#I might do ectober week

[nyk-is-always-lurking]

Dora my beloved

[ordon-pumpkin]

I’ve been bouncing around with October prompt lists. The first part of the month I did Linktober, now I’m doing Spideytorch Halloween.

After that it might be a mixture of some Ectober week (Danny Phantom) prompts, maybe jumping back and doing some more Linktober art, drawing Halloween themed art of fave fandoms, drawing Halloween movie fanart or who knows what. 😆😅

There’s a lot of inspiration through prompt lists and Halloween in October. It is fun but also kind of overwhelming since there’s no way to participate in all of the things at once. lol

On a similar note, man I am LOVING the flood of amazing art from others this month! 💙💙💙

[kinglazrus]

ohhh for the wip game I’m v curious about ghost ptsd and fog-splatter

Send me one of my wip titles and I'll tell you about it

Ghost PTSD

Originally a phight fic that I didn't continue. The premise was that a random GIW runs into a teenager in Amity Park and recognizes signs of PTSD that he assumes is from ghost attacks, and he ends up trying to comfort/help the teen in question. I only wrote a few paragraphs for it in the end, so I'll just post all of it.

Fast food is not something Alexander Wells indulges in often. His job as a government agent requires him to stay in top shape. That means a strict diet and exercise regimen with very little wiggle room. But even he has his cheat days, and after a long afternoon of tracking down the ghost boy, only to lose him in the residential district, Alexander needs something greasy to sooth his wounded pride. The guys back at base are going to laugh him out the door when he returns empty-handed. He spent much of the morning boasting to the others that he would make a better show of things in Amity Park. The agency is wasting his talents keeping him stationed out in the countryside where nothing ever happens.

What a load of shit that had been.

Once he realized the hunt had failed, he changed out of his work clothes, got into something comfortable, and headed for the nearest fast-food joint. The Nasty Burger. It's not an appetizing name, nor is the smell that hit him when he first walked through the door, but greasy food is greasy food. Looking around, it seems to be popular with the younger generation. Alexander can't tell if that's good or bad. Kids these days have interesting taste.

At the very least, the food is cheap. Alexander eyes the board while the line shuffles forward. Nothing really appeals to him. Mighty Meaty Melt. Mini Mighty Meaty Melt. Meaty Cheesy Melt. Everything has the word "meat" and "melt" in it. Even the fries: Meaty Melty Fries. What does that even mean? Melty fries? Alexander isn't sure he wants to know the answer to that.

Fog-splatter

Started for Ectober 2020. Jack has been having strange gaps in his memories, hearing about conversations he never had, finding inventions he doesn't remember working on. And his son is being incredibly strange around him. Basically a fic where Vlad has been overshadowing Jack for some nefarious plot. I didn't get far into it—I never do with these week/month events—but I still like the idea and might finish it some day.

"Damn sentient soups," Jack muttered, eying the green sludge. He knew it was last night's dinner. Or it was supposed to be, until a single drop of ectoplasm infected the whole pot and turned it into a conscious, quivering mass. Dumping it down the kitchen sink probably hadn't been a good idea, but it was certainly convenient.

The thick green drops trembled, then started creeping along the porcelain, joining together into a single blob at the bottom of the sink. Several oily eyes blinked open and locked onto Jack. The blob opened its goopy mouth and hissed, then slipped back down the drain.

Jack shrugged and turned the tap on. Murky water flowed from the faucet, but it was quickly clearing up. He could deal with the sludge in the pipes later. For now, he kept the tap on until the water ran clear and drinkable. Even then, it wouldn't be the worst thing he'd ever eaten. As he filled his glass, he glanced in the darkened mirror.

A horned shadow loomed behind him.

[casadefreewill]

Day 26 - Pulse

[bongo-clash]

I Want To Break Free

Ectober week prompt: Six Feet

'When three members of Casper High’s football team make one mistake too many, they’ve got no choice other than to bury the evidence. But, both fortunately and unfortunately for them, dead doesn’t mean gone, and they’ve been living in a ghost town for years.'

(Content warnings in tags || fic under cut!!)

-

For all that Amity Park is the poster child for widescale property damage, the crime rate is practically nonexistent. There’s something about finding a common enemy in the violent ghosts ravaging their town that wards off that willingness to go against another human being’s interests like that; murder, in particular, has been shoved off the table since the moment the victims started coming back to haunt them. It’s common knowledge that if you kill someone in Amity Park, everyone is going to find out.

This is exactly why three A-listers are shitting themselves right about now. 

Look, they hadn’t meant for it to go this far. It’d been such a harmless thing in theory- or, well, maybe not harmless, but it shouldn’t have gone any further than humiliation and maybe a bruise or two. They should’ve known it only takes a bad fall. They’re footballers- they should’ve known. But it’d been thoughtless, a split second decision made in the incredibly brief time the opportunity had been presented to them. All Dale had said was ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if you tripped him?’.

And it had been funny, until he hadn’t gotten up again. Now Danny Fenton is dead on the shower room floors, and every single one of them is guilty. 

There’s a long time where none of them know what to do. God, they’ve just killed someone, is this second-degree or manslaughter? There certainly wasn’t any express malice, but they’d definitely thought about swiping his feet out from under him without considering that he might hit his head; that could definitely been seen as implied malice. But they hadn’t meant to! They’d never wanted to, it was never supposed to go this far, and it was especially never supposed to go this far here. 

‘Here’, as in some place at the end of the school day, when the buses were about to leave and the teachers weren’t waiting up for them, having let them lock up before and having been willing to do it again. ‘Here’, as in Casper High in the first place, that had already seen tragedy in a fire taking almost the entire student body in the fifties, and had now witnessed a murder in its reconstructed halls. ‘Here’, as in Amity Park, the ghost town, where there’s a non-zero chance of this literally coming back to get them. 

The silence charged with the smell of deodorant and a wet body already beginning to self-digest is broken, finally, by Dash- the one to trip him, and the first one to back away when he’d felt Fenton’s limp hand for a pulse and found nothing. 

“What the Hell do we do?” He whispers, voice barely reaching anyone else in the room, but you could hear a pin drop beneath the still-running showerheads, and everyone was straining to hear it, desperate to divert their attention. My dad’s a lawyer, he thinks, is there any chance he could save us from this?

As if reading his mind, and said like the instigator that knows they’ll be thrown under the bus for suggesting this in the first place, Dale interrupts the train of thought with a sturdy “We can’t go to the police.”

“Dude, are you insane?” Kwan splutters, barely able to keep his gaze from flitting back to the crime scene. And holy shit, this really is a crime scene. “Dale, we can’t just try and bury this, that’s so much worse.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re a witness!” Dale snaps, looking overwhelmed but outsourcing it to aggression, eyes wide and afraid but brow furrowed. “You’re really gonna let us take the fall like that? We’re your friends.”

Kwan, to his merit, is standing his ground, despite looking incredibly green around the edges. In fairness, all three of them probably look that way. “I’d rather be a witness than an accomplice! I can’t- we can’t-!”

“We’re the only people here.” Dash interrupts numbly, and this is probably the second most awful thing he’s ever done apart from actual murder, but all that’s running through his head right now is I can’t go to jail. His life can’t be over with one dumb mistake even if Danny’s is. “Who’s to say it wasn’t you who did it? All the teachers have seen how we act around the school; we work as a group, always. They’re not gonna believe it was just one of us. They’re gonna believe it was all of us.”

This is his best friend, and he’s convincing him to help hide a body by threatening him, because Dash accidentally committed murder and this does not in the slightest feel like something that’s actually happening to him right now. The whole world feels like a smudged trail against the lens of a window pane. There are tears in Kwan’s eyes.

“I’m never fucking talking to any of you again.” Kwan spits, voice damp with distress. “You- You’re monsters for this. It stops being an accident the moment you start trying to cover shit up, I just- this is horrible.”

The realisation that he’s never heard his friend swear before is a thousand miles away, back in some world where Dash’s biggest problem was getting detention for making Mikey late to class on Tuesday. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t sad. “But you’re gonna help us.”

His expression is the picture of helplessness, but he doesn’t say a word in retort. Silently, the agreement is made that no one is going to know. 

Figuring out what they’re supposed to do with the body is a completely different ball game, though. Kwan had enough of an interest in forensic science (wrenched from him completely two minutes ago, but he can’t erase what facts he already has) to know that dead bodies are apparently heavy as Hell, and the woods is too far to carry one towards. It’d be a terrible idea to bury the body under or near the football field- the disturbed soil would be way too noticeable- but to get to any other place with easily accessible ground, they’d have to transport the body through town and none of them could drive. That doesn’t leave them with a lot of options.

“Behind the bike shed.” Dale exclaims suddenly. “The gap between the shed and the hedge is so tiny no one even goes there to make out- no one’ll even notice the difference.” 

“But won’t people look around the school if someone got murdered here?” 

Dale looks to the showers nobody bothered to turn off, and down at the body with glazed eyes. “They won’t know it was here if all the blood’s down the drain.”

There’s not much to argue with there. Dale has the forethought to go outside and make sure the coast is clear while grabbing a sheet of tarp from the equipment shed, bringing it back into the room with lips pursed into a hardset line. 

