Phantom, Retifer M. [best book series to read txt] 📗

anything to direct all of my concentration on changing back, and not whether or not I can. For all I know, there’s a really simple way to do it and I just have to figure it out. I’m probably worrying over nothing.

I pace the length of the bleachers a few times, slipping up whenever my feet decide they no longer feel like being solid. I stop in my original spot and rub the place where the cold is, urging it to just let me take a break from this, because the longer I’m- I’m a ghost the longer I have time to think about how this is apparently real.

I sigh in relief when I feel my body warm slightly, the cold retreating back into its little cocoon in my chest. My skin tingles as that light sparks over my body, leaving regular, old me. I check myself over to make sure I’m not glowing or floating or anything before leaving the shade of the bleachers. I stroll back over to the school as casually as a fourteen year old can when they’re chilling in the druggie’s hideout during school hours.

The GAV is still parked at the front of the school with one tire up on the curb, but my parents are nowhere to be seen. Despite no longer being a ghost, I put a large distance between myself and the GAV as I hunch my shoulders and hurry towards the front doors. I head inside and nonchalantly make my way back towards the closet where I’d left my friends.

I run into them when I turn a corner not even half way there.

“Ah!” Tucker gasps jumping backwards into Sam. I react similarly. “Danny! Where have you been?”

“Oh, well,” I rub the back of my neck, no resistance from a hood this time. “I was kind of stuck for a while…” I look awkwardly up at the ceiling briefly. “I hid out by the bleachers ‘til I, uh, changed back…?” I don’t try to hide the uncertainty in my voice.

“You’ve been missing for like, an hour!”

“Well, actually, it’s only been like, twenty-five minutes, ‘bout forty if we’re going off the late bell-” Tucker tries to say, blinking at his phone in his hand, but Sam bulldozes over him.

“Your parents came in earlier and are looking for you,” She says. “Something about a family emergency?”

I let out a breath. Of course that’s the reason they’re here.    “Yeah, I saw them drive up…”

“We told them you were feeling sick and disappeared around lunch.” Tuck slides his finger across his phone’s screen, stares for a second, and then continues. “You should probably call them.” He looks back at me, wincing. “Sorry by the way; we didn’t know what to tell them when we ran into them. Our excuse was kind of lame.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Just tell them you were feeling sick, went outside and lost track of time.” Sam offers with a confidence I really wish I had.

“Thanks, guys.” I say before pulling out my phone and immediately realizing that my parents don’t have cell phones.

My shoulders drop and I roll my eyes, putting my phone away. “They don’t have phones with them… whatever, I’ll just go to the office.” I turn to go to my locker to get my stuff. “See you guys later, I guess. Sorry for making you skip class.”

“You didn’t make us do anything.”

Sam agrees. “Yeah, we chose to stay. We’re involved in this too, Danny.” Then she adds, as if just remembering it, “Make sure to ask about ghosts when you can.”

“Yeah, yeah. See you later.”

Tucker shoves his hands, along with his phone, into his pockets and leans towards me as I start to go. “And call us, later; we’re talking about this!”

I smile at him, trying to make it seem genuine, and hoping the open-ended answer satisfies him. It does; I can feel it behind my ribcage. It takes everything in my power not to rub that spot.

We wave goodbye and after retrieving my backpack from my locker I go to the front office. As soon as I walk in the secretary sees me and picks up a landline, clicking four numbers excruciatingly slowly as she starts scolding me, of all things.

I ignore her, not having the energy to deal with more than my parents. I half listen to what she says when I hear her mention them, who are apparently with Mr. Lancer in his next class’s room, discussing things- aka, me skipping class.

The secretary is cut off by Lancer picking up on the other end. Without the secretary talking to me, I take a seat in one of the scratchy old office chairs. When my parents come into the front office a couple minutes later, decked out in their brightly coloured hazmats and disappointment, and demand answers, I give them the excuse Sam had told me to.

“I… was feeling gross, so I went to get some air and… lost… track… of time?” My hand itches to pick at the back of my head and I’m sure they’re going to call me out on my sort-of-lie, but to my surprise they take it.

Mom takes my chin and studies my face while dad signs me out. “Mmm, you are looking a little pale. We just need to get your sister and then you can go home and rest for a bit, okay?”

I nod and keep a neutral expression. Why are they even here?

