*Danielle*
Spirit Week… Fan-fucking-tastic. I love Casper High as much as the next kid but if you expect me to actually show it, not going to happen. The past seven days have been absolutely painful. I mean I thought the week would have been good because we had a weekend without Jack at home and Jazz was in charge of us. Dan and I even got to stay over at Sam's, much to her mother's dismay that Danny was going to stay in her room with the two of us. After some convincing on her Grandma Ida's part, Pamela and Jeremy finally caved after hours of debate. All three of us were up until the early hours of the morning chatting and gossiping. But back to the present: Spirit Week. Every day of the week was a different theme to inspire school pride in the student body. If you ask me we wouldn't need a spirit week if the school gave us something to be proud of. I mean the only reason we're even winning something is because of Dash and Kwan. "Danielle! Daniel!" I turned around to see Jazz, as happy as could be. I'm not a pessimistic person, but I'm not optimistic either. I'm a realist. I'm not always looking on the positive side or the negative side. Jazz on the other hand was an optimist. She never quite figured out what happened that day down in the lab and apparently when she got there we both were just unconscious and in our regular street clothes. "I need to talk to you two. I know the accident that happened in the lab shook you both up but I'm starting to become concerned. You don't show up on time for curfew, your grades are slipping and you're sometimes gone in the middle of the night."
"Jazz, we appreciate the concern but you need to stop acting like our mom. You're only older than us by 2 years, not 20."
"Danny, what's wrong lately? We used to talk all the time." Jazz looked genuinely concerned but honestly I didn't like where this was going. I got right up to her ear and hissed at her.
"Yeah before we had everything taken from us by the very person who was supposed to protect us." I slammed the locker shut just before the warning bell rang signaling that class started in five minutes. In English all we were talking about is the pep rally at the end of the week. It was a blessing and a curse when Jazz stopped by and pulled us out of class. We followed her down the halls to; you guessed it, the councillor's office.
"If you two won't talk to me then maybe you'll talk to a professional." She knocked on the door and as we tried to sneak away she grabbed our shirts, preventing us from going any farther.
"You must be Daniel and Danielle Fenton. Your sister Jasmine has told me all about you!" Great, A perky shrink with enough pep for the whole school. This was going to be a nightmare. I walked into the room and felt a chill go over my body before it stopped suddenly. What the hell? Please say I'm not the only one who felt that. If what you felt was a strong chill that suddenly stopped then no. Ok. At least I'm not the only one who felt that. I wonder why the chill suddenly stopped. I definitely felt the chill of the room when we entered, but now it's just gone. It's almost like we have a resistance to colder temperatures… Jazz was talking with the shrink about us but I tuned it out. Honestly I wasn't going to say anything to this lady so I don't care what Jazz says our problems are. As soon as Jazz left a little man walked in with a grey mustache and a top hat walked in. "Is it always so cold in here." I asked through chattering teeth. The majority of the cold I felt when I entered had subsided, leaving only the smallest trace of it like a light breeze.
"Yup! It keeps the mind icy sharp." Wow. That wasn't a lame pun at all.
"Ok can we please turn up the heat in here? It's freezing," I asked. I may not be able to feel how cold it was anymore the memory of the brief moment I could compelled me to ask.
"Wow you two do complain a lot. That's alright Jazz said you two could be a bit whiny." A look of shock crossed my face and confusion crossed Dan's.
"Jazz said that?" Dan asked.
"Dears it's not my fault she thinks you're pathetic."
"She called us pathetic too…" I felt my eyes sting the way they do when they glow green. I had no doubt that they weren't glowing right now. I turned my head away from Ms. Spectra and her assistant. Danny looked toward me and gave me a hug just before my knees gave out and I slid to the floor trying to keep the tears back. The betrayal I felt at Jazz's words cut through me like a physical blow. I felt Danny stroke my hair and whisper to me that everything would be ok. I calmed down after a while, only to have Ms. Spectra laugh and in her way too happy voice declare that Jazz was once again right.
