#dissection au

The walk home was uneventful and devoid of friendly tail or whisker.  He kicked the door open with his foot, dumped his bag by the door, and headed down the basement stairs.

“Hey Mom, Dad, I’m gonna go hang out with Tucker and Sam,” he said while descending to the basement.

“Hey Sweetie!” his mother called back. “Since it’s the weekend that’ll be alright, just make sure you get something to eat before you go.”

As Danny hit the bottom step, his nose was assaulted by the electric-lime tang of ectoplasm.  He took a hesitant step forward into the lab, not really wanting to see whatever experiment his parents had managed to cook up.

His mother smiled at him, ectoplasm splattered across her hood and hazmat suit.  “How was school today, Danny?”

“Danno!” His father boomed, also covered in ectoplasm. “Do you have a lot of homework?  Maybe you can come help us in the lab after you’re done hanging out with your friends!”

Danny’s eyes slid from his exuberant parents, to the lab table in between them. Dread filled him as they then followed the slow drip, drip of ectoplasm from the floor back up to the table surface.  His muscles froze and his stomach dropped to his feet. An icy feeling crept up his throat.  He felt the temperature drop around him and further chill the air of the lab.  His heartbeat, normally very slow and steady, jumped in his chest like a panicked rabbit.

Danny couldn’t catch his breath.  Every shallow inhale brought the sickening scent of lime fizz and chemicals into his lungs.  His head pounded and a static tingling crawled from his shoulders to his fingertips.  A roaring noise keened in his ears but over it all he could still clearly hear the slow dripping of ectoplasm rolling off the table and platting on the floor.

‘Oh no, oh no, no no no no...’ His hands trembled as they clenched into fists at his sides and he swayed slightly as he saw just where the friendly cat ghost had been.

He stumbled closer to the table.

His mother turned to him, the light reflecting off the red lens of her goggles at odds with her concerned tone. “Honey, are you feeling alright? You’re looking a little green.” She reached for his forehead with an ectoplasm stained glove.

He dodged out of her reach, barely avoiding the puddle of green at the base of the lab table. 

He peered down at the table. “Ms. Chonkers?” he whispered faintly, just below the threshold of human hearing.

The partially dissected ghost lifted her head fractions of an inch and gave a pathetic wheezing, “Mew.”  She then sagged back down to the table.

Danny’s eyes darted between his parents before settling back on the unfortunate ghost in front of him.  Her core was exposed, the golf ball sized light quivering in the sterile air of the lab.

He swallowed down bile as he desperately tried to think of a way to get his parents away from the cat before they managed to hurt her any more.

“Danny?” his mother said.

Danny swallowed again. “Just wanted to check in.” He flicked his eyes to the cat and back, he had a ghost of a plan, but would need to hurry.

He quickly turned heel and fled back upstairs, trying to keep his revulsion and nausea down. As his foot hit the uppermost step, he heard his mother—no, Maddie say, “Careful Jack. Don’t disturb the core. We don’t want this one disintegrating before we’re done studying it.  Just think of all the technological and scientific advancements we can make if we figure out how it works!”

He got to the kitchen and paced back and forth for a moment. He needed to get his parents out of the house immediately and without question.  He stopped and yanked his phone out, nearly fumbling it in his haste, and called his sister.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?  Danny?” 

“Jazz.  You need to call Mom and Dad and get them out of the house.  Tell them you saw Skulker terrorizing some kids or something, but it has to be as fast as you can!”

“Okay, little brother. But please, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Jazz, they have Chonkers.  Please hurry and get them out of the lab, it’s…really bad.”

Danny heard Jazz breathe in sharply.

“Alright, I’ll get them out. Do your best to save her!” 

Danny resumed his pacing as he waited.

After the longest 20 seconds of Danny’s half-life, his parents came thundering up the stairs.

“We’re coming, Jazzy-pants!” his dad cried.

“No putrid ghost hunter will lay a hand on our daughter!” shouted his mother.

The second he heard the door slam, Danny raced back down to the lab.  He jammed his thumb into the DNA scanner to open the portal before rushing back to the ghost.

“Ms. Chonkers!”  He quickly unstrapped the ecto-resistant restraints. His hands hovered over the cat, trembling.

“Mew,” she whimpered, sides heaving in distress.

Danny gingerly unpinned the peeled strips of green flesh and gently pushed them back in place, protecting the fragile core.  He carefully phased his arms through the table to gently lift her.  

Once safe in his arms, she began a rasping, purr.  

He turned to the swirling portal and hovered above the ground.  He winced and tried to ignore the soft splats of ectoplasm dripping off of his arms to the lab floor. 

She was melting in his arms.  

Once through the portal and into the ambient energy of the Infinite Realms, Chonkers began to revive somewhat.  Her tail twitched, and the dripping slowed.  

