"Where is my baby?" Danny didn't even look up at the voice. His arms were still crossed as he looked in front of him. Unblinking, and seemingly unmoving. His eyes were almost staring into nothing.
"In the operating room. You can take a seat next to the young man that brought her in," the nurse said. Danny suddenly frowned. He recognized the voice that spoke. It was Sam's mom, likely accompanied by her dad as well. He was not in the mood to deal with them.
Then he could feel their eyes on him. The stares made his shoulders tense, but he still kept his stare in the same position as before. He felt his best option was to shut down until he got some news. If he didn't, he'd probably be freaking out and pacing restlessly. It really wouldn't help anyone.
"What happened to my child?" a voice said in front of him suddenly. With a sigh, and seemingly incredibly effort, looked up. She looked at Danny with a look that was a struggle between impatience and platonic politeness. With even more effort, he spoke.
"Ghost attack," Danny said. His voice came out hoarse. The lack of use the past hours and the sheer stress of the situation was showing. In his voice and more than likely the look on his face.
"You should've helped her then!" She sounded scornful; as if the entire thing was his fault. Then with some twisted logic, it probably was. "Isn't that what your family does?"
"I don't get involved in the ghost hunting like they do," he told her. It technically wasn't a lie. He dealt with the ghosts in a different way that didn't relate to their parents. Yet it wasn't enough.
On this thought, Danny's shoulders slumped and his body shut down again. He looked forward with an expression that wasn't as blank as he would've liked. It was taking all the control in him not to think about the friend he lost. About the friend fighting for her life right now. About the retched ghost who did it. He wasn't going to think about it. Nope. He wasn't.
"Oh, but that wouldn't do you very good, would it?" a part of his mind thought. Danny put a hand to the side of his head and rubbed it to ease the ache that was slowly beginning to build.
"I can't lose control now. I have to... stay in it," another part of his mind thought in an exhausted fashion. Then his mind quieted; the thoughts replaced with a headache.
Then there was the wait. He had to wait. And wait. And wait. His butt fell asleep, his bones ached in the chair, but he stayed there. He couldn't force himself to move for anything. Then he felt a hand touch his shoulder, and he stiffened.
"Calm down young man. I'm here to suggest you go home. The doctors here will be taking care of Samantha Manson over night. Why don't you go to school now? There is still a few hours left. You'll be excused," the nurse said. Danny shook his head.
"How am I going to focus in this situation?" he questioned.
"You'll find out what is happening tomorrow. I could barely keep you here for as long as I did, but there are limits," the nurse said, her voice now slightly firm. Danny sighed, but he knew she had to do her job. This was going to eat away at him, but there was nothing he could do about that.
"Alright. Thank you for keeping me here for as long as long as you could," Danny said, wearily standing to his feet. He went towards the exit but then the nurse thought about something.
"Wait! Don't you need a way to get ba- he can't hear me," the nurse said with a sigh. "Guess he's walking." The nurse didn't know that the boy in question could transform into a ghost and fly off into the air.
"William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent ..." Mr. Lancer was cut off by his door opening. He turned around to see that Danny Fenton had walked into his classroom. Under normal circumstances, he'd have to give him a detention. But after the feedback he received about his friends being in the hospital, he was wondering if he should tell him to go home instead.
"Ah, Mr. Fenton. Take a seat," Mr. Lancer said, gesturing toward the other desks. Danny pulled his bag tighter on his shoulder before walking forward.
Dash Baxter grinned as he saw Danny heading toward the section near his desk. With swiftness as he grew nearer, Dash quickly stuck his foot out. But Fenton did something completely unexpected. He stopped, stiffened as if he was about to have a seizure, and stepped over his foot before keep going towards the back of the class. All while not even sparing Dash a glance. The jock in question gave off a small growl. He had plans with Fen-turd after class was over.
Danny sat down, the gesture feeling like he just landed from a ten foot drop. It felt heavier than it really was to him. His head was still spinning and he was still trying to keep his mind empty. But the more he sat there, the harder it was proving to be. The image of his friends lying on the ground dead or desperately clutching for their life was sitting in front of his face and taunting him. The very image made him shiver in his sleep and he quickly looked up to see if anyone noticed. They didn't. Then Danny mentally scoffed. Why would they? He was just one of the weirdos of this school. He didn't deserve to be here.
"Mr. Fenton!" Mr. Lancer exclaimed with more emphasis.
"WHAT?!" Danny suddenly bellowed, his voice coming off in a rough bellow. A number of the students jumped at the voice that spoke. They didn't expect it to sound so deep. Or terrifying. Almost as if there was something otherworldly behind his normally mellow demeanor. Then as if he noticed what happened, Danny raised a hand while looking slightly down at his desk before looking at Mr. Lancer with a slightly apologetic look.
"I'm sorry about that," he said, his voice about as apologetic as his expression. Mr. Lancer narrowed his eyes, but there was no scrutiny in the gesture. No, rather there was a type of softness in it. He knew what was going through the teen's mind, and he couldn't blame him for being on edge.
"Don't let it happen again Mr. Fenton," Mr. Lancer said. Not necessarily sternly, but more on the neutral side. Danny nodded and Mr. Lancer went back to his lesson. Danny then sat up and, for the first time since he could remember, he tried to listen to the lesson that Mr. Lancer was giving. While it bored him to tears, it was better than thinking about the unpleasantness of today's events. He didn't need pity. He didn't want it. He just wanted his friends to be alright.
