Depths

38. Morbidity

Fun Fact: 1 out of 100,000,000 merpeople have an ice core. They're almost unheard of.

...

"Phantom?!" Danny sat on his knees, letting the merman's body fall to the side from where he landed on top of him, shielding his body from the blow of the explosion. Danny nearly vomited at the smell of burned flesh, the back of Phantom's shirt was singed and almost completely burned away into nothing, exposing the large bloody scorch marks covering the expanse of his back.

"Dad!" He screamed as loud as he could, but the thumping from the stairs already told him that his father had been on the way as soon as the blast went off.

"What happened?" Jack yelled back when he caught sight of the destroyed kitchen and the unconscious merman laying severely damaged on the hallway floor. The man ran down the rest of the stairs and kneeled next to the hysterical raven teenager to check Phantom over. 

Oh, yes. The hybrid was definitely injured.

"The stove exploded, we were both in the kitchen when it happened," Phantom had to have shielded him and the blast blew them out of the kitchen. Danny attempted shaking Phantom awake, but his pale face and pained unconscious eyes did not open. His unresponsiveness only made Danny even more hysterical as his brain tried to catch up with what he needed to do to help the merman. "Dad, heat will kill him."

Jack got up and grabbed the fire extinguisher, putting out the excess fire that still burned in the completely demolished and torched kitchen. Mostly everything was destroyed, and Jack could already hear the sirens in the background. It appeared someone had called the fire department after hearing the explosion.

He could hear Danny still coughing in the background, and Jack immediately realized that the air was poisoned with carbon monoxide and he needed to get them down to the lab so they could take care of Phantom safely. His son was choking, and most likely so was Phantom, and if he didn't get them all down to the basement with oxygen masks over their faces, they would have a whole new set of problems on their hands.

Jack threw down the fire extinguisher and ran back over to Phantom and his son, starting to cough himself. The fire department could handle the kitchen fire and the gas leak; he needed to take care of the boys. They couldn't leave the house with Phantom the way he was though, who knows what would happen if he was carried off to the hospital.

The older man carefully lifted Phantom off the ground, wincing when his clothes were almost immediately drenched in blood, and sternly told Danny to get up.

Danny nodded and went to stand up, but before he could stand completely the world started to spin again and without any warning, the raven vomited on the ground. He felt like he was running a fever and any moment now he would faint from exhaustion- or vomit again.

Jack started to panic now, "Danny, the carbon monoxide is going to kill you if you don't get your butt up and into the lab right now. I can't carry you both." he too was starting to feel the effects of it, his stomach turning and the room spinning. It felt like he was tipsy, as if he had one too many shots and was now in danger of being stone face drunk.

The raven teen coughed again but nodded, using the wall to balance himself as he got up again, this time able to stand and make it to the basement stairs. His father's lab had an air filter, and it was the only safe place in the house that wouldn't be contaminated with gas, they would not only be able to hide Phantom until he recovered but they would be safe with all the medical equipment they needed to get the poison out of their lungs.

Jack shut the airtight door behind him as Danny paid extra care to the staircase below his feet, holding onto the rail with a death grip as he went. He could not have another almost-accident in his father's basement. There were a million things that could go wrong in a science lab, and Danny didn't want to slip on some weird chemical and land on a thing of needles.