Hiya!

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is Butch Hartman's, the Hound is mine as is the voice in the wind… and the dumbstruck couple (goodness, like those guys are anything worth being proud over).

Reviewer notes are at the end.

Enjoy.

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The Soul Sepulcher

-By Sholay

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Chapter 3—The Mistake

Light. Blinding light, surrounded him on all sides… Danny couldn't speak, couldn't hear… couldn't move…

'What happened, am I dead?' He struggled fruitlessly for a few moments, then fell limp, the beginning of tears stinging his eyes. 'No…'

'Awaken.'

Loud beeping interrupted his melancholy and with the feeling of moving quickly through a tunnel, Danny was slammed back into his body. His hands, his eyes, his nose and mouth: he felt each with growing elation, near hysteria. 'I can see, I can feel!' A couple of tears really did fall this time and he wiped at them with a laugh. Realizing he was on his knees, Danny pushed himself to his feet then took a few stuttering steps, rejoicing in his ability to move. Never had he thought he'd be happy to be crying, but the experience had been more than a little harrowing and Danny didn't think he would take his simple existence for granted ever again.

The loud beeping brought him back to reality and Danny quickly looked around. He was still in the museum, so it was… the alarm system making all that noise? The beast had surely made enough of a racket to attract some attention. The room was pretty much in ruins just from the thing walking around.

Speaking of which… Danny looked around, eyes wide with apprehension. The room was empty of any large, shadow-tentacle monsters. The Hound was gone.

Danny shuddered with relief as the tension in his bond unwound.

He had no idea what had just happened and right now he could not have cared less. Danny checked himself over. He was still in ghost form, but only barely, exhaustion weighted heavily on the halfa. Whatever that bright light had been, it had taken a lot out of him.

'…And what was that light?' But Danny put this thought away. He didn't have the time to think about that now.

Flexing his right hand, Danny was relieved when it seemed to be working alright. The saliva had hardened on his upper arm though, so with his left hand Danny reached up and tried to scrape it off.

Burning pain shot up both his arm and hand. Immediately he jerked his hand away with a yelp. Biting his lip, Danny looked at his left palm; he saw that the silvery-white hazmat glove from his suit had nearly completely melted away, showing patches of bare skin underneath. It wasn't the suit he was worried about—that had the odd ability to regenerate itself every time he turned from human to ghost—no, it was his hand, which was an unusually red, irritated colour. As far as he knew, only ghost weapons could affect him like that.

Looking at his right arm, Danny also noticed that the hardened whitish substance coating his upper arm and part of his shoulder was unaffected, still clinging stubbornly to his throbbing skin.

Loud pounding on the doors brought Danny back to his senses and he abandoned his arm. It hurt, but he'd have to leave it for now. After all, he'd had worse.

Voices called out from the other side of the oak doors but Danny ignored them. Right now he had to go human before the guards could break down the door and blame 'Danny Phantom' for this mess.

'At least they're not calling me Inviso-Bill anymore' He thought dryly, happier than anyone when that ridiculous name had finally had the last nail driven into its coffin. Tiredly, Danny moved to let the rings of his power wash over him.

Mere seconds away from turning human, Danny remembered with a start, the man and woman standing in the corner. Danny froze and his head swiveled to the side, they hadn't so much as twitched, or said a single word for awhile and Danny had completely forgotten about them. He'd nearly blown his secret wide open in front of them! That is... if he hadn't already done that when he'd turned ghost. The couple was staring straight at him and Danny decided he didn't want to turn in front of them, just in case.

He tried to fly, but fell almost immediately. Then he tried to go intangible, but succeeded only in turning his left foot invisible. His powers were fried. The only thing he could do now was to fall back into human form. And… maybe he could make them forget by overshadowing… No, not enough energy. The pounding got louder; he had no choice, he would have to reveal his secret. He would have to do it now.

Reluctantly, he gave in and immediately the twin rings snapped into being, one traveling up his body, the other down, turning him from a white haired, green eyed-ghost into a black haired, blue-eyed boy.

But as the rings passed over his arms and shoulders he bit back a cry of pain as the wound on his right arm flared. Gasping, he nearly clapped a hand to the limb, but remembered at the last second what had happened last time and refrained. Clenching his hands tightly into fists instead, he locked his jaw and lowered his head, breathing shallowly through his teeth until he was master of the pain.

A burst of low whispers caught his attention. Danny looked up to see the couple murmuring excitedly between each other; it was the most animated he had seen them. Another loud pounding rocked the door and Danny knew it wouldn't be long now before the police busted in. He would have to deal with this quickly. Glancing over to the couple, Danny took a deep breath then let it out in a puff of air.

He strode over to the couple, who quietened and stared as he neared. Feeling a little self-conscious, Danny raked the fingers of his left hand through his hair, a small, lopsided grin on his face.