"Well, one of them at least," Danny reminded himself, remembering that one of his friends was well and truly gone. The very thought caused Danny to bend over his desk as if someone suddenly socked him in the gut while he was sitting down. He laid his head down like he was getting bored and about to go to sleep and he hoped no one would notice the gesture. They didn't. Again, why would they?
Then it was over. Danny's first goal was to get out of here as fast as possible, take enough sleeping pills for him to sleep the day away before waking up and going back to the hospital. As a person who never took meds, this really meant something.
With a weary body and a vacant mind, he walked as if he were among the undead as he walked out of the classroom and held the strap on his shoulder with more firmness before heading towards the exit. He made it out of the door and in front of the steps before he was suddenly grabbed. The sudden gesture made Danny suddenly wheel around faster than was humanely possible and ripping himself out of the person's grip, managing to regain his balance before he hit the steps.
Dash was surprised when he suddenly found his grip gone around Fenton's shirt. Not only that, he landed on the front of the steps on his feet rather than tumbling like down like he expected. Almost at the same time, they both looked up and looked each other dead in the face. Fenton wasted no time in bolting like he should've.
"Get back here, Fen-turd!" Dash exclaimed, starting to sprint after him. He had a cocky smirk on his face once they started. Dash was a fit jock that played football. Fen-turd was a scrawny nerd. He wouldn't get far. At least that's what he thought. What he didn't expect was for him to be fast enough to slip him. The very thought frustrated him. He may not have gotten him today, but he was definitely going to get him tomorrow. He couldn't run at that time.
"This is getting old really fast," Danny thought as he neared his house.
"Dash is a jackass. We've established this," he thought. There was no second thinking that thought. He was the embodiment of the worst type of person in high school. The overconfident jock who thought he ran the school and thought he was better than everyone else because knew how to play sports. So many times he wanted to get his payback on him, but he restrained the urge. The one time he tried ended up going bad for him. As if fate wanted to punish him for taking the little bit of recompense he deserved.
Danny's hand unconsciously tightened hard on the door of his house before he wrenched it it opened and closed it with a moderate amount of force, not knowing that the handle bent in on itself. He knew he was getting angry and had to force himself to calm down.
"Please be quieter when you're opening the door sweetie," he heard his mom say from the kitchen.
"Yeah, of course," Danny said, his voice barely audible and very unenthusiastic. He didn't bother to visit the kitchen like he normally did to say hello and instead decided to go upstairs with heavy steps. He passed his sister's door that was cracked open slightly and threw his bag into a corner before heading towards the bathroom that was up here.
Opening the cabinet above the over the sink, he grabbed the sleeping pills that were there and grabbed about three of them before forcing them down his throat and closing the bottle.
"What are you doing?" he heard his sister say behind him. Danny put the pills back in the cabinet and turned to face his sister. What she wasn't expecting was to see how tired her brother looked. Almost as if he hadn't been sleeping. But she knew he had gotten to sleep before she did.
"I'm tired," Danny said.
"You look it," Jazz said. "Bad night?"
"Bad day is more like it. I need to lie down," Danny said, walking out of the bathroom before gesturing to the bathroom. "It's yours if you need it."
Danny opened his door and lied down on his bed while kicking off his shoes. He lied there for what felt like the longest time. He didn't know if sleeping pills didn't work on half ghosts or just took a long time to take effect. He certainly hoped that wasn't the case. The odds of him going to sleep with him trying to keep his mind blank so to speak, and failing miserably a lot of the time was very thin. He didn't normally take pills. They were just there if needed, which wasn't the most responsible thing in the world, but he was glad for it.
But by the grace of God, Danny felt his eyes getting heavier as he laid there for a few more moments and then nodded off. A hooded figure figure walked near the edge of the bed while looking at the half-ghost on the bed. A grim smile came to his face.
"Enjoy the innocent sleep for now, Daniel. Your world will change soon," he said. "Nocturne will be graceful today." Then he left.
"Well, I'll inform the boy who came here soon after. I'll also inform the school so there's some clarity on the situation," the nurse said with a nod.
"I'll tell you one thing. Out of the ghost attacks that have happened in this city, this is the first time it resulted in serious injury. And it was not pretty," the doctor said.
"No it wasn't. And trust me, if you had seen the kid who had to carry them both here, you know he's having a hard time processing it all. At least in a way that he feels he can handle," the nurse said. "You run into a lot of people on this job and see a lot of different things. That is definitely not one of the things you want to see."
"You're a good nurse Joyce. Your intentions are good. Catch some sleep. You deserve it and are going to need it. I'd offer to tell him for you, but..."
"It's not your shift tomorrow. I know how the schedules work. Go ahead and head out doctor,. I'll lock up," Joyce said. The doctor nodded and began to take his leave. Joyce hated working the twenty-four hour shifts, but that was how being a nurse was. At least she was able to sleep during the times there were no patients combing in. And frankly, she was glad for it. Cause no one was getting hurt and cause no one had to wake her up. But then she sighed.
"How in the world do I break the news to a teenagers that now both of his friends are dead?" she said to herself. She didn't want to expect, and quite frankly, she didn't want to. She didn't know what it was about this kid in general, but he gave her a different type of vibe. She felt a type of deep seriousness in him that you wouldn't expect to see in any type of child. Not in a type of pure business type of way, but something even more serious. Like life and death. The sensation gave her slight chills.
Joyce curled up in as comfortable as a position as she could get in the chair she was sitting in before nodding off. Tomorrow, she was preparing herself for what was to come. She was definitely glad that the girl's parents had left. Things would've gotten really messy really fast. She only wished this world was more fair to people.
