Me: YES! FINALLY, I DID IT!
Friend: Maybe it wouldn't take so long if you typed the majority of it on a computer instead of your I-pod.
Me: My family needs the computer more than me!
Friend: Why are you so nice to your family?
Me: Isn't everyone?
Friend: ...You live a strange life.
Clockwork!
It's rude to barge in, Walker.
Cut the act, Clockwork! Something is not right with the dead, and I want to know what it is! My prisoners are all bedridden, constantly shifting forms and vomiting up ectoplasm. Some of them have disappeared altogether! Where are my prisoners, Clockwork!?
Do you believe I am unaware of the situation?
I believe that you are purposefully breaking the rules!
I am the master of time, Walker. It is very rare that the rules apply to me in the same way they apply to you.
That's no excuse for your actions, son.
Walker, you needn't worry. The devil is already being returned to his place in hell.
The devil!?
-Line break-
Phantom wasn't feeling well. Scratch that, he felt pretty freakin awful. Like his insides were getting ready to tear themselves to pieces. As Flash blabbed away about his failed attempt to bring Hawkgirl and wonder Woman back together, Phantom was trying his best not to spew chunks all over the table. His death sense was so strong it was causing his hands to randomly spasm, so drawing was out of the question. Not that he could concentrate on drawing with his pounding migraine. What was going on? What was wrong with him?
Everything. Absolutely everything.
Phantom bit hard into his lip, nearly drawing blood as the spasm of pain whipped through him. Not now, eerie voice in my head! Ice began to form on Phantom's chair, spreading slowly across the floor as he tried desperately to keep it under control.
"Hey, you okay?" Flash had finally taken notice of his friend's condition. "You don't look so good."
Phantom sucked in some air through his teeth. "I- I don't know." He truly didn't. This feeling seemed to be coming from nowhere, just an awful pain and a feeling that something was terribly wrong. "I- I think I need to-" Phantom fell through the floor.
He didn't intend to, but Phantom's entire being was focused on getting out of there, so his powers obliged. Phantom was too distracted to stop himself as he fell several floors, eventually running out of power and crashing into the floor with a resounding clang. He could vaguely see a blob of red, but he was in too much pain to notice. His mouth was mumbling things without his consent, and he abruptly vomited. His vomit was green, why was it green?
He felt someone carrying him, but he couldn't think. His mouth kept moving and the pain kept coming. Coming... He saw a flash of white, then so many colors... Voices in his head, the girl, screaming... Hannah?... He just... couldn't... think...
-Line break-
Flash was having a very hard time carrying Phantom. He would be completely limp one moment, spasming and whimpering the next, and Flash had lost count of the times he had nearly dropped him. He was also talking in a language Flash didn't know, spouting half shouted phrases that made no sense.
"Helpu min... doloras..." Phantom groaned, jerking in his arms and throwing up again. Flash gripped him a little harder, trying not to hurt him but at the same time desperate not to drop him. "Calm down pal, we're almost there." Flash said, hoping Phantom could hear him over the rushing wind.
"Esti vi ŝuisto, reĝo, aŭ straton balaisto..." He shuddered. "Ni ĉiuj dancas kun la Grim Reaper."
Flash frowned. The only thing he'd gotten out of that was 'Grim Reaper', and that was almost never a good sign.
"Ne dormu, ne think- kio estas malĝusta kun mi?" Flash arrived at the sick bay, slightly horrified by how many were there. "J'onn, what's going on?" He handed Phantom to J'onn, who phased through the wall. Flash turned to Wonder Woman for an explanation.
"Ĝi hurts- la blades- fari rezigni!" He wailed, his voice cracking with the strain. "Mi sorry- Mi bedaŭras Hannah! Mi penis ne, mi bedaŭras!"
"What's happened to them?" Flash asked, when Wonder Woman showed no signs of replying.
Her eyes never left Zatara, who was screaming sentences almost as jumbled as Danny's. "I don't know."
-Line break-
It was dark. Phantom knew that much. The surface he was lying on was cool and smooth, somehow reminding him of a hospital. He slowly pushed himself onto his knees, shuddering as he felt a finger of ice trace down his spine. Where was he? What was going on?
Suddenly, there was a sound like a match lighting, and the space around him abruptly lit up. He was in a large, round chamber with brownish red walls, lit by an array of hanging lights. It had an almost homey feel to it, the warm yellow light making shadows soft and indistinct.
"Where am I?" He asked, not having any qualms about asking aloud.
He felt strange, like he should feel safe here. But he didn't feel safe, he felt more like you do in a dark alley when you know someone is following you, but you're too afraid to turn around and see how close they've gotten.