Kwan keels over and spills his guts into the shower drains the moment Dash lifts the body, blood and water congealing at the back of Fenton’s head and spilling onto the floor, but no one says a word about it, they just wait until he’s finished. They wrap the body in the tarp until only the ends of his hair and the tips of his shoes are visible, and Dale directs the showerhead to wash away the gore. He tries not to squirm at the knowledge of what he’s holding in his hands right now, because if there’s any time to freak out it’s not now. Not when there’s still stuff left to do. 

When they’ve gotten to the spot behind the shed, there’s already three shovels leaning against the back. Dash puts the body down underneath the hedge, and grabs a handle. 

“Six feet.” He says. “And no one’ll have to know.”

-

It’s probably the most stupid thing he’s ever done other than trip Danny Fenton in the showers, but that same night, he goes back to the place they buried the body. 

He doesn’t know why he thought it was a good idea. He hadn’t, most likely, but still, a piece of him felt like he needed to go back, that dumb part of his brain where all the morbid curiosity comes from and all his meanest ideas go. Regardless of the cause, though, at two in the morning not eight hours after they’d tried to flatten the soil, Dash is back at the grave. 

His heart still aches with everything Kwan had said, begging them to just go to the police and come clean, because no matter how much he doesn’t want his life ruined he knows it already is. There’s not going to be any coming back from this- whether anyone finds the body and discovers their part in it or not, this is going to follow him for the rest of his life. That soil disturbed amongst the grass from upturning, wedged between the bike shed and the hedge, the ground shaking with motion. 

…The dirt. The dirt’s moving. Why’s the dirt moving?

All at once, he jumps back about five paces and freezes stock still, gaze transfixed towards the soil rumbling like the epicentre of a personal earthquake. His mind is terrifyingly blank as he watches, hearing more and more coming from beneath as the time passes somewhere between a good few minutes and an eternity, something like muttering or moans permeating the earth. 

A hand grasps for purchase as it breaks through the top layer of the soil- pale, grimy, and fuzzing at the edges with translucence. The palm finds flat ground some centimetres away, and with a sound like a grunt or a cry, the corpse pulls itself out of the ground. 

Danny Fenton stands in full form before him, brown blood smudged across his temple from the back of his head and dirt caking every other inch of him. The tarp is sticking out from the ground like a tongue. “Hey Dash,” Fenton sighs, like he hadn’t just crawled out of his own unmarked grave alive. “What are you doing here? It’s… oh man, it’s totally past curfew. My parents are gonna kill me for sure.”

It’s that comment in particular that snaps him out of his stupor, catching the weird look in the other boy’s eyes. “Fenton, what the fuck?” His voice is half-wheezing with disbelief, surprised he’s able to breathe between it at all. This is impossible, shouldn’t be happening, but, this is Amity. The dead come back to haunt them all the time. 

“What?” He asks blithely, before tilting his head to look back at the mound in the dirt, the hole that had been filled to hide him. “Oh, that? Don’t worry about it. No one comes back here anyway, and it’s not like they’ll care if they do.”

He can’t for the life of him process the calm in Danny’s voice. “You were dead.” He says. “I killed you. We buried you.”

“But you didn’t report it to the police, huh?” Not knowing how else to respond, Dash shakes his head. “Yeah, makes sense, they never do. Still, guess that gives me less issues to deal with in the long run, and I can’t really complain about that even if the morality of the whole thing bugs me. You really should tell people about these kinds of things before they find out on their own, y’know? Oh, but Dash?”

Fenton has his back turned by now, having stretched his limbs out and began to walk off during his talk, but he turns his head just a little, then. Just enough that Dash can see the glint of sharp teeth underneath his lips. Just enough for his eyes to catch green under a light that doesn’t exist. 

“No one’s gonna believe you.”

…

(When Kwan and Dale come to school with him the next day like nothing’s wrong, and they spot Danny Fenton talking with his friends by his locker like any other stupid day, they don’t say a word. They don’t make fun of him when he falls asleep in class after claiming to have had a ‘long night’, and they don’t tell their friends why they weren’t at Star’s house by eight, and they don’t ask Kwan to talk about it when they go to bathroom together at lunch and he has a panic attack over the sinks. Because Danny Fenton being alive is not possible, but if the dead won’t tell their secrets, then neither will they.)

(Neither will they.)

[the-random-phan]

Ectober Week Day 28- Scream

"Danny!" Danielle cried. Tears flooded her face and she struggled, but her nerves were alight with electricity. Danielle tried her best to stay conscious, to keep herself together. But her body was giving up on her. Try as she might, Dani was loosing.

She could just barely open her eyes now. Or what was left of them. She couldn't feel most of her body, and wasn't completely sure if she was seeing from one eye or two. Everything was either numb or on fire, and the numb was spreading. Which was definetly not a good thing.

But some part of her couldn't help but want the release. Better than the pain she had been soaked in for... it was hard to tell the time. It could have been 15 minutes or ten seconds. The moments seemed to slip through Danielle's fingers.

Everything was slipping. Dani felt herself breaking. Her thoughts became muddled and as everything went dark and numb, she felt a last pang of loss. A life so short and so full of hardship.

But that wasn't how this was supposed to end, Dani knew. In two seconds she would burst back up like a phoenix, good as new. But two seconds slipped back and it stayed dark. And cold. And numb. And quiet.

Dani didn't do well with the quiet. It left too much space for other things. For wanting and lamenting. Luxuries she couldn't afford and didn't want to indulge.

Dani couldn't handle the silence. Despite having no voice, she began to scream. And scream. Scream in to the void and hope that something called back.

"-ani!"

Huh?

"-ielle!"

A voice? It sounded familiar. Despite having no legs, Dani forced herself towards the sound. Who was here? Who had reached for her?

"Danielle!"

Dani jolted awake, sitting straight up. Her skull cracked against another. Dani and Danny both cradled their battered heads.

"Ow," Danny grimaced.

"I'm sorry!" Danielle fretted. She didn't know what to do with her hands, urged to help but unknowing what to do.

Danny's right hand glowed a soft, icy blue. He held it to his forehead to sooth the forming bruise. Dani wished that she could do that.

"I should be asking you that," Danny looked at her from under his arm.

"Are you okay?" Dani worried.

Dani's jaw clicked shut. Images flooded her brain. She wished for that split moment when she had forgotten her dream. No, not a dream. It was too horrible for that title. Call it what it was, a nightmare. One that had haunted Dani ever since the events it was based on had transpired. Events she had tried her best to push back into the depths of her brain. But her subconscious kept unearthing them and shoving them in front of her face.

"You were the one screaming in your sleep."

"I'm fine." Dani said, strained.

"Perfectly fine." Her smiled was thin. Danny looked at her funny. But he accepted the answer. For now.

"I'm gonna get some more sleep." Dani rolled over in her sleeping bag on Danny's floor. The ground was cold against her skin and Dani relished in it. She was too hot.

The room temperature cooled. It caught Dani's attention. She looked back up at the bed to see Danny's hand stretched out holding a ball of white and blue. He smiled at her.

Dani rolled back over. Danny, saving her yet again. Dani's hero.

The rest of her sleep was dreamless.

[lexosaurus]

hi! I’m so sorry if this is a bother, but i thought you might be a good person to ask. i recently rewatched danny phantom as an adult - i loved it as a kid and wanted a good dose of nostalgia. after typing in the tag it was wild to find the phandom still up and kicking (honestly with more passion than i’ve seen from any fandom in my 8 years of tumblr). i immediately came across fanart for phantom of truth which i devoured along with its sequel in just a few days. i also read pits by cordria and loved it, but in the last week i’ve hit a bit of a research lull. i was wondering if you could fill me in on some details - maybe point me in the direction of popular fics or material? also, could you please explain wes weston to me - is there a particular fic he was born from or did he just sort of appear in fan lore? if not no worries, but i’d appreciate anything you had to offer!! thanks :)

Welcome to the phandom!

So the phandom in general is SUPER big on events. We have a year round event's calendar of which we're currently celebrating Ectober Month! You can find the details to that in the calendar along with other upcoming events!

In general, you'll find a LOT of incoming dp fan media through events and their tags, and that's where I tend to find new writers/artists to follow each year.

I've made two in depth posts on Wes Weston, so I'll just link them here [1: the older detailed wes] [2: a more updated wes]. The basic intel though is that yes he's entirely a phandom made OC that we've just adopted to fill a social hole in the dp universe.

There are tons of amazing DP writers and fics. I'll link you a few of my faves! In no particular order,

1. @imekitty (her ffn) is an older phandom writer who is kinda my personal gold standard for angst. She's also done some awesome slash fics though! Her current most popular series is the Disparaged/Dissembled series and fair warning, it's pretty dark!

2. @ecto-american (ghostanimal on ao3) is another older phandom writer who's still super active! He's currently most known for his fic Broken Ectoplasm, which is a bit darker than his usual pieces. Regardless, he has a pretty good range!

3. @five-rivers (marsalias on ao3) is an absolute writing fiend. I literally can't think of a genre of fic that they haven't written. They're currently best known for their monster of a longfic Mortified, which is ongoing and currently sits at a 258 chapters, or a little over a half million words. I personally am a big fan of their Exhumed series.

4. @wastefulreverie (her ao3) doesn't write a ton for dp anymore, but her archive of fics is AMAZING. Every so often I'll just go binge her writing, it's seriously fantastic. I think she has written some of my favorite angst fics that I've found so far.

