Chapter Text
A series of candles lit up theatre room 007 of Amity University. It was rumored that back in the 1950s, a student was murdered in room 007. Of course, the university had admitted that a student had passed away, but the university would never admit to how they passed away. It was only through a series of rumors milling throughout the years to decades that kept students interested in visiting the room where said murder took place.
Whether it be from drunken dares, late-night make-outs, or simple curiosity, the room always held a calling for students to come to like a moth attracted to a flame. But those who were exceptionally brave would gather around an Ouija board, calling for the student who was killed. Over the years, sessions were held, but they were never spoken of. Without fail, the next morning, the students who had joined in on the Ouija board were either too traumatized to speak or had completely forgotten about it, experiencing selective amnesia. This fact only piqued the interest in the room even more for many students.
With it being a stormy Friday night, the group of students that now sat in the room around the Ouija board were warming themselves up to ask the real questions.
"Will I pass my midterms?" Tyler asked the board with his fingers placed gently on the planchette. The planchette moved ever so slowly, causing the young adults to gasp and yell lightly as it landed on YES.
"Fuck yes!" Tyler cheered as he clapped. "I needed that! Chem has been a pain in my ass all semester!"
"Okay, okay! I have one!" Alison claimed as she placed her fingers on the planchette. She looked over at her best friend, Mal, who sat next to Logan. She noticed the nervous but flirtatious hair tuck Mal did when Logan smiled at her. The two had been acting like this since last semester; the lingering touches, the soft smiles, and the late-night texting, all had Alison on the edge of her seat, waiting for the two to finally admit their feelings to one another. Alison beamed as a plan came to her. "Will Logan get off his ass and ask Mal out?"
Everyone cheered louder. It was no secret that Mal and Logan had a thing for each other, but no one was as bold or blunt as Alison was to just come out with it. Mal gave Alison an incredulous look while Logan blushed and tried to focus on a crack in the room, suddenly finding interest in it.
"Alison!" Mal shrieked.
Alison shrugged and pursed her lips. Slowly, the planchette moved on the board. Everyone in the room held their breaths waiting for the planchette to make their final decision. Even Logan stopped feigning interest in the crack and shifted his eyes to the planchette. Mal's heart was beating erratically as she watched the planchette make its decision.
Finally, the planchette made its decision. YES.
Everyone cheered even louder, some even doing a little victory dance. Alison laughed and shrugged innocently to her best friend as Mal's blush got even redder. She was nervous about looking at Logan, but she suspected that his cheeks shared the same color.
"Dude, are you really going to prove our ghost buddy here wrong?" Damon teased.
Logan cleared his throat as a stalling tactic. He looked over to Mal, who he could only see half of her face as the candles surrounding the room created a shadow on the other half. "Uh, Mal…?"
"Yeah…?"
Everyone in the room was silent, making sure that they wouldn't be able to miss the question they'd all been waiting for.
"Do you…huh…" Logan couldn't take Mal's chocolate brown eyes staring at him anymore, so he shifted his eyes from Mal to the board, blurting the first thing that came to mind. "Wanna go next?"
"Pussy!" Beth yelled, causing Logan to glare at her. Frustrated groans were heard around the room, adding to more tension between the two.
Mal looked down, sighing disappointedly as Logan looked at the floor, disappointed in himself. Mal nervously rubbed her hands together and moved closer to the board. "Sure…"
She gently placed her hands on the planchette and closed her eyes, thinking of a question. Before she could ask her question, the planchette started moving.
"Whoa…" Mal uttered as she looked at the planchette.
"Are you doing that?" Alison asked.
Mal shook her head. "No. No, I'm not doing this." The planchette crept to M, then slowly moved to its next letter.
"Mal…" Alison mumbled, staring intensely at the board.
"Alison, I promise you I'm not doing this," Mal declared. She could hear her heartbeat pulsating in her ears as the planchette claimed its next letter. U.
"What's it saying?" Beth asked no one in particular.
When the planchette went to R, Mal took her hands off the planchette as if it were burning her fingertips. The planchette continued to move to its next letter. D.
Mal stumbled back into Logan, who placed his hand on her shoulder for comfort. "Okay, let's stop this shit."
"Dude, this isn't us," Tyler responded. "Who are you?" He asked the board. It landed on E.
