Author's Note: After starting the Paranormal Instincts series almost five years ago with inspiration from CheevesDinkley's story Nocturnal Instinct and subsequently hitting a writer's block with its origin story Beware the Beast from Below, which, as the title suggests, is a rewrite of the series premiere of SDMI with a different storyline, I have wrestled with how to continue with the series.
Upon further review of what I have written so far and fresh off of remastering The Mark of the Werewolf for City of Mysteries, I have reassessed the direction of Paranormal Instincts and concluded that the best way forward is to hit the pause button and retool the series.
As the first step of retooling the series, it will involve re-establishing the origin story. Rather than having Beware the Beast from Below as the origin story, I have decided to do another rewrite of The Mystery Begins and use that as the origin story for Paranormal Instincts.
The idea behind this retooling is to further flesh out the potential behind SDMI, running concurrent to my ongoing reboot of said series under D3-1. While this retooled series will make use of the original storyline for SDMI, it will still have its differences from the source material and its Timeline One counterpart.
For starters, this retooled series will be much darker and grittier than the source material.
Second, Shaggy and Daphne's parents in this retooled series are different from the source material and in Timeline One.
Third, this retooled series will also serve as an opportunity for me to address some complaints I had with the way I handled the SDMI reboot in Timeline One. In particular, my biggest complaint is the way I jammed in the relationships, not to mention I found some of the dialogue and action just came to be, well, too simplistic to my liking.
Another change from this retooling is that Scooby will be speaking, as opposed to previously when I have established him as not speaking at all.
Now, while this story is a rewrite of The Mystery Begins, expect elements from Curse of the Lake Monster be incorporated into this story, specifically with the culprit's motive.
In the meantime, due to character limits for story titles, expect the series to have stories where the title simply begins as D3-2 SDPI or D3-2 SD Paranormal Instincts.
I don't own Scooby-Doo. Hanna-Barbera Productions and Warner Bros. does.
Prologue
October 15, 2008
The bus ride back to Abraham Lincoln High School in New York was taking longer than expected as the school bus encountered a massive traffic jam on the Interstate.
He was very bored as the school bus stops and goes with the traffic flow, and of all the days he forgot to pack his MP3 player.
The weather outside sure looked gloomy, though it wasn't unusual, given that it's already autumn and they are halfway through the month to Halloween.
Another half an hour went by before they finally drove by the source of the massive traffic jam. There were emergency lights flashing as state troopers tended to the scene of a multi-vehicle crash, along with ambulances ready to transport the injured.
Traffic cleared up significantly once they drove by the scene of the accident, and it wasn't long before they were back in downtown Brooklyn.
At least we're finished for the day by the time we get back from the museum. He thought to himself bitterly. And I would not have to put up with those jerks picking on me.
As he thought to himself, he glanced towards the seats at the back of the bus.
Erin and his pals were seated near the back, chatting away excitedly, and when Erin saw him staring back at him, he only smirked at him smugly.
Even Pierre, the French exchange student, had joined Erin and his gang in picking on him.
And yet, he wasn't sure why he didn't stand up for himself when those students picked on him, among which included mockingly refer to him as "Shaggy" on account of his hair.
Not that he minded being called "Shaggy", he'd take it over his real name, which Pierre stated to sound similar to "moron", in spite of the fact that his real name shares the name of a village in Normandy, France.
Either way, just prior to leaving the museum, he had came close to losing his temper at Erin and his gang's latest taunting, but it was the intervention from the parent supervisors that prevented him from pushing back.
At the sight of Erin and Pierre's smug smirk, he simply turned away and resumed staring out of the window.
By that point, the school bus had approached an intersection where the light had just turned green, and it joined the idling traffic in crossing the perpendicular street.
However, just as the school bus was about a quarter of a way through the intersection, his attention was drawn towards the other side of the bus by a collective gasp.
Screams followed as he turned around, in time to see a large tractor trailer barreling right towards them.
It was the last thing he remembered seeing just prior to impact, then the bus rolled over, came to a complete stop and everything went black.
Chapter 1: A dream and the bus ride
October 16, 2009
"Norville, you need to put yourself together and cut back on those painkillers you're taking." His father Sam said firmly. "It's an addiction that will only eat away at you with time, and as long as you keep it up, you won't be having the luxury of time to-"
"I'll try, Dad." He replied. "It's just that-"
"That's not good enough, son." Sam cut in sharply. "You should have your arm fixed from that botched surgery if you can't put up with the pain."