5. @ladylynse (lynse on ao3) is another really big writer who also does a fair amount of crossovers if you're into that. Currently, her biggest fic is The Trouble With Ghosts which is an extremely popular fic currently. Good stuff!

6. @things-i-cannot-do-in-amitypark (their ao3) has several extremely popular fics on ao3 and ffn. I definitely recommend checking out their stuff. They've been writing DP for years and really have a great grasp on narration and building an exciting story.

7. @kinglazrus (UnluckyAlis on ao3) is actually one of the fastest writers I've ever freaking met. They're most known for their fic The Survivalists which is about Danny's class disappearing only to be found stranded on an island. Overall, really fun writer and also a cool person as well.

8. I know you said you read Pits, but @cordria has a TON of oneshots on her Tumblr as well as her ffn and ao3. I've been following her works for years and she really is an absolute S tier writer.

9. Shift by CaptainOzone is literally my favorite dp fic ever written. The basic premise is that Danny didn't grow up in Amity, and is revealed as Phantom right before he moves there. Oz is an outstanding writer and I'm super pumped they dipped their toes into DP for this fic.

10. when im dead, my dearest by redrobin1989 is only three chapters long, but i think honestly it really exemplifies an incredibly well written Valerie-centered fic. I go back and reread it every so often because wowowow.

11. Roughing It by Haiju is a big phandom favorite. You already read PoT/SOAD, so I know you'll like this one hahaha.

12. The Ghost Of Heroes by Enigmaris and ScarletNightFury is a really popular DP/MCU crossover starring an amazing bond between Danny and Spiderman. It's a pretty lighthearted fic, but it's super fun and the storylines are really engaging.

13. Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time by MissMegHolden is a DP/Young Justice fic that's very popular right now if you like that crossover. It's ongoing and updates semi-regularly. I've been following it for a while and I love it, though this is one of my fave crossover types (and I'm a big fan of DP crossovers lmao).

14. In The Eye of a Needle by mystyrust is an extremely popular DP/BNHA crossover fic that is completed. This is another one of those fics I go back and reread a lot.

Okay I could keep going but I'm going to stop here for now. All in all, I definitely recommend scouring event tags for new writers/artists. The phandom also has a discord that you can always DM me for an invite. The phandom in general is extremely chill. We're an older fandom so we really don't have drama or anything.

Once again, I welcome you and I hope you have fun!

(oh quick plug my own ao3 i write a lot of angst)

[ectoberhaunt]

About Ectoberhaunt 2024

The fight between magic and science concluded well, and it is once again nearing the time of year when Amity Park gets 2 spooky.

Danny's break from mediating trouble last year got him to connect a little with his past and got him thinking about his future- and with strange notes and riddles popping up all over town once again, well... we'll see where it leads.

However, this time, it seems that a college reunion in Amity Park hosted by his parents might get in the way of Danny's mystery investigation- seeing as they and Vlad, for some reason, seem eager to help him with this problem.

Can we figure out the ties between the past and future?

Info Below Cut!

What is Ectoberhaunt/Ectober Month?

Ectober Month is an event similar to both Inktober and DannyMay! It’s a Danny Phantom fandom event during the month of October. Each day has a theme (or themes) selected for fans to create with. The event goes for three weeks with the final week of prompts created by the Ectober Week group. We do this to avoid overwhelming creators or overlapping the other event.

Why two themes?

We decided to do dual prompts each day for fun and variety. Not every prompt fits perfectly with the overall theme (example: ‘Trick vs Treat’) but, we try to do a varied event with as many fun and polarizing ideas we can think of!

How does this event work?

The calendar with our prompts will be posted in September. All you need to do is pick a prompt, create something, and tag it properly so we see it!

Posting for this event starts October 1st!

How do I post my prompts?

You may post your prompts on your social media of choice, but we only reblog/share things posted on Tumblr (if they're tagged properly, see below) or submitted to our Ao3 collection. You may also join our Discord server to share links directly with us and other participants!

What are the posting guidelines?

Tag all posts with “Ectoberhaunt24” so we can find it. If you do not use this tag, we will not find you.

Tag which calendar you're pulling from (“EH Past” or “EH Future”), which day the prompt is for ("Day X"). You do NOT need to tag which prompt it is for, but PLEASE put it somewhere in the post so we know which prompt you are filling- if you do not do this we will likely not reblog it. Example: #ectoberhaunt23 #EH science #day x #horns

Put your fics under a readmore. Add a summary before the cut with any content warnings and prompts were used. Then, if you'd like to, add a preview no more than 150 words or 10 lines/groups of text under your summary. If you're using mobile, type :readmore: and hit enter to make a readmore. If you do not do this, we will NOT reblog your post.

Make sure to tag all common content warnings (blood, gore, death, drugs, body horror, existentialism, & vermin)!

We will try to reblog every prompt we can. Feel free to @ us in the post too or send the link on Discord

We will have the posting guidelines in a separate post, as well!

[goodfish-bowl]

EctoberHaunt and Ectober Week 2022 Master Post

Happy Halloween! Here’s my complete collections of prompts for this month. Big thanks to those over at @ectoberhaunt and @ectoberweekofficial for the prompts! All fills should be correctly tagged, fics contain summaries and AO3 links, and please do mind the warnings if they’re there.

All my Ectoberhaunt22 fics can also be found here on AO3

Ectoberhaunt22

Day 3 - Order: Order to Entropy (poem)

Day 3 - Chaos: Refraction Chapter 3: Break to Build (fic)

Day 4 - Box: All Boxed Up (art)

Day 4 - Staff: Spirit of Rock (art)

Day 5 - Wraith: Paved with Good Intentions (fic)

Day 5 - Banshee: The Last One (art)

Day 6 - Burn: Fevour (fic)

Day 6 - Freeze: A Mercy (fic)

Day 7 - Purify & Infect: Detox(ic) (art)

Day 10 - Hunger: Taste Test (fic)

Day 10 - Harvest: Harvest Moon (art)

Day 11 - Drown: A Nap with the Fishes (fic)

Day 11 - Thirst: A Craving to be Sated (fic)

Day 12 - A Way of Life & Cause of Death: A Way of Death (fic)

Day 13 - Restored: Humanity Restored (comic)

Day 13 - Abandoned: The Haunting of Amity Park: Part 1: The Neon District (fic)

Day 14 - Haunted House: The Haunting of Amity Park:Part 2:  FentonWorks (fic)

Day 14 - Costume Party: Double Trouble (art)

Day 18 - Eyes: A Trick of the Light (animation)

Day 18 - Teeth: Teeth Bared (art)

Day 19 - One & One Hundred: Hall of a Hundred Eyes (art)

Day 21 - Coronation: The Dragon Queen (art)

Day 24 - Future: The Price of Knowing (art)

Day 24 - Past: Too Dead for This: Chapter 1: Seven Years is a Long Time (fic)

Ectober Week 2022

Day 26 - Six Feet: I’ll Come Home if You Call (poem and art)

Day 28 - “Psst, you’re dead. Pass it on.“: Two Paths (animation)

Unprompted

Cosmic Perspective (art)

Dead and Gone (transparent art)

Squeaky Toy (animation)

Ectoberhaunt21 Master Post

Commentary Under the Cut

It has been supremely challenging and fun to do all of these prompts! I know I’m not a super prolific author and artist, but I really enjoy events like this. While it’s been hard on me to produce this sheer amount of content, it was engaging and active, giving me something to do and has motivated me to put out more content in a month than I would normally do in a year on my own. I also love seeing the improvement in my content from this year to last year, when I first took part in this event, along as throughout the event itself, I noticed improvement. While I might not have been able to fill all of the prompts I had planned to do, I also did much more than I originally planned as well, shooting to fill all of the prompts, both for each day. But with 29 fills, 3 of which have no prompt at all, instead inspired by other things throughout the event, I’m satisfied.

I’ve had so much fun throughout this entire event, from planning my fills, to the story line made up by the Ectoberhaunt crew, to drawing and writing my fills themselves. But of all of them, I do have some favorites.

I found my trend of horrible angst holds true, with some of my most severe fill, at least in my opinion, being Paved with Good Intentions. Vlad’s perspective of Danny’s grief was definitely something I found fun to write.

I noticed I used a lot of Outside, or limited perspective, especially with The Haunting of Amity Park, where you only get the perspective from the camera, so it ended up being mostly descriptions and dialog. The morticians perspective in A Way of Death was also amusing to write.

I tried out a lot of different art techniques this year as well. I messed with my style, bouncing back and forth between a more semi-realistic style and then a more cartoon-esque style for the more humorous fills, and then the simplistic style for a few other ones. I definitely think I’ve improved over the past month, just due to the sheer amount of art alone. The animations were fun themselves.

My ask box is always open if you want to talk to me about a particular piece.

See ya around!

[raaorqtpbpdy]

I couldn’t think of anything for Ectober Week day 5’s prompts, so since I’m only doing the week and not the month, I stole a prompt from earlier in the month: Cause of death.

Coroner’s Report

[Warnings for autopsies and death and gratuitous swearing]

[Recording Begins]

"Subject is Daniel J. Fenton, age fourteen. Rushed to the hospital after a supposed accident in his parents' home laboratory. Pronounced dead on arrival at 4:18 PM, September 20th, 2004."

