Chapter 6
Danny cursed under his breath as he shivered. Somehow, he felt even more miserable than before.
When his mom came back upstairs, she handed him a glass of water. Much to Danny's dismay, it slipped right through his hand. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. His eyes widened, and he anxiously looked at his mom to see her reaction.
"Oh!" She gasped as the glass shattered on the floor. "I'll be right back to clean this up! Don't get up!" She said, rushing out of the room.
Danny breathed a sigh of relief. Then he looked at his hand which was now teetering between solid and partially opaque. He studied it curiously.
He shoved his hand under the covers as his mom abruptly came back in with a dustpan and another glass of water. "I didn't realize the glass was so slippery!"
"Yeah, me either. Sorry," he said.
"You have nothing to be sorry about! Here," she said, handing the new glass to him. He carefully reached with his other hand and took it.
"Thanks," he said, focusing all his energy on staying tangible. He strained, heart pounding against his chest.
"Alright," his mom said, sweeping up the last shard and drying the water with a towel. "All done. Now I'm keeping this thermometer in here," she said, placing it on the nightstand. "If you have any fever, you let me know. I'll check on you in a bit. Eat your food and get some rest, okay?" She said, getting up and leaving the room.
Danny nodded. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes when she shut the door behind her. "Thank God," he said quietly.
As relief washed over him, the cup slipped through his other hand and got all over him. He cursed as the water soaked his bed. And yet, he realized that when he simply let himself go, he felt so much better. Maybe he needed to wait this thing out. Let his body run its course through this illness and stop fighting it. The issue was, how could he do that when his mom would be checking on him constantly?
He checked his temperature, and when he saw that it read 80 degrees, his breath caught in his throat. A temperature like that would mean...
As stress overwhelmed him, he felt like he might explode at any second. "Pull yourself together, Fenton," he said to himself.
He turned over in his bed and buried his face into his pillow then screamed. He turned back over and felt some amount of relief from the release of his anxiety. But it didn't help the current situation, which was that he was - without a doubt in his mind - on the brink of death.
At some point, he passed out. He wasn't sure when or even how, but he had slept into the night, as it was now dark out. In fact, it was 1 AM, according to his alarm clock.
He wondered how many times his mom checked on him, if she saw anything...strange.
Then he realized that, against all odds, he didn't feel sick anymore.
He checked his temperature: 95 degrees. Still unusual, but not near death unusual.
The miraculous recovery had him wondering if it had all been in his head to start with. Only one way to find out, he thought to himself, stepping out of his bed.
Once he was down in the lab, he went straight to the portal. He clicked the button on the outside that said open, and the black and yellow striped doors slid apart, revealing a hypnotizing swirl of ectoplasm. Danny swallowed hard. "That part wasn't a dream," he said. But that didn't mean the rest wasn't. Or maybe he had some ghost sickness and got over it...He didn't want to think too much about it. So like any teen would, he went back to bed to avoid confronting the issue.