They sign Jazz out too and we go home. My mom drives this time knowing that dad’s driving would probably make someone in the car sick, even if we were all completely healthy. Though I suppose none of us are actually sick, I’m mostly pretending now, but still.

When we get home my parents bounce excitedly up the front steps, concern for me being sick an afterthought now. I suddenly have a feeling I might know why they picked us up early today. I bite my lip when they lead us into the kitchen, but don’t sit us down at the table.

“Danny, sweetie,” Mom starts, “Don’t worry about not checking in on the portal while we were gone. It’s a shame that none of us were here, but…” I can tell she’s trying not to be giddy over this, but if she was I wouldn’t blame her; they’ve been working on this for like, twenty years.

I blink, hopefully looking as confused as I would have been had I not already known what she was talking about.

“Well, since we haven’t worked on the portal since last week we decided to monitor it today while working on some other projects of ours-”

“The Specter Speeder,” Dad chimes in.

“-and when we checked on it we found that the portal had activated and appears fully functional at the moment! Isn’t that amazing?”

“I threw a mug in it!” Dad adds, helpfully. Mom nods along with this animatedly, and I can tell she wants to say every reason why that’s so thrilling.

“You pulled us out of school because your hot-tub turned on by itself?” Jazz complains, monotone. “I know this is a big achievement for you guys- and I’m happy for you, really-“

I snort behind her and turn it into a fake cough.

“-but couldn’t you have just told us when we got home?”

“What are you talking about, Jazzy-pants?” Dad grins largely. “We thought we could get you two to help us run some experiments, just like old times! Check out what’s in there!”

“Wait, so,” I backtrack. “Your portal is working? Like, actually a portal into another dimension?” I knew it changed, was glowing and stuff, but- it’s working?

“Yep!” Dad stands proudly and throws open the door to the basement. “We were gonna run some tests right now!” When Jazz and I stare stupidly at him he includes, “With you helping of course! We didn’t want to leave you two out of this!”

“We finally have the opportunity to obtain fresh and large samples of pure ectoplasm!” Mom tacks on. “This could lead to huge discoveries- including that of real manifested ghosts! We actually have access to an unlimited supply to study in-depth! No more nitpicking our projects!”

I smile awkwardly.

“Look, mom, dad,” Jazz folds her arms across her chest. “This is great, it’s a big step in… your field of science, but I have classes, and Danny’s social life is clearly lacking without you barging into Casper High and embarrassing him in front of his peers.”

Jazz starts off on one of her psychology rants about my low mental health and how their crazy obsession somehow worsens that- I’m not exactly denying anything; I’m got on Dash’s Top Ten Best Nerds to Bully list for a reason. I block her voice out, throwing my backpack into the front hall and pull out my cell to look busy.

I look back up at my name.

“…Danny is an impressionable child and it’s not right for you to force these kinds of things on him. You should try to talk to him about school more.”

I clear my throat to interrupt her but she bowls right over me. What she’s saying doesn’t even make any sense, though in her defense my brain is probably filling in the blanks of what I’m blocking out with weird stuff she would say.

I look at mom, dad being the one taking the brunt of Jazz’s lecture, and smile sympathetically. “Can I come down later? This is cool but… I kinda wanna sleep right now.” Then I say quickly, “I’m still not feeling too great.”

“Of course, honey.” She places her hand on my forehead and frowns. “You still feel cold; why don’t you take that nice hot bath now?” When I shrug, mom holds my face in her hands. “Alright, I’ll come wake you up around dinner time. You can even stay home tomorrow if you’re still not feeling well, okay?”

I can hear to silent “-and you can help us run experiments!”

“Okay.”

“You can get Tucker to bring over your homework.”

“A’ight.” I leave the kitchen, grab my bag, and run up the stairs.

This day turned out better than expected. I smile genuinely. At last, the comfort of sleep is at my fingertips.

Imprint

Publication Date: 10-29-2017

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
DP rewrite, because I got bored while on vacation without internet (July 2016). Also posted to AO3 by the same name, & maybe FF.net at some point in the future. A great majority of the stuff that happens in this had a ton of research put into it, but this is a fanfiction, so there's bound to be mistakes - this is my disclaimer. 'Phantom' has been rearranged & edited A Lot, & only the most recent chapters were made to actually be chapters so everything up until chapter 12 is probably awkwardly organized. one more thing: there's a lot of HCs & stuff - ghostspeak being