The voice of Amity Park Medical Examiner Dr. Osiris Blanch speaks into his recorder. He does this so he doesn't forget anything when he writes his official reports. He will transcribe the recording into his written report later, as he always does, for the police and insurance company and whoever else to use in their investigation of the boy's parents.

He has a habit of talking to himself while he works anyway, narrating his actions, so recording is the most efficient way to ensure he provides an accurate coroner's report.

"Cause of death appears to be electrocution," he continues.

As he records, he is looking at the state of the corpse, covered in subdermal burns. Even hours after his death, the coroner could still smell ozone in the air, and he could feel the hair on his arms slowly standing on end from the static.

"In addition to electrical burns below the skin, the body appears to have some peculiar burn marks spanning from the left hand to the heart, atypical of electrical burns. Possibly... plasma burns, or some kind of radiation burns? Do I need to get a Geiger counter in here? Christ alive, what kinda lab did this kid get fried in exactly?"

There is a sigh on the recording, the sound of coffee being sipped from a mug, a loud, metallic clack as the recorder is placed on a steel implement stray, and another, quieter clack as Dr. Blanch puts down his coffee cup. The scraping of a scalpel being lifted off the implements tray very near the recorder.

"I will now begin the autopsy by making a Y-incision of the abdomen—AH!" The scalpel clatters against the metal autopsy table. "Ha... static shock."

Dr. Blanch's voice begins to sound uneasy here.

"I'm uh... I'm making the incision now." The quiet squelching of skin being sliced by a sharp blade is almost drowned out by the coroner's shaky breaths. "Shit, keep it steady..." he mutters to himself. "When did it get so goddamn cold in here?"

The scalpel quietly clicks against another tray, away from the sterilized instruments near the recorder.

"I'm opening up the chest now to begin the autopsy."

A sickly squelching of flesh and sinew being pulled apart is heard on the recording, and then a gasp from the coroner.

"The uh... the lights just flickered a little," Dr. Blanch explains. "There's no storm or anything that might cause a blackout, but if some idiot crashes into a telephone pole and knocks out the power, I'm gonna be pissed. This jobs a pain in the ass if the lights go out. Not to mention all the corpses in the drawers'll start to decay if the freezers turn off, and then I'll be up a creek."

An electric buzzing sounds briefly.

"Damn. The lights again," he says. "I can't just leave this kid cut open on my table and check the fuse box. Somebody else had better get it fixed though, or I'll give 'em hell." He sighs and scoffs before resuming the autopsy. "Anyway, I've opened up young Mr. Fenton's chest cavity and christ alive, I've seen a lot of people's entrails but this kid's look like an overcooked stew—"

The electric buzzing returns, louder, but only for a moment before the sound of glass shattering hits the recording, along with the thud caused by Dr. Blanch jumping in surprise and bumping hard against the other autopsy table behind him.

"Ow, fuck!" he shouts. "The fucking bulb just blew, and I hit my hip on... on... uh..."

All that can be heard on the recording for several seconds is an eerie distortion that hadn't been present before, almost melodic in the way it makes one's stomach turn with dread

"The... corpse... it's... shit it's definitely glowing..." the coroner says finally, voice overwritten by the strange distortion. "Fuck. Fuck! Should I be wearing a hazmat suit for this autopsy? There's no way this kid isn't radioa—what that fuck was that?" Dr. Blanch interrupts himself, followed by another thud as he backs desperately into the other table behind him.

"There was just... for a split second there was—there it is again!" he shouts. "Like, a ring of light, around the middle of the kid's body, flickering in the blink of an eye and then vanishing," he describes, voice awed and terrified. "I do not get paid enough for this freaky shit. If this kid sits up, I'm quitting."

His words are drowned out by a scream, the scream of an adolescent boy, quickly joined by the scream of a middle aged man. The screaming continues for a long time, until finally, both run out of breath.

"What... what's happening, where am I?" asks a young voice, alongside the sounds of skin sliding against metal.

"You're... I was... this is..." for once, Mr. Blanch seems to be at a loss for words. He is watching a pale and naked young boy try to hold the Y-incision in his chest cavity closed with his bare hands. "You were dead!" the doctor finally manages to shout.

"I'm not dead!" the boy shouts back.

"I can see that now!"

"Did you cut me open?"

"You were pronounced dead hours ago!" Dr. Blanch defends himself. "I was only doing my job! How the hell was I supposed to know you were still... alive... oh lord am I glad I didn't remove your brain first, christ alive!"

"My brain?!"

"Forget about that now," Dr. Blanch says, and he takes a deep breath. "You're not bleeding. Do you feel pain?" 

"I... no... no I don't why doesn't this hurt?" the young voice asks frantically.

"Lay down, I'll stitch you back up," says the coroner, and the quiet metallic sounds indicate that the boy obeys. "I don't know what's happening, but this kinda thing happening sure as shit isn't normal. I'm gonna start with the stitches now, alright?"

"Okay."

"You're Daniel Fenton, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I go by Danny though."

"Well, Danny, the fact of the matter is, you were definitely dead when they put you on my table earlier," Dr. Blanch explains, sounding resigned, if not actually calm. "Fuck if I know what that makes you now, but I do know that I don't get paid enough to make a fuss about it. Lord knows I'm gonna ask for a raise after this, though."

"So... what now, then?" Danny asks.

"Now, I'm gonna finish stitching you up," the coroners tells him. "I'm gonna give you a sheet to cover yourself with, and I'm gonna call up to the hospital and give them absolute hell for sending me a corpse that wasn't actually dead."

"I thought you said I was dead."

"You were, but I'm sure as shit not gonna try to explain that!" he lets out a brief, hysterical bark of laughter. "I'd be sent to a loony bin before I could blink! No way am I telling 'em that. I have a doctor friend who'll give you discharge papers if I ask without actually checking you over if you want, so you won't have to worry about them finding anything... unnatural. We went to med school together, and he trusts my expertise."

"That... would be for the best, probably," Danny agrees. As he says this, he is looking down at the incision on his chest, halfway stitched up and still not bleeding.

"I'd say so," Dr. Blanch concurs. "I definitely don't wanna get in any trouble for cutting open a living kid, even if you weren't when I did it." He sighs heavily again. "Jesus christ what is my life coming to, today? Anyway, after you're discharged, you can go home to your family, and I'll wipe any and all information about your autopsy from our systems and we can both pretend this never happened, and your quote-unquote 'death' was just a horrible misunderstanding. What do you say, Danny? Sound like a plan?"

"Yeah," the boy's voice sounds even more relived than the coroners. "Sounds like a plan."

There's a quiet click of the needle onto an instrument tray.

"Ah, I forgot..." Dr. Blanch mutters.

His footsteps are heard walking to the other tray, the one of sterile instruments. There are loud thumping and fumbling sounds as Dr. Blanch picks up the recorder to turn it off.

[End Recording]

[ghostly-penumbra]

Ectober Week 2021. Day Five

“Circus”

Ao3 FFN

Summary: Dick Grayson meets a runaway.

- - -

Dick found out about the boy by eavesdropping on his parents.

“Has Haly had any luck bringing him down?” His mom asked when they thought he was asleep.

“I don’t think so, but last he told me, he was coming around to eating something. The kid says he’s got snacks, but…” His father trailed off.

“Poor little thing,” his mother continued, “why do you think he ran away from home? If he was so desperate as to leave everything he knows…”

“He’s a kid, Mary, sometimes they just overreact.” His dad said in a placating tone. “And we won’t find out until he tells us, so there is no point in speculating.”

A kid! A kid like him, maybe younger! Would he want to play with him? Dick could teach him how to use the trapeze! And if he didn’t have parents, Dick could share his, and they would be brothers! He would be a big brother!!

First things first, though, Dick had to meet him.

- - -

“Hello. Is anyone here? New kid?”

Danny flinched back, and would have hit his head if he hadn’t phased through the low ceiling (though, to be fair, it wasn’t low, but he was in a high place), and then he crouched down again, burying his face on his legs and hugging them tighter.

“Here you… are…” Danny looked up for a second and saw a kid looking at him. “You are older than I thought.” The kid said.

“It wouldn’t do to break my track record as a disappointment.” He grumbled to himself.

“Do you know how to use the trapeze?”

Danny looked up again, in confusion this time, and found eagerness and anticipation on the kid’s face. Still with some hesitation, he shook his head no.

A bright smile broke on the kid’s face. “Then I don’t mind that you’re older! I can teach you!” He pushed himself up and sat across Danny on the rafter he had chosen so he could not be reached. “Do you want some lunch?” The bright boy asked the moody teen.

Before Danny could grumble a no, his stomach beat him to the punch with a growl.

“You can have it all, I already ate.” The kid extended the lunchbox, and Danny took it with a sigh, crisscrossing his legs. “My name’s Dick, what’s your name?”

“Danny.” He said, biting on an apple.

“Do you wanna join the circus, Danny?”

“I’m not here to stay,” the teen said, “I just needed a ride. I’ll get out of your friends’ hair as soon as I can sneak out.” Without using his powers, that is, and what was the point of turning invisible when you couldn’t sneak out because you couldn’t control it?

“You can stay if you want.” Dick said, and he was starting to sound sad. “Haly won’t mind, he’s very cool!”

