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“Mooom, Daaad!” Danny shouted. His footsteps echoed through the lab as he descended.
“Jazz made dinner!” Danny skipped the last few steps and jumped onto the floor. He had to search for his parents for a moment, before finally finding them staring at an old CRT tv, which he recognized as the one that used to be in the living room.
“Guys?” He questioned. Danny’s voice echoed and shook. He didn’t know why he was suddenly so nervous. Hadn’t he just been looking forward to dinner?
“We know.” Said Mom. Or what should have been Mom, but when she turned around her face lent to anything but his mother. Danny wasn’t sure how he knew that, either. Her features were marred and ever-shifting. All he could make out was red. Danny couldn’t even see Dad’s face, too focused on the monster that seemed to be inching closer and closer.
Danny was frozen in fear. And yet he was unbearably hot at the same time. He tried to become intangible and sink through the floor, but nothing happened. His entire body felt like jello.
“We saw everything.” Said Dad. The tone was a whisper, almost like a threat. It was then that Danny’s gaze was torn from them, and back to the tv that was now forgotten on the table behind them. It was playing The Accident in a loop, and Danny was mesmerized by the sight of himself stumbling out of the portal. Smoke drifted from his limp body as he laid there on the lab floor. Except- where were Sam and Tucker?
Suddenly something collided with Danny’s back and he was thrown forward onto his feet. A net wrapped around his body, throwing him onto the ground. Immediately he felt a burning grid erupt all over his body. Danny shuddered in pain as he struggled against the net. But it held. The pain was only made worse when Dad hauled him into the air, and they both glared at him with their beady eyes.
“Scum.” They said in unison, glaring down at their sobbing child. How dare he pretend to be a hero.
Danny was gasping for air before he even realized he was awake. Before he could blink he was sitting up, grasping at the sheets as though they were about to strangle him. His heart was racing, every beat resounding through his skull. His core wasn’t silent, either, and frost crackled across Danny’s covers. It was a show of the pain that echoed through his body, tearing a whimper from his mutilated chest. It tore at Sam’s hasty stitches in his side but there was no stopping the tears as soon as they started to fall. The pain, so real and acute, was truly what brought him to consciousness.
‘ Stupid Skulker, stupid ghosts, stupid parents.’ Danny thought. He tugged the icy blanket over his head, making the frost crack and break before sliding onto the floor. He hoped no one would hear him bawling his eyes out, he couldn’t handle trying to put on a facade right now. Just the thought made Danny cry harder. He hated that he was crying - heroes don’t cry - but at the same time, it was cathartic. Jazz always said that crying was a good thing.
Why did he have to live like this? Waking up in the middle of the night from nightmares of being torn apart. Of being destroyed by the very same people that slept down the hall. What’d he do to deserve it, what crime did he commit? Why couldn’t his subconscious mind understand that his parents loved him? That they wouldn’t hurt him, couldn’t hurt him. They loved him to pieces and would never truly bring him harm.
Right?