There was something about the way his father said that sounded like he was looking down on his inability to put up with the non-stop pain in his left arm, and it might be that tone that led him to snap.
"It's easier for you to say that when you've been overseas in combat, Dad." He said. "Like, I honestly don't know why I even bothered reporting my progress when all you care about is whether I can manage the pain. Maybe if you got shot at where that pole sliced right through my left arm in the accident, you'd-"
Just then, he felt a sharp pain on his left cheek, and when he reached up to feel his cheek, he looked up to his father.
Sam was glaring at him sternly, and his right hand was slightly pink and hovering by his right shoulder, right after giving him that slap in the face.
For a while, there was only silence between him and his father, and then as Sam began to realize what he had just did, the look in his eyes began to soften.
He, on the other hand, felt like his father just confirmed what he had thought about his pain all along, and he promptly stormed off to his bedroom.
His father didn't have long to dwell on that, for it was right before he had to head out and report back to base for his deployment to Afghanistan.
And it was the last time he saw his father, for five months later, they have received the visit from the Marine Corps Causality Assistance Calls Officer, informing them that his father was killed in action.
It was as if his world completely fell apart the minute the news came along, and he remembered crumbling onto the floor.
And then, as he got up, it was as if he saw his dad again, for he was standing over him solemnly.
"Dad..." He tried to reach out to his father. "Like, I'm sorry..."
But his father only smiled at him before disappearing, which prompted him to scream.
"DAD!" Shaggy screamed as he woke up that morning, and while he sit up on his bed and looked around, he saw that he was in his basement bedroom in their new home in Coolsville, half a world away from his old home in Brooklyn.
As he panted, Shaggy turned towards the alarm clock and the realization hit him.
Zoinks! He thought as he quickly leaped off his bed and raced to the washroom. Why did I set the alarm clock to 7:30 again?!
After hurriedly brushing his teeth and changing into his clothes, consisting of a green shirt, a pair of brown pants and a pair of black socks, Shaggy grabbed his backpack and hurried up the stairs to the dining room.
Grabbing a few toasts, a banana and some waffles and munching them down, Shaggy raced to the door, put on his black sneakers, took his keys, and raced his way out of the house after locking the door to the school bus stop.
The school bus was already at the nearby school bus stop when he exited his house, and he quickly raced to the bus and knocked on the front door just as it was about to pull away.
Luckily for him, the driver had noticed him running towards the bus, and he sighed as he opened the door again.
Boarding the school bus, Shaggy was met by the driver's disapproving stare, which prompted him to say, "Sorry, like, it won't happen again."
The driver merely exhaled as he closed the door while Shaggy made his way towards the back of the bus. As his stop was the last one on that route, he had difficulty finding a seat.
The students on board were chatting with one another miscellaneously, among them being a jock on the school's football team, who was chatting with a blond-haired boy wearing a white shirt with an orange ascot and a pair of light blue jeans and was seated next to him.
When the jock saw Shaggy walking by, he stick his foot out, leading him to trip over and fall onto the floor, drawing everyone's attention.
Seeing the fall through the rear view mirror, the driver shook his head in disapproval as he continued driving.
"Having a nice trip, Shaggy?" The football player asked mockingly.
Shaggy only scowled in response as he got up and carried on to the back of the bus, during which the football player turned to his seatmate and offered him his hand for a high-five, which he declined with a hand gesture that was as if he was asking, Was that really necessary?
As that was happening, Shaggy continued to search around for a seat. He first came upon a pair in which the window seat was taken by a girl wearing a thick pair of glasses and wearing an orange turtle neck and a red skirt.
However, the aisle seat was taken up by what appeared to be large device with plenty of wires, switches and other electrical items, and given that the girl has her backpack on her lap, that leaves her aisle seat out of the question.
During this time, a red-haired girl dressed in purple and wearing a green scarf was busy reviewing a script for the drama club's upcoming performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
She noticed Shaggy was struggling to find a seat, and then she noted her backpack on the window seat before picking it up.
"Hey." She called out to Shaggy, who turned towards her. "You can take this seat."
Shaggy nodded as he walked over and she shifted over to the window with her backpack on her lap.
"Like, thanks." He said as he sat down.
