Chapter Text
April 17
It’s been two weeks. You’d think I’d have gotten over all this by now, but that would be a lot easier if it had actually ever gone away.
Mom and Dad say I’m fine. The doctor said I’m fine. I keep trying to tell myself I’m fine. Unfortunately for me, that doesn’t really change the fact that I’m not.
Something’s been happening to me. All I’m hoping is that I can figure out what it is before it eats me alive.
---
There’s a lot you can pass off as normal. A trick of the light, the result of too little sleep, a hyperactive imagination, et cetera, et cetera. It’s not hard to make up some explanation that sounds plausible. There comes a point, however, when you cross the line between a healthy amount of skepticism and straight up denial of the terrible truths that are right in front of your face.
Danny Fenton was currently playing jump-rope with that line.
Two weeks ago, if you’d asked him about whether or not ghosts existed, he’d tell you to not believe that bullshit. The ghostly voices his parents’ machines picked up were interference from radio, the cold spots were from air conditioning, the strange noises were from rats. Agreeing with the notion that ghosts might possibly exist meant agreeing to join the family business, and that was a career path Danny would rather become a ghost himself than pursue. He wanted to work for NASA, and he highly doubted that NASA would hire anyone who claimed to be able to speak to the dead. That wasn’t science, that was a scam his parents pulled for 20 bucks an hour per exorcism.
As stubbornly as he stuck to this opinion, it was becoming harder and harder to maintain.
Two weeks ago, something had happened to him. He still wasn’t sure what exactly that something was, but it had involved peer pressure, a few drops of blood, and a lot of stupid decisions.
A joke. That was all it was supposed to have been, just a joke.
“I’m standing in the middle of a summoning circle,” he’d declared with an ironic grin, gesturing at said summoning circle on the floor. “If only Dash could see me now, huh? He’d come up with all sorts of fun new things to write on my locker.”
“Hey, be careful with that,” Sam had warned, but with little seriousness in her voice. She’d always believed in this sort of stuff, but in the sort of way that she could laugh at. “Don’t scuff it up. I want a good picture.” She’d quickly snapped it, Danny with arms raised dramatically in the centre of the candlelit circle. He should’ve moved after that, but it didn’t seem very important at the time.
“So your parents really think this’ll work?” Tucker had asked, gesturing at the elaborate setup. “Summoning the dead, and all that? Why not just use a ouija board?”
“I’m guessing they just think this’ll be more theatrical. You know them, any opportunity to make this more cheesy than it already is and they’ll be there. Anyway, they’ve had it set up for ages now, so I’m guessing they haven’t found anyone yet who’ll actually pay to see it.”
“Uh-huh. Okay, so walk me through this ritual. You do… what?”
“Lemme read the book again.” Danny turned the tome in his hands around a few times, then flicked through the gruesome details on each page. The silver book was easily as heavy as a brick, with the sort of damage to the pages throughout it that you’d expect from a museum’s prized artefact. His parents had found it in an antique shop for about twenty bucks. “Uh… It wants my blood, or something.”
“Your blood?”
“Yeah. Something about the blood or... "life force" of the living strengthening the dead. Gotta say, I admire the dedication of whoever’s this determined to open a portal to hell or whatever this is.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Sam laughed. “Give it your blood!”
“Yeah, like I’d- Ow.”
“Tell me you didn’t just get a papercut.”
“I got a papercut.”
“Oh no, you gave them your blood! Watch out!”
Sam and Tucker were laughing, but Danny wasn’t. The two of them quickly stopped.
“...Danny?”
Danny didn’t respond, because Danny wasn’t there. Physically, there was still the same boy standing there, book in hand. There was just something about his expression that made his friends pause. It was somehow… vacant. Eyes wide. Non-responsive.
After about two minutes of this sort of limbo, silence filled with his friends’ concerned questions, he’d fallen unconscious to the floor.
It was a long and nerve wracking day after that. The doctors hadn’t been able to explain it, and had eventually written it off as being caused by lack of sleep.
I’m okay, he had told himself, as he dodged his parents’ questions the entire way home from the hospital.
I’m okay, he told himself, as he stared into the dark of the basement from the top of those eternally-creaky stairs, then closed the door.
I’m okay, he told himself, as he climbed up to his room and flopped down onto his bed.
He tried to tell himself the same two words again as he sat up to turn off the lights, but paused as he noticed something that shattered the illusion completely.
There was something in his room.
The thing was unmistakably shaped like a person, but… wrong. It flickered in and out of existence like some sort of black flame, and what Danny could only assume were eyes were glowing like neon green lamps. Its fingers seemed too long, too sharp, a fact which Danny observed simultaneously to the equally as horrifying realization that it
was coming
closer.
“What the hell…?”
Danny scrambled off his bed, grabbing the nearest object that could conceivably be used as a weapon- in this case, a small lamp.
“Stay back,” he called out, his shaking hands betraying the falseness of the confidence he forced into his voice.
d a n n y
Danny froze.
The creature glided through the air as easily as skates on ice. Everything was screaming at him to run away, but despite the overwhelming feeling of wrongness, he found himself motionless. Just like that, he was face to face with the thing, its clawed fingers lifting and drawing closer to his face.
It. was. right. there.
He winced and shut his eyes, expecting something awful, but nothing came. Just a strange cold feeling, like a cold draft from a nearby window.
When he opened his eyes, it was gone.
That was two weeks ago. It should’ve been the last of it, but Danny had never been known for his good luck. The summoning circle was the spark that started the fire, and it was only a matter of time before everything went down in flames.