to her arm. Danny and Danielle both paused, making near identical faces of horror.
Small blisters filled with lime green puss, lined the raw agitated marks. Danielle wasn't even sure puss could be that color. It definitely shouldn't, in any case
"Okay...maybe we should tell Mom and Dad after all," Danny said with a slight quiver in his voice.
She pulled her arm out of his hold and shoved her sleeve back over her arm. "No," she resolutely uttered before crawling back under her covers.
"Did you just see what I saw?!" Danny hissed.
"It looks bad but it doesn't really even hurt. It just itches a little. I didn't even know that was there until you pulled up my sleeve," she said. "I-I don't want to get in trouble, Danny."
Really she wasn't that scared of getting in trouble herself, but she was worried for Dan. The hammer would come down the hardest on him, and she knew that Vlad could be cruel. Danny really had no clue, since Dan only ever confided in her and perhaps Jazz, and that was rare in and of itself.
"Whatever Mom and Dad do, it can't be that bad," he said quietly.
"But they might take me to the hospital!"
Danny threw his head back and groaned. "You gotta be kidding me! You're as bad as Tucker."
"I know, but...I'm okay for now, I think. Please don't tell Mom and Dad, okay?" she said, giving him the puppy dog eyes for good measure.
Danny sighed. "Alright, fine, I'll keep quiet, but if this gets any worse, I'm telling. Also people are going to notice you're sick just by one look of you. How do you feel? Do you feel sick?
Danielle shrugged. "Eh, not good, but not quite as bad as the time I had the flu. I can function if I have to."
"Alright, but you should stay put, you know, to rest—and also so Jazz won't go all mother hen on you."
"Ah, yes, Jazz our loving, neurotic mother—the only mother we have."
Danny snorted. "Yeah, sounds about right. She's in the kitchen right now, so do you need anything?"
Danielle shrugged. "I'm not sure I want any food, but I could use a solid dose of ibuprofen and some chocolate orange juice."
Danny grimaced. She smiled at his disgust. The fool. He'll never understand her concoction's true power.
"You need to eat something first before you take it," he said.
Danielle sighed. Right, she didn't want to burn a hole in her stomach. "Fine, just bring me my concoction then. It's magic alone is enough to heal me."
...
Danny regretted the day that Danielle had found the "miracle" of chocolate orange juice when she was goofing around in the kitchen one time. He grimaced at the thought of the "concoction" as she sometimes called it that his twin liked for some strange reason, but agreed to get it for her.
Danny went to the kitchen to get her drink. Unfortunately his plans hit a bump when he walked into the kitchen to see Vlad instead of Jazz standing over the stove making pancakes.
"Daniel, you're up a bit early," the billionaire said.
"Er...I guess I am," Danny stuttered, glancing at the clock in the kitchen to see it was only eight thirty.
"Anyway, do you want some breakfast?" Vlad asked.
"Sure..."
Vlad gestured to the table, indicating Danny to sit. Despite desperately not wanting to do so, Danny awkwardly complied.
"You know, it's strange how your parents' ghost portal spontaneously started working, don't you think?" Vlad said conversationally.
"Um, I guess..." Danny said, eyes darting as if looking for an escape. Unfortunately this wasn't something someone could just run from, like a bully wanting to give him a swirly at school. There were sociological rules to a situation like this, and Danny couldn't for the life of him, think of a good excuse to get out of the awkward encounter.
"Yes, I am right, aren't I?" Vlad said. "It's almost like someone fiddled with it after your parents left the lab." He half turned to give Danny a pointed look. There was something very predatory in the billionaire's gaze.
"You know, I'm just going to get breakfast later. I actually told Danielle I would get her some juice, so I'm just going to do that now," Danny said a little too quickly and stood from the table.
He went to the cabinet farthest from Vlad and pulled out a mug, almost dropping it with his nerves.
"Are you sure?" Vlad asked innocently. Danny glanced his way and saw that the billionaire was watching him like a hawk.
