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Alicia loved her sister, and her husband was a... nice man. But they were dangerous. They were crazy even. Those poor kids.
None of them knew it but she kept two spare rooms always set up to take in those two. If things happened. They didn’t know, and she preferred to ignore, that she kept their funereal plans in a box in her closet. They didn’t know but she kept a stash of bail money, of references to the best criminal lawyers in the system. Because with all those parents did.
Someone was gonna die.
And looking at her photo album, the newest family photo having been slapped in, glancing between photos of the sixteen-year-old Danny and the ten-year-old one... maybe someone did.
The young ten-year-old is was exactly as she remembered him. As any young boy should be. Lacking a bit of meat on his bones, she blames those two parents for that. She knows they don’t and have never fed those kids enough. Little eight-year-old Jazz being able to cook a whole turkey herself wasn’t somethin’ to find pride in.
It was a warnin’ sign.
And the last time they were here, Danny at fourteen and comin’ into teenhood, had bared-handed wrestled a coyote that came after her chickens. He reacted faster than she had. That just ain’t right. But at least he seemed healthy and okay-ish back then.
But lookin’ back to the most recent family photo her sister had sent her way; through the mail of course, what use does Alicia have for that email thing. Goin’ from left to right, everything seemed fine till you got all the way to the right. To Danny. He has a hand on his hip and a smirk on his face, but his eyes are sunken and dark. Skin grayed and pulled away from his nails in a way that makes them look almost like claws. Baggy clothin’ hangs off like he’s nothin’ but bone. Hair messy as always but clearly thinned and crispy, like it was straw. The dry cracked lips and veins that stick out like they’re a bruise on his skin. His eyes themselves were almost the worst though. It was like he was actually starin’ at her, and saw somethin’ inside her that no person could.
Her soul, or spirit, or ghost, or whatever that sister of hers wants to call it.
The poor boy looked more like a zombie than all the crap Hollywood liked to throw on the tv screens. His clothin’ themselves were hardly better, the frayed strings, holes, burns, and what must be bloodstains; clearly noticeable. She’d bet a cow or two that the soles of his shoes are barely attached, the front half probably detachin’ from the shoes to flap/clap around whenever he walks.
Glancin’ to the landline phone, maybe she should call. Ask the scrap of a boy a thing or two. But...
The photo's smile ain’t no fake one.
The boy was happy. A happy dead idiot, probably. Boy barely had more goin’ on in his head than Jack. Last time she saw him he seem dead on his feet; tired kid stayin’ up too late she thought. But maybe the kid's brain’s as dead as the rest of him looks. Would explain those piss poor grades Maddie worries and complained to her about. Even if it was pretty clear that those two only cared about Danny’s grades as much as Alicia cared about her neighbours smokin’ problem; not very darn much. They probably just cared if he’d be able to ‘keep up’ with their work. Take over that ‘business’ of theirs.
Grunting, she closes the photo album, the glue for the new picture dry by now. She should call the kid. Dropping the photo album on the coffee table and snatching up the phone roughly. Hopefully the lot of them are at home... Well maybe not Jack. She wasn’t callin’ to listen to that man blabber; he was a nice man but boy could he talk.
Surprisingly, it’s Danny who picks up. But goddamn does the boys voice sound like it’s been put through a darn cheese grater. Or he decided that eatin’ a glass was some kind of good fuckin’ idea. He also sounds barely awake, like the phone had been launched at his head wakin’ him up. She wouldn’t be surprised if Maddie and Jack designed their phones to do somethin’ crazy dumb like that. Their toaster could chop nuts after all.
“Yeah? Who dis?”.
Alicia snorts to herself, “who do ya think, boy”. Shaking her head with a slight smile over him coughing and chuckling awkwardly.
It sounds like he banged into something, “oh, heya Aunty. Uh, whatcha calling for? My folks aren’t here right now”. She’s pretty sure she hears him muttering off to the side about being ‘grounded’ and then ‘chasing some ghost’. She shouldn’t be surprised, strange as it is.
She sighs, “naw that’s good. I’m callin’ fer ya actually”.
“Oh?”, kid sounds nervous as Hell. That goshdarn kid is always so jumpy these days. Ain’t healthy.
“Ya. Yer ma sent y’alls recent family photos over, and boy, ya need to go ta a doctor. An eat some good food. Not ta mention do ya even wash yer hair? An those clothes, those two are givin’ ya an allowance, right? Buy some new shit”, sighing and leaning back into her chair, “an speakin’ from tha heart? Have ye gotten yer dumb mug killed? ‘Cause boy, ya look more dead than any zombie dress up I’ve evar seen”; she can hear him choke over the line at that.