Danny touched down on a piece of floating rock near the portal and tenderly laid her down.  He rubbed around her ears and chin, being careful to avoid the incisions.  The cat’s purrs rumbled slightly louder.

“Still not stable,” he muttered.  Watching as steam rose off from the ectoplasm pooling around her body, he grasped at the loose soil covering their tiny island in frustration.  He shuddered, gasping as he tried to keep the sobs in.  

He couldn't fall to pieces right now, Chonkers already had that covered.  He opened his eyes after a few seconds, faintly luminous tears falling and cleaning tiny dots on his gloves.  

“What can stabilize a ghost that’s falling apart...melting?” he asked himself.

She was melting in his arms just like Dani.  Wait.  The Ecto-dejecto had saved Dani.  Maybe it could save Chonkers as well.  Clarity rushed over him now that he had a plan.

Danny gently stroked the side of Chonkers’ face. “I’ll be right back. It’ll be ok.”  

He flew back through the portal and scanned the failed experiment shelf. 

There it was. “Aha!” He snatched it and once again launched himself through the portal.

Once he was back at her side, he spritzed her with the ecto-dejecto.

‘Please work.’ 

Several agonizing seconds passed as Danny watched her sides heave, still sublimating and mixing into the ambient ectoplasm.

A ripple passed through her body. Then another, and another.  The puddle under her receded as her body slowly reformed.  

Danny let out a deep sigh as the minutes passed.  The tight feeling in his chest finally easing as Chonkers took a few unsteady steps to him, butting her head against his leg where he knelt. 

  “That was way too close,” Danny said as he obeyed her demands for affection and petted her.  His body sagged to the ground, unbelievably weary now that the crisis had passed. 

 Chonkers climbed onto his lap and purred. 

 “I know how cats usually feel about dogs, but maybe you could learn a few things from Cujo.  If you could change size like him, this won’t happen again.”  He hugged the cat in his arms, feeling the tension slowly bleed out of him. “It can’t happen again.”  

 Danny lifted the chunky cat up and held her at face level.  “You have to stay in here for now, it won’t be safe in the human world for you for a while.”  

 She mewed at him inquisitively.

 “I know you’re happy around people and doing cat things, but you have to stay here where it’s safe. At least until I can figure out how to keep this from happening again.”

 The cat meowed again and butted her head against his chin. 

 “I sure hope you understand me. I know ghost animals are usually a lot more intelligent than their living counterparts,” Danny said, petting the cat.

 Feeling slightly bad that he was about to trick her, Danny formed up a tiny glittering ball of ectoplasm in his hand and waved it in front of her whiskers.  Once he was sure she had locked onto the temporary toy and had entered dumb baby mode, he threw it as hard as he could away from the portal.  

 With the cat distracted, Danny slipped back into the normal world. He sighed in relief—his parents were still out.  Jazz must have set up a good distraction.  

 He slipped off a green stained glove and closed the portal.  Hopefully, that would keep Chonkers out of trouble for a few days.

 With one last glance around the gruesome lab, Danny fled to the bright sky and fresh air of the park.  He flew past the common areas to a secluded picnic area that was overgrown and forgotten by casual visitors.  He touched down at the table, slumping over and resting his face on his arms. 

 Now that he wasn’t just living in the moment, the full horror of what he had seen was starting to sink in.  His parents had caught an innocent and friendly ghost, and instead of studying her intact, had proceeded to cut her open.  And because when a ghost ends, they dissolve completely into base ectoplasm, she was aware and conscious the whole time.  

 Shudders wracked his body as he finally let himself sob, every breath bringing a sharp reminder from the persistent lime scent clinging to him.  They knew what her core was when they saw it.  His mother had warned his dad against disturbing it.  They had done this before.  How many ghosts had they ended on that table?  How many had he failed to save?

 He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he heard the whistles and chirps of the pod of blob ghosts that lived in the park.  It had been long enough that most of the ectoplasm staining his suit had steamed away, leaving it deceptively clean.

 He felt feathery, gentle touches against his arms, shoulders, and head.  A few persistent nudges later, and he lifted his head from his arms.  He still had glowing tears running down to his chin, but he couldn’t help the weak smile that crossed his face when the blob ghosts cuddled all around him.  

 They nudged him to his feet and swarmed him, snuggling into his arms and resting on his head and shoulders.  Danny held himself with one arm, the other holding a particularly insistent large blob ghost.  The roiling nausea started to fade as the little ghosts cleaned away his tears and the rest of the stains on his outfit.  He couldn’t help a giggle when one nibbled his ear, making him squirm away.

 “I have to do something.  I can’t let this happen again,” Danny told the little ghosts, his gaze focused in the direction of his house.  He could see the top of the Ops Center above the tree line of the park.  Even way out here, he couldn’t escape reminders of what his parents had done.