"Guys…" Damon called out. Everyone turned their heads to him to see that he was staring intently at the board while also holding his phone. "I think I know what it's saying." Finally, the planchette landed on its last letter, which confirmed Damon's guess. He gulped as he slowly raised his phone, showing everyone what the planchette was spelling.
MURDER
"No way…" Tyler mumbled as he looked back at the board. "Are you the student who was murdered here a long time ago?"
The planchette answered by moving quickly to YES. Its sudden urgency caused different reactions among the group. Tyler and Beth chuckled lightly, Mal shrieked while cowering into Logan more as he placed his arm around her protectively after he jumped slightly. Alison and Damon jumped back slightly, too, but after their initial reaction, they were intrigued again.
"Fuck this," Mal breathed as she moved to stand up. "I'm getting out of here."
The planchette moved to NO, stopping Mal in her tracks. "I don't like this!"
Logan took her hand, gently caressing it, coaxing her to sit back down. When he looked back up at her, he could faintly see tears brimming in her eyes.
"No, I'm going home!"
The planchette moved to NO again, a bit more aggressively than the previous answer. Mal shrieked.
"Mal, it's okay. Sit down with me," Logan's soft voice reached her ears.
The planchette moved to YES.
Mal gasped as she reluctantly sat down. She burrowed her face into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.
Beth cleared her throat, eager to ask their invisible friend more questions. "So, you're the student? Malakai, right?"
The planchette moved to YES. Mal cried softly into Logan's chest while he rubbed her back.
"I think he goes by Kai, doesn't he?" Damon clarified. The planchette moved to YES.
"I can't believe the rumors were true…He's actually here," Alison mumbled.
"Who killed you?" Tyler asked, eager to resolve the mystery that had loomed over Amity Park for decades. Everyone else waited patiently, holding their breaths for the planchette to answer, only to be left confused as the planchette froze in place.
"Is he still here?" Beth asked, looking up to Tyler as if he had the answer. Tyler shrugged just as the planchette moved to YES again.
"I think asking about his death was too far, man," Damon said.
The planchette moved aggressively again as it started spelling something out.
M.
"Whoa, hey, I think it's giving a name!"
A.
"Could you imagine if we solve this?!" Mal looked over to Beth, who was beaming, the candlelight casting a glow on her olive skin. "Our names will be carried on for decades!"
D. After the last letter. The planchette froze again.
"Mad? Was that a nickname or something?" Tyler asked.
"I think he means the feeling," Alison stated. The planchette confirmed by crossing to YES. It started spelling something again.
R.
"Look, look, look! It's moving!"
E.
"Are you typing it out?" Alison asked Damon, who nodded as he held his phone, showing that he was typing whatever Kai was telling them.
V.
A thunderstorm roared in the background, causing the group of students to jump.
"I knew we shouldn't have done this!" Mal cried out.
The planchette continued to move as if the thunder had never occurred.
E.
"I swear, if it's spelling out what I think it's spelling out, we're leaving," Logan declared, speaking up for the first time in a while.
N.
Everyone held their breath as it continued on.
G.
The room seemed to get colder as the planchette landed on its final letter.
E.
Alison exhaled a deep breath, furrowing her eyebrows as she noticed that she could see her puff of breath float in the room. When she looked at her friends, she noticed that she could see their breath as well. "Was it always this cold?"
The planchette moved to NO.
Mal abruptly stood up. "That's it, I'm leaving now. This is over!" Logan stood up with Mal and grabbed their rain jackets, agreeing with her that it was time to leave.
"Wait, you guys can't leave now!" Tyler called out. "We're about to solve this mystery!"
"Dude," Logan stated. "We're going."
The planchette moved to NO.
"He's saying no!" Beth shrieked.
"Fuck that!" Mal retorted. "If I want to leave, I'm going to leave!"
The planchette moved to NO again.
"Let's go," Logan said to Mal, placing his hand on the small of her back. They walked over to the closed door, having every intention of leaving. Logan placed his hand on the handle and pushed it down, only for the handle to be frozen. He shook the handle again, only to look back at Mal with widened eyes.
"Let me try," Mal placed her hands on the handle, only to be denied exit. She screamed out of frustration, slamming the door with her hand. She looked back at her friends and gasped as she saw the planchette move furiously back and forth to NO.