"Uh, yeah, I'm not really that hungry anyway," Danny said, trying to avoid Vlad's stare by pretending he was absorbed in his task of pouring orange juice.
Danny put away the carton, and left the kitchen as fast as he could. He made his way back up to his sister's room and handed her the glass of juice with a huff.
"What took you so long?" she asked taking the cup. "And you didn't even put any chocolate syrup in it!"
"Vlad was in the kitchen. No way am I going to put chocolate syrup in orange juice of all things in front of him. I feel embarrassed to make it just when I'm alone," Danny said crossing his arms.
"Coward," Danielle muttered as she took a sip of her woefully plain orange juice.
"Show a little sympathy. I had to talk to Vlad, and what's worse, I think he's on to us. He was talking to me, mentioning how 'strange it was' that the portal had just started up on its own."
Danielle cursed under her breath. "You think he'll tell mom and dad?"
Danny shook his head. "I don't think so. There was just something very...sneaky about the way he was talking about it that almost worries me more."
Danielle groaned and flopped back into her bed. "Great another thing to deal with!"
"I know," Danny grumbled. "But he'll be gone in another day and so will Dan. Everything can kind of get back to normal after that."
"Yeah, I guess," Danielle said, not sounding very convinced.
To distract her, Danny gave her a light kiss on her forehead. He quickly left her room, chuckling all the way out and dodging a few of her stuffed animals.
He went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Usually he would wait until after breakfast to brush his teeth (it always felt like he was dirtying them right back up if he brushed his teeth and then ate), but he would have to wait until Vlad left the kitchen to get some food. Seeing as there was no telling how long that would take, Danny didn't want to wait any longer to get rid of his morning breath.
He squirted an unnecessarily large amount of toothpaste on his toothbrush and began lathering his teeth as he blandly stared at his reflection in the mirror. He finished and spat out the foam in the sink. He rinsed his mouth out and washed off his brush, but as he reached over to turn the water off a problem arose. As his fingers connected with the knob, his hand seemed to go numb. He glanced over at his hand and froze.
It just wasn't there. All the way up to the elbow, it was just gone.
Things started moving again much too fast. Danny back pedaled too far and ended up in the tub, pulling down the shower curtain with him. When he finally untangled himself from the dolphin patterned plastic sheet, he brought his hand—or would have if it wasn't still missing—in front of his face. He felt like he had suddenly entered the twilight zone.
"Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ! What the—" he cut himself off and immediately began hyperventilating. It was a while before he got his breathing under control again.
Danny closed his eyes, unable to look at his stump any longer. "Please, please just give me my hand back," he said to no one in particular.
He cautiously opened his eyes when he felt a tingling like the blood was flowing back into his hand after it had fallen asleep. His hand had magically reappeared and looked completely unchanged like nothing happened at all.
He got up, flicked off the still running water faucet, and nearly sprinted out of the bathroom.
He took the stairs two at a time, almost tripping on the last step. He recovered quickly, desperate to get out of his house into the regular world where things made more sense. He wasn't exactly sure where he was going, but he just knew that he needed to get out now.
He nearly screamed when Vlad ambushed him.
"Daniel, are you all right?" the billionaire asked looking worried. Danny couldn't tell if it was faked or not.
"I-I'm fine. I just saw a—um—a huge s-spider in the bathtub. It's dead now, s-so you don't have to worry about that," Danny stammered, inching toward the door.
The basement door suddenly swung open, making Danny almost jump a foot in the air. "Danny, you're already awake!" his father boisterously said.
"Have you been down there all night?" Danny asked, slightly horrified.
"Yep! I just couldn't get to sleep last night with everything that happened!" Jack said. "Anyway, look at these plans I drew up! I call it the Ghost Shredder!" He held up the blueprints in front of his son's terrified face. "It can suck a ghost in from twenty feet away and shred it into confetti!"
Danny felt sick to his stomach. "I gotta go," he blurted out and bolted for the door, not even bothering to grab his coat off the rack.