“Uh... is answering that optional?”.
She snorts loudly, course he didn’t exactly wanna answer, “what do ya think, boy?”.
This time he chuckles awkwardly, “heh, figures... well, ah, you coulda asked my folks but, eh, I doubt they’d tell you”, then sounding like a proper petulant teen, “and hey, my clothing is perfectly fine. It’s lived-in. Comfortable”.
She rolls her eyes, “yer shoes are gonna fall apart and yer gonna fall on yer face and break yer boney nose on the sidewalk”.
Danny chuckles less awkwardly at that, “funny story-”.
“Let me guess, ‘been there, done that’?”.
“Heh, yeah. I’m fine though”. She grunts, resulting in him repeating himself, “really. I’m fine, Aunty. You don’t need to worry. But...”, and there’s that awkward chuckle again, “I didn’t realise it was quite that obvious. Guess Sam’s right about everyone being kinda blind to it”.
Alicia blinks, seriously? Is he actually confirming this? “So are ya dead or not, boy?”. A smarter person than her would probably have a lotta questions, but whatever. That’s her sisters field. She just wants to know if her nephew is safe and healthy or not.
She can practically hear him rubbing his neck over the line, “ah well, yeah? I guess that’s what I’m doing. My folks know though so... it’s just not really an issue. Nothing to worry about. Plus I’m only, like, kinda? dead? It’s sorta a halfway thing”.
Alicia rubs her eyes slightly, she’s gettin’ a can of beer after this, “that sounds like somethin’ to be worryin’ about. I don’t care how a halfway whatever can happen, but, kid, what happened?”.
“Well it’s a funny story. My folks aren’t exactly... ah, the best at lab safety and I’m not exactly the smartest most sensible bulb in the batch. So I went and got myself electrocuted, don’t recommend by the way, and also, because I don’t halfass things, I also opened up a dimensional portal on myself. That kinda thing makes anyone kinda dead, you know. And yeah fine, maybe it’s kinda my folks fault a little for putting buttons in dumb spots; but it’s seriously fine! It’s all on me! Sure I was a kid and might have reasonably expected that things just left out would have some level of safety features, but still”, he sighs, “how I look is just an unexpected side effect, I guess. Don’t worry about it, I’m healthy. Pretty much indestructible actually”.
She coughs at that a little, “seriously?”, leave it to her sister to accidentally create an immortal. Grunting, “an I had a feeling they’d do somethin’ dumb and get one of y’all hurt someday”.
He jumps in quickly at that, “it’s really not their fault. I toyed with shit I wasn’t supposed-”.
“It was still there for ya to be toyin’ wit”.
“I wasn’t supposed to be down there at all”.
“Then they shoulda put a better lock on whatever door”.
Danny sighs, “okay that’s fair, but still. And I’m cool with it. I can fly and stuff now. Though could you maybe, like, not? tell anyone? Please?”.
Alicia sighs and snaps at him, “of course, boy. I ain’t no damn idiot. An so ya can do tha things those ghost creatures can do? So yer kinda dead in the ghost kinda way?”.
“That ‘bout sums it up yeah. And halfa is the proper term, Aunty. You remember Vlad?”.
Alicia scowls, of course she did, she never like that man. Course she didn’t like most rich morons, but she never liked him. Creepy bastard and way too spidery for her likings. At least Jack was a solid built man’s man, not some shrimp in a suit. “Course. Ain’t never liked that one”.
Danny chuckles at that, “well they, dad really, kinda did the same thing to Vlad as I did to me. That’s why he went to the hospital. He’s, uh, more... alive than I am though. But hey, I didn’t have to spend years in a hospital with a disfigured face”.
Alicia shakes her head, those two idiots. Grumbling, “ya’ve got to be kiddin’ me, Maddie”, and grunts while speaking a bit louder, “an I’m glad ya didn’t, I’d be tearing those twos heads off if ya did”.
His chuckle is awkward again, “I mean, fair I guess. But is there anything else you want to know? About my ‘condition’?”. She snorts at that.
“Tell me how yer good. Make it clear. ‘Cause ya ain’t look good. I’m guessin’ the clothin’ jus ya bein’ a lazy brat”.
