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The first time the two of you met was…unconventional.
You are among the masses that fear him. Huddling with faceless people under ghost-proof domes. Uncertainty is thick in the air and fear permeates the dusty atmosphere. A continuous sway of the unpredictability of fight-or-flight.
Any mention of his name is equivalent to the Bogeyman. It’s spoken in whispers, spat as a curse, or simply no mention at all. The one who bears the name in question is rather unpredictable.
It was during one of his sweeps that you hide within some still intact structures. The glow of the ghost shield warbles and groans. It flickers between blue and grey. On its last legs like that of an ancient beast. Not once has the shield generators have had a hiccup for over 10 years.
But as all things do, they wear and decay with age.
You steady your breathing in spite of your accelerating heart rate. You are near the edge of the city, which has already been levelled. In a brief moment of calm, you exhale softly in relief.
A shockwave of abnormal, spectral energy rumbles through you. The structure you hide within rattles as its very foundations fight to remain upright. You wonder if you may need to run, despite that there isn’t much cover out in the open.
The rumbles reverberate through you. They are strangely low in sound, yet there’s a trace of an echo. Adrenaline surges up your legs, your mind internally yells for you to run.
You turn on the spot. Your body jitters in trepidation as you scan the landscape for danger. You don’t see much from behind the corner of the structure. All you see is a lonely stream of wind blowing dust across the ruins, the haze of smoke blots out what little sunlight there is.
Smoke. The foul smell is thick and rife with the ashen misery of death. It assaults your nose and throat, it forces you to cough it out to clear it.
Amidst your little fit, you nearly miss the flash of black and white. Your coughs quiet down now that you are no longer focused on it irritating your throat. You suck in your breath in spite of the fact that you may choke to death.
High above in the sky. You’d only seen brief glimpses of him. Never close enough or crystal clear to see. Much like everyone else, though, you do know what he looks like-through word of mouth.
It was seeing the real deal that would make those words truer.
For a minute or two, you allow your eyes to linger. The sense of danger slips from your mind the longer you stare at a mythological figure that seemed so far from you. You wonder how much details you would remember afterwards.
A broad, muscular physique is the first thing that catches your eye. Complimented with energy that glows green and crackles. It mesmerizes you how one can have so much power alone.
A bright green flash floods and stings your vision. It’s a few minutes before you regain your senses, the ringing echoes incessantly in your head. The eye straining green fades to a faint haze, you look up to the sky again. He’s still there, unmoving, and an unnatural sensation rolls off in waves.
Overwhelming, but you stand up against it. You aren’t about to let any obstacles, supernatural or not, from obstructing your fascination. So many spoke of him like some mythological figure, in a way, you can see it. On the other hand, he was merely one ghost with a domineering will.
Your eyes linger far longer than one would let them. You take note of the stark contrast of the black and white suit. It’s oddly symbolic in the context that he’s dangerous and humans stand no chance against him despite their efforts. From an angle, you can just barely make out the DP emblem square on his chest. It seems familiar to you. You’re sure you’ve seen it before – a lifetime ago.
Upwards to his face. You inexplicably feel shy upon gazing at what little you could see of his face. Pale green skin and fiery white hair jumps out at you. It’s an unusual colour combination of black and white.
Deep red eyes stare down at you, pinning you on the spot. You can’t look away; the penetrating gaze seems to command every move you make.
A quick, pained gasp comes out of you. Your heart skips a beat. You held your breath for too long. You stumble backwards, he’s staring at you.
Adrenaline rushes through you again, you barely acknowledge the fight-or-flight alarms in your head. Your body twitches, unsure whether you should start running and hope. Or wait and see what he does next.
He moves towards you. His tense posture and fisted hands indicate he’s wary. Perhaps undecided whether he should deal with you or not.
Then he perks up, his head turns in the other direction at whatever distracts him. He only gives a brief glimpse back at you before he flies away. All you see is a billowing cape that obscures him from your sight.
A long and loud exhale blows out of your mouth. Your heart still races, but it’s calmer now. Your breath breaks down into shakes, mystified that you’re still alive and standing.
