Danny's worst nightmare.
Chapter 11: But They Might Not Stay Dead
Danny woke up feeling like he went a couple of rounds with Pariah Dark without the Ecto-Skeleton. His stomach burned. His chest ached. Despite holding himself perfectly still, his fingers kept twitching, too, little jolts running down his arms. Every twitch was accompanied by a throb in his heart.
"I am never getting crushed by a building again," Danny said. The next time some dumb elephant ghost went on a rampage, Amity Park was on its own. Not really, though. Danny wasn't sure if he could live with the guilt if someone got hurt because of him. If only he were allowed to be so petty. It wasn't the first time Danny went to bed feeling more bruise than boy. He expected a lot of soreness but figured his shoulder would hurt the worst. That pain was a footnote compared to whatever the hell was going on with his torso. What were the chances that he could stay at home today and fake sick? He wouldn't even be faking. It definitely felt like he was dying.
Out of habit, Danny reached for his phone on his bedside table. He probed the dusty surface for a few seconds before he remembered. His phone was still at school.
"They're going to kill me." Danny groaned. Sam was going to string him up for leaving them hanging last night. Tucker wouldn't do anything quite so physical, but he would probably hack into Danny's latest Doomed save and delete the file as recompense. The horror. He could only hope that the collapse hadn't been broadcasted on the news. Slim chances.
A knock came at his door.
"Danny?" his mother's voice called.
Danny almost didn't answer. The conversation he overheard last night played over and over in his head. Those words cut him deeper than any of his physical wounds at that moment and he didn't want to talk to his parents. And yet, that same conversation made him desperate to be good. He needed to show them that he wasn't the disappointment they thought he was. He grabbed his covers and pulled them up over his head before responding. "I'm awake."
His bedroom door creaked.
Danny held his breath, waiting for his mom to say something. Anything. The silence dragged on. He didn't know how much time had passed, but it felt like ages. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him and he pulled his covers down to peek out. His mom stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, frowning at him. Their eyes met and Danny froze. Did she see something? His foot was cold. It was sticking out of the bottom of the blanket. Was there a bruise? A cut? He didn't bother keeping track of every wound he got yesterday, but the doctor spent a solid half-hour fixing up minor injuries. He trembled beneath his covers, waiting for her to call him out.
"Your father and I are going out of town today. Don't be late for school." His mom spoke flatly then turned and walked away, leaving his bedroom door open. Somehow, that was so much worse.
Danny was late for school. Really late. And he couldn't even blame a ghost unless the ghost was him. After his mom left, he went back to sleep, hoping another half-hour of shuteye would help him feel better. It was not half an hour. It did not make him feel better. He woke up just after the start of first period. He had to drag himself out of bed. Just the thought of wiggling his way into a pair of jeans made his wounds ache, so he had settled on the closest and loosest clothing he could find on his floor. His sweatpants and one of his dad's old sweaters.
Getting ready took him ten minutes. The walk to school would take even longer. Typically, it was only a five-minute walk if nothing interrupted him, but considering the trek home last night, he wasn't foolish enough to think he could make it to school in good time. Standing on his front step, he almost turned back right there. School wasn't worth the kind of pain he would have to put himself through to get there. Then he remembered his mom. The disappointment in her voice last night. The disinterest in her eyes that morning. She was giving up on him.
A sharp pain ripped through his chest. Danny dropped to his knees, clutching his shirt and gasping. Everything around him went fuzzy. His fingers spasmed. He couldn't see, breathe, think, or move. For one long, horrifying moment, all Danny knew was pain. And then it stopped. He came to lying on the top step, cheek pressed to the concrete. What the hell was that?
Danny waited until his heart stopped pounding and his breathing evened out before collecting himself and rising to his feet. School. He had to get to school. He couldn't become the disappointment his parents thought he was.
Except he still missed half of first period and Mrs. Carrol was looking at him the way she always did when he crawled in late. Danny could only hold her gaze so long before he had to look away, shame flooding through him. He should have forged a note. He had done it before, but the thought hadn't occurred to him through all the pain and his rush to get to school. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't do the one thing his mom wanted him to do that day. Pathetic.
"Are you sick, Mr. Fenton?"
Danny nearly choked on his own breath. He spun toward Lancer's voice. Of course, he was there. Of course, they would come across each other at that moment. Of course, because Lancer was the vice principal, and he was always there when Danny didn't want him to be. Except for the one time Danny did want him, but that had been a mistake.
Danny stepped back toward the door, prepared to run if he needed to. Out of everyone Danny knew, Lancer would be the one to connect the dots between his two identities. He already knew Phantom was alive. How long would it take him to realize Fenton was dead? The only thing that kept Danny from bolting was the knowledge that that would look far more suspicious than anything else. As much as he didn't want to, he stayed and answered.
"I'm fine. Didn't sleep well." Not a lie, technically.
"I see. Is that why you're twenty minutes late to school?"
Yes.
"With no note. I told you to make sure you have a note next time," Mrs. Carrol said.
"I remember."
She only told him that a dozen times, but it wasn't like Danny could go up to his parents and say "Hey I'm actually Phantom and I got distracted by a ghost on the way to school. Can you write me a note, so I don't get in trouble?" A hand appeared at the edge of Danny's vision. He jerked away, gaze snapping toward the source. Lancer, now standing beside him. When had he moved?
"It's fine, Mrs. Carrol," Lancer said.
Danny's eyes narrowed. He missed something while he was busy thinking, and he can't tell if it was good or bad. Judging by Mrs. Carrol's sour face, she thought it was bad. Which probably meant it was very good for Danny. Lancer opened the office door and gestured for Danny to head out into the hall. He ducked his head and followed.
