Transience
Danny leaned on the cold walls, staring down into the lab. Though the portal was obscure from his view, he could see the light dimming and pulsing, dimming and pulsing, like a wave threatening to pull him under.
"I don't think we should go down there." He spoke quietly, his body tense. He backed up, running his hand on the doors of the lockers.
Tucker stopped, checked his watch. "Danny, we're already late."
"Hm?" He looked back at his friend, shaking the clouds from his eyes and recognizing the halls of Casper High. "Oh."
Tucker frowned and took his hand, dragging him behind. "C'mon, maybe Lancer will let us off easy."
Danny let himself be pulled along, losing himself once more in the maze that was his memories.
...
He frowned, looking over the test. While everyone else seemed to be answering the questions just fine, he was stuck with a test from the wrong section.
He brought his page up to Mr. Lancer's desk.
"Yes, Mr. Fenton?" the man asked.
Danny handed his paper off to the teacher. "I think you gave me the wrong test."
After looking it over a few times, Lancer handed it back. "No, this is the right one."
Danny looked over the paper a few more times himself- the questions were answerable, yet alien to him anyway. "But… we've never read 'Hamlet,'" he said hopelessly, eliciting some giggles throughout the classroom.
Lancer raised an eyebrow. "We finished it two days ago, Mr. Fenton. Please, sit and write something down. It's not that hard."
More laughter.
With a huff, he went back to his seat a bit red in the face and looked over the questions one last time. At least it was easy.
...
The portal was in front of him now, blinding him with bioluminescence. He shied away from it, but he could still feel the heat of the machine whirring alive.
"It doesn't even work," someone had said a long time ago.
"What?" Danny asked. He took a closer look at the portal that so often plagued his nightmares, and realized they were right. If he could see past the swirling green light, he could see that the portal wasn't on at all.
Hesitantly, he stuck a hand through the ectoplasmic layer so that he could feel the air on the other side. He gripped the bark of the tree, steadying himself as he put one foot into the portal and-
Hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him out of the portal and back into the school courtyard.
He looked back to see Sam shaking, angry and afraid. "Don't go in," she pleaded.
Danny became confused again. Last time, she had wanted him to go into the portal. What was different now?
"Every time you see the portal, don't go in," she ordered, and when he didn't respond, she added, "Promise me."
"I promise," he said. Looking around, they were outside of the cafeteria, eating lunch under a tree. "Hey, what's for lunch today?"
...
Lancer stopped him in the halls.
"Mr. Fenton, do you have a moment?"
Danny looked back and forth- from Lancer to the thick crowds in the hall, his friends getting shoved further and further away. They wanted to check out the lab today, but he supposed it could wait a few minutes.
Hesitantly, he nodded. "Sure, what's up?"
Lancer paused at the boy's casual tone but corrected himself quickly. He led Danny to his classroom, where, on Lancer's desk, his test laid.
"Uh, Mr. Fenton," the man started. "I'm concerned about your test because it seemed as though you came unprepared today, and yet you got a perfect score. Even your written responses are correct."
Danny bit his lip, trying to remember what test they took that day. When he couldn't think of any, he read a few of the questions to himself, with the vaguest sensation that he had seen them before.
"These questions are easy," he said.
Lancer seemed suspicious. "But this morning you said you hadn't read Hamlet yet."
Danny didn't remember saying that, but then, he didn't remember taking the test or reading Hamlet either. "I'm sorry Mr. Lancer, I don't remember that."
The man stared Danny in the eyes for several moments, looking for any signs of a lie. All he could find was the boy struggling and failing to remember their class that morning.
"Have you hit your head recently?" he asked.
"No," Danny said with absolute certainty. Although that wasn't true- he hit his head in the portal, didn't he?
"Are you on any drugs?"
The boy snorted- "No. No, sir."
After studying the boy a minute longer, Lancer let it go with only a few words of advice. "With all due respect, Daniel, you should go to the doctor. I've never seen ADHD this bad before."
"That couldn't hurt," Danny supposed. His body still ached from the accident. "Well, I've gotta go," he added. Sam and Tucker wanted to check out the portal before his parents got home. They were probably still waiting on him.
"Alright," Lancer sighed. "See you in class tomorrow."
"See you then," Danny called, bounding from the classroom in a few steps.
Sam and Tucker were outside Lancer's door, the halls empty.
"Hey, what did he want to talk to you about?" Tucker asked.
Danny stopped and tried to remember his conversation with the man. About halfway down the hall, he finally said, "Huh, I can't remember. Isn't that weird?"
"It's okay, man." Tucker sighed, placing a hand on his friend's back. "Let's just go home and do our homework, okay?" He and Sam shared a pained glance.
Nearing the end of the hall, Danny stopped again. The doors that led outside of the school looked eerily like the portal, the tendrils of light shining a radiant green.
...
He was in bed. He knew he was in bed, and yet above him, the portal loomed, daring him to enter. Beside him, the ghosts of Sam and Tucker urged him to go on.
"It's okay," Sam was saying. "It doesn't even work."
Danny shook his head. Sam had ordered him not to do that anymore, he remembered that much. He closed his eyes, ignoring the portal above, but the light peered through his eyelids and he fell into a fitful sleep.
Hours later, his alarm went off. He hit the snooze button, but as he did, his eyes shot open, more awake than ever.
His entire body was on fire.
A/N: I find it hard to finish and upload anything so I'm very excited to share this with you! Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think!