Gravitational Phantoms: After the Storm

Chapter Nine: Our Sutures

Eyes. Eyes. Eyes everywhere. They blinked at him, slitted black pupils glowing against yellow scleras. Grey and black tendrils grabbed his wrists, then his arms, then his shoulders. Burning pain erupted through his body, but one of the tentacles wrapped around his mouth and muffled his cry of pain.

His fingers twitched as he tried to shed the darkness, but then someone was laughing laughing laughing at his pain. Blue fire scorched his skin, and he screamed.

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Danny hovered above the lake, watching the sunlight play off of the waves. The roaring from the waterfall was pounding in his ears.

The ghost boy lowered himself down to around six feet above the water lake and then dropped his power of flight. He held his breath and landed in the lake with a loud splash.

Danny blinked open his eyes and peered through the dark water. Bubbles floated up around him, and a small amount of water made its way into his nose and trickled down his throat. Something scraped his spine painfully, but he ignored it.

The Halfa's lungs burned, but he ignored and even relished the pain. He spotted a dark shape far too big to be a fish flash by in a blur of scales.

Air. Air. He needed air. Even Halfa's in their ghost form needed to breath once and a while.

But it was nice down here. Dark. Cold. Safe.

Finally, as he was about to pass out, Danny rose up from the bottom of the lake and let his head break the surface.

Frigid water had drenched his body, but it felt good on his cold core. Danny's body glowed bright white, and he charged up a small ball of ice in his palm. Frost crystals swirled and danced through the air, and the ghost boy watched with detached interest as tiny snowflakes spun around in a tiny whirlwind that chased its own tail.

He should probably head back to the Shack. There was no real reason to stay here any longer-he had only even ventured down here in the first place to see if he could freeze the waterfall. (He could.)

The ghost boy lifted off from the lake and turned intangible, letting the water fall back down to the waves below. The moment that he regained his ability to physically touch things, a raindrop fell on his head.

Danny looked up. Grey clouds had covered the sun, and they promised that more rain was on its way.

The Halfa took off for the Mystery Shack as lightning flashed in the distance, followed a few seconds later by a loud rumble of thunder.

Danny had just barely made it back by the time the storm hit.

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"You're a fool if you think that you've defeated me," that familiar echoing voice cackled. "I may not be as powerful as I was, but I can still give you a small taste of my revenge."

Blood pooled from the body that lay at his feet. The sticky red liquid covered everything, including the red and gold book that one of the corpses held clutched to its chest.

"You lied," someone said in a conversational manner from behind him. "You said that you would help us. But you just doomed us instead!"

He spun around, weapon raised threateningly. Wendy, body caked with blood and with her intestines spilling out, smirked at him.

"What? It wasn't bad enough when you killed us, now you're going to add insult to injury and shoot us too? Besides," the lumberjack growled, slowly advancing and jabbing her finger into his chest with every word that she spoke. "We all know that this is all your fault. We trusted you." She shook her head bitterly. "Guess the feeling wasn't mutual."

Somebody else poked his shoulder, and then shook it. There was a falling sensation, and then...

He fell off of the couch that he had been sleeping on, still half in the dream. His hands fumbled for his gun... but it wasn't there, and instead Ford found himself face to face with Danny.

The ghost boy was cringing away with a terrified expression on his face. Danny had his arms raised, and he was protecting his face and chest with his hands. His irises were shining green through his eyelids, and he had made himself look as small as was physically possible. For some reason, he hadn't turned invisible, but Ford suspected that it wouldn't take very much movement to scare him out of the realm of visibility.

Ford forced his body to relax.

"Danny, are you okay?" He asked softly.

The ghost boy peeked up at him through his fingers. His shoulders were trembling.

"I-I'm sorry," he whispered. "You j-just looked like you were having a nightmare and-and I just wanted to help. I'm sorry p-please don't be mad."

"It's okay," Ford assured him. "You didn't do anything wrong." He paused. "I thought you were at the lake?"

"There's a th-thunderstorm..." Danny shifted his weight from foot to foot. As if to illustrate his statement, there was a loud rumble that joined the pattering sound of the rain on the roof.

"Didn't want to get struck by lightning?"

Danny shook his head and looked down nervously.

"What's the question?"

The ghost boy looked up in surprise. "Huh?"

"You're making the 'I have a question and I want it answered but I don't want to have to actually ask for the answer' face," Ford explained. "I grew up with someone who wore that face constantly."

Danny studied his hands. "What were you and Stan like? When you were kids, I mean."

Immediately, Ford could tell that that wasn't the question that he wanted answered. But...

"Mabel and Dipper," he replied. "But more extreme. I was smarter at almost everything (Stan was always a little bit better at math), but he was more physical. If one of us was going to get in trouble, it would be him. He would... protect me at school, from bullies and rude teachers. In return, I sort of tutored him-even though he still failed."

"Oh." Danny rubbed his arms. "I-I'm sorry. I know that it was my fault. And I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault." Ford tried to say, but it came out a little bit too strangled.

The ghost boy shrugged. He looked up, a small bitter smile on his face. "Do you have any books that I could read?"

Ford waved a hand to the hallway. "There should be something on one of the shelves out there."

The ghost boy nodded and then slipped away.

Ford sat on the couch. He remembered Bill's words in his dream.

"I can still give you a small taste of my revenge."

Bill still had minions in their world. And they were coming.