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

“My parents!”

“Oh crud, dude, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t of-”

“They’re gonna kill- they’re gonna re-kill me! Is that even possible!?”

“Ah!” Tucker pulls at his hair in frustration. He’d ditched his hat at some point. “I- don’t know!”

“What is even going on!?”

“I don’t know!” Tuck repeats. He visibly tries to calm down, takes a few breaths, flexes his fingers. “Does it… do you feel any different?”

I think for a second then shake my head and humour him. “No, not really. Just…” I clench my jaw as I think. “Just lighter.”

“Lighter…” He says, barely more than a whisper. “Did it hurt?”

“What, when I fell from heaven?” I joke, but my voice cracks and my tone is serious and I think I might start crying if ghosts can cry. “Right now no.”

“But before?”

“When I was puking and stuff yeah!”

“Damn, dude. Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“I can’t help it if I feel responsible!”

I run my hands over my face, but stop when they just run over the gasmask. I reach under my hood and behind my head and start trying to take it off. “This is way worse than just…getting in trouble, or being sick.”

Tuck doesn’t say anything to that. I flip my hood back and pull the mask off; it’s black now, and there’s ectoplasm dripping from the respirator. I grimace.

“I’m dead.” I step out of the tub, grabbing the sink as my boots slip on the wet bathroom tile. Where’d the bathmat go?

“I died and now I have to tell my parents that I accidentally killed myself while doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing!” I know I’m freaking out but I have a pretty good reason, so I don’t stop. “That’s literally all of the worst case scenarios combined!”

“H-hey, maybe you’re not really dead, maybe it’s like…” Tuck shrugs. “Halfsies?”

“Seriously Tucker?”

“No no no, hear me out! You were a ghost in the lab, but then you turned back somehow!” He is using too many hand signals and I can tell he’s feeling nothing even remotely close to positive, so I can’t tell if he’s trying to convince me or himself. “I bet you just died, like, half way or something. O-or! I don’t even think you died at all! It was probably like, getting bitten by a radioactive spider!”

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that, even with this,” I gesture to myself hysterically, “I did not in fact, die, I just, what? Got super powers? Are you serious right now, Tucker!?”

“I thought you didn’t even believe in ghosts!”

“I- I didn’t…” I sigh. “But superpowers? I appreciate you trying, I do, but can we be more realistic?” I put in reluctantly, “Even if it’s depressing.”

“Fine.”

“My parents…”

“How ‘bout we deal with that when it comes to it, alright?”

That sounds like a terrible idea but I nod anyways. “Sure.”

I make a face when I realize that Sam’s coming. I don’t mind her coming back up, but the fact that I can feel it like it’s some kind of sixth sense is a little unnerving. At… at least I know why now. Ghosts are weird. I’m weird?

“Sam’s comin’ up.” I blurt out, staring at the wall as if I could see her through it, and Tucker blinks at me. He doesn’t say anything though when she knocks on the door again.

“I uh… sorry I kind of forgot that we need power to use the oven.” Sam says sheepishly. “If you’re up for eating fries cold, it’s downstairs.”

“I’m…” I swallow down more gunk. This is making me feel queasy again. I try to sound natural when I talk, failing horribly. “Okay, in a sec.”

I instantly can tell that she knows; it’s like the anxiety itself is seeping through the door and contaminating the air. I forgot my voice is weird. I should’ve let Tuck answer for me. Damn it.

“I’m coming in.” She says before immediately opening the door and stopping dead. “Oh.”

“Sam! He could’ve been naked!” Tucker yells, having had to move when the door took his spot, but she’s staring at me wide-eyed.

“I don’t think that matters at this point, Tucker.” I murmur, holding my arms up against my chest, fiddling with the material on the gasmask.

It’s not untrue, I mean I was only wearing underwear earlier. I doubt Sam even cares at this point.

She gulps, just staring at the hazmat and doesn’t speak. I look at the ground and my boots, spreading weird really white light across the room, brighter than the sunlight coming from the window.

“I’m gonna say it,” Tucker announces after an uncomfortable minute of silence. “This is something we have to deal with, guys. Or… at least figure out what’s going on.” His gaze flits over me, probably taking in the crap we have to figure out before my family gets back. “This probably- this isn’t something that we can deal with later.”

I play with my fingers, picking at the gloves self-consciously.

“How?” Sam asks the dreaded question.

Tuck coughs before answering, “I-I don’t know, but we have to do something.” He looks at me before turning back to Sam. “Maybe there’s something that could help in the lab?”