"You two are codependent on each other." I felt my face heating up and I swear I saw red as my eyes glowed again. I could feel the room getting hotter and hotter as my blood felt like it was boiling. I opened my eyes, not knowing when I closed them, to look at the ground and saw the ice directly below my feet was steaming as if it was heating up. Danny put a hand on my shoulder and I shivered at the coldness of his skin. When he pulled me in for another hug I started to push him away and beat my fists uselessly against his chest as I felt the tears fall down my cheeks. I was still crying when Danny led us out of there and toward the boy's bathroom that no one used on the south side of the school. Once in the bathroom I couldn't hold it in anymore and I started sobbing into his chest. I could hear my sobs echoing in the near empty bathroom. My breath started coming out in hiccups and I balled up his shirt in my fists. "Shhhhh. It's okay. It's okay." I could feel his breath on my ear as he breathed. His voice cracking every other time until he could no longer speak as tears spilled down his cheeks and hit my shoulder. I felt as if my heart had been ripped out. Our ghost sense went off and honestly I was glad for once. We transformed and flew outside where I saw the same ghost that we saw the other day down in the lab. Now that I got a good look at her I saw she was dressed like a gypsy, or a harem girl.
"So you have wished it, so it shall be."
"Ok um what? I've heard some weird catchphrases but that has to be the oddest one yet," Danny called out to her.
"And what is your wish child," she asked in a voice that sounded almost motherly.
"That's none of your business." A shot of purple ecto-energy hit the gypsy. I looked around wondering where it came from. That was all the distraction she needed to get away. I saw her at the last second, but was too late to stop her flying away.
Danny and I decided to skip out the rest of the day seeing as most of the teachers didn't know we were there anyway. We went off to the peak overlooking Amity Park. I smiled sadly as memories of coming here with Jazz flashed through my mind unwillingly. I sat down on the grass and looked at the tree that was to my right. In it was a deeply carved 'Jazz, Danny and Dani Fenton/ Forever Family, Forever Loved.'
"Hard to believe that was 5 years ago." I nodded at his statement, not trusting my voice. I felt more hot tears sting my eyes. I felt Danny's arms slip around my body and his forehead rest on my shoulder.
"Amazing how things change," I whispered.
"Yeah. It's almost like we don't know her anymore."
"Maybe if we let her in, she'll let us in."
"Blaze, you know she won't tell us anything even if we did. She's the psychologist-in-training remember?"
"I know. But I just want things to be the same as before. You know, back when we didn't have to hide anything from her."
"We can wish all we want but that won't change the past. We can only hope for the future. You know she means the best."
"She treats us like children."
"She was forced to surrender her childhood because of us, Blaze. She was forced to grow up long before she had to. Jazz shouldn't've had to take care of us when she wasn't much more than a kid herself."
"I know, it shouldn't have gone like that, but it did. Just like our mom should have been here to raise us. Just like we shouldn't have had to know how cruel the world was before we were ten." I looked at the ground and realized that he was right. Life isn't supposed to happen that way… and yet it does. "Sometimes I wish the pain would go away. That we had never known the kind of pain we have. That things were better than they were, but most of all I want someone to protect us."
"We do. Our mom watches over us. She protects us." I stepped out of his arms and wheeled on him.
"Then why have we been put through that hell we call life? If the gods actually cared about us we would have been saved a long time ago. They wouldn't have let our mom die before we knew her!" The red tint flooded my vision again.
"I know what you mean but they'd never give us more than we could handle."
"Well I don't want to be strong if it means going through this. I would rather be weak and know what it's like to be wanted, loved, cared for and cared about!" He sighed and walked over to the edge of the cliff.
"I would like that too, and someday we'll find people who care about us for who we are. Everything we are and are going to look past what our past was like."
