Phantom by Retifer M. (best large ereader .txt) 📕

Getting my nerves fried must’ve exaggerated the pain after they started working again… or something. That’s how it works, right?

“It’s fine, I guess.” I say while trying to look down the inside of my suit at my arm, pulling the collar away from my neck.

I lift my head as I hear a humming, and after a second recognize it as the power turning on. It’s blaring compared to the lack of noise up until now. I grab the remote control and test the tv; it turns on with a high pitched whine. The digital clock below it flickers back on as well and flashes 12:00.

I grin crookedly at Sam. “We can still watch Dead Teacher?” I say hopefully. That would be a proper distraction.

She snorts, not looking away from the tv now playing some random show. “Actually? Yeah, I’d be okay with that. If you’re okay now it’d pro’lly be alright to relax for a while, and we’ve still got a full 24 hours before your parents come home.”

To my surprise and pleasure she goes and grabs her bag, dumping out a few movie cases. That was easier than expected. I thought I’d get some “but the house is a total mess” or something and then be forced to clean up.

I decide not to mention it.

“You bought all of them?” I lean forward and tap my fingers on the coffee table, feeling the pit of hunger start to overshadow the nausea.

“Yep.” She plucks one out of the pile and cracks it open. “Every single one.”

“But those are…” I squint my eyes at the stickers on each case. “Special Edition.” I say, as ominously as I can with a crackling- and echoing- voice.

“Yup.” She turns on the cd player and places the disk on the little tray when it slides out. Her shoulders slump and she flicks a stray lock of hair out of her face as she pushes the tray back in. I shut my mouth with a click as it dawns on me that she was tense up until now.

“Hey, Tucker!” Sam calls towards the kitchen. “We’re watching the movies.”

Tuck leans out of the kitchen. “The power’s on?” He looks at the tv. “We’re still doing this…? Cool!” He pauses half way to the couch though. “Oh, I should probably call my parents.”

“Same.”

I wait on the couch for them, rubbing the aching palm of my hand with my fingers, smooth out some curved indents in the glove’s material. I slide my free hand into the Nasty Burger bag and pulling out a fry to nibble on.

 Θ

The intro credits run. I chew on the straw in my shake and roll a fry between my gloved fingers. If I hold a fry in my hand it looks like I’m shining a flashlight through it. But it’s not a flashlight; it’s me, glowing, like a giant, living glowstick.

I glance to the side at Sam and Tucker, wondering if my glowing is bothering them. It’s… actually not bothering me as much as it should. It’s like it should feel like something, anything. It should feel unnatural or weird but…

I turn my head so that if they unglued their eyes from the screen for a second they wouldn’t see me shut my eyes, an attempt to clear my buzzing brain.

I consider bringing up how the floors might get stained by the mess we left in the kitchen and basement, but decide that I’d rather wait until my legs didn’t feel like jell-o and my arms could lift more than half a cup of melted, day-old milkshake. I don’t want to sit on the couch watching my friends clean up my mess.

I look over at Tucker, swaddled in a blanket in the recliner across the livingroom. He’s seemingly absorbed in the movie even though we’ve all watched it only a billion times- rewatched every movie every time they released a new one, and sometimes just for fun- and know that nothing interesting will happen for another twenty minutes or so.

Sam’s eyes are kinda glazed; she’s obviously somewhere else. I stare back down at myself.

What if… what if I don’t just turn back like they said? What if my parents come home and I’m like this? What if Sam lied and it turns out I’m not really alive anymore; I’m just some- some echo? Just what’s left of the real Danny Fenton’s consciousness?

The phrase “existential crises” suddenly has a very personal meaning.

I watch the characters on the screen with a heavy sense of dread and a feeling of being disconnected. There’s glare on the tv and I realize belatedly that it’s me, a white silhouette blocking my view of the characters on the screen. I bring my knees up and rest my head on them, fiddling my fingers between my legs and chest, rubbing circles on the sore parts of my palms.

No wonder Sam and Tuck aren’t looking my way. I wouldn’t, not when I’m like this. I feel creepy. I feel like nightmare fuel, but like in a pulling a prank or acting in a haunted house kind of way to be honest.

That disconnected feeling wavers and I feel a spark of terror run through me, like getting an electric shock. If I’m dead… If I’m really dead…

My mouth is dry all of a sudden.

My parents really are gonna freak if they come home only to find out that instead of just wrecking the house like a normal 14 year old, I died. My first time having the house all to myself for a weekend and I got myself killed.

That thought is put on hold as my fingertips feel warm. It’s like reverse hypothermia, a tingly warm feeling spreading up my hands and in my chest. For a second I have no idea why, then the warmth spreads and I recognize it.