That…Phantom lets you live. He had the opportunity to blast you away and he didn’t take it. It was a far cry from how he usually acts. What made him stop?
Dan knows you’re watching him. Especially after that day. He still questions what went through his mind, that he…let you go.
He tries to convince himself that he was distracted. That you, a mere human, just…
Didn’t run.
Were it any other human, they would’ve been nothing but ash in the wind by now. Except you. You stood straight up and stared right at Dan in defiance. That little fact continues to jump out at him.
It annoys Dan…and intrigues him all the same, to say the least.
It didn’t occur to him right away, but the thought of you never left his mind. Every time he came to Amity Park, his eyes would peer around in search of you. There may not be many humans left, after dealing with them for so long, they all started to look the same to him. Something about you sticks out to Dan.
Perhaps that you seem to be braver, if not foolhardy, but braver than most ever would be.
You are difficult to find, of course. You tend to hide whenever Dan comes around. At first, he considers, maybe you aren’t as brave as he makes you out to be. Except that you never run, even when he finds you. You always stare at him with a mix of apprehension and awe.
Dan grins in amusement, humans are such fickle little creatures. In one minute, they unite together. Then in the next, they suddenly scatter to the winds. And there is always one, singular, poor little human who’s lost.
Time passes, it grows into a sort of routine between the two of you. It goes unspoken, there is an air of understanding. It’s a waiting game, to see how long it takes for you to start running. Or when Dan finally gets bored with you.
Except it never happens. You both meet at the exact same time most days, when the sun sinks below the horizon. In the exact same rusty and jagged ruins that inspire danger. It was so…simple. Yet few, if not none, would ever suspect it.
At first, both of you take the time to study each other. Notice little quirks that one wouldn’t notice unless they actually bother to look closer. Certain physical details that you both find endearing.
Like how you take notice that Dan seems calm. At least, calm when the situation calls for it. Compared to how you usually see him, it was like you’re seeing two different people. It does cross your mind if what you’re seeing is just scratching the surface level of who Dan really was.
You hastily push the thoughts away. You can’t possibly be that invested in him, right? Your reasoning comes off as unconvincing when those thoughts come around…repeatedly.
Likewise, Dan finds you rather cute for a human. With your childish sense of awe that has him grinning to himself in amusement. In a way, it reminds him of himself.
His thoughts stop abruptly, his focus zeroes in on the fact that you remind him a bit too much. A haunting figure encroaches on the edge of Dan’s mind. A part of him that died and, at the same time, never really left.
Dan inhales deeply to control his reaction. He honestly did wonder if you would ever become dangerous to him. It seems quite ridiculous, that you somehow manage to incite such an internal reaction…
He sighs quietly, his fingers press into the bridge of his nose. Great. You aren’t just a bit annoying, and intriguing, but also…invigorating.
Dan slowly lets a grin appear. His hand covers half of his face to hide what he’s feeling. He supposes, as long as you can entertain him, he doesn’t mind keeping you around.
The longer you keep up with these ‘secret’ meetings, the more you realize you look forward to them. To…seeing Dan.
Dan shares the same sentiment of these meetings. That seeing you is an enjoyable quiet amidst a raging storm.
It was one of these meetings that sealed the deal for him. That you’re a friend of sorts…and perhaps something more. It’s a persistent feeling that he quashes down any chance he gets.
Who’d want someone like him? Let alone you?
You hide within the ruins for your near daily meetup with Dan. You try to calm the giddy feeling that swirls around in your chest in anticipation once he finds you.
You wait. And wait.
You frown on confusion. Dan should be here by now, on the prowl. It was already dark enough that you’d have a hard time seeing him.
After some time passes, a seed of doubt pokes at you. It’s not like you can tell Dan what to do. He may have simply opted not to come today.
Before your thoughts can bring your mood down more, they’re interrupted by a distant rumble. You barely have time to react when another, more powerful rumble causes you to lose your balance.
You fall with an uncomfortable thud on the ground. You quickly forget your predicament as multiple blasts of green light colour the dreary sky a toxic green. They mix with pink-purple lights, crossing over each other.