It’s in the air coming off of them. There’s fear mixed in with other things that I can’t exactly name because I’ve never been like Jazz. But I know it’s not exactly positive and I can’t help but think that they might be scared of me. I take a small step back.

“I don’t think there’s anything that could help down there, Tuck.” I drop my hands to my sides, gripping the gasmask in one hand and rubbing circles on my leg with my other. I shut my eyes for a second and bite the inside of my cheek before continuing. “My parents hunt ghosts, I don’t think…”

I don’t need to finish my sentence.

“We should check anyways. Aren’t you always saying that their inventions always backfire?”

I nod with a small smile, remembering some big gun they’d invented. I have no idea what it was supposed to do, but it definitely wasn’t supposed be a flame-thrower. It now sat on the “malfunctioned/never gonna finish” shelf.

He continues, “Well, maybe they have something that could backfire in our favour?”

“They only have weapons and stuff; I don’t think there’s anything down there that could help at all.”

He grumbles, annoyed. “Well, then maybe it’s what I said before.”

“What did you say?” Sam pipes up.

“That maybe he just has-”

“I doubt it’s superpowers, Tuck.”

“Whatever. I don’t think you’re dead though.” He adds quieter, “You can’t be…”

“Here,” Sam strides towards me with borrowed confidence and grabs my hand. She can’t hide the way she plants herself firmly and consciously in front of me.

She slides my glove down, just enough to show the pale, almost green looking, glowing skin of my wrist. It reminds me of a lesson in science class about bioluminescence we had once, and the thought of whether or not ghosts are bioluminescent goes through my mind briefly before I realize what she’s doing.

She presses her fingers into my wrist and the room somehow becomes even quieter despite the lack of anyone talking. After a minute she lets me pull my glove back on and places her hands on her hips.

“There; it… it’s slow, but you do have a heartbeat. You are not dead.” Sam says each word slow and deliberate, giving me a hard look before crossing her arms and drifting back to the door.

“You changed back before, so maybe it’ll happen again,” She shrugs. I wonder if she actually believes that I’m fine, or she’s just trying to make things seem normal to divert attention away from the fact that I’m probably dead.

“Why don’t you come eat? You must be starving after… after all that.”

I stare at the floor between us, chewing on the inside of my cheek. I’m not so sure about that but… I mean, why not?

I silently agree with a short nod and follow them out of the bathroom. I freeze at the doorframe and start, feeling my breath catch and stomach flip again- not that I’d actually stopped being nauseous at any point in the past 24 hours.

I turn towards the toilet, but not fast enough to miss the- the- thing in the mirror, which… can’t be me. Because I could’ve sworn that on the way in here my hair had been black- and bound by the laws of gravity- my freckles hadn’t made a reappearance as glittering splashes on neon across my cheeks and… my eyes…

They’re unsettling, to say the least. They’re- my eyes are- still blue, but the colour is almost completely covered up by the neon green glow in them. I feel my jaw ache.

Anything not completely black- gloves, skin, hair- is stained lightly with what I’m assuming is ectoplasm.

I dive to the side and flip the toilet lid back in time to vomit, which happily turns into dry-heaving and a coughing fit after only spitting up some green stomach juices. I feel a light hand on my back as the sour taste in my mouth just makes me gag more.

“Darn it,” I hack into the toilet.

“Maybe you should wait a little while before you eat then.” A hand reaches out and flushes the toilet, black and purple nail polish chipped. “But at least you’re not throwing up too much anymore.”

I make a disgusted noise and go to rinse my mouth out in the sink, carefully averting my eyes from the mirror. She’s right though. That time it tasted less like plasma, more like stomach grossness.

I don’t realize how thirsty I am ‘til water hits my tongue; I’m super dehydrated. Yeah, I could go for that milkshake now.

 I let Sam lead me down the stairs and back over to the couch. The tissues I had used have been thrown out, and I wrinkle my nose at the smell of ketchup, meat and fries wafting from the paper bag on the coffee table. It’s almost as overwhelming as the stench of ectoplasm and feelings still lingering.

I catch sight of a bit of green on the floor in the kitchen and try to swallow. It’s hard when my mouth is bone dry.

I sit down in the same spot as before and stare, eyes half-lidded, down at my hands in my lap. The gloves are like staring at a dull light-bulb; bright, but not enough to hurt my eyes. I feel like I should be freaking out more. I feel like we all should be freaking out more. Are we just shocked?

I look up when someone nudges me- it’s Sam. She clenches her jaw.

                                                               “How’s your arm?”                        

I lift my left arm, remembering it’d been hurt, and move it experimentally. I rub the part that had gotten the brunt of it. Weird. Before it felt like it was bad but now it feels fine, like it had never