"And how long will that take? How long until we find someone who looks past everything we've been through and won't care that we're HALF DEAD! Daniel when are you going to get that if our own FAMILY can't love us how the hell is someone else!?" Mixed emotions ran through my mind as I screamed at him. "When are you going to get that we won't live to be 18? When will that finally sink in? Our fate was sealed that first time he hit us! Our destiny has been set in stone for years! We won't live long enough to graduate from high school! Danny when will that finally get through your thick skull? Our lives don't mean anything! They never have and they never will! Us protecting Amity Park; that isn't going to save us from the gates of the underworld! Our lives were always meant to be short. We'll be lucky if we live to be old enough to drive. Don't you get it? We don't matter to anyone! Not, our so-called father. Not Jazz. Not the teachers. Not even Sam or Tucker!" I turned and ran down the hill and back home. I didn't stop until I felt the security of the blanket my mom made before I was born. I curled into a ball in the corner, resting my head on my knees and my arms wrapping the blanket close to me. I looked up at the room and realized that everything I said was true. The Fenton twins aren't special in any way. No one would notice if we disappeared. No one would care if our heart stopped beating.
I woke up when I heard Danny come in the front door. Turning invisible and intangible I phased down to the lab and through the ghost portal. I floated around for a long while until an island came into view that I could rest on for a while. I saw a house on it but decided against knocking. If someone lived there I didn't want to bother them. And if no lived there I didn't want to look stupid. I floated up to a tree with branches that crossed in one place frequently enough to serve as a hammock. I let my mind wander as I stared at the sky. I thought about all of the ghosts and wondered how they died. Skulker was probably killed in a hunting accident. Maybe shot by a fellow hunter by mistake or maybe he was killed by a bear or mountain lion. Ember; she was probably killed in a house fire or a bombing. The reason she's so into music is probably because she was an aspiring star and wanted to be the one everyone talked about. I thought about the gypsy ghost I saw today and what she said. Wishes, that's what she was going on about. She was probably betrayed by someone who promised her everything she wished. Boxy was annoying but maybe in life he was a warehouse worker or something. One of the U-Haul people possibly. It made me kind of sad to think of my enemies as once living people. But that's what ghosts were, the remains of a living breathing thing. An explosion brought me out of my thoughts as I tumbled out of the tree. "Well, well. The Whelpette right on my doorstep, what a pleasant surprise. Your pelt will rest at the foot of my bed." A glowing blade protruded from his arm. He held the blade to my throat. "Any last words?" I looked at the blade that was near my throat, ready to take my head off at a moment's notice. "What, no snappy comebacks? No 'tin can' or 'Ghost Zone's worst hunter'" He looked at me confused.
"What are you waiting for? You want me dead, so kill me already." He looked at me with an evil look in his eyes.
"How about we kill you in front of your precious brother?" He dragged me at gunpoint (blade point?) toward the portal. Once through he forced me to show him where we resided. I phased the both of us through the roof and we ended up in our room.
"Danielle." Just in that one word I could tell he was happy, scared, mad and relieved all at the same time.
"DANIELLE! DANIEL!" I swore under my breath. Suddenly the blade resting against my shoulder and neck was the least of my problems. Before we could think about it Danny and I started pushing Skulker into the closet. "Hey, what are you doing?!"
"Shhhhh! Stay in there and don't make a sound until we say you can come out." Just as we got back to the center of the room after shoving Skulker into our closet the door slammed open.
"You two…" Jack's voice was dark and you could almost see the anger that radiated off him. A fist connected with my eye as I saw stars from the force of the hit. His other fist swung at Danny's right eye with the same sheer force. I collapsed on the ground when I lost my balance. A steel-toed boot hit me in the stomach making me cough up blood onto the floor. He pulled out a knife from his pocket and pressed my face against the wall. With my face turned toward the closet I could almost see the look on Skulker's face. He was probably mad he wouldn't get to finish us off. I felt the knife dig into my back and start cutting lines. I felt a tear slip down my cheek as I realized if he cut the right place at the right depth he could cut my spinal cord. Cut after cut bit into my skin as the slashing of the knife kept a rhythm. A hand at the back of my head pulled me away from the wall and then forward. I felt my whole body go numb and unconsciousness threatened to take me; the only thing keeping me awake was the pain I was feeling from Danny and my own wounds. I tried to pick myself up off the floor but to no avail. Another look over toward the closet and I saw Skulker who looked about ready to kill Jack. Sad right? The only one who seems to want to do anything is the same guy who was about to take my head off. Danny was picked up by the front of his neck and lifted off the ground. Jack threw him across the room and then left as Danny was coughing up blood and clutching his torso from broken ribs. It took a minute after the door slammed for me to gather the strength to do anything.