I gasp, Tucker and Sam turning around in time to see a flash of bright white light envelope me- something I hadn’t noticed the last time I guess. It scares the heck out of me, a lot more than these cheesey horror movies. It catches all three of us off guard and I literally jump in my seat.

I rocket launch myself over the side of the couch and land on my back on the carpet with a hard bang. Ugh, yep, definitely felt like this back in the basement; hot and awkwardly heavy, like I just got off a trampoline after being on for a little longer than necessary.

Immediately I’m aware that I’m wearing the pajama pants and t-shirt that Tucker got for me when I showered. No hazmat, no gloves, no boots. Just my official NASA T and pj pants. My heart hammers in my chest loudly, comfortingly obvious.

“Holy crud.” I say in a small voice, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. Regular, non-glowing, blue eyes, if I had to guess. They aren’t glowing anymore. I’m not glowing anymore.

I don’t know what to say other than they were actually right; I did change back. I turned into a ghost, and then turned back after a while. I really am alive still. I revel in the relief that accompanied the warmth of turning human again. Never thought I’d ever be in a situation where I’d be glad to not be dead anymore. If I was dead. I don’t even care, as long as I am okay.

I blink up at the hand that appeared over me as I was lying on the floor, attempting to digest this information. I grab it and allow Tucker to pull me up. Sam composes herself as I stand on my feet, keeping my weight off my right one.

“See?” She says, crossing her arms and leaning back into the couch. “I told you.”

“Yeah.” My voice cracks.

Θ

I wake up, but continue lying wrapped up in a blanket enjoying half sleep. I don’t remember falling asleep. I feel something on my leg, groaning when I try to move it but pins and needles shoot up from my left foot. I turn and look over across the couch.

Sam had fallen asleep on my foot, my other one propped up against the back of the couch, and Tucker is slouched over in the armchair, snoring gently. The tv is off.

It’s still dark out so I decide to just go back to sleep.

Θ

I wake up again to someone urging me awake. I hurriedly sit up, throwing the comforter off me and blinking the sleep out of my eyes. I look up at Tucker smiling down at me.

“Morning.” He says. I notice he’s wearing different clothes; they aren’t mine.

I fall back over as it finally hits me that nothing’s wrong. “What?”

“Just thought you wouldn’t wanna sleep all day again, Aurora.”

“Aurora?”

“Yeah, as in Sleeping Beauty?” I raise my eyebrows at him which is apparently enough to get him to explain himself. “I wanted to show off in second grade, remember?”

“Oh… yeah.” I let out a pained sigh. “What time is it?”

“Like, ten.”

I shove my face under a pillow. “Ten?”

“Yup.” Then, more kindly, “You feeling better?”

I mumble incoherently about my brain and the headache hammering slowly into my forehead before lifting my head. “Yeh.”

“My parents let me stay another night ‘cause I told them that… you had the flu, and were alone.”

“Mmm.”

“Danny, I know what we talked about before- in the bathroom- but…” He takes a deep breath. “But I think you maybe… shouldn’t tell your parents until we know what happened and how… and if they can even help at all.”

I look at him again, ready to argue, but remember that my parents are self proclaimed Ghost Hunters and just nod my head. Wow, that’s messed up.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll just wait and see for now then. I still think it might just be weird side effects from, you know, falling in ectoplasm. It’s probably not even that big a deal.”

I pull myself to my feet and yawn. Just in case, I don’t put weight on my right foot.

“We should probably do the laundry… and clean the rest of the house, huh?” I point out. I notice someone put an old popcorn bucket on the table; puke bucket. Lovely. Smart though. “Where’s Sam?”

“She’s taking care of the laundry; she wanted me and you to do the floors- if you’re up to it.”

I grumble but follow Tucker into the kitchen, lean on the table and stare down at the stains on the floor. How on Earth do you even start to clean something like this up?

“Where do we even start?” I mutter.

We soon find out that hot water and dish soap is actually all you need to remove ectoplasm stains, though it’s kind of difficult to tell the difference between the soap and ectoplasm since my parents bought bright green soap. We decide to eff it and pour half a bottle on the floor.

I take the mop, Tucker takes a giant sponge and we take care of the kitchen mess pretty fast- the lab too, albeit the small war of throwing bubbles at each other when it’s revealed we used too much soap, and the nausea returning briefly at the sight and smell of ectoplasm.

I decide, after Tuck and I are done with the floors, to help with the rest of the laundry since we’d used up a majority of the towels, if not all of them, as well as do my own dirty clothes that mom’s been nagging me to do for like, a month.

Sam also had a change of clothes, somehow wearing casual pajama pants and a tank top and still sticking to her goth style perfectly.

We make