"Tucker placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder. 'Dude, you have to wake up.'"
The ghosts had been attacking nonstop for days, and Danny didn’t know why.
His parents had probably left the portal open or something, but he hadn’t been home to check. He’d never been so grateful to be on summer break—he would’ve had to miss at least two full days of school, and not just because of the all-nighters.
What was extra frustrating was that the attacks weren’t even anything crazy. Just the usual animals and ectopuses (octopi? octopeese?), with the occasional rogue mixed in. There were just so many of them—it seemed like every time he thought it was over, he’d turn around and see another green raccoon hissing at him from a dumpster.
Valerie was out of town, his parents were off the field, and he didn’t want to drag his friends into danger. So, he was on his own. It had gotten to the point where he stopped fighting the ones he deemed unlikely to hurt anyone; he simply didn’t have time for them all—he needed to prioritize.
Johnny had taken one look at him a few hours ago and walked away, not even bothering to pick a fight.
Danny didn’t know the reason behind that, either.
“Yeesh, kid,” was all Johnny had said before he left. “You don’t look so good. I’ll come back when you’re more . . . yourself.”
All that had done was make Danny self-conscious and realize it had been well over 24 hours since he’d last showered. Or slept.
Only, he wasn’t really tired. A bit fatigued, maybe, but he didn’t think he could sleep right now if he wanted to.
He wasn’t hungry, either. That was weird. Maybe it just hadn’t caught up with him yet. Adrenaline, or whatever.
Around noon, when he finally hit a lull in the wave of small threats, Danny let himself take a break to find food, figuring he’d probably get hungry as soon as he started eating.
He touched down in a secluded alley near the Nasty Burger. Just as he was about to transform, a noise from the alley’s mouth made him pause.
He knew that voice. It was smaller and softer than usual, but it was unmistakably Sam’s.
Danny turned to find his friend watching him apprehensively. Her hair was limp and unstyled, her face bare of makeup, and she was wearing a set of baggy sweats she rarely donned outside of her own house.
“Sam?” Danny asked, concerned. “Are you okay?” She almost never dressed like that, even when she was sick. Something must be seriously wrong.
“No,” she answered, her voice thick, as if she’d been crying.
“Sorry, standard question. What’s wrong?”
She walked away from the alley, in the direction of FentonWorks, and Danny obediently followed. Sam pulled out her phone, focusing solely on it as she walked. Rather than transforming (human him probably reeked), Danny turned invisible so no one would see her hanging out with a ghost.
He tried to see what she was typing, but her phone was bobbing too much with her steps for him to read anything.
Finally, she put her phone away, and looked up. Whipping her head around, she frantically asked, “Danny?”
“Still here. Didn’t want to subject you to my B.O.”
“Oh,” she sighed, visibly calming. “Thanks, I guess.”
“So, what’s up?” Danny drifted to her side, matching her pace even as he floated instead of walked.
“We’re meeting up with Tuck and Jazz. We’ll explain then.”
Alarm bells immediately started ringing in Danny’s mind. What could possibly be so bad that she didn’t want to tell him herself?
Jazz’s arm was in a sling. That was the first thing Danny noticed when he and Sam met up with her and Tucker in Jazz’s bedroom.
“What happened?” Danny demanded, resuming visibility as he flew to dote on his sister.
She swept him up in a massive one-armed hug.
They stayed that way for longer than Danny thought was really necessary. Finally, she released him, but she didn’t answer his question for a long moment.
He studied her while he waited. Jazz’s usually perfect hair was unkempt, and her face, like Sam’s, was abnormally makeup-free.
Tucker didn’t look much better. His eyes were bloodshot, and his signature red beret was in his hands, revealing tangled curls.
“Danny,” Jazz said slowly, making an unsettling amount of direct eye-act. “How long have you been out?”
“Out fighting ghosts?” he asked. “Like, two whole days. I barely remember the last time I ate—“
“What’s the last thing you do remember?” Jazz interrupted.
Danny’s thoughts screeched to a halt. What was that supposed to mean?
“Uh, last thing I did was trap a couple nutty ghost squirrels in the thermos, then I was gonna get food when Sam found me.”
“No, before that. Before you went out yesterday. Where did you wake up? What did you do the night before?”
That should have been easy to answer, but Danny came up blank.