"You can come out now." Every word was painful to say and my voice came out in ragged, raspy breaths. Danny walked over to the closet and opened the door to reveal a Skulker who had a look of horror on his face. I shot a small blast from my finger and he snapped out of it; kind of. He just phased through the floor to the lab almost like he was in a trance. I grabbed the blanket that was dropped when we shoved Skulker into the closet. I curled up on the mattress that was littered with blood specks and drifted off to sleep.
The rest of the week sucked royally. Not so much as those ghosts weren't showing up. Honestly I would have felt better if the ghost did attack, but they didn't which had Dan and I on edge for the rest of the week. Vlad showed up on the doorstep again claiming that Jack forgot something at his house. I think he just wanted to see the three of us kids again, the creeper. Jack was thrilled when Vlad randomly showed up and he said that since he missed out on so much over the past twenty years he wasn't going to miss a single thing from now on and announced that he moved to Amity Park over the weekend. I mean it was cool that Vlad would be around a lot more. It would stop Jack from hurting us as much. Vlad even let all of us stay over at his house for the rest of the week. Dan and I got to stay in the room just across the hall from Vlad. Jack was a few doors down from Jazz who was a few doors down from Vlad. Jack was farthest away from us and I don't know if that was intentional or if it just worked out that way. I don't really care which one it was because the more distance between us and him the better. I don't know what Vlad was up to but honestly, I kind of liked it. He made Danny and I feel almost safe which is way more than I could say for anyone else. Ms. Spectra left at the end of Spirit Week because she only stays for so long I guess. The night of Friday Vlad let us have Sam and Tucker come over for a few hours. That night was plagued by nightmares that bordered horror movie scary.
Darkness surrounded me just like always when I dreamed. "What kind of father are you? The world's leading ghost expert and you couldn't figure out your own kids were half ghost!" Blue and purple surrounded me in a vortex ring of death.
"Help! Dani, Help us! Don't leave us to die"
"Daniel let me go at once or there will be consequences."
"Danny! Why won't you save us! Forget about the town, save your family and friends!"
"You need to save us before it's too late!" Voice of Jazz, Sam, Tucker and Jack floated around me all calling my brother and I to save them from something. You're running out of time… The words surrounded me in rings similar to the ones that shifted our forms. The words began to replace the rings of purple and blue fire. The words were in all different colors and styles. The ground started glowing and I looked down to see words being written in blood. It fell downwards and I could read the words we are inevitable written where I previously stood. I looked up and saw a light that I rushed toward. A blinding white light flashed. When the world came into focus again I saw blood painting the streets and body parts everywhere. The world shifted again and then darkness surrounded me once more.
"You couldn't save them."
"What kind of heroes are you?"
"It's all your fault they're dead."
"Why don't you get out of here before you cause any more damage?"
"Pathetic."
"Weak."
"Despicable."
"Get out of here you vile creatures!"
"You'll spend the rest of your afterlife wishing you never lived in the first place."
"You've been nothing but trouble since you showed up here!"
The gods can't save you now…
I was shaken awake by Vlad and Danny. Without thinking I started crying and grabbed onto Vlad. He put his arms around me tentatively and ran his hand up and down my back rubbing the almost healed wounds. It sent small flames of pain through, but I didn't mind. It was a reminder that I was awake and that I was no longer dreaming.