Happy Friday! Thank you all for reading and reviewing!

Black Cat: Maybe, maybe not. :) I'm glad you thought Spectra's decision was in character.

Anne Camp: It was the GIW. They're mean. If you would like to know more, I based Danny's behavior on this floor off of what happened in ch 60 in my Phanniemay Shorts.

DarkFoxKit: The surgeon was one of the ghosts that came in with Spectra. He was only mentioned in passing, though, as part of the group.

Enjoy the chapter!

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Chapter 149: A Confusion

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Everyone was looking at the door out of the room. Danny wasn't sure why. It wasn't very interesting. There wasn't even anyone on the other side.

The door back down on the other hand...

Danny didn't like how that door felt. It had... It was a division. Something. A membrane. Danny didn't think he could articulate. He wasn't very eloquent lately. He hadn't been for a long time. How long? How long, how long... That sounded funny. Words sounded funny, if you said them enough times.

He stifled a giggle. Everyone else was being so quiet. It would be rude.

What had he been thinking about?

It couldn't have been imp-

The door behind them flew open, catching one of the Elysians standing next to it in the face. The other Elysian guarding the door raised his weapon, but was bowled over by the creatures that came flying into the room.

No, not creatures. People. People who had been hurt and changed and twisted-

(Like Danny.)

-Danny didn't like it. No. No. No. They shouldn't be like that. It was wrong. They were hurt, they were hurt and they shouldn't be. They were being controlled.

And they were going to hurt his people! Why were there so many of his people here?

(Later, later.)

Who could fix this?

There was a hospital he'd been to once. Twice. Several times. They were good at this kind of thing. He couldn't recall what it was named, but that didn't matter.

So, he sent the other people there.

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The receptionist at the Duat Hospital sighed as several mutilated ghosts fell through a portal in the middle of the lobby. She picked up her phone. It was going to be a busy day in the surgery department.

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He doubled over. Ow, ow, ow. His core hurt. Why did his core hurt?

"My minions!" shouted an aggrieved voice. "What did you do? Where did they go?" This was followed by the sound of something heavy hitting someone's face, and then a body hitting the floor.

"Danny?" That was Jazz. Jazz, Jazz, Jazz. How had she gotten here? Where was Frostbite? He'd come into the Tower with Frostbite. He was glad Jazz was here.

Oh no. His nose was leaking. He hated that. It was so gross.

"Is he bleeding ectoplasm?"

Who was that? It was one of his old classmates. It had been such a long time. Hannah. It was Hannah, who was blonde and short, and far too curious.

"Yes," said Danny. "Jazz, my insides hurt."

Jazz's frown was thin and flat. "Danny, did you open those portals?"

"What?" said Valerie. "He can do that now?"

"Mhm," said Danny. Didn't she know he could do that? She should know. Danny had thought she knew. Maybe he had been wrong. He had a hard time remembering things, sometimes.

(That's what happened when people put needles in your brain and cut you open.)

He blinked hard. His skin stuck strangely to the eye patch. Oh, no, was his bad eye leaking, too? He hated that. He would have to take his eye patch off to make sure his eye didn't get all crusty and hurt, and people acted weird when he took off his eye patch.

But it had to come off, anyway. He peeled it back from his skin, and it made an awful sticky noise. Ectoplasm dripped on the floor. He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see that.

"Oh my gosh," said Paulina. "His eye."

Danny dabbed at his eye with his sleeve. Gross, gross, gross. He kept doing this. Frostbite said if he kept straining his eye, it would never heal.

"Danny," said Jazz, getting his attention. "Your core is injured."

"Well, I mean, I mean, um, yeah. I sort of- I got that I- um. Why? I don't think- I don't remember- I don't remember doing anything to it, um, recently." Danny frowned. Had he said that right?

"It happened before you got to the Tower," said the doctor woman. Her name had something to do with plums? "Here, let me help you with your eye."

Danny licked his lips, and turned slightly towards her. "Okay," he said. He was holding onto Jazz's hand.

"It was very good," said Jazz, "that you helped us. That you protected us. But you can't do that again, you'll hurt yourself."

"What do you mean he can't do that again?" asked Elliot. "If he can make portals, he can take us home!"

Sam scoffed. "Be serious. Are you going to take the risk that those portals will drop you in whatever universe he comes from?"

"Actually-" started the doctor woman. Prunella! That was her name.

Sam nudged her with her foot.

"Even if that wasn't a problem, you see what those portals did to him," continued Sam. "So lay off."

"Tucker," said Danny.

"Yeah, what's up, man?"

"Why do you have a bow?"

"To shoot things with."

"Oh. Okay, that's cool." Danny licked some of the ectoplasm off his lips. It was sticky, sticky, sticky. It felt like he had smeared the ectoplasm all over his face. He probably had.

The pain in his chest was subsiding. He could probably stand, but Prunella was touching his eye, and that probably wasn't a good idea. Hopefully, he would remember that.