Two figures zip around in the sky, one you barely recognize as Dan. The black and white combo turns into a confusing amalgamation. You can hardly make out a red suit and a hoverboard.
The lights fly back and forth with a haphazard sense of direction. Small and powerful explosions of a colourful variety dot the landscape.
You’re so distracted by the spectacle that you fail to notice the warning signs. Bits and pieces of debris fall around you, dust is upset from wherever it settles. A faint groan here, a disturbing creak there.
You realize what’s happening when a large piece of a steel beam lands with a thunderous crash near you. Your head sharply snaps up in horror, your eyes fixate on the sharp, rusty pieces of steel falling towards you. Your breath sucks in, and you seem stuck on the spot.
An echoing, clanging crash jolts you out of your stupor. Your heart thunders in your chest, a rush of energy surges through you. There’s no time to think as you scramble away, just mere seconds before a particularly sharp piece of metal impales the very spot you sat on.
Shaky breaths huff and puff out of you, your heart pounds loudly in your ears. An eerie groan of metal promises certain doom cues you in that you need to get out. The aged structure teeters dangerously over you.
The sound of glass shattering has you pump your legs into action, no time to think on it as you would waste precious seconds of life. The cold-hot sensation of adrenaline fills your throat, your heart picks up the pace. The soles of your shoes slam painfully on the ground as you make a rush for the nearest opening.
Outside, Dan twists and expertly manoeuvres his body to avoid the onslaught. He grins as pink-purple lights pass him, then turns intangible with a casual expression. Oh, how his adversaries get upset when they realize they can no longer touch him. Just like Valerie passing through him, Dan doesn’t as much as even twitch.
She’s quick, and ruthless to a fault.
But not good enough.
Dan careens around with his hand in a fist, becoming nothing more than a dark blur. A painful, resounding crack fills his ears as his fist makes contact with the back of Valerie’s head. She doesn’t even have enough time to utter a single sound before the blow knocks her off of her hoverboard.
He watches with apathy and maybe a smidgen of amusement as Valerie falls down to the roof of a nearby building. Her prone form slides roughly on the surface, unlikely to be conscious again for some time.
Turning away without as much as a glimpse, Dan has a sneering smirk on his face. His eyes shine malignantly. Valerie keeps him on his toes, entertaining, so to speak. He doesn’t have any qualms about killing her, oh not at all, but not for a long time coming.
His musing comes to a halt at the sound of crashing. Crunching. Splintering.
Dan veers around, somewhat caught off guard. He instantly gets a face full of thick dust. Holding an arm to his face to shield himself, the billowing cloud of dust tells him all he needs to know.
Now that he thinks about it…where are you?
His question soon gets an answer when he spots something. Within the dark depths of the collapsing ruins, Dan makes out a shape. A human, familiar, silhouette. You. What perturbs him more is that he can hear a faint thump.
A repetitive, deep sound that attempts to fill his cold body with warmth.
Your heartbeat. Why can he hear your heartbeat?
No matter now. You have very little probability of escaping the collapse unscathed. At best, you may become a cripple for life. At worst, you’re dead under all that debris. Crushed.
Unless…Dan’s thought falters.
Unless…
Dan gets to you first. He growls softly in trepidation. He internally fights himself, it wasn’t the morality of it. More so that he doesn’t necessarily go out of his way to save someone. It’d be a lot more merciful to kill them, if he doesn’t toy with them first, of course.
But if you do die, Dan isn’t sure what to think of it. Loneliness perhaps, he’s used to it. It’s not like he sought out others for company. He…just happened on you by chance. He would miss these meetings, you’re one of the more enjoyable things in this world, Dan has to admit – believe it or not.
Without thinking, Dan zips down low to the ground. Clouds of dust and microscopic particles of debris bite at his face. A deafening roar blasts his eardrums, his vision becomes dark as the cloud grows and thickens.
Shattering. Crashing. Crunching.
Dan cares little for the surrounding chaos. Flying directly into a collapsing building perhaps wasn’t his best idea. His thoughts drone on as he wraps his arms around something, hopefully you. And also, hopefully, though he doubts it, that they remain standing. His form goes transparent.