Danny gave a short, bitter laugh. “He’ll kick me out as soon as he knows I’m a freak.” He mumbled.

Now that made Dick furrow his brow. “He won’t, even if you’re weird, there a lotta weird people here, you’ll fit right in!”

Frustrated, Danny retorted, “They are not my kind of freak, kid.”

A pensive look crossed Dick’s face, and he asked bluntly, “Are you gay?”

“Wha-”

“Because my parents say some people don’t like the gays and are mean to them, but not in here, that’s fine! Deadman is gay and he’s alright!” The kid was quick to reassure him.

“I- well, yes, kinda but- I don’t mean that kind of different. Ugh, I just-”

Maybe it had been on purpose, because Danny was rather tired and in a bad mood. Or maybe it had been an accident, because Danny could barely control his new powers, and they would act up when his emotions spiked. But one second Danny was talking to this little Dick, and the next there was a half-eaten apple floating before the kid.

“Whoa, cool.” Dick said.

Danny turned visible again on reflex, making sure he wasn’t falling through the wood.

“Okay, we don’t have a show like that, but if we talks to Haly, you can have your own. With a part in the trapeze!”

Even though he was hungry, tired, on edge, and running away because his parents might dissect him if they found out he was a ghost, Danny couldn’t helpt but laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more, until even he couldn’t tell if the tears running down his cheeks were of joy or pent-up grief.

[ectoentity]

2021 Fic List

I only really started writing in October, but I figured I would do one anyway. Inspired by @apinklion01​ and @kawaiijohn​.

Total works: 13

Total wordcount: 19,959

Events: Ectober Month and Holiday Truce

All There Is or Was or Ever Will Be: 697 || T Rating || Gen || There were stars in the Ghost Zone. (Just a little fic about Danny learning about ghost stars.)

Taste: 1.6k || G Rating || Gen || As Danny's ghost powers develop, his tastes start to get a little weird. (Injury, minor gore.)

Last Stop: 1.4k || T Rating || Gen || Tucker just wants his ride home to be quick and peaceful after a long day at school. He doesn't want to deal with creepy, spontaneous laughter. (Rated T for spooky corpse lady.)

Weird: 1.1k || G Rating || Gen || The Fenton boy was weird. For most kids at Casper High, that was just a fact of life. The sky was blue, water was wet, and Danny Fenton was weird. Most of them wouldn’t really be able to tell you why. They might mention his crazy parents, or the fact that he ran out of class a lot. Some of them would bring up his friends. He seemed pretty boring himself, sure, but he wouldn’t be friends with those two if he was normal, right? Those were good enough reasons to call him weird, so most people left it at that. Dash knew better.

Sir, This is a Nasty Burger: 416 || G Rating || Gen || Valerie has to deal with some cultists trying to summon their god.

Late Night Answers: 1.6k || G Rating || Gen ||  Danny keeps waking up in the middle of the night. The same exact time every night. He decides to take a flight around town and runs into a couple ghosts who're willing to give him some answers.

Depths: 531 || G Rating || Gen || How far down does the Ghost Zone go? (Just a little bit of angst and worldbuilding.)

Ghost Lights: INCOMPLETE, 1/2 ch || 978 || G Rating || Gen ||  It's the annual Foley family Halloween party, and the trio are enjoying carving some pumpkins. They weren't expecting some ghosts to possess them! (Something silly that I need to finish.)

Janus Spirit: 1k || G Rating || Gen || Janus was the god with two faces. Danny had two forms, two faces he showed the world. He tried not to think of the implication that he was ‘two-faced.’ At first, he insisted that he wasn’t a liar. Not really. Not any more than anyone else.

Turnabout: 1.2k || G Rating || Gen || The closer to Halloween they got, the weirder Danny acted. It wasn’t too obvious at first. He floated a little more, even in human form. That happened normally a couple times a month, but suddenly Sam and Tucker were having to pull him down to the ground multiple times a week. Then it became a daily thing.If that was the only ghostly habit, Sam and Tucker wouldn’t have been so stressed out. It seemed like Danny’s eyes were green more often than they were blue recently. Cold practically radiated from him. He was even more quiet and seemed to go invisible as soon as he knew no one was looking at him. Even that wasn’t the worst of it.

One Way or Another: 978 || G Rating || Gen ||  Clockwork needs to explain to Sam and Tucker how they can help Danny, but he has to find a way around the rules that the Observants have made for him. (Angst.)

Plan C: 1.4 || G Rating || Gen || The whole building reeked of mildew. Some of the doors were broken off their hinges, and bits of what had once been ceiling peppered the floor. Sam was very glad she’d worn her good boots. At the end of the hall she found a directory. It listed a bunch of doctors by their office and specialty. Initially she just skimmed it just to try and figure out what might need to be close to a lab, but then something caught her attention. Dr. Penelope Spencer: Inpatient Psychiatry.

Can’t Go Home Again: INCOMPLETE, 2/5? || 2.8k || T Rating || Gen || Three weeks ago Danny told his parents about him being Phantom. They didn't take it well. His friends haven't heard from him since then, so they summon him back to Earth.

Family Secrets: 3.5k || G Rating || Gen || The Fentons take a week during winter break to fix up the old family cabin. When Danny and Jazz stumble across a secret, an old artifact has a strange effect on Danny.

[cleanlenins]

Ectober Day 6: Witching Hour

Words Spoken at the Witching Hour

Chapter 2

Jack and Maddie disproved Ouija boards in College, but why not give them another try? However, fixing their mistakes will take more than just an old board and some candles.

AO3

While her violent outburst had been cathartic, Maddie was regretting her rash decision to destroy the ancient spirit board. She sifted through the ashes, pulling larger pieces of charred wood from the pile and dumping them into the bin. Her gloves were covered in soot and charcoal, the dusty particles sliding over the rubbery texture. She grabbed the planchet, and examined it. The dark ash seemed grey next to the impossible black of the little cursor. She clenched her fist around it and started to toss it into the trash can. But hesitated.

“Mom? Oh my God, what happened here?” Maddie whipped around to see Jazz standing at the door to the kitchen. She had one hand covering her mouth as she gaped at the mess. The table, while still standing, had a huge whole burned into the center. Maddie knew that she must look a sight as well, eyes puffy and red from lack of sleep and soot stains on her cheek.

“We had a bit of an accident with our experiment last night,” Maddie said smoothly. It was what she and Jack had decided to tell the kids until they had a chance to sort through their thoughts. Before they had a chance to figure out if there was any validity to Phantom’s claim.

When Maddie had bought the spirit board, the lady had told her that spirits could not lie while communicating through the object. Maddie had never expected the blasted thing to work, so she hadn’t set up any more trustworthy methods for determining if a ghost was lying or not. An oversight on her part based on her own hubris.

“I thought you guys agreed that you would keep all of your experiments in the lab from now on?” Jazz crossed her arms.

“I’m sorry sweetie. We didn’t realize it was something that would turn...explosive. We will be sure to keep things downstairs from now on,” Maddie assured Jazz. Jazz looked skeptical, but did not press the point. Instead, she skirted around the stains on the linoleum and began to make her some breakfast. Maddie glanced at the planchet still held in her hand, and stashed it in her pocket.

Maddie removed her gloves and tossed them in the special tub she and Jack kept for their hazmat suits. She quickly washed her hands before putting on a clean pair. She rubbed her tired eyes, moving around Jazz to get to the coffee pot. How did she get through so many sleepless nights in college? She already felt dead on her feet. She must be getting old.

She reached to flick on the coffee pot, before jerking away as  the coffee pot shocked her. Not hard, nothing more than simple static electricity. But it startled her.

“Mom? Are you okay?” Jazz asked.

“Fine, Jazzy,” Maddie stared at the machine in shock and reached out to touch it again. No shock occurred. “I think I might need to change the filtrator in the coffee machine battery. It just shocked me a bit.”

“Through rubber gloves?” Jazz raised an eyebrow. Maddie’s mind buffered, looking down at her hands.

“Maybe a more serious issue,” Maddie muttered. Jazz sighed.

“And I was really looking forward to coffee,” The teen slumped, still scrambling eggs. Loud steps were coming from the stairs, and Maddie turned to see Danny walking into the kitchen.

Well, walking probably wasn’t the best word. He was slumped over, backpack hanging from one shoulder. His eyes were rimmed in red and heavy bags laid under his eyes. He slumped into a dining chair, not even commenting on the hole in the table before laying his head in his hands.

“Danny, are you okay?” Jazz asked. Mother and Daughter wore matching looks of concern. The black haired teenager mumbled something incomprehensible. Maddie hesitantly walked over, putting her hand on his shoulder.

He was freezing. Cold enough that she could feel his temperature even through the thick gloves. Maddie swallowed thickly.

“Honey, did you not sleep well?” Maddie asked. Danny sat up, blearily looking up at his Mom.

“Weird dreams,” He mumbled, blinking up at his mom. Maddie rubbed his arm

“What kind of dreams?” She pressed. Danny grunted.

“Just...bad memories. Mistakes.”

“Was it...about the CATs?” Maddie startled, Jazz was suddenly by her side putting a plate of eggs in front of Danny. He looked down at his plate, but didn’t reach for them.

“No. The other thing. The first thing,” Danny said.

“What thing are you talking about?” Maddie asked. Dany didn’t react, but Jazz looked sheepish.