He tried to shake these feelings off. Right now, he couldn't worry about that, he had to figure out why he was here. Wherever here was. Phantom pushed himself to his feet, wincing slightly as his joints complained. Yeesh, that really made him sound like a grumpy old man. He smiled at the image. Suddenly, an area of the wall lit up, displaying an image of a happy old man with children running around him.
Phantom stared at it, completely dumbfounded. It wasn't like the image in his head, but it seemed... better somehow. As he watched, a pair of what had to be brothers ran around the old man, playing tag and laughing with each other. The image stopped and zoomed in on one of the boys faces, his happy expression lit up in the afternoon sun. Without thinking, he reached his hand forward and pressed it to the image. It rippled like water, and he was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of longing. It was so over whelming he thought he might die right there. He almost wished he could. He wanted it so bad, wanted it back.
Wanted what back? Phantom yanked his hand back like it had been burned, his vision blurry from tears he hadn't known were there. He glanced around and was startled to see that dozens of other images had popped up all around the room. The pictures varied in situation and person, each one causing more tears to stream down his face as emotions he couldn't connect tore through him. Anger at the portly man in a business suit, sadness at the old man with the boys, indignation at the tired woman.
It was too much. "Stop! Please!" He pressed his hands to his eyes, but he still saw the images, still felt like his heart might explode with all the emotion. "Why!? Why are you doing this to me!?" He started gripping his hair so hard it hurt, but the pain was virtually nonexistent next to the emotional trauma he was currently going through. It was the Nasty Burger explosion multiplied ten-fold, only this time he had no idea what was causing his pain. Phantom fell to his knees, now pressing his hands to the sides of his head, his soul feeling like it was being torn apart. Finally, he couldn't take the emotions any longer.
"STOP!" He roared, his voice bouncing off the walls and back around the chamber. The images shattered, their fragmented pieces tinkling to the floor like broken glass. Silence reigned for a moment, then Phantom was hit with an emotion so strong he fell over. It was the one he dreaded the most, the one that burdened him each and every day- guilt. Only this time, it was magnified like never before. At that moment, Phantom knew that something awful had happened to these people. Something bloody and gruesome, something unspeakably horrible. And he knew that it had been his fault.
Phantom's breaths came in ragged gasps, almost hurting as the air scraped down his throat. The shattered images scraped his palms as he began to stand, teeth clenched. He finally managed to get to his feet, legs shaking as he yelled, "Who are you!?" He angrily wiped the tears from his face. "Why are you doing this? Do you get a kick screwing with my head!?"
A laugh echoed through the space. It sent shivers down Phantom's spine, which wasn't easy to do considering his ghostly status.
"Oh, I do get a kick out of it." The voice came from the far side of the room, rasping and soft. Phantom turned toward it, his throat clenching with dread as he realized how familiar that voice was. "It's funny to watch you squirm." Phantom could now make out a shadowy figure, indistinct despite the sufficient light. "Of course, it would be better if you remembered, but I'll take what I can get."
"Who are you? Show yourself!" Phantom attempted to light up his hand with an ectoblast, but nothing happened.
The figure laughed again. "Oh, that won't work. Although I commend you on the effort."
"What do you want?" Phantom growled, curling his hands into fists. He'd gotten by without his powers before, he could do it again.
The figure started to laugh again, the sound grating on Phantom's nerves and patience with equal ferocity. "You really don't know! You really don't remember anything!" The figure suddenly stepped into the light, his voice growing colder. "Well, that makes things easier for me."
Phantom took an involuntary step back, his mouth dropping open. "What the heck..." He muttered, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
Standing in front of him was a near exact copy of himself. The only differences were brown hair and eyes, and the blood splattered on his front and face. The thing grinned at him, licking its lips. "You have pretty eyes."
Phantom had no idea what to say to that. Eventually, he managed to say, "Who... whose blood is that?"
The Not-Phantom grinned wider, his face stretching grotesquely as his muscles stretched the skin farther than it was designed to go. "Oh, lots of people." The thing absently examined its fingernails. "It is such a hassle to get blood out of clothes. So I figured, why even try?" He grinned at Phantom. "I'm Nox, by the way."
Phantom just blinked. "Lots of people." He muttered, his brain not quite processing the implications of what Nox was saying.
Nox cackled again, pointing a pale finger at him. "Ha ha, you're even more clueless now than you were before! Ha ha ha!"
Phantom wasn't sure why it took so long to click, but suddenly he understood. And with a single realization, Phantom went from confused to royally pissed off. "You murder people!?"
Nox mockingly clapped his hands. "Brilliant Sherlock." He smirked at Phantom. "You want a gold star?"