Frustration taking over fear at this point, Mal stormed over to the board. "Why?!"
The planchette froze in place. Alison rubbed her arms as she found the room had become even colder than before. Suddenly, a roar of thunder was heard again just as a lightning strike seared across the night sky. An unknown wind rushed throughout the room, blowing out the candles. Everyone else was frightened at this point, standing up abruptly.
"Kai," Beth called out to the planchette. "We didn't kill you. We were just being dumb and disturbing you. We're sorry!"
The planchette moved to a series of letters again. When the planchette finished, everyone stared wide-eyed and turned to Damon, hoping they were wrong.
Damon gulped as he looked down at his phone. "He spelled out 'here.'"
Alison shook her head. "Here, as in here talking to us, right? Not here here. Right?!"
"Here." A chilling voice declared. The friends spun around to where the voice was heard. In the dark, they couldn't see much but the legs as the moonlight from the window cast an eerie glow. It wasn't until another lightning strike blazed the sky that they could faintly see the features of the unknown individual's face. His voluminous dark blonde hair was styled back beside the single strand that was perfectly placed in front of his face. He wore black Converse shoes, black pleated pants, a white button-down shirt, and a cream-colored pullover.
"Who are you?" Logan's voice betrayed him slightly as he wavered on his last word.
"You should know…you called me here."
"Kai?" Beth stammered. The guys stood protectively in front of the girls, shielding them from Kai's view.
Kai pointed at the group, indicating the right answer. "Bingo."
"How do we put you back?" Tyler asked.
"You don't," Kai growled.
Lightning cracked across the dark sky following a roar of thunder. The sudden burst of activity outside caused Danny to wake up abruptly. Silently, he thanked the storm outside for waking him up from his nightmare. Ever since battling with his evil version, he has been having this recurring nightmare where he turns into Dark Dan.
Slowly, he inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth to slow his racing heart.
"I didn't realize the great Danny Phantom was nervous from a little storm outside."
Danny chuckled softly as he looked down at his bedmate. Ever since his nightmares started, he hadn't been able to sleep throughout the night. It got so bad that his aim with his ecto blasts was being affected. When he almost hit Sam and Tucker instead of Ember during a fight, Sam insisted that he start sleeping with her, as Jazz told her that sleeping with someone you care about improves sleep quality. Danny had wriggled his eyebrows and placed a sly smirk on his face at her suggestion, which Sam quickly wiped away, insisting that they would only be sleeping.
Nothing else.
Unfortunately for Danny, she kept her word.
Since then, he's been sleeping a bit more, but not enough to claim a full night's sleep.
"Sorry, Sam. I guess I got a little spooked."
Sam, who still had her eyes closed, reached her hand out blindly to bring Danny back down. "A ghost who got spooked. That's a first." She placed her head on Danny's chest as he wrapped his arm around her. "Was it the nightmare again?"
"Yeah…I just can't get it out of my head," Danny mumbled. He scrunched his eyes closed as he recounted what happened this time in his nightmare. "It's getting more gruesome…I…I killed Tucker."
At this, Sam opened her eyes and looked up at her boyfriend. She could see his blue eyes, which usually held so much charisma, were now dull. "Danny, you know that would never happen."
"It's happened before -"
"That wasn't you," Sam interrupted. "What happened in that version is a tragedy. But when it almost happened again, you fought Dan and saved all of us." Sam gently brought his chin down so he was looking at her. "You are good, Danny. You will never become Dan."
Danny just gave a soft smile and lightly patted her arm. "We should go to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."
"Not so fast. Do you really believe you are capable of killing anyone? Let alone Tucker?"
"I-I don't know."
"Then let me answer for you. Tucker is your best friend. Sure, he may piss you off sometimes, and you may want to kill him, but you could never - would never - do that. It's not in your nature. And it's not in your heart." Sam gently placed her hand on Danny's chest, where his heart was. "You have a good heart, Danny. You're a good person."
Danny lightly pecked Sam on the forehead. "You're right. But we should really go to sleep. We have to be at AU by 9 tomorrow morning for orientation."
"I know I'm right," a victorious smile splayed on Sam's lips. "But do you believe it?"
"Yeah, Sam, I do."
The two settled back into their positions before Danny was startled awake. Unfortunately for the hero, his nightmares continued.