Danny opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, the woman said something very quickly. Danny blinked.

"Excuse me?" Danny asked and the woman repeated what she'd said… Or so Danny assumed, he didn't understand it any better the second time. "Sorry," he gave an apologetic smile and moved to put a hand behind his neck, but stopped when his right arm protested. "I don't understand what you're saying."

The man then said something to the woman and they both turned to stare at Danny.

"Uh…ok," Danny was a little thrown by all the attention, but he kept going. "Look… ok…uhh, oh man, how am I going to do this?" He worried to himself; he had to tell these people that he wasn't evil and that they couldn't tell anyone his secret. He decided to give it a go.

"I," and he pointed to himself. "Danny Phantom" and they stared. "Danny Phantom" he repeated and—for lack of energy to actually go ghost—made a 'fwoosh'ing sound that was supposed to be him turning ghost and flying away. Then he mimed throwing a few punches and pretended to be fighting. He felt like and idiot, but quite suddenly, the couple made a noise of understanding.

"Ah ha, Ahriman." The woman nodded seriously then looked at the man. "Ahriman."

Danny paused, he thought that maybe they understood and Ahriman was what they called a ghost in some Asian language: Japanese or Chinese or something. "Yes" he agreed "Ahriman" and he pointed to himself.

This seemed to have a negative effect as the woman gasped in fear and the man wrapped his arms around her protectively.

"No, no!" Danny threw his hands up in an appeasing gesture but they flinched back. "I'm not evil, I'm good." He paused, wondering how on Earth he could act out good. He settled for plastering a cheesy grin on his face and attempting to clean up some of the debris. "See?" he said weakly, even as his lopsided, disfigured granite statue crumbled. "Good." But the couple, so intent on their cowering, didn't seem to understand or be listening and Danny sighed. Where were Sam and Tucker when you needed them?

A particularly loud slam against the doors shook the walls and Danny glanced over. The doors were splintering. The security guards must have brought a battering ram over. A few more hits like that would likely bring them down. Struck with inspiration, Danny brightened.

"Look, I'm gonna go get help." He said, trying to speak slowly, though he doubted they understood. "Help, my friends Sam and Tucker. You just stay here ok?" He gestured toward himself and the door, then to them and the ground. Hopefully they would get the message and stay here while he tried to find Sam and Tucker in the crowd coming through the door. He was sure they could help. At the very least, Tucker would probably be able to translate what the couple was saying on his PDA.

He moved away to go stand near the door, but stopped when something touched his arm.

"You… come back?" The woman asked in a strange, watery, almost nonexistent voice. Danny moved away from her, unnerved and clutching the place where she'd touched him.

"Yeah." He said absently. "Yeah, I will." He turned away and immediately looked at his arm. It didn't look any different, but where her fingers had brushed his arm came the feeling of something cold and oozing caressing his arm, sticking there and spreading, making it feel like worms crawled beneath his skin.

Danny made a vow. When all this was over he was never setting foot in another museum again.

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To Be Continued…

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And that would be chapter 3!

Moonstar5569: Hello again! So glad you liked the last chapter. There was a little less action in this one, but the mystery is deepening. What do you think of the strange couple? Oh and I'm happy that you liked the Hound, he was fun to write (Yes… I enjoy torturing poor Danny a little too much XP). Your review made my day, thanks for all the compliments and I hope you liked this chapter too!

sciencefreak330: Hey! Thanks for reviewing. Glad you like it so far and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!

Quick-demon: Hiya! So… yeah, Danny got out of this one, but never fear; I have plenty planned for him yet! XD Anyway, I'm really glad you like it so far. As for the Hound… hmmm, was it a demon? Or was it something else entirely? I'm not gonna say! (Evil chuckle)

Thunderstorm101: Heh heh, IS numbness better than blinding agony? I dunno, both seemed pretty bad to Danny XP. Anyway, I'm glad you think it's creepy, this is my first mystery/strange fic (I'm more of a angst and drama driven person :D) so it's something new for me. Hopefully I'll manage to keep it up as I progress through this fic :) At any rate, I hope you liked this chapter!

Kyelor: Ah! XD You make too many good points! This is the first time that I've actively 'tried' to make something creepy (note, 'tried' being the operative word XP) so yeah, hopefully I'll get better as I go along in the story. Also, I guess a lot more errors are popping up here 'cause I haven't really reread it as many times as I reread 'Sooryavansham'… Heh heh. Anyway, thanks for the review, it was really helpful: I changed a few minor details (like 'taut' and replaced 'fluttering' for 'shifting'… with those curtains, I actually wanted to convey that they were moving without any cause, not that they moved with the slightest breeze, so maybe 'shifting' will convey that better, I really can't tell anymore :D). At any rate, yeah, that couple is definitely not normal! I'm glad you liked the chapter (even if there were so many mistakes!), and I hope this one was ok too.

Adio