“Danny has had a lot of test anxiety over the last few years. I have been helping him work through it,” Jazz said quickly. She avoided Maddie’s eye and turned on heel to go back and grab another plate. “You don’t need to worry, Mom.”

Maddie looked at Danny, who was pushing his food around on his plate and slumping closer and closer to the table. And knew she was very worried.

~~~

Once the kids had left for school, Maddie unplugged the coffee maker and carried it down into the lab. Jazz had to nearly drag Danny out of his chair, her brother stumbling into her before catching his balance. Jazz had continuously uttered assurances that Danny was fine and did not need to go to the doctor. Jazz had chattered continuously, Maddie unable to get a word in as they slammed the front door behind her.

With a sigh, she set the coffee pot on the table. Jack was already in the lab, looking just as ragged as she. He was pouring over security footage from the lab, trying to find any evidence of Danny being Phantom.

“How’s it going?” Maddie asked. She massaged her hand.

“We really should have labelled these tapes,” Jack frowned. “We didn’t even order them. I keep switching between tapes from the last few months, to one before Danny was even born. This could take days. Weeks, even.”

Maddie nodded. She had been afraid of something like that. Instead of joining her husband by the small tv, she walked over to where she had kept the notes on the spirit board. She rubbed her hands together, before reaching to pick up the top page.

And dropped it immediately. Her hand trembled. Part of her didn’t want to know the truth. Because if all of this was true. If she and Jack had-

“Mads, come look,” Jack said, more chipper than before. Maddie turned away from the papers, holding her hand close to her chest. Jack had a video paused on the screen. He let it play.

It was Danny, when he was five or six. Jack and Maddie were working on a project in the corner, while Danny was running around. He had a toy rocket in hand, making zooming noises as he sent the little astronauts on a space exploration. He prattled on, making up ridiculous plots where aliens attacked, where wormholes opened to other galaxies, where he had to be a superhero to save the earth from a meteor. Maddie smiled at the memory. Until she watched Danny trip over a spare bit of wire and faceplant into the floor. He started wailing, past Maddie and Jack whirling around and scooping him into a big hug. Maddie felt tears in her eyes. She removed one of her gloves to wipe them away.

“What if we failed him, Jack?” Maddie’s voice trembled. Jack turned a baleful look up at his wife before stopping. An expression of shock on his face.

“Maddie. Your hand,” He jumped out of his seat to get closer. Maddie looked down at her hand.

A circular burn sat in the middle of her palm. Small Lichtenberg figures scattered from the center. But the most striking thing was that the figures were pulsing a bright green. Maddie stared at the mark in horror. Once more she felt a jolt in her hands, her fingers twitching, and the mark grew.

“Jack,” Maddie whispered in fright. Jack took her hand in his, examining it closely. “What is it?”

Jack let go of Maddie’s hand, before running over to the notes himself. He rummaged through them quickly. Maddie felt herself shaking, looking down at the unnatural mark on her hand. Jack let out a noise of triumph as he held up a piece of paper.

“Make sure to end your contact with the spirit when you are finished conversing. If not, you may attach the spirit to yourself. This can have many consequences, depending on the power of the spirit. It can result in something as mundane as constant bad luck or-” Jack faltered, gaping at the page.

“What? What is it Jack?”

“-or as severe as dying the same death,” Jack gulped. “Maddie. Maddie we didn’t do any of the things to close the ritual. You’re still connected.”

I just wanted to look inside. I tripped over a wire. I hit the button on the inside. The portal turned on. And I died.

“ He was electrocuted,” Maddie sobbed, hand spasming. “It’s true, isn’t it? We killed our baby?”

Jack had tears streaming down his face as he rushed forward and crushed Maddie into a hug. She sobbed into his chest. In grief. In guilt. In exhaustion. In fear. Her whole body shook with the force of her tears. Had Jack not been holding her, she would have collapsed onto the ground in a puddle of tears.

“We have to find a way to stop this. To stop the connection,” Jack said. He rushed over to the papers, fanning them out so he could see more than one of them at a time. Maddie joined him, her hand occasionally spasming.

The two of them poured over the notes, double checking them with the Nightingale notebook to see if they could find any correlation to the spirit board. But the notebook only condemned the use of such objects, and did nothing at all to say how to counter their effects. Burning it was briefly mentioned on an online source, but considering it was already a pile of ash that seemed unlikely. Maddie and Jack started to comb through more and more sources, each less reputable than the last. As time crept on, the spasms became more painful. The lighting marks spread up her forearm, up her shoulder, nearly touching her neck. Tears were constantly pouring from her eyes as she barely contained herself from screaming in agony.

The two started when they heard the door upstairs slam. Maddie looked up, sweat pouring down her face. Jack slapped his forehead.

“Of course. We should ask Danny. Maybe he knows something,” The man said, sprinting up the stairs. Maddie hobbled after him, leaning heavily into the wall as she made her way up the stairs. She slowly made her ascent, and opened the lab door.

Jazz was talking to Jack, but she was not alone. Sam and Tucker were standing in the kitchen, Danny’s unconscious body held between them. Maddie gasped at the sight.

“So he is like this because you and Mom did some hairbrained ritual that literally blew up in your faces?” Jazz was angry. Her face was nearly the color of her hair, red with the force of her rage.

“Jazz, we didn’t know,” Maddie whispered. Jazz finally noticed her mom entering the room and gasped in horror. Both Tucker and Sam wore similar expressions.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Jazz rushed over to Maddie, offering her shoulder. Jack filled the teens in on what they had discovered, how Danny was now attached to Maddie, and how it was slowly killing her.

“Please, if you know any way to undo this,” Jack pleaded. This was their last chance.

“I do,” Sam said. Jack beamed, eyes brightened with hope. “But we will have to work fast. Things like this have a time limit.”

“How long?”

“We have to separate them before the Witching Hour of the next day, or else there is nothing that we can do,” Sam said confidently. Jack glanced at the clock. It was already six pm.

“That gives us nine hours, right? We should be able to do that,” Jazz said. But Sam frowned.

“I have to go to my house and get a lot of supplies, and it will take time to set it all up. And I can’t guarantee it will work. It’s not like I have ever actually had to do this,” Sam said.

“Please,” Maddie begged, as she looked at Danny’s slumped body. “Try.”

~~~

The setup had taken them the better part of six hours. Every ingredient had to be burned for a specific amount of time. Every line painted on the floor had to be at the perfect angle. The candles could only burn for so long, with certain herbs mixed in. The remains of the spirit board had to be collected into one space. It was time consuming. It was tedious. And there was no guarantee it would work.

Maddie and Danny were not able to help with the preparations. Danny because he had not woken up since Sam and Tucker had brought him home. He was resting on the couch, completely out of touch with the world. Maddie, however, was not in such a peaceful state.

It was taking all of her effort not to simply curl up and scream. It felt like both fire and ice had poured into her veins, both trying to kill her from the heat and the cold. Her skin looked ashen and pale, sweat and tears constantly pouring down her face. She shook and seized from the volts of electricity that started at her hand and burst through her whole body. She couldn’t stop the whimpers that escaped, causing the others in the room to look over at her with concern.

When the preparations were complete, Jack helped Maddie into the middle of the setup. The electric lights in the room were turned off, with only the candles glow illuminating the room. Maddie nearly crawled to the spot she was supposed to be. She pulled out the little planchet and placed it within arms reach.

Sam had done everything she could, but Maddie had made the connection. Maddie had to sever it.

Maddie took the sterile knife and cut the inside of her arm. She let the blood pour into a basin that held the remains of the spirit bored. Her quivering hands spilled some blood onto the floor and not just in the bowl. But not enough to ruin the painted words. Maddie used her fingers to mix the blood with the ash, creating a paint. With trembling hands, she reached one finger onto the floor and began to draw the Ogham script she remembered from the spirit board. Slowly, as she could afford no mistakes, she drew a new board on the floor. Each one had to be in the exact order as the board had been and she had never been so grateful to Jack for taking a picture of the thing before they used it. Inch by inch, she recreated the board on her kitchen floor.

Now, she had to wait. Wait until the blood had dried enough that she could roll the planchet across the words without smudging. Every second was an eternity of pain, every moment a new level of agony even higher than the last. It might have been five minutes. It might have been an hour. But eventually, she could tell that the bright red of her blood had faded to a sickly brown. She risked touching it, and found it completely dry. She grabbed the planchet, and place a single bloody finger on it.

“Phantom, I would like to speak to you today. Please, I beg you, talk to me,” Maddie’s voice cracked. She waited a breathless moment, before the cursor began to move.

Mom?

“Yes, it’s me,” Maddie bit her lip hard as her body was wracked with pain.

You’re hurt

“ I’m fine sweetie,” Maddie lied. She had to finish this. She didn’t know how much time she had. “Phantom, I have said all that I have to say. My questions are complete. I close this doorway. I close this connection. Your spirit is not bound here.”

Maddie thought she heard a gasp, but she didn’t know where. Suddenly, all the candles turned once more into the strange corona glow. The planchet moved once more.

Goodbye

Maddie watched in fascination as the planchet dissolved into dust. The candles snuffed themselves out and the room was filled with darkness. Maddie slumped in relief as the pain seemed to melt away.