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Byron stood outside the open door frame of Alice's house and clapped. Alice brushed the beaded curtain back.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Want to go exploring?" Byron asked. Things had been surprisingly quiet (that is to say, boring) ever since the people from Amity Park left. The absence of many of the adults and ghosts probably added to the sense of stillness that laid over Harmony.

"Uh," said Alice, looking back over her shoulder. "Sure. Why not? Who else is going?"

Byron shrugged, and leaned against the side of the house. "I haven't asked anyone else yet, but I was thinking Sonia, Teddy, Ada, Bobby, Ben, Tandi, she kind of got left out, last time. Maybe Ryan."

"Isn't Sonia's place closer to yours than mine?" asked Alice. The implied question was clear. Why did Byron come here first?

"She's over at Teddy's."

"Okay. Yeah. Let me just grab a thing, first." She disappeared behind the curtain.

"A thing?"

"Yeah," Alice called back. "A thing! A- Um. A water bottle. That thing."

"Great vocabulary there."

"Pot. Kettle. Found it!"

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It turned out that Sonia and Teddy were busy working one of the gardens, Bobby was tied up doing something for his parents, Tandi was, well, they couldn't find Tandi, and Ryan was stuck doing make-up schoolwork. She liked disappearing, sometimes.

So, it was Alice, Byron, Ben, and Ada who left to explore.

"We are going to the Deeps, right?" asked Ben, as they angled towards the town hall.

"That was my plan," said Byron, "are you alright with that?"

"Oh, yes. I've wanted another look down there for weeks."

"Sounds like a fun plan."

The four Harmonians jumped at the new and unexpected voice. A blue-eyed shadow gave them a jaunty wave.

"Mirror?" asked Byron.

"Or Mirage?" asked Alice.

The shadow smiled broadly, eyes closed, head tilted. Byron briefly wondered how he could see where he was going.

"You got me~" sang the shadow. He opened his eyes. "Hey, want to play a game?"

The four children exchanged glances.

"Mirage, then," said Alice. "What kind of game?"

"Oh, gosh, there are so many-" The shadow flinched away, blinking hard.

"Is something wrong?" asked Byron.

The shadow made an odd face. "No, no, nothing." He ran a hand through his hair. "Just, your landlords aren't in the most comfortable of places, currently. Nothing we can do about it, so why not have some fun? Oh! I know! A scavenger hunt! I'll write up some lists, and meet you downstairs!" The shadow melted away.

"That was a bit odd," observed Ben.

"Oh, you think?"

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Ellie crossed her arms and stared down at her brother. This was- she didn't like this. She didn't like seeing Danny hurt like this, fragile like this, confused like this. He was the one that always saved her. He had rescued her from her latest screw-up (aka being arrested by Walker and locked in his prison), even if he'd shown up way, way late.

That was why they were here. Hiding from Walker. At least, that's why Ellie thought they were here. Judging by the presence of Danny's classmates, teacher, and Vlad, however, that wasn't the case. When they'd come in the Tower, it was just Danny and Ellie.

Danny looked up at Ellie. His left eye was liquid green and burned bright, like a star trapped at the bottom of a lake. It dripped down his cheek. Prunella wiped the ectoplasm away, and covered the eye with a thick, blue-tinted cream. Danny tensed and hissed.

"It's okay," soothed Prunella. "Sorry, I should have warned you."

"It's okay," Danny said. He looked back up at Ellie, and smiled, somewhat absently. "You're wearing stripes," he observed.

"Yeah," said Ellie. She hadn't yet had a chance to change out of her prison uniform.

"Was Walker being mean again?" he asked, voice light but sharp. There was a predatory glint in his eye. "I told him not to."

"I guess, yeah," said Ellie, curious as to where this was going, but not sure she wanted to know.

"I'll have to talk to him," Danny said, cheerfully. "A nice long talk." He paused. "You'll have to remind me. Or, um, Jazz. Jazz can remind me. Jazz will you remind me?"

"Sure," said Jazz. "How does your eye feel?"

"Gross."

"Your core?"

"Needles," said Danny, sticking out his tongue.

"Stay still, please." She sighed. "There isn't much I can do about your core at this juncture."

"I know," said Danny.

Prunella put a cloth bandage over the cream. It stuck in place. She fastened it further with patches of tape. "How does that feel?"

"Okay," said Danny. "Where are you getting all this stuff from?"

"Pockets," said Prunella.

"You have deep pockets."

"I have dimensional pockets."

Danny giggled. "They're bigger on the inside."

"Yes," said Prunella.

Ellie saw Tucker and Jazz suppressing smiles. She looked to the other side to see Sam with the same expression.

"Hey," said Danny. "Who died?" He blinked. "Was it me again? You guys can laugh, you know."

"Again?" whispered one of Danny's classmates.

"This isn't a funeral," Danny continued. "Is it? It's not a funeral, right?"

"Not as far as I know," said Jazz.

"Yep, no one's died recently," said Ellie.

"Oh. Good."