Phantom took a step toward him, his eyes burning with cold fury. "I don't know who you are, but you're going down, you psychotic piece of-"
"You do realize that you're insulting yourself, right?"
Phantom's look changed to confusion. "What?"
Nox sighed. "I used to kill people all the time." His expression changed to one of longing. "Old, young, boys, girls-" Nox ran his tongue over his teeth. "So warm."
Phantom snorted in disgust. "You're sick."
Nox ignored him, scowling as he continued. "Of course, that was before you trapped me in this place."
Phantom wasn't sure what he meant by that, but he decided it was best to play along. "A person like you deserves to be stuck here forever."
"Maybe..." Nox mused. He turned toward Phantom, his smile returning. "But the gate swings both ways, Phantom."
Before Phantom could do anything, Nox ran at him with a feral screech. Nox's fingers lengthened and sharpened into claws as he moved, his teeth transforming into long fangs. Nox reached Phantom and swiped at him, Phantom only just managing to shield his face with his arm. Nox's claws sliced easily through the fabric, slashing four deep gashes into his forearms. Phantom jerked back, ectoplasm dripping off his arm as he tried to counterattack.
Nox crouched on the floor like a coiled snake, grinning at Phantom. Phantom couldn't understand why he wasn't attacking, when he heard a clatter behind him. Clone! A girls voice yelled, and Phantom whipped around just in time to have Nox slam into him.
Phantom hit the floor like ton of bricks, unable to do anything before Nox wrapped his clawed hands around his throat. Phantoms vision began to darken, and images began to flash before his eyes. They were like the pictures from before, but the figures in them were grotesque and bloody, their faces frozen in expressions of horror and disgust. Phantom tried to scream, his hand scrabbling on the floor for a weapon. He gripped large shard of image and lashed out, stabbing upward at Nox's face.
Nox screamed and leapt back, the jagged piece stuck deep in his eye. Phantom scrambled to his feet, choking as air flooded into his lungs. The figures still danced before him, their eyes dull and empty, bleeding from dark holes in their chests.
Phantom's attention was drawn back to Nox as the entity wheezed loudly. Nox reached up and yanked the piece out of his eye with a sickening scrape. He glared at the bloody piece before shifting his gaze to Phantom. Nox took a step toward him, but stopped when the entire chamber suddenly shook. Phantom almost fell, but managed to regain his balance just in time. He looked back up to see Nox glowering at him with hate in his eyes. "Clever boy." He spat, blood dripping off his face.
The room shook again, giant cracks spreading across the floor, one appearing directly between his feet. Phantom stumbled to the side as the floor jerked and shuddered, knowing he probably looked pretty ridiculous with his arms flailing like they were. He started to fly up, but something grabbed the front of his shirt. He looked down just in time to see Nox drive the shard of broken image into his abdomen.
Everything seemed to freeze. Phantoms mouth hung open, his body numb to what had just happened. Nox was grinning wider than ever, bright green liquid splashing over his face and teeth, almost neon against his pale skin. Nox's eyes had turned a bloody red, now glowing in the semidarkness the shaking had brought. Phantom chocked, something cold and acidic spilling over his lips. Ectoplasm?
All at once, everything was moving again. The floor collapsed, dragging both him and Nox into inky blackness. His stomach hurt, hurt so much. He could feel himself bleeding out, feel drops of ectoplasm splattering across his face as he fell. Fell into oblivion, nothing but Nox's laughter around him.
-Line break-
Phantom jolted upright, heart racing.
"Hey man, glad you're back!" Phantom looked at the person speaking, eyes wide as he began to register his real surrounding's. Stargirl was smiling at him, looking extremely relieved.
He was sitting in a bed with pristine sheets, the kind he'd begun to recognize as hospital tailored. As he glanced around, he could see that several of the other beds had recently been slept in.
"Wha- what happened? Where am I?" Danny asked, his voice stuttering slightly as he tried to make sense of everything that had just happened.
Stargirl shrugged carelessly, obviously just glad that Phantom was awake and kicking. "Meh, I don't really understand it. Something with the devil being shoved off his high horse and balance being disrupted." She yawned into her fist. "You know, normal stuff. As for where you are, we moved you and all the others to the hospital bay once you stopped thrashing."
Phantom's mind registered these words, but he didn't process their meaning. Had it all been a dream? Could his mind really have imagined something like what he'd just seen? What had he just seen?
Come on Phantom, think! Phantom wracked his brain, trying to remember exactly what had happened. He had been listening to Flash talk, he had felt like he had eaten a tub of hot nails and acid, and then… he'd woken up in a round room with homey lighting and a psychotic version of himself? Had someone put drugs in his food?