“Mom?” Danny groaned, the light flickering on. Danny stood by the switch, rubbing his eyes as he took in the state of the kitchen.

Jack and Maddie rushed him, crushing him in a hug they hoped expressed everything they couldn’t bring themselves to say.

[datawyrms]

Ectober Day 25/1 Boo!

On Ao3

If you’re new only seeing Ectober Week, you might want to start at the beginning :V

It was a bit much to take in. She was barely getting used to the fact there was a demon in their lives that wasn’t going to go away, and now apparently he’s human? From something they did?

It felt gross. Phantom was…difficult but she wouldn’t want to just make him different to make their lives easier. That was her parent’s crap, she was better than that. There was a pretty big difference between just teaching the demon and forcibly making him something else. Something he clearly didn’t like all that much, and was just stuck accepting it. What did it even mean by giving him an ‘abomination soul’? That Phantom’s humanity was somehow part of them?

She had so many questions, but the issue of the ‘guy who wants your demon’ had been more important. Which still wasn’t answered all that well before the demon slid back into his more unhelpful mood. So now there was absolutely someone their hybrid demon was worried about, but he wasn’t going to warn them of what to look out for. Great! That totally wasn’t going to be a massive problem.

Even if the demon didn’t see it, she did. Phantom had said it himself, he was apparently powerful, but could only dish out a small amount of harm in retaliation. If demons were just magic batteries, he’d be the equivalent of an extremely good one. That wouldn’t explode in your face as easily as all the other ones you could get. No wonder Gregor wanted him- especially if he didn’t lose anything to take the demon. Could he seriously not see that? Or was he busy trying to just ignore the problem to hope it went away?

Tucker spent more time chattering about human stuff they could try out, probably trying to cheer the demon up again, earning most of his attention. That, and body weight, considering the shadowy presence kept leaning against him, or kept his tail curled around his back. Phantom didn’t really do personal space when at ease, apparently. For someone that insisted he ‘wasn’t there’, he sure made an effort so Tucker knew he was.

Part of her wanted to bring it up, but her friend didn’t seem to mind it. Tucker could stand up for himself if the demon was getting too comfortable. Even if she’d rather sit closer, but didn’t feel comfortable doing so with those dead green eyes staring at her. It was just nervous energy, probably. She moved back to the window, mostly to see the sky and the setting sun. The sun was indeed starting to slip behind the buildings, but that wasn’t what made her freeze.

The wolf was standing outside, head cocked towards the house. Had it followed them? How long had it been standing there? “Tucker? You know that wolf I was talking about?”

“Yeah? Why? Don’t say-”

“It’s outside.”

“-It’s outsideeee darn it. Her friend let out a groan, but got to his feet to look. “That’s a big bad wolf. Uhhh. Danny, are you good at scaring wolves?”

“Animals are easy to trick. Or you could just throw a dog toy at it or something. Probably do the same thing.” Instead of getting up, the demon yawned. “It’s too scared to come in here, obviously. Forget it.”

“I’m kind of getting a bad vibe from it? Does that make sense?” Tucker asked, eyes flicking from the wolf and back.

“You’re human. You couldn’t detect a malignant presence if it punched you in the face.”

“No, I’m definitely getting that too. Same as when I’m around Gregor.” Sam said, ignoring the demon to focus on her friend.

“It’s a familiar, so the thermos should work? Maybe?”

“Unless he wants us to do that, to have an excuse to talk to us again. Say he sent the wolf to make sure you’re okay and thinks Phantom attacked it.” Which was another problem. It wasn’t like there was anything to see, but she didn’t like the feeling of it just standing and staring. Waiting.

“Okay fine, I’ll deal with it. Sheesh. What did it do, stand on its paws and go ‘boo!’?” Phantom finally got up, and joined them in staring out the window. “Wait a second.” He no longer sounded bored, instead confused. “Wulf?”

Tucker didn’t seem to catch what the demon was saying. “Yeah, it’s a wolf. Kinda big for a wolf.”

“No, not wolf, Wulf. What’s he doing here?”

She liked this even less now. “You know the wolf? He has a name?”

“Of course he does, why wouldn’t he? I haven’t seen him in...I don’t remember how long.” The demon looked as if he might slip between the space between wooden frame and glass if Tucker hadn’t grabbed his shoulder.

“Danny. That’s Gregor’s familiar.”

He glared at her, showing too many teeth. “Wulf isn’t a familiar.”

“If that’s Wulf, yes he is. I saw him order that wolf around and keep it in some pen.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Sam wouldn’t lie about something like this.” Tucker quickly backed her up. “He looks exactly the same way she described the first time, green in the ears and those claws…”

Phantom clung to the window ledge, ears flat as he stared out the window, strangely still.

“Didn’t you say he had a collar?”

“Yeah, he did.” Sam did a double take, surprised she hadn’t noticed the shiny metal thing was absent from the watching creature. He did have a lot of fur, but not enough to cover something that large. So where was it?

With those words, she had Phantom’s full attention. “So maybe you didn’t see Wulf.” 

“He’s identical otherwise, I don’t like this.” Was this wolf meant to bait out Phantom specifically? The demon clearly was on the edge of going out there, claws digging into the wood as Tucker made him wait.

“Yeah, man. This is pretty convenient, you know? A wolf that looks like someone you know just happens to show up?”

“He got away, he promised-” the shadows around the demon twisted, spiked and angry before he slid outside before Tucker could try and stop him.

“We’re gonna need to make more thermoses, aren’t we.” His shoulders sagged, giving Sam a helpless shrug.

“Come on, before he walks right in the obvious trap.” Sprinting and taking stairs two at a time was about as exciting as she wanted things to get, even though explaining to Tucker’s parents why they’re dashed off in such a hurry was going to be interesting.

Phantom was already near the wolf, one hand reaching out, though not quite in biting range. “Wulf? You okay buddy?”

The wolf whined, but kept still.

“You can stand up, right? Come on. You’re still you, right?” 

The demon was pleading. So maybe he wasn’t as hopeful as he’d acted inside. The two kept staring at one another, neither making another move as both of them became harder to see as the sun dipped beyond the horizon.

“Phantom, maybe it isn’t your friend?”

“Keep out of this.” he spat the words, even though he didn’t even look back. “Say something! I know you can!”

The wolf didn’t respond, though he crouched a little. Flicked an ear.

“You have to. Come on.”

“I don’t think he can.” Tucker tried to get through to him, but it was hard to give a reassuring hand when it went through like the demon wasn’t even there.

“He has to! He can’t be gone!” He turned, a green liquid pooling near the demon’s eyes, face drawn back in a snarl. “He was fine! That was the deal!” Sam only realized the demon was crying when his voice hitched.

“Maybe we can help him?” She had no idea how, or even what it meant to have a demon become a familiar, but the sheer upset made her own heart hurt.

The wolf whined again and sat down, but it was hard to tell if he was just tired or could understand them somewhat.

“It’s just a small thing, in and out. I keep trying to tell the guy he doesn’t need a familiar for it, that I know a few decent demons. I hate asking, but I feel bad for Wulf, you know? He looks so upset and confused.”

“So I do it, and you’ll get him to back off? Let Wulf go?”

“Would you? Even if it’s a bit...below your standing?”

“No one will even know I was there.”

Sam’s brow wrinkled in pain, shaking her head to clear the strange conversation from her head. Okay, if Phantom had been yelling in her head before, that was absolutely something he’d sent. A memory? It was pretty muddled, but it had to do with Wulf...who Phantom was clearly upset about.

“Come on, you have to be in there.” The demon had given up on staying away, a hand  on the side of that massive jaw, apparently no longer caring if he got bit in half. “I went right away, it shouldn’t have been too late. You remember?”

He only got a half hearted tail wag in response.

Would it be better to put the wolf in the thermos? Just to keep the demon from pleading with a wolf that wasn’t listening?

“What was the point?” Phantom kept muttering, still giving the wolf gentle pats. “Why are you like this?”

Before Sam could try to convince Tucker that it might be best to catch the eerie wolf, it got back to its feet and gave the shadowy demon a headbutt to the chest and padded away.

“Where are you going?”

The wolf didn’t answer that either.

“I’m sorry if that was your friend, that’s rough.” Tucker tried again, managing to get the demon to look at him this time.

“You said they were Gregor’s familiar?” His question was raspy, face still stained with whatever mess demons used for tears.

“That’s what it looked like, at least.”

His eyes flared with a fury she hadn’t seen the demon show before. “I’m going to kill him.”

Crap. This was the actual trap, wasn’t it.

[ave-aria]

Rewind

Ectober Week 2020 Day 3: Rewind Summary: Maddie can't believe what she's seeing on the security tape. In shock, she hits rewind. Tags: Reveal fic, Blood, Angst, Implications of character death, Tragedy, Trauma, Oneshot

-

Rewind.

Maddie keeps her eyes on the tv screen as the figures wind their way backwards to the start of the video. She won't look away. Can't. Doesn't dare.

If she looks away, she'll have to focus on something else. The quiet, dusty lab around her. The uncleaned ecto-weapons by the door. The green blood smattered on the blade.