"No problem." She responded.
As he sat down, he was thinking about the dream he had earlier, a thought that was only further enhanced when he walked by his father's service photo, which was accompanied by a display board with medals.
The medals were surmounted by a name plate that said, "ROGERS", along with a silver oak leaf.
The service photo depicted his father Sam in his full service dress uniform, and the photo was accompanied by a caption that says:
"USMC Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Chastain 'Slamming Sam' Rogers
July 24, 1960 - March 22, 2009
You will be greatly missed by the 1st Recon Bn"
Shaggy exhaled as he thought about the past seven months since they received the news of his father's death.
It was a difficult seven months, for in addition to dealing the grief of losing his father, he also began seeing an addiction specialist at an addiction treatment centre to treat his dependency on the painkillers he was prescribed.
Shaggy was prescribed painkillers after that accident in New York, which saw a tractor trailer colliding right in the middle of the school bus he was travelling on.
Among the students seated in the middle of the school bus, he was the sole survivor of the crash, though it wasn't without its difficulties.
The doctors botched his surgery, which left him with the non-stop pain in his left arm, necessitating the prescription.
What started out as a way to mitigate the pain turned into an addiction, and it wasn't long before the difficulties from his survival of the accident led to an intense strain in his relationship with his family, especially his father.
Sam was a career Marine Corps non-commissioned officer with 16 years of service under his belt, having had done plenty of tours of duty, starting first with Grenada in 1983 and, up until Shaggy's birth in April 27, 1993, Somalia.
In his 16 years of service, Sam had seen plenty of assignments and postings, first as a military police non-commissioned officer, then as a Scout Sniper and eventually as a tactical squad leader in FORECON.
He was also a qualified pilot and has frequently provided air transport for his fellow Marines, in and out of the deployment zone of their missions.
At the time of Shaggy's birth, Sam had transferred to inactive reserves with the rank of gunnery sergeant and was in his second year of studies at the National Defense University under a scholarship, studying material in military science and strategic planning.
By the time Maggie was born in 1996, Sam was commissioned into the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant, and he continued with his earlier assignments at FORECON and went on to see more tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Shaggy and Maggie's mother Wendy was a career Air Force non-commissioned officer at the time of Shaggy's birth with her own achievements during her seventeen years.
She specializes in combat medicine and had years of experience as an Air Force combat medic under her belt, and her assignments were mostly relegated to Special Operations.
In the year before she gave birth to Maggie, Wendy, who had achieved the rank of master sergeant and was considered for a promotion to senior master sergeant, made the decision to transfer to inactive reserves so she could take part in advanced medical training courses.
She received her M.D designation at the time of her commission as a second lieutenant four years later, and she went on to work as a medical officer in the various SO squadrons she was posted at.
He shook his head at the memory of his last conversation with his father, and the thought of him not saying his goodbyes to his father while he had the chance only made his eyes well up.
At least his mother Wendy and sister Maggie were supportive as he first underwent a second surgery to fix his left arm, and then checking into the addiction treatment centre to treat his dependency on the painkillers.
By the time his mother Wendy was transferred to the 701st Combat Operations Squadron as the squadron's chief medical officer in the March Air Reserve Base this past summer and took up her new employment at the Crystal Cove County General Hospital in Coolsville, Shaggy had received a clean bill of health.
But even as he completely recovered from his addiction from the painkillers, the lingering guilt over his father's death, coupled with the trauma from that fateful accident a year ago, continued to haunt him.
It was a surprise for him then that he was able to start riding the school bus to and from school everyday after the move without triggering any of the memories from the accident, though he certainly hasn't stopped feeling anxious whenever the bus crosses an intersection.
It was then that his seatmate's voice interrupted his thoughts. "We're here."
Her voice brought Shaggy back to reality as he looked out the window, and he was relieved to see that the bus was stopped at the curb fronting the school's main entrance.
"Ah, sorry." He quickly said as he got up and joined the other students in disembarking from the bus.
Making his way down the aisle, Shaggy was once again tripped over by the jock from earlier.
"It's just too easy!" The jock laughed as Shaggy got up and carried on.
Upon disembarking from the bus, Shaggy paused briefly as he looked at the school's name above the main entrance.
The Gothic architecture of Coolsville Central High School, opened in 1922, simply stared back at him, and he exhaled before he made his way into the school building.
Please read and review!