Time passes. Neither you nor Dan move a muscle. It long since becomes quiet, the ruins are even more ruinous.
A faint thumping sound makes it known to Dan. He can hear it more clearly, and…closer. Dan slowly opens his eyes, red pierces through the darkness and up to the sky. A rare night sky full of stars greets him. Downwards, and…
Oh. That’s why he hears it, you press right up to him. Your arms wrap tightly around him, clinging onto him as if your life depends on it. And your face is hidden in his chest. Your heart beats against his body.
Finally, you slowly and shakily look up. Your eyes shift around anxiously, wondering if you’re really still alive. Well, you’re clearly breathing and can still hear your heart thumping. Oddly enough, you feel like you’re pressed up against something, or someone.
You gaze up further and stiffen in shock. Dan is looking right down at you, like literally looking down at you. You notice at this point that he has his arms around you. Almost like he’s...protecting you.
You grin awkwardly at him; your face heats up. “Face to face at last, huh?”
Dan grumbles quietly and rolls his eyes. He pretends he doesn’t notice the lump that forms in his throat, or that his insides flutter.
After that incident, the two of you form a stronger friendship. Dan is standoffish, and displays behaviours that you don’t quite understand. It still intrigues you, you feel like he is hiding his ‘true self’.
Dan remains at a short distance, sometimes, he never leaves your line of sight. You stop hiding from him as well. Maybe you’re afraid that in one blink, either one of you will be gone. It’s an unpleasant feeling.
You don’t vocalize it, of course. Dan doesn’t either, maybe he feels the same as you do.
You’d have no idea just how right you are.
Dan is more cautious now, though he uses the word loosely. The old structure nearly collapsing on top of you is a stark reminder of human fragility. As a matter of fact, mortality as well. It brings up old memories that Dan buries deep within his mind. It’s been so long he forgot they were still there.
‘Invading’ Amity Park becomes less of a reason, and more of an excuse to get away from prying eyes. To see you, make certain that you’re still there the next time he comes around.
The two of you haven’t spoken much to each other yet. At the same time, you feel you already know each other just from your actions and body language alone. Even then, the two of you are still learning about each other.
Days pass. Then weeks.
The two of you settle into a routine. Sometimes you bring a book, or a story from what happens throughout your daily life, other times you sit in a comfortable silence.
Dan thinks you don’t notice, but you clearly do, with a smile to boot, and a shy blush. While he remains standoffish, he can’t help being curious. There are times when he’s looking over your shoulder to see what you have in your hands, even if he doesn’t garner much interest in it. Other times, he can be seen sitting or floating near you as you talk away.
He always seems to edge closer to you when it’s quiet.
You honestly couldn’t ask for more. This is the kind of life you desire if Earth wasn’t such a barren wasteland.
Dan supposes he doesn’t have much more to ask, either. It’s…nice. He feels content.
One day, though, you fail to show up. Dan finds it very uncharacteristic of you – you almost always arrive on time. At first, he thinks maybe you have something that’s holding you up. Even so, you would’ve left him some kind of message.
He decides to wait, he’s certain you’ll show up.
But as night falls, Dan begins to get the impression that something’s wrong. He’s inexplicably hyper vigilant, he feels a sense of danger in his gut. Dan’s ghost core accelerates, and he hears the ectoblood pound in his ears.
Shadows of the night surround him, his senses on high alert. There’s something out there.
Dan decides to leave his post, go on a little hunt. Right off the bat, he can tell that the presence is human, otherwise his ghost sense would’ve gone off. If they’re human, chances are they’re hiding within the wreckage. Too bad, Dan knows all the little tricks humans have tried to pull on him over the years.
He flies down to the ground, he can do this on foot. Walking through the ruins, Dan holds a hand up and it glows a bright green. Spectral energy concentrates in his hand to create a ‘light’ to show the way.
Dan doesn’t get very far before he comes across a pair of humans. At least, he assumes they’re human, with the odd armour they have on. It oddly reminds Dan of ghost hunting technology. Maybe that’s what they are. Ghost hunters who take upon the challenge to try to take him down once and for all.