The hollow, empty house looming over her head…

The video hiccups a bit as she hits the start of the feed. Old VHS tapes are odd like that, buzzing out with static where the film wore thin from too many pauses and restarts. It's a sign she's hit the beginning. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

It was an old security tape, filched from the lab. Onscreen, three teenagers, her son at the lead, slip into the camera's field of view. Maddie leans closer, enraptured by the movement, even though she's seen this moment enough times to have it seared into her brain.

Maybe, if she focuses hard enough, she can learn the secret - how to rewind her own mistakes, go back to a time when none of it has happened, just like in the video.

"Whoa, check it out! This thing's huge! I can't believe your parents built this!" A pause, while the kid adjusts his glasses. "Bummer that it doesn't work though, dude."

"Damn. Was it really supposed to open a portal to the underworld?"

"It's 'The Ghost Zone,' Sam. And yeah. My parents were pretty heartbroken when it didn't work. It kinda just… fizzled out. I hope they're not too upset."

The detached, clinical angle of the shot doesn't do the moment justice. Danny'd always been such a kind boy, thoughtful and empathetic to a fault. Maddie's throat closes up a little, leaving her struggling to breathe. They had been upset. Unbearably so. Their life's work - as Danny put it - fizzled out before their very eyes. It'd been a hard loss to take, one that she and Jack might never have recovered from, had the Portal not miraculously started working on its own, days later.

God. Now she almost wishes it hadn't.

A bright flash draws her from her reverie. Maddie blinks at the screen. A camera flash. In her distraction, she's missed part of the video; Tucker's casual "Lighten up, dude,", Sam's request for a photo op, Danny grabbing a hazmat suit to pose with while she dug the device from her backpack.

"—Got it," Sam waves the printed Polaroid to air out the negative.

"Okay. I showed you the portal. Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute."

Where had they been that day, anyway? Maddie wonders. Grocery shopping? Visiting the park? Moping, as they tried anything to get their minds off of their most recent failure? If they'd been there —

If they'd been there—

"Come on, Danny," comes Sam's voice, treacherous in its fascination. "A Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious?"

Danny looks into the Portal, clutching the custom white suit made specially for him. Sam smirks, knowing. "You gotta check it out."

Maddie hits pause.

Rewind.

"You gotta check it out."

Pause. Rewind.

"You gotta check it out."

Rewind.

"—gotta check it out."

The remote feels cold and heavy, like ice in her hand. In that moment, a selfishness grips her. She could blame Sam. For all if it. Everything that happened, it all started here, and it started because—

—But she can't blame Sam, because the next moment, Danny turns back, his eyes sparkling with an adventurous spirit. It's a spark of curiosity, brimming at the thought of the unknown; a look she's all too familiar with, one she's seen often on her daughter's face, her husband's - even her own, in the mirror.

"You know what? You're right. Who knows what kind of awesome, super cool things exist on the other side of that Portal?"

That curiosity, it's a Fenton trait, not one that needs to be stoked like a fire. That spark's been burning within him, since the cradle.

"Don't go in," she whispers, as if her advice could change the course of history. Even if he could hear her, though, it would be no use. He can no more resist the call than he can resist breathing.

He pulls on the hazmat suit. Skintight, white with black edging. It's like staring at a photo-negative. Watching her son, Maddie's stomach twists.

How couldn't she see it before?

"Alright. I'm going in." He says. His first footsteps echo, loud, in the hollow of the blacked out Portal…

Maddie's breath shudders in. She grips the remote and, before she can stop herself, hits the button.

Rewind.

She watches as her son walks backwards, double-time, out of the entrance to the Portal. The panic that gripped her fades.

"Mads?" From somewhere up above, echoing down the staircase, comes her husband's voice. Maddie is glued to the video screen, and almost doesn't hear him. Regardless, she definitely can't answer. What would she even say?

"Maddie?" His heavy footsteps echo in the stairwell, trudging closer. "Are you down there?"

A hitch in the tape. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Drawn by the sound, Jack trudges the rest of the way down the narrow staircase. She feels a slight reverberation in the floor when he reaches the landing behind her. She doesn't turn around.

"The police called back. Officer McNally said he'd file a missing persons report, and they promised to keep their eyes open. But—" she hears the way uncertainty causes his voice to die in his throat when she doesn't turn to greet him. After a long moment of silence, he draws up to her side. "What are you watching?" he asks at last.

"It kinda just… fizzled out. I hope they're not too upset."

Question. He'd asked a question. Maddie swallows and struggles to answer. "Security tapes," she chokes out.

Understanding, an incomplete kind, dawns on Jack, and vigor jumps back into his bones. "Mads, that's brilliant!" he booms. "Why didn't I think of it? He comes into the lab all the time! We can use the security tapes to see when he last—"

"I found this tape in Danny's room," she interrupts.

Again, his voice falters in confusion.

"Under the bed," she elaborates, as if that will help. And continues watching, detached.

"Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back any minute."

The flickering light of the tv fills the lab, ominous in its glow. Jack hesitates. Maybe he's picked up on the subtext by now. Maddie can picture his eyes drifting from the staticy screen to the items in front of it, scattered across the table. He reaches out fro the shoebox sitting beside the tv. Taped to its front, written in the cursive, unmistakable scrawl of their son's handwriting, is a note that reads:

'If I Never Come Home'

"Maddie, what is this." Jack's voice is uncharacteristically heavy. Looking to her for guidance. For answers.

For once, she has none to give.

"Watch," Maddie whispers, still trapped by the screen. Automatic, her fingers hit the button.

Rewind.

With no other options to grasp at, he does.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Watches as the kids approach the Portal.

"Aren't you curious?"

Watches as their son zips up the hazmat suit.

"Alright, I'm going in."

Watches as he disappears into the empty cavity of their greatest invention.

Click.

Watches as it thrums to life, with a scream.

"Da—Danny no!" Jack yells in tandem with the two remaining teens. He lurches forward, hand outstretched, to stop the agony onscreen. "He's not - when did he -"

"It's old, Jack," Maddie whispers. "From when the Portal started working."

Jack spins to stare at her. "You mean - Danny's the one who—" he's visibly struggling with the information, the same way she did, on her first viewing. "But—he never said—"

Right, Madie thinks. He never said anything. Jack's confusion is laughable, though. Why Danny never told them—that much is painfully clear.

"Guys?" Over the yelling and the panicking and the electric cackle from the Portal, their son's terrified voice cuts through the din. "G-guys help, what's happening?!"

Tucker and Sam are black silhouettes stumbling backwards from a swirling green glow, but they freeze and scramble to right themselves, lurching forward to catch someone as he stumbles through the gate.

Phantom - Danny - emerges from the portal, falling to his knees.

"…No," Jack says. Disbelief is thick in his voice. "That can't be… no."

Maddie lifts the remote.

Rewind.

A flash of light. A curdling scream. A shock of confusion, panic, scramble.

Danny Phantom stumbles from the portal.

Jack stares for a long time. Then he reaches out, snatching the lid of the shoebox for a second look at the evidence. The note, accusatory, stares back at them.

"This is how he tells us." Jack doesn't often whisper, but it seems like he can't do anything else. Her husband looks at the empty shoebox, the screen, the VCR. "Our son is Danny Phantom, and this is how he tells us. I…" he trails off.

Maddie almost can't believe it, how easily Jack arrives at the conclusion. It took her twelve viewings for her to wrap her mind around it, and it still hasn't really sunk in. But then, that's always been Jack's strong poing - those intuitive leaps of logic. Ones every scientist both loathed and envied.

"Did it kill him?" he moves seamlessly onto the next question that tripped her. Somehow, Jack's voice is even quieter this time.

Maddie shakes her head no. If they watch the video long enough, about ten minutes in, Danny manages to change his way back to human. If their invention did kill him, it wasn't permanent. Not that time, at least.

She's too close to thinking about it.

Rewind.

"But—" she can't stop Jack from thinking, though. He barrels on, heedless of breaking the fragile grasp Maddie has on her sanity. "But if all this time — Phantom—"

A hitch in the tape.

"We've been—"

Press play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

"—Don't tell me we've been trying to waste our own kid—"

If Maddie weren't so detached, she might laugh. Waste. God, he can't even say it.

"Trying?" she asks instead. Bitter, the word sticks to her tongue.

She's not looking at the tape now. She's looking at him. And Jack, oh, Jack, he just stares down at her, a dark horror growing in his eyes.

He whips around to look at the bloodied weapons sitting at the base of the stairs.

Exactly where they left them two days ago, after that nasty ghost fight. When they came home to find a broken house, their daughter crying at the kitchen table, and their son just - gone.

"No." Jack backs up a step. "No no no no no no no—"

A flash of light. A curdling scream—

In an instant, Jack is moving. He snatches up weapons, whatever he can find, and bolts for the staircase, vaulting his way up to ground floor. Distantly, Maddie hears the doors slam. The RV thrumming to life. The screech of tires as Jack peels out of the driveway.

In the cold wake of his departure, Maddie turns back to the tv. She should go after him, she knows. But she's not quite done watching. Jack's always been a man of action, after all, but she's the analytical one, who studies, who marvels, who gathers the facts she sees.

Phantom, onscreen, slumps against his friends while he drips ectoplasm to the floor. He stares down at his white-gloved hands, his glowing green eyes wide in shock. Maddie wonders if he knew, then, what would become of him. What his parents, who raised him, who swore to protect him, would do.

She can't face those questions. Not yet. Not yet. Instead, she lifts the remote.

And rