Watch out for that first step... it's a doozy.
The Nightmare
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria
Chapter 5 – Into the Dream
He pelted through the dark lab, moving too fast for someone who could no longer walk through objects. He yelped when his feet got caught in the winding tubes of some invention he didn't remember being on the ground, and actually screamed when his whole body slammed into a table he hadn't realized was there until it was too late. Finally, he felt the stairs under his feet and he raced up, his hands and feet clawing for purchase on the dark, hard stairs. He was going too fast, he rammed his head into the door before he realized he was at the top.
The door flew open. Sunlight spilled down upon him as the sun started to rise into the sky. He slammed the door shut and stared about the kitchen, his breath ragged and his eyes wide. He let out a shaky breath and took a slow step away from the door. His arm and leg hurt from when he barreled into the table down there and he would have a king-size bruise on his side later. However, a vague, happy smile crossed his face as he stared at the sun.
"Maddie?" he called softly. "Maddie Fenton?" He wandered out of the kitchen into the deserted living room. Nobody. He crept up the stairs, avoiding the third stair that always squeaked, and poked his head into her room. "Mom?" he whispered when he found the room to be empty. The bed was made, the floor was clean, and there was no sign that anything bad had been happen.
He caught sight of himself in her mirror. Still a ghost. He slipped out of her room and toured the house, including the ops center, sticking his head into every nook and cranny. There was nobody in the house. Where had she gone? Out looking for him? But why would she have taken the time to clean her house?
Stopping in the living room, he glanced around. Everything was too normal. The couch was in the right place, the TV was dust-free, and the various ecto-weapons were scattered about, half taken apart. Even the book shelf was undisturbed. Including… he paused, then drifted over to the shelves in a trance. Including the picture of himself and his mother. The same picture she had been holding downstairs.
He picked it up and stared at the happy faces in the photograph. Why would she have just left it? She had seemed to care about it so much last night. Now, it was just left sitting on the shelf. It even had a small layer of dust on it. Nothing else had dust. That was weird.
"I'm sick of this," he hissed. He glared around, as if the empty silence would answer his questions. "What is going on?" In the silence, he screamed. "What is going on?"
It made no sense. None of this made sense. He needed some answers, and they weren't going to come from this room. In the kitchen, everything looked just as normal. He finally stopped searching and just sat down at the kitchen table, setting the picture of him and his mother on top of the newspaper in front of him, and dropped his head onto his arms. He stared at the newspaper blankly for a long while before it began to sink in. "February?" he whispered. He picked up the picture and the paper and ran his fingers over the date, unbelieving. "Why would we have a February newspaper? It's October."
He had just set down the paper when the door clicked and creaked open. He whipped around. Maddie walked in, carrying a bag of groceries and laughing. When she spotted him, her laugher cut off.
"Ghost." There was no pain and tears in her voice anymore. It was pure anger. She reached for the nearest ecto-weapon. It was pointed at him. He was still reeling. Trying to figure out what was going on. She spotted the picture that he was still holding, clutched in his fingers. "Stay away from my family!" she yelled as her finger found the trigger. There would be no dodging this blast. He couldn't go invisible or intangible. His life was over.
"Wait. Mom, NO!"
To be continued...
:-) Man, I love cliff hangers.
Disclaimer: Never have and never will own Danny Phantom. Please continue to enjoy the story.
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