“I must be more tired than I thought,” he mumbled, staring at his boots.
Jazz made a weird groaning noise deep in her throat. He looked up to see her eyes welling with tears.
Tucker placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Dude, you have to wake up.”
“Shut up,” Danny snarked, brushing off his friend’s hand and staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. Tucker always pulled pranks like this at the absolute worst times.
Seriously, someone must have gotten hurt, or, or—
“They’re safe,” Sam said. “They’re, um. They’re with you.”
“I swear on my life, man, I’m not playing,” Tucker said. “You’ve been in a coma for the past week. We’ve been trying to track you down since we first saw you flying around yesterday morning.”
“What?” He felt his eyes flare bright as he whirled, whipping his head between the trio.
“But, that can’t be . . . I’m not—”
Sam ever-so-gently brushed his hair with her fingertips. “Danny, when’s the last time you looked in a mirror?” She was crying now, too, and Danny suddenly understood why she’d foregone the heavy eye makeup.
“We were in an accident.” Jazz said, her voice wobbling. “The RV . . . You know how Dad drives. He and Mom were unharmed, just some mild whiplash. I broke my arm, and you . . .” She sobbed, almost incoherent as she finished, “You’re in the hospital.”
“Your parents are visiting you right now,” Sam continued quietly. “The doctors don’t know when, or—or if you’ll wake up.”
Danny felt like he’d been punched.
“No,” he said, pulling away farther and shaking his head furiously. “No, you’re pranking me, I—”
Flinging himself through the bathroom wall, Danny flicked on the lights and braced himself on the edge of the sink. He could feel his arms shaking as he slowly raised his head to examine his reflection.
When he saw the face looking back at him, he choked on a scream.
He looked so . . . so ghostly, and not in the way he usually did as a ghost.
He was so much less substantial. Less . . . himself.
He was almost transparent, his pale, green-tinged face so thin he could clearly make out the walls behind him. His white hair floated lazily around his head, completely untethered from gravity.
Something flickered in his periphery. He turned to find a knee-length white cape cascading from his shoulders.
He could understand not noticing the other changes, but how had he missed that?
“Danny!” Jazz called, rapping on the other side of the door. “Look, I know this is a lot, but I just want you to know we’re waiting right out here, whenever you’re ready to talk!”
A lot. Yeah, right. He barely looked human. Heck, he barely looked solid enough to hold off an ectopus, much less wrangle as many ghosts as he had in the last few days. How had he even managed? It looked like a slight breeze would be all it took to blow him away.
This was a heck of a lot more than a lot.
His body was in the hospital. That was what they meant, wasn’t it? The closest thing he could compare this to was that time with the Ghost Catcher, when Phantom-him was flying around, fighting ghosts as a full-time superhero.
A coma. Dang. And it wasn’t even his fault.
He supposed that explained how he was able to keep going for so long without taking care of his body. His body was already being taken care of!
He laughed humorlessly, edging on hysterically. This sucked.
But it was okay, it had to be okay. Now he knew, and that meant he could fix this.
Surely, he could fix this.
Bracing himself, he slammed open the door and said, “Show me.”
Sneaking into a hospital is easy when you can turn invisible.
All Danny needed to do was extend his invisibility to Jazz, Sam, and Tucker, and they were able to guide him past the receptionist, up the stairs, and down the corridor to the children’s wing of South Mercy Hospital.
As a single unit, they wove through the brightly-colored rooms, stopping before a vibrant blue door. When Jazz confirmed this was the one, he phased them through.
Danny released his sister and friends before floating to the bed.
There was someone sleeping in it.
A disturbingly familiar someone.
The boy in the bed’s face was sallow, his undereyes hollow, and he was hooked up to all kinds of beeping and whirring machines. But Danny would recognize that face anywhere—it was the same one he saw (almost) every time he looked in the mirror.
It was the strangest feeling, looking at himself from the outside like this. It was one he’d experienced before, several times—yet never quite like this.
His consciousness wasn’t actively split into halves. This wasn’t a clone, or a version of him from another timeline; this was him. His actual, personal, unconscious body, with all of what made him him outside of it.
He glanced at Jazz, Sam, and Tucker in turn. He had an idea, but he had no idea if it would work. Either way, he had to try.
Danny steeled himself, then flew back into his body.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
titsay
yousharknotpass
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
turnnoffyourmind
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