Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any characters affiliated, Butch Hartman does. Also, I am making no money off of this whatsoever.

Chapter Five

I came to realization the next day that I was filthy and really, really needed to take a shower. I have absolutely no idea how anyone put up with me. So I hopped in the shower and washed away every speck of dust on my body. I was lucky I wasn't coated in zits; simply put, I must've gotten there just in time.

I changed into a pair of clothes that were very similar to the clothes I used to wear before coming here. Those had been thrown away long ago. By whom, I never knew. I brushed my teeth and combed my hair, which was only slightly matted, and decided to visit the gym. The muscle I had so painstakingly worked up over the last year had started to fade away.

Was all of this just some mental survival strategy, to keep my thoughts away from the fact that I had just come so close to getting out? Yes, yes it was, I am perfectly content admitting that. My life sucked at that moment, and I did what I could.

So while I was working on the treadmill, staring out into space, preoccupied with keeping any and all thoughts out of my head, I heard someone call from behind me, very rudely, "Hey, amigo! Good to see you again."

I pressed the stop button and turned around to face whoever had pulled me away from my lack of thoughts.

"Toby?" I said in surprise. I didn't ask where he came from this time. I already knew.

"Yeah. Back from my little trip, and not a moment too soon! When was the last time you visited the gym? I haven't seen you around. I used to come here everyday."

"Eh - I never came before now," I said slowly.

"I see. Well . . . would you spot me?" He chose that moment to randomly disappear. "Dang it! Bad timing. The pun wasn't intended, lemme tell you."

I stood there stupidly for a moment, trying to figure out what pun he was talking about before getting it, letting out an, "Ohhh," when I did.

"By chance do you go invisible yourself? You being half ghost and all?" he asked as he faded back into sight.

"Well, yeah."

"You ever just completely disappear at a bad time?"

Remembering one particular morning about a month after the accident, I sighed. "Plenty of times. I guess I can control myself a bit better, now. I haven't lost control in awhile."

Sighing as he lay down on the bench press, he gestured to me. "Will you spot me?" he asked again, and I nodded.

"Yeah, sure."

That was a good fifteen minutes wasted.

He finally sat up, and moved over to the treadmill. I went to a sit-up mat, and suddenly wondered why I was in here in the first place.

I was never one to exercise.

The moment I remembered this, a thousand different aches and pains jolted through my body. I sat up stiffly and told Toby absentmindedly that I'd see him later, before limping back to my room to take a nap.

Napping took minimal thinking, anyway. Of course there were dreams. But I never dreamed of my problems here. No, my nightmares were very far away from this dread facility. Very far away indeed . . . resting with one monster I'm sad to say was once me.

- - -

A couple of hours later I was no longer in complete agony, though I was still very sore. I cursed myself for being such an idiot (how on Earth did I forget that I don't exercise?), and hobbled up to get some dinner from the cafeteria. Thankfully, Toby was nowhere in sight and I managed to eat and brood in silence.

My strenuous effort to keep recent events out of my mind finally took enough of a toll on me so that I just couldn't do it anymore. As I ate, I thought of Mrs. Kilpear and her husband (whom I was slowly growing to hate more and more), my near-escape from Mt. Ivory, and the fact that I was very nearly bought by a couple of strangers.

Which is honestly a really weird sentence.

I told myself not to get my hopes up and that no one else from Amity Park would ever step foot in here again. The only other people who could possibly afford to buy a slave/pet/whatever from this place were the Mansons, and, well, that just wasn't happening.

I chewed on my peas, and, for the umpteenth time in these past couple of weeks, I had an epiphany.

I was disappearing. Both in the figurative and literal sense. For while I was changing, becoming a different person thanks to some unseen force around Mt. Ivory, I was also slowly sinking through the cafeteria floor.

As Toby put it: dang it! Bad timing.

No one paid mind to me; I was invisible. And, as noted, sinking through the floor.

It took me about thirty seconds of falling (at a snail's pace, thankfully enough) to realize that I should probably pull myself out. I focused on making my hands as tangible as possible and put them on the floor in front of me.

In short: didn't work. Sank faster. Hit floor, now solid. Pain.

That was probably about all I could've said at that particular moment, at any rate. At least one of my arms was broken. I could tell because of the way the bone poked up through the skin.

Well this is just great, I thought. Everything screamed at me; sheer agony was a decent term. Well, everything except that arm. I convinced myself right then and there that the nerves had all died and that not only was I stuck here forever, I'd be crippled the rest of my life.

I really had no idea how long I lied there. Every spot on my body hurt and I was positive I would die before I could take another painful breath in.

Oddly enough, I didn't. I'd just fallen a very, very long way (how long it was, at the time, no consequence to me, and I didn't bother finding out later), a bone was sticking out of my freaking arm, and if I didn't have some form of internal damage I'll go out and tell the world I am in love with Vlad, but I lived.

In fact, I lived to stand up and look around the dark room I'd just waited out forever in, which seemed to be an abandoned ballroom of sorts, brush dust off of my shirt with two completely repaired arms, and finally collapse, noticing suddenly, that I was very, very hungry.

Amazing ghost boy: heals quick-as-lightning, and then dies because he hasn't eaten since whenever.

Karma, as I've said before, hates me. That was my last thought before I (finally) passed out.

Then, after the blackness had swallowed all but one tiny part of my mind, I wondered why I hadn't before.

Then that disappeared, too.

- - -

Yep, waking up (I think it was three days later) was not the most pleasant experience in the world. An IV was hooked up to my arm, and doctors were swarming around, paying no attention to me whatsoever. I briefly wondered if I was still invisible.

Then I noticed that I was miraculously not dead.

Okay, technicalities aside, anyway.

It was nice. I wasn't hungry anymore (something told me the IV had something to with that), and no, there wasn't a bone in my body that was either broken or sticking up through my skin at odd angles.

And, best of all, I could move my previously injured arm.

Of course all previous happiness drained out of me when I remembered that the doctors, scientists, whatever, probably had no idea that I'd ever been injured.

I'd healed on my own.

True, at this point I already knew I was significantly lacking in the humanity department (so far as Mt. Ivory officials were concerned), but, ahem, recovering from that kind of dire injury was not normal, even by my impossibly high standards.

Then I slowly started to remember the number of injuries I'd sustained as Phantom, and how most of the small ones healed overnight, and the deeper cuts and nastier burns healed by the end of school the next day.

I closed my eyes again, praying that no one had noticed me open them in the first place, and tried to go back to sleep.

Maybe I was just medicated enough, but I did. And I'm still grateful for that to this day.