Phantom was snapped from his thoughts by a glass waving in front of his face. He focused on it, registering what Stargirl was saying.
"-drink this. You sound like… well, like you've been screaming for several hours." Stargirl grinned at him like she had just made a fabulous joke, pouting when Phantom didn't laugh.
"Oh. Um, thanks." Phantom said, shakily taking the glass. He sipped from it, almost choking as the icy water slid down his throat. Now that he was drinking, he realized just how thirsty he was. In no time, he had drained the glass. He looked at it, disappointed that it was gone so fast.
His disappointment must have shown, because Stargirl took the glass from him. "I'll get you some more water, okay?" She smiled at him and left, leaving him alone to contemplate his thoughts.
"Awwww, isn't that sweet?" Phantom stiffened at Nox's voice, casting his eyes around the room in search of the killer. "Too bad it won't last long. When she discovers the truth, she'll leave you. Just like everyone else in your existence."
Phantom's eyes found a mirror across the room, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw that the reflection wasn't his own. Nox was staring at him through the mirror, the sick smile back on his face. Phantom glared at him, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, but making no move to stand. "What do you want?"
Nox tilted his head to the side, his neck cracking with the movement. "Hostile toward me so quickly? I see that hasn't changed."
"What do you mean, hasn't changed?" He folded his arms. "I don't even know you."
"And yet you didn't question where you were and how you got there." Nox mused. "The moment you saw me, I was instantly top priority." He winked at Phantom. "Not that I mind, of course."
"You were covered in blood." Phantom deadpanned.
Nox shrugged. "Sure. But it was more than that, wasn't it? You knew that I was up to no good even before I showed myself."
Phantom just glared. "You know what? I don't even care." He stood up. "You're evil, you murder people, so I have to stop you."
Nox pouted at him. "That's a quick assumption. I'm very, very hurt." Then he smirked, letting out a slightly girlish giggle. "Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I'm evil." His face became contemplative. "Though, I prefer the term 'malevolent'."
Phantom took a step toward the mirror. "You think I give a crap what you prefer? I'm going to stop whatever you're planning."
Nox gave another one of those chilling laugh. "Oh Phantom, don't you see? You can't stop what you are."
"You keep saying things like that." Phantom waved his hand in annoyance. "Like we're friends or something."
Nox smirked. "Not a friend. More of…" He paused. "A hated, forgotten acquaintance."
Phantom, more confused than ever, started to ask, "What do you-"
"Hi again!" Stargirl made him jump. He hadn't heard her come in, and he suddenly wondered how much of his conversation she had heard. Looking around, he was relieved when he saw that she was only just coming in.
She grinned at him and jerked her head at the mirror. "What are you looking at?"
Phantom looked at the mirror, and wasn't as surprised as he thought he should be when he saw there was nothing but his reflection. "Um, nothing."
She smirked at him. "Riiiiiiight." She giggled and handed him the glass. "I get what you're saying."
Phantom gave her a nervous smile, lifting the glass to his lips. Of course, he wasn't focused on the water. He had had a thought during his conversation with Nox. Had his battle with Nox… been in his own head?
Congratulations! You want a cookie?
Phantom choked on the water, nearly spewing it everywhere as it caught in his throat. He managed to swallow it before breaking down in a coughing fit, Stargirl smacking his back. "Yeesh Phantom, don't hack your lungs out."
The coughing finally subsided, and Phantom managed a small laugh. "I'm not planning to."
Stargirl was grinning again. "Well good, cause everyone is worried about you. You slept longer than any of the others."
He smiled as well, trying to cover the fact that he had a disturbing voice in his head offering him cookies. "Well then, I guess we better go talk to them."
Stargirl nodded and started out the door, but Phantom paused a moment. His eyes darkened for a moment, and he purposefully thought, I know you're there, Nox. I'm not scared of you. You might just be in my own head, but I will stop you.
I'm looking forward to watching you try. Nox's voice purred, and Phantom knew that his life would be very interesting from now on.
Me: So, was it good? Bad? Would you rather be eating pie? Please review and let me know! Also, tell me your favorite type of pie. And what are you guys being for halloween? Do you celebrate halloween where you live? And what should I be for halloween? I can't decide and-
Friend: Everyone left awhile ago.
Me: ...Oh. *Blushes* Well then, I guess I'll just eat my chicken pot-pie and watch 'Avatar the last air-bender'. Here's the esperanto translations.
Help me... It hurts.
Be your a cobbler, a king, or a street sweeper, we all dance with the grim reaper.
Can't sleep, can't thing- what's wrong with me?
It hurts- the blades- make it stops!
I'm sorry- I'm sorry Hannah! I tried not to, I'm sorry!