Ectoplasmic Secrets

Death

Summary: Danny hears someone, or something while home alone. It leads him to the basement.

It was around 9 am when Danny woke up to either his parents or Jazz calling him. Of course, they'd all been up and ready to go already, even though they didn't plan on leaving for another two hours. He groaned and stretched his arms. The feeling of being watched returned.

He hadn't even really realized it had gone away until it was back. He couldn't explain it either, as logically he knew nothing even could be there. In that house it was simply impossible, but that fact didn't seem to matter much to the blur of movement he kept catching in his peripheral vision.

Usually on one of the last days of summer and with no plans for the day, Danny would've stayed in bed longer, maybe even fallen back asleep, but the unease in the atmosphere that morning had him heading downstairs sooner.

As he made his way down the stairs, Maddie yelled, saying there was extra bacon left on the kitchen counter. That perked him up a little bit. As promised, when he got into the kitchen there was a plate with about seven strips of bacon left, sitting on the stove. Whoever had been cooking must've made too much on accident. Danny grabbed a plate with a bagel and a few pieces of bacon and sat down at the kitchen table. Not a moment later, Jazz came in with her red hair in a messy bun and no makeup. "I thought you'd be all ready to go by now." Danny said casually. Jazz looked at him, "We're not leaving for another two hours." she said and opened the fridge, pulling out an iced tea drink. "Yeah, but aren't you always super early for like, everything?" Danny asked her. "Aren't you always super late for like, everything?" she countered with a smile and left the room, drink in hand.

A black blur zoomed across the other room, causing Danny to jump. It had seemed kind of like a ghost, yet kind of...not.

He glanced around to where some of the many ghost detection devices were around the house. They were all green, nothing supernatural could've possibly been there.

Around an hour and a half later Danny had fully convinced himself his mind had just been playing tricks with him and that there was definitely nothing besides him, his parents, and his sister in the house. That is, until it happened again.

There was a noise upstairs. It almost sounded like something had been dropped on the floor.

He'd been sitting on the couch when Jazz walked by again, this time with her hair neatly pulled back and simplistic makeup. She'd also changed into a nicer blouse and a black knee length skirt.

"Did you drop something?" Danny asked his older sister, who quirked an eyebrow. She had been the only one upstairs at the time. "No, why?" she asked, her curiosity piqued. Danny shrugged, "I don't know, just thought I heard something, I guess." Jazz dawned a look of realization, then frustration, "Ugh, it's this toxic home environment! Now it's getting to you too!" she exclaimed before going out of the room and yelling down the basement stairs, "Mom! Dad! When can we have a normal family vacation?!"

Danny had watched her as she went off again on how their home environment was a danger to him and Jazz's psychological health, until his eyes landed on something far more intriguing. Across the room there was a side table with a flower pot that had a particularly reflective surface sitting on top. On the flower pot, from his position Danny saw a bright ectoplasmic green light. It was reflecting from the hallway just out of his view.

He blinked and it was gone. Perhaps it was simply never there. Perhaps it was just the light from some sort of tech his parents had in the hallway.

"Danny! We're leaving in just a few minutes! Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" his Mom called from the kitchen. Danny shook himself out of the daze he was in, "Um, yeah! I'll just stay here!" he yelled back. But was that really the smartest choice? What if there really was something in the house?

Impossible.

Just about ten minutes later Danny watched as his mom, dad and sister were leaving on their way to tour some colleges downtown. "Bye!" his mom called, "I have my phone, text me if you need anything!" He simply nodded and with a click she closed the door behind her.

Danny shifted his attention to the TV, to whatever movie happened to be on at the time, but he couldn't stay focused on it for more than three minutes. There was a sound that almost sounded like a gasp followed by a door opening.

His heart almost stopped in his chest and he spun around. Nothing there, but the lab door was now opened just a sliver.

He knew it had to have been closed before. His parents would never leave the door open, not even a little. That door determined if the lab was on supernatural lock down or not. If it was open, most ghosts would be able to get in or out. If it was closed, the shield in the walls, floor and ceiling would be activated and nothing could get through. It was a bit like a strand of Christmas lights, one goes out, they all go out, that's why the door stays closed.

Danny's stomach was tight in a knot as he reached into the drawer in the coffee table and pulled out the small ectogun his parents kept there, in case of emergency. He stood up and slowly headed towards the lab door, heart pounding.

"...can't do it..." and echoed voice said, although it was difficult to hear.

Should he close the door and leave it locked in? Danny didn't know what to do. It didn't sound very threatening or malicious though, and unlike his parents, he didn't believe that every ghost is inherently evil. Also, if he locked it in down there and let his parents find it later, they would undoubtedly try to capture it and experiment on it, and he didn't exactly want to help them do that.

He put his finger on the trigger of the ectogun and crept down the stairs into the lab. Through all the counter spaces, cabinets, and machinery Danny couldn't see anything unnatural. He kept going, breaths short and hands sweating. The only noises were the soft hum of the machines and a low, distant rumble made by the ventilation system.

Soon, the mouth of the portal stood boldly in front of him with little lights still flashing on the inside walls. He knew he shouldn't have been there.

As he went closer, Danny was able to see further inside the large hole in the wall, and a moment later finally caught a glimpse of the ghost he had followed down there. Its back was turned, and its weird lack of a ghostly aura in the dark tunnel made it hard to see what it looked like. He saw black and a bright neon green as it laid a hand on the wall of the failed portal.

Then it vanished. No, not "went invisible" type of vanished, but really vanished. As in just gone.

Danny flinched and quickly looked around. He saw one of his parent's more basic ghost detectors and picked it up. As he waited impatiently for the device to turn on, he kept glancing around. The little device soon came to life and took a reading before giving it's conclusion on the screen.