As if they ever succeed, Dan scoffs at them with a smirk.
One points a gun at him to appear threatening. How frightening. Dan’s smirk morphs into a fanged grin.
The second, however, to Dan’s surprise, moves to pull you from behind him. Your hands are bound and tape covers your mouth. You have the beginnings of bruising all around your body, small cuts dot your face.
The second hunter pulls out a gun, a human one, and presses it against the side of your head. You shake around in terror, your eyes widen and are out of focus.
Dan’s mind goes out of focus, it zeroes in only on you. Your heart…he can hear your heart thundering. A sound that pounds his ears the longer you remain in danger. Dan snarls silently, he bares his fangs for all to see.
“Phantom,” the first hunter draws Dan’s attention. “Your life for theirs…”
The gun cocks quietly. The click reverberates loudly in the tense silence.
“Or your friend here dies.”
Dan leans forward, his hands in tight fists and heavy breaths come out of his mouth. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“Simple as that, surrender to us quietly, or we’ll have a big mess to clean up.”
The sound of your heart rate accelerates even faster. The rhythm pounds itself into Dan’s mind, making sure he’s well aware of it. It beats against his skull. A deep sensation rises up within him, unsettling Dan.
Shivers go down his body, the hairs on the back of his neck stand right up. Dan’s breath quickens. It’s been such a long time. He was sure he’d never feel it again.
The chill of fear seeps into Dan. Not for himself, but rather for you. He can’t keep his thoughts straight, neither can he focus. Not while you’re actively being threatened.
The hunter continues to yap away, seemingly not aware of the signs of Dan’s rising anger. Nor does the hunter notice that Dan seems to relax for a moment, then nothing more.
Your heart pounds more and more painfully against your chest. You squirm in your captor’s grip with no success. You can feel it deep in your bones, there’s something behind you. Something-
Right next to you, you watch in silent horror as the ghost hunter who was too distracted to realize the danger he was in, is pulled into the darkness behind him. You snap your head away, eyes shut tight when the sounds start.
Sickly, blood curling sounds that you’re sure you’ll never forget. Just as quickly as it starts, it becomes a deadly quiet.
The second hunter is stiff with fright, anxiously glancing around while the gun wavers in his grip. Out of nowhere, a hand grabs the hunter’s wrist in an iron grip. The painful pressure forces him to drop the weapon. The hand then jerks him away, forcing him to let you go.
You stand stiffly on the spot. Not daring to move as similar sounds started up again, louder and closer this time. The second hunter manages to yell out before it’s quickly cut off, a sickening quiet takes his place.
Footsteps. Your head snaps up in terror.
You barely relax once you realize it’s Dan. You remain still even as he tears away the bindings from your hands and the tape from your mouth. You shudder and take in a huge breath of fresh air. You don’t dare look behind you, the sounds were more than enough to tell you what happened.
A hand waves in your face.
“You ok…?” Dan asks you awkwardly.
You snap back to reality, you look down at your shaky hands.
“I…didn’t think I’d end up in a scenario like this,” you say in a quivering voice.
You flinch a little as Dan comes closer, and one of his hands slowly rises up to your face. You feel him take your chin and tilt your head up. Your eyes meet in a new light.
“I hate to sound sappy here, but, I didn’t know how much I…enjoyed you. Your company, I mean…” Dan mutters out, his ears turn downwards, and you swear you see the faintest of a blush on his face.
“What are you trying to say?” You prompt him, your hand holds his.
“I think I enjoy you…more than just a friend,” Dan says with his eyes averting.
It stuns you, that Dan feels that way about you. Your stomach flips and your heart skips a beat, Dan’s eyes cast down as if he heard it. Wordlessly, your hands move up to hold Dan’s face, as his hands hold your face.
Slowly, you lean forward. Carefully keeping an eye on him as you gently press your forehead to his. Dan frowns at first, then he quickly relaxes. He exhales softly.
Before you know it, you feel a set of lips press against yours, your nerves burst with emotion. You hear Dan whisper.
“I’d like to enjoy you for as long as I can.”