Chapter 6: Fire It Up
Danielle was pulled out of sleep by shivers racking her frame and her stomach rebelling against her. She let out a groan. Not this again. She thought she was finally getting over whatever this was. Two days after Christmas she had hit her lowest point, but she quickly got better. Just yesterday, three days after Christmas, she had felt almost normal again.
She tried to ignore the seething of her stomach, and managed to drift into a shallow doze.
It could have been an hour or only a few minutes later, but Danielle jolted awake again by a scream. It took her a good moment to realize the scream she was sure had woken her was just the jarring opening of the song literally titled Scream from the band Avenged Sevenfold, which she had set as her ringtone so she could get in a good yuck whenever someone called her. In hindsight, she should have just set it to something like the badger song.
She almost let it go to voicemail, but it lasted a few seconds too long for her to stand. She let out a stream of muttered curses, and accidentally knocked a few of her stuffed animals off her bed as she reached for it. Bringing it up to her face, she squinted at its brightness, only just making out what the display said. She noticed that it was both two o'clock in the morning and that it was Dan calling her. "What the hell, Dan?" she grumbled as she clicked the talk button and put the phone up to her ear. "I was asleep, you asshole. What do you want at two in the freaking morning?"
"It's only eleven…oh wait…fuck that's right. Time zones," Dan said slurring his words just slightly.
Danielle narrowed her eyes. "Are you drunk?"
There was a small pause on the other end. "Maybe…" Dan finally answered.
Danielle let out a heavy sigh and let her head flop back down onto her pillow, when she was suddenly slammed by a wave of dizziness. "Why can't you drunk call your friends or something?" she said, her voice being slightly muffled by the pillow.
"I think Karen would probably kill me if I did that," he mumbled. Danielle frowned, not knowing who this 'Karen' was. Did he have a girlfriend that she didn't know about? Then again did she really care? The answer was probably no, especially at this time of the morning when she felt this bad.
"Look, this is important," he slurred. There was a pause, then a string of muttered curses. "I-I should have told you what really happened. Me and Danny, we didn't come out of the portal right. Something happened to us."
Danielle frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about... We were different. His faded away quickly and neither of you saw. And I eventually managed to change back to normal, but then a couple days ago..."
Danielle sighed and closed her eyes as her stomach did somersaults. "Dan, you're not making any sense," she said weakly. Granted she was only listening with half attention. Her other half was concentrating on not barfing.
"I know, I know, I should have just told you, I'm sorry," he said, almost sounding tearful.
Her stomach did a massive flip and she felt bile in the back of her throat. "Dan, please stop drinking. I'll call you back tomorrow when you're not drunk," she said quickly before she hung up on him.
She could feel bad about that later. For now, she had to find some places to spew her guts. Danielle got up on shaky legs and stumbled to the bathroom. It was her room then Danny's room then the bathroom. If it had been any farther away she might not have gotten to it in time.
As the bathroom door closed behind her, she dove for the toilet. The lid flew up with a sharp clack, and she shoved her face into the bowl.
She wretched until her throat was sore. What was left of dinner now sat, disgustingly, in the toilet. Danielle closed the lid and flushed it. As it went down, she laid her head on the lid and closed her eyes, not caring how many germs there were.
A tentative knock on the bathroom door made her raise her head. "Hey, Ellie is that you?" a groggy sounding Danny said through the door.
Of course it would be Danny. Jazz always slept with her earbuds in, listening to Mozart or something, and Mom wore earplugs to bed to block out their dad's snoring. And their dad, well, he could sleep through a freaking tornado.
After a pause, which seemed to stretch on for far too long, she answered quietly, "Yeah."
She pulled herself up and made it to the door, opening it. Danny grimaced at the sight of her. She must look awful. Danielle leaned heavy on the doorframe, too dizzy to keep from swaying a bit.
"Are you okay?" Danny asked.
"Not really," she said, her voice a bit hoarse.
"Did you just throw up?"
She nodded slowly.
"Alright, come on," he said, reaching for her arm to lead her back to her room. "I'll get you a bowl from the kitchen or something in case it happens again."
Before he could take her arm, her stomach lurched again, as if to say 'haha you thought I was done with you'. She pulled away from him and retreated back into the bathroom.
Danny closed the door behind him and went over her to hold her hair back. She thought she heard him whisper, "Jesus, Danielle," at some point but, she couldn't be sure.
The sickness finally subsided again and she got a chance to actually see what she was throwing up. It almost made her want to puke again.
Vomit is usually disgusting, but is rarely horrifying. The atomic green mess in the toilet that she puked up this time around was horrifying. She quickly pulled away, threw down the lid, and flushed it down. She didn't want to look at it a second longer.
Danny pulled her to her feet. "Shit, your burning up," he mumbled beside her.
"I'm okay now, I think," she said, suddenly feeling a little more strength in her limbs. Maybe it was her body's last 'hurrah' before it completely gave up, but she liked to stay optimistic.
"No, you're not," Danny said plainly.
She sighed and let herself be led back to her bedroom.
Danny left her, coming back a moment later with a glass of water, a large bowl if she got sick again, a cold rag, and the thermometer. Danielle wiped her mouth off, and set the rag aside then took a sip of water to wash out the disgusting taste of bile and something like fermented lemons.
Danny pushed the thermometer at her.
"Really? I'm pretty sure we both know I have a fever," she said.
Danny rolled his eyes. "It could be serious. You might need to go to the hospital if it's too high."
She gave him an uncertain look. "You really think that's a good idea?"
He shrugged and made a helpless gesture.
"I was fine last time," she pointed out.
"Yeah but you also didn't throw up green goo. And like, this isn't last time. I'm serious, Danielle, you're freaking burning up."
She sighed. "Alright," she said, and put the thermometer under her tongue.
After a minute of uneasy silence and nervously tapping fingers, the thermometer beeped. Danny took out the small device before his twin could. His features twisted in confusion as soon as he read the small display.
"What? What is it?" Danielle said, snatching the thermometer from her brother. The display simply read ERROR.
"You must have done it wrong. Do it again," Danny stuttered.
Danielle got a sinking feeling that taking another reading wouldn't change anything, but stuck it under her tongue again anyway. A minute later the thermometer beeped again and again the display said the same thing.
"It could be broken," Danielle offered, even though she knew it wasn't.
The only logical conclusion was that her fever was so high that the thermometer couldn't even register it. Danny gave her a look, telling her he was thinking the same thing.
There was a beat of silence, then Danny asked: "How high do you think medical thermometers go before they say something like that?"
Danielle shrugged. "About 108 degrees. That's only as high as it has to go. Any higher than that, and you're definitely dead."
Danny's eyes widened and the shaky smile he got when he was freaking out made an appearance. "You know, this brings a whole knew meaning to your hot headedness, Danielle," he stammered.
She made a face. "I am not hot headed. I'm passionate, and I'm more rational than you sometimes."
He nodded. "You know what, that's fair."
There was another beat then Danny suddenly shot up from her bed. "I'll be back," he said before leaving her room.
"Wha…" Danielle began to ask, but he was already gone.
She leaned her head back against her head board and groaned.
As she waited for him to come back from doing whatever it was he was doing, Danielle turned on her TV. By the time Danny came back, she had only just found something to watch through all the paid programming clogging the channels at that time in the morning.
He held a sleeve of saltine crackers in one hand and something else that looked like a laser gun in the other.
"Here," he said, handing her the crackers, "you should probably try to get something on your stomach."
She took them, still eyeing the thing in his other hand. "What is that?" she asked.
"This?" He raised it, a small smirk on his face. "It's an infrared thermometer. It even has a little laser pointer thingy," he said switching it on.
Danielle gave him a unimpressed look. "Dude, our parents have made actual laser guns. Where did you get that thing anyway?" she said as she plucked a cracked from its sleeve and stuffed it in her mouth.
"The lab. Where else?"
"And why did you get it?" she said around cracker mush.
"Because I wanted to check your temperature. Sometimes you just have to know. That and I get to measure the temperatures of random things, like your wall, which is 75.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Pretty cool, right?"
"You're such a dork—"
It was then that Danny's hand decided to disappear again, and the thermometer slipped right through the air where his hand should have been. Danny tried to compensate for this by catching it with his other hand, but he just ended up fumbling it and looking like a dork when it hit the ground with a loud clatter.
Danielle slapped her hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing.
Danny looked at her with a scowl, his cheeks turning bright red. "It's not funny! Disappearing body parts are no laughing matter, Danielle!" he hissed.
"Nope, you're right, you're totally right. It's not funny at all," Danielle said, clearly still laughing at her brother's misfortune.
"Alright, let me just take your temperature already," Danny grumbled as he moved closer to his twin sister.
He pointed the thing at her, the laser hitting her right on the forehead. He smirked. "Bam you're dead."
Danielle gave him a halfhearted glare. "You're having way too much fun with that thing."
"Well, you know levity and all tha…." Danny trailed off as he looked at the display. His eyes becoming wide again. "Welp…" he squeaked.
"What does it say?" she asked.
"116 degrees."
"You're shitting me," Danielle said. She reached out for the thing. He turned the thermometer around so she could see what it said. "You're not shitting me." Impossibly, the thermometer actually read 116.4 degrees. "I honestly don't know why I'm surprised at this point."
"No kidding," Danny breathed as he sat down beside her.
"What do you think this means? I should be really super dead, but I'm not. I feel fine for the most part," Danielle said as she ate another cracker.
"I have no freaking clue," he said with a sigh. He took a cracker from the sleeve, probably just needing something to do rather than actually wanting it. "Pretty much for the last few days, no one has had any idea what was going on. Why should that be any different now?"
"Yeah, but now let's take your temperature," she said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"You've felt kinda cold ever since the accident, and I don't think it's just because I'm really hot," she explained.
"Alright," he said as he handed her the thermometer. "Put me out of my mystery."
She leveled the thermometer at him and and the display read 96.7. She read it out loud to him.
"Huh, definitely not right, but not quite as not-right as you," he said.
Danielle smirked. "Yeah, you'd be able to pass for alive. Whereas I'm a smoking hot corpse."
She reached for the glass of water Danny had set on the nightstand. She had it halfway to her when her hand and entire forearm suddenly blinked out of existence. The glass fell to the floor splashing water on the side of the bed and all over the carpet, but thankfully it didn't break.
"Uh… D-Danny?" she whimpered.
"It's okay. Jus-just stay cool," he said, probably trying to calm himself as well. "You just need to pretend that it's there again and it'll reappear, I promise."
It took longer than Danielle thought it would, but finally, her arm reappeared with the tingling of pins and needles.
Danny let out a sigh now that the crisis was averted. "I'll go get a towel to dry it up." Danny returned a moment later and stopped it up the best he could.
...
Danny looked down at his sister curled up next to him. She had dozed off about half an hour ago and had stopped shivering a while ago. He lightly placed his hand over her forehead. It was still warm, but it wasn't like before.
He glanced at the window, where the gray early dawn light was filtering through her curtains. He turned off her TV and moved to get out of her bed but paused when she let out a groan.
"Danny?" she mumbled sleepily.
"Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," he whispered.
"S'okay," she mumbled. "What time is it?"
He glanced at her alarm clock. "Six."
She nodded against her pillow. "Good morning, now get some sleep," she said and turned over in her bed.
He smirked. "Alright, barf bag."
She muttered something like 'jerk' as he quietly left her room.