He actually laughs properly at that, “you caught me there. Though to be fair, I’m hard as Hell on my clothes. Can’t count the number of times I’ve frozen my shirts or set my shoes on fire. Powers, uh, have a serious learning curve”, chuckling, “but, uh, outside of me being skinny, what’s off looking about me? Which, by the way, is ‘cause I burn a ton of calories and energy, and most of my muscle goes to the ectoplasm so I don’t actually develop muscles. Least not when I’m all human and stuff”.
She’s missin’ stuff, she knows it, doesn’t really care much though. Shaking her head and side-eyeing the closed photo album. “Well ya skins gray, yer veins look like bruisin’, the stringy hair I mentioned, the sunken eyes and the skins pulled back on yer nails makin’ ‘em look like claws. Yer eyes got this off-ness or whatever”.
Danny chuckles very awkwardly at that, “well damn, that’s actually kinda a lot. Well, um, my hair goes through a lot too and my body burning through nutrients probably doesn’t exactly help”, she absolutely hears him mutter about possibly it being the cheap conditioner he uses before he continues, “my skin... well it’s like that because it’s effectively decayed but I’m cold as Hell so I don’t, like, rot or anything. Not that I think I would rot anyway. Vlad’s warmer than regular people, less corpse-y looking though I guess. I can say the gray is ‘cause of the being cold thing though. Also I do have claws, so... And the vein thing is definitely because my blood is red and green, so it’s a bunch darker most of the time. As for my eyes... well eyes are the windows to the soul so my ghostliness makes them more intense”.
Alicia huffs, it probably didn’t help that the boy was born with darn vibrant blue eyes. But at least he had explanations for things; and it ain’t like she’s got any reason not to believe him. “Well good then. Ya know what’s up wit yerself. But I’m tellin’ ya, ya need to eat more. Specially if ya burn more or whatever. Yer still a growin’ boy and I know those two ain’t feedin’ ya the best. Order a damn pizza or two”.
He laughs, “Aunty, I can plow through eight larges in an hour. Me eating more isn’t going to put any weight on me. I’m fine, and it does make it easier for someone to carry me when my dumb ass does something dumb and over-exerts myself”.
She shakes her head, teenage boys, “I’d say that’s pretty dumb. Though fine, that’s an impressive amount of pizza. Tried beer yet?”. Maybe the boy could drink old Hank under the table, not like small backwater towns like hers actually gave two spits about legal drinkin’ age.
She can hear the eye roll in his voice, “now you sound like Vlad when he’s trying to push wine”, sounding slightly guilty and awkward again, “though... yeah. Stuffs not bad, I prefer bitters though”. She snorts, at least he didn’t like somethin’ darn expensive or gody. She couldn’t stand those men that only drank top self whiskey and expensive brandy’s. “Anyway, maybe look up Phantom sometime, yeah? Things might make a little more sense, swear I’m safe and healthy though. Well as health as a half corpse can be anyway”, chuckling, “is there anything else?”.
Alicia grunts, “yeah, tell yer folks they’re idiots that need a good smack over the head fer me. Maybe don’t do the hittin’ yerself though, I seen the footage of those there ghosts. One put a fist through a brick wall”, tilting her head, “though that might be useful fer the farm”.
Danny laughs, “well maybe I’ll help out a little the next time we visit. I’m not moving down there though. No offence. Though you’re right about the strength thing, I could probably tear a building out of the ground single-handed. Not that I would. You know, for lots of reasons”. She rolls her eyes at that, she would hope the boy wouldn’t do somethin’ like that. Least he’s got more sense of responsibility that those parents of his at least.
Shaking her head, “good. If I hear ya’s givin’ that poor town of yers grief then I’ll give ya a good smacking or two myself”.
“I don’t know if that’s a hilarious or terrifying mental image, but point taken. I don’t cause issues beyond accidentally breaking shit. I doubt I’ll ever grow out of my clumsiness”.
Alaicia nods to herself, boys always been a clumsy kid. Even when he was a baby, which was honestly impressive since babies were normally clumsy; he was just impressively so. “Good. An I’m sure I could find a few things fer ya to do ‘round here. Hay bails ain’t exactly light. But ya bettar seriously take care of yerself, boy. I don’t wanna hear ya got yerself more dead”.
Danny snorts, “eh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I know what shit to avoid”. She’s not sure how much she really believes that.
Regardless she nods to herself with a huff, “good”, and hangs up with a head shake before dialling her sister’s cellphone, speaking as soon as she picks up, “ya fuckin’ dumbasses. If I ever hear ya got yer other kid killed, I’m gonna whop both yer asses”, and then hangs up without giving her a chance to respond.
End.