Still not exactly sure how long this story will be. Let's just see how it goes for now. Also I realized that I made many ridiculous typos last chapter so I was more careful while editing this one...
-Six months after the accident-
Maddie descended the steps to the basement holding a thin clipboard withholding the documentation of all data collected on Vlad's condition since the accident. He had been administered to the hospital a total of six times when he became too unstable for them to handle, only then to be brought back under their care once again. The hospital staff were not trained in the field of Ghost Induced Illnesses. The only logical option was to keep him under their care for the time being.
Jack's basement was filled with pointless household clutter and no matter how many times Maddy asked Jack to clear it, he would just make excuses for why he needed everything in there. Not only was there useless clutter, but also all their little gadgets that were supposed to function as ghost trackers. Sadly not one of them worked Farther than simply turning on and off. If only they knew that years in the future that very basement would become the basis of all their work. Their very own laboratory better than anything they had access to through their college, better than anything they could have dreamed of.
In the center of the basement was advanced medical machinery. All the necessities like a heart monitor, an x-ray machine and other things to monitor Vlad's condition and track any and all progress to his recovery. The sickening lumps on his skin, her and Jack had appropriately given the name of 'Ecto-Acne', had remained consistent from present time all the way back until the accident. As far as they knew, it posed no threat to the mans life, but they still thrived to find a cure, even though they currently had not even a single lead.
Maddie sat in the little plush chair beside the bed Vlad lay unconscious in. Her heart clenched painfully in her chest at the sight of his battered form, and ghostly blemished skin. Maddie turned her attention away from the man to focused on the paperwork on her lap instead of the physically broken form beside her and flipped mindlessly through the countless sheets of paper at all the documentation. She flipped through Vlad's "Medical History" with the utmost interest. The first month in from the accident Vlad had finally regained, to an extent, consciousness, but faded in and out only able to mutter incoherent words.A week from the date he officially awoken, he was able to recognize jack and herself and she removed his IV in favor of feeding him solid foods now that he was fully conscious. His memory stemmed as far as the date of the accident and beyond, but the accident itself...he had no recollection of the disaster that landed him here in the first place.
The disease had many curious effects beside the initial acne that dotted the flesh. Since the accident Vlad's heart had drastically slowed. His once steady 90 beats/min heart rate dropped down to a deadly 60 beats/min. The first time Maddie had tried to hook Vlad up to the heart monitor, the second the machine had taken it's first reading it had gone crazy in seconds. When Maddie had checked the results she had been positive that the monitor was malfunctioning.
At 60 beats/min every cell in his body would begin to die at the lack of oxygen, but he somehow managed.
That wasn't even the most frightening she recalled, as surprising as that might be. In about the second month, when she had come in to bring him his breakfast she had discovered Vlad floating almost a full two inches above his mattress.
If that wasn't strange enough, that same day she had entered the lab that afternoon and discovered that he had fallen onto the floor. Only he lay directly beneath his bed, looking completely unphased by it. The hospital bed was lifted 5 inches above the floor, so Vlad was visible, yet wasn't cramped and uncomfortable. Perplexed by this, she had run up the steps into the main part of the house and checked the video footage only to see the man phase through the bed.
She had conversed with Jack about these oddities who was just as perplexed as she was. As far as they knew, before the accidents Vlad had none of these strange abilities. Could it be that the explosion of the portal, that initial exposure to the ectoplasm, that caused this?
Maddie tapped the pen that she had been holding lightly on her chin. What if the ectoplasm had entered his bloodstream?
In the next instant Maddie stood up, grabbed a single syringe out of a small medical supply drawer. She inspected the needle closely before rolling up the sleeve of Vlad's shirt. She tied a band around his arm to momentarily stop the flow of blood into his arm so that when the needle entered his vein, his blood wouldn't spurt out after she drew the needle.
She angled her syring above his arm and allowed the needle to just barely graze his skin. She gently plunged the needle into his flesh just over a vein. A small flow of blood trickled inside of the syringe, she could feel the warmth of the liquid through the syringe in her palm. She disconnected the tube with the blood sample and threw the needle away in the trash, then held the sample up into the light. She felt her eyes widen dramatically as the deep red liquid had small specs of some green substance mixed in. Her fingers trembled slightly. The only conclusion her mind could muster was that the substance had to be ectoplasm.
The blood sample in her hands was extraordinary, but how was it possible? Maddie scribbled her findings down in her notes. She had never laid eyes on a ghost and knew little to nothing about their anatomy. Vlad's exposure to the ectoplasm had changed him in ways that were unimaginable. What if, somehow, his human DNA had been altered by ghost DNA delivered through the portal?
She flipped back to that initial first page where Jack had scribbled down his works for the portal; the formulas, sketches, prototype plans and what not. At first glance on that fateful night she had thought that his calculations were completely off, which they were, but maybe not as off as she had originally thought.
The portal had not been stable, but it was fully functional which was a major step forward in comparison to their past portal experiments that always ended with major destruction and shattered hope. But this last time, the portal worked for that glorious one minute and a quarter. Maybe if she worked back into the formulas she would be able to unlock the key to all of this. To perfect them so our portal was not only functional, but stable as well.
Then it occurred to her that maybe their work could be expanded. What happened to Vlad when the portal had exploded in his face. would it be possible to execute the experiment with another subject and transfer ghost powers to a human, minus the ecto-acne?
Her skin crawled as the image flooded back into her mind. Vlad on his knees while she cowered in the corner. She had been so helpless that day, unable to help her friend.
She looked back down to the blood sample still centered on her palm. With a sigh she stood up crossing a room to a small machine to the right of the hospital bed. She discarded the needle in the waist bin and proceeded to hook up the vile to the machine. She pressed the on switch, and the machine hummed to life.
The soft hum disrupted Vlad from his sleep as he began to stir. Maddie allowed a small gentle smile to pass her lips. She sat down at the chair once more and watched as Vlad began to gradually come to.
His eyelids fluttered open to reveal his deep, dark,murky blue eyes. He groggily turned his head to face the girl that he had come to love. For the briefest of moments he had forgotten all that had happened, even his current state. It was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders until the memories flooded heavy into his mind like a heavy sack of bricks. He sighed heavily.
Maddie tugged at her glove, pulling one off to reveal her long, slim fingers. She reached her hand out to gently stroke the side of Vlad's head comfortingly.
He lolled his head into her palm, from her angle she could get a clear view of the bags under his sullen eyes and the way the corners of his eyes crinkled. She placed her clipboard on his lap amd waited patiently for him to thumb through her most recent findings. She had shared everything with him, after all this was his health, and the fact that he was also a very inteligable genius much like herself.
"Ectoplasm in my blood?" He questioned his eyes widening at the notes in front of him.
"I think that may be what's causing your abilities."