NO ECTOPLASMIC ENTITIES DETECTED

ECTOPLASM IN AIR DETECTED: 0.7% [SAFE]

Releasing the breath he had been holding, Danny relaxed a bit and set the ectogun down on the counter after powering it down.

He looked at the portal frame. Taking a step forward, Danny peered inside to see wires and cables everywhere looking more like a big tangle of snakes than anything else. Levers and handles lined the two side walls as well as a bunch of pressure monitors and gauges. On the left wall, he noticed, there was a line of screens with readings of various things. They nearly all had a little green wavering bar on it, except for one. It was near the back and had a tiny bar wavering in the red zone. That was where the ghost was. There was a little label above the reading, but Danny was unable to read what it said from his place outside the portal.

After thinking for just a moment he decided it'd be harmless to just go read what the label said. The portal didn't even work anyways. He took a breath and stepped cautiously inside, avoiding all the wires tangled up on the floor.

The portal itself was only about eight or nine feet long, but it was rather dark inside after just a couple feet.

He kept going, slowly passing the large variety of devices and machinery on and in the walls. When he finally made it to the back of the portal, having successfully evaded all the wires on the floor, Danny found the small screen with the red bar and read above it.

ECTOPLASMIC RELEASE SYSTEM: OFFLINE

Huh, Danny thought, I wonder if that might be stopping it from running…but Mom's pretty thorough, she probably checked all these little things already. He shrugged and took a step to leave, but was too caught up in his own thoughts to remember the wires that littered the floor.

His shoe got hooked underneath one of the arched cables and it tripped him. On instinct, he reached his right hand out towards the wall in a last ditch effort to stop his fall, and stop his fall, it did.

His hand ended up landing on a lever that gave way under his grip and shifted into a downward position. Danny unhooked his shoe and pulled himself up just in time to see the little red bar from before shoot up , through the orange and yellow, and into the green zone.

ECTOPLASMIC RELEASE SYSTEM: ONLINE

He looked at the screen with one hand still placed on the wall and his heart still racing from his near fall. Should I turn that back off? He wondered briefly for just a fraction of a second before there was a loud whirring noise. Danny felt his stomach twist at the realization that he must've triggered something, but there was no time to move, no time to speak, no time to even think anymore.

One bolt. That was all it took. One bolt of high voltage electricity running straight through the palm of his right hand and right on through the rest of his body. His knees buckled and his head went back before time slowed nearly to a standstill.

Next thing he knew, Danny was starring right at the ceiling of the portal. He suddenly felt weightless and partly lost, yet free. He went to reach out to the ceiling, but found himself lacking in any type of solid form. A slow flash of light in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned over, still weightless and floating, to see a rather confusing and horrifying sight.

He saw himself, surrounded by pure white electric bolts that moved at a snail's pace. His hand was still on the wall where it was lit up like a Christmas tree with a path winding up through his arm. His body still hadn't even hit the floor yet.

Am I…dead?

What am I supposed to do now? Where- no what am I right now?

Oh, hell no. I better not be a ghost. Mom and Dad are gonna kill me. Again. Unfortunately, maybe literally too.

He was pulled from his thoughts when he saw a green substance in the corner of his vision. Danny looked back towards the back wall of the portal where there was a good dose of ectoplasm being injected into the electric bolts. he watched as the ectoplasm slowly traveled through a particularly large bolt of electricity, turned white to green as it passed. Following the path of the bolt with his eyes he saw that it also happened to go straight through what was now apparently his corpse. His corpse that was currently being stabbed by about ten different bolts of electricity.

The green traveled and trickled through the electricity, moving faster than the bolt itself, although in this odd state even that was slow to Danny. He saw as it finally approached his human body, but then the unexpected happened.

The moment the electrified ectoplasm hit his human body, Danny was thrown back down, all weightlessness gone as his consciousness re-merged with his body. Time sped up to return to its normal speed once again.

Blue eyes shot open and starred straight up into toxic green electric bolts. He finally hit the floor and wasted no time rolling over and looking for the way out. His whole right arm felt like it was on fire, even more so in the palm of his hand. He pulled it close to himself and attempted to crawl back to the entrance of the portal only to be continuously hammered by high voltage shocks.

He could see the lab. It was the light at the end of the tunnel, literally, but everything just burned.

So close…yet…so far…

Maybe it'd be easier to just give up…

No…not...yet.

He gripped the edge of the metal frame around the portal. More massive shocks hit him and he knew he was probably screaming, he just couldn't hear it over everything else.

Almost there…just do it now.

With one final surge of energy he pulled himself out of the electric vortex and pushed himself just a few more feet away from the portal.

Now let's just hope I don't die here on the lab floor.

Danny collapsed from the pain and exhaustion. For once he found the floor in the lab very comforting, just smooth, cool metal tiles. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his right hand flat against the cool surface. Screw it if the floor is dirty and it gets it infected, he thought, at least it helps a little. Small shocks remained and continued to course through Danny, causing him to flinch. He peeked his eyes open a little and caught sight of the bit of hair that usually hung over his eyes, his breath hitched in his throat when he saw it was white. Another shock ran down his spine and when he looked again his hair was back to normal. He didn't want to worry about that right now, he couldn't.

Everything hurt and ached and burned, and he just wanted it to stop. The edges of his vision turned dark and fuzzy. He didn't resist.

A/N: Alright, so here's this AU's version of The Accident. This is also pretty different from the way I wrote it happening in the original ES.

Hope you guys liked this chapter! Lemme know if you did or didn't in the reviews section!

New chapter(s) tomorrow!