"That boy isn't worth the trouble." Danny stumbled when he heard Mrs. Carrol's last piercing remark. It didn't take much to piece together what he had missed after hearing her words.
"You didn't have to do that," Danny said to Lancer.
"And yet, I did."
Frankly, Danny was starting to think that was a bad habit of Lancer's, doing things he didn't need to. "That's the problem, isn't it?"
When Lancer frowned, Danny worried that he had overhead his muttered words. His worry was unfounded, however, because Lancer moved on without commenting. "What class do you have right now?"
"Health, I think. Or gym. I don't know if it's a gym day." It had better not be. Danny couldn't fake his way through a gym class, not today.
"It is."
Well then. It looked like today would be the day he died if that was the case. He mentally prepared himself for the hell he was about to face—until Lancer stepped up and proved why he was Danny's favourite teacher. Not that Danny would ever tell him so.
"Are you sure?" Danny asked. Permission to skip class, from the vice principal no less, was not something to scoff at. A part of him felt annoyed, though. How could Lancer get it but his parents couldn't?
"It's enough time for a half-decent nap."
"I don't need that." The stabbing in his chest disagreed. "Maybe I do. Thanks, Mr. L."
It wasn't as intense as it was that morning when it brought him to his knees, but Danny still struggled to keep himself upright. He limped his way to the nurse's office, the jolt of each step rattling his bones. The door was open when Danny arrived. The school nurse, Mr. Wyatt, sat with his back to the door. Danny hovered for a few awkward seconds before clearing his throat.
Mr. Wyatt looked up from his work. "Oh, hey. What can I help you with?"
"Mr. Lancer sent me down. I'm late for class, but I'm kind of tired, and the bell is gonna go off soon anyway, so..." Danny trailed off.
Mr. Wyatt grinned. "Nap time?"
"I'm not a toddler."
"Never said you were. No one else is here, so pick any bed you want. Have a nice nap." Mr. Wyatt waved Danny in and then went back to his work.
Danny headed straight for the back of the room. In the minute it took him to get down there and talk to Mr. Wyatt, the feeling in his chest had grown. Black spots danced at the edges of his vision. He fell forward when he reached the bed, collapsing onto the mattress. Something was wrong. Not just physically, but ghostly. While his stomach was hot, his chest was growing colder. It reminded him of the moment he transformed into his ghost form, but that wasn't happening now. He hadn't been able to transform back since last night.
Danny grabbed the curtain and yanked it around the bed. Whatever was about to happen, he couldn't let the nurse see.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine," Danny mumbled to himself. He clambered onto the bed, nearly slipping off twice thanks to the spasms, and curled in on himself. Maybe he really was dying.
The last thing Danny saw before he passed out was sparks dancing between his fingers.
Carmen clicks her tongue as she discards yet another scalpel. While most of Danny's blood labs were bullshit, it appears that the "acidic blood" part wasn't a lie at all. Ectoplasm is very acidic, apparently, and it keeps eating through her instruments. How on Earth his surgeons managed to get through his surgery eludes her when she could barely get him open.
It had started with the first slice. Carmen dug her scalpel into Danny's chest, beginning the standard Y incision, and a thick green sludge bubbled up through the wound. It startled her enough that she immediately checked his vitals. She had to work fast to finish the cut and peel the skin back, but she managed, and he now lays open on her table.
If Carmen has to pick one word to describe what she saw when he opened Danny up, she will say green. Ectoplasm fills the inside of his body. It coats his organs, his bones, everything. Even now, as she watches, it gathers along the edges of the skin flaps, growing denser. She pokes at a glob of ectoplasm with a pair of forceps. The metal starts hissing and smoking.
"Would you stop that?" she snaps. There's been no answer, of course. Danny's heart is not beating. There is no breath in his lungs. His chest is open on her table, and he has zero signs of life. By all medical definitions, he is dead.
She chucks the forceps into the instrument tray and leans back. The morgue stinks from all the melted metal. She never realized metal had a smell when melting, but it does, and she has become intimately familiar with it. It smells the way pennies taste. The forceps were her last usable instrument, too. Carmen only grabbed a handful in case the scrub nurses noticed they were missing, and now they are all irreparably damaged. She hopes the hospital has a budget for instruments melted by ectoplasm.
When she first opened Danny up, she had planned on performing a standard autopsy to she found what killed him. His chart blames ventricular fibrillation, but something has to have caused the arrhythmia that lead to his heart stopping. Seeing the ectoplasm, though, Carmen can't tell what went wrong. She isn't sure if there is something wrong. It appears to be coming from his heart. Carmen can't see it properly, not without removing his ribs, and she's hesitant to do so at this point. But the ectoplasm bubbles from between his lungs, oozing over the bones. She grabs her forceps again, wary of the melted tip, and pushes some of the ectoplasm on his ribs aside. The bone beneath is cracked, a long fissure running through it. More ectoplasm seeps over the space and she quickly pushes that aside, too. The fissure is smaller.
Carmen leans closer, peering into the space between Danny's ribs. There is a light in his chest, surrounding his heart. No, not surrounding it, overlaying it, occupying the same space. Something is there. Something that pulses and fluctuates. Carmen looks again at Danny's cracked rib, except it's not cracked anymore. She looks at the ectoplasm crawling along the edges of his incision. Gooey strings stretch between the skin.
Carmen's eyes widen.
The thing in Danny's chest sparks.
"Oh, shit." That's all she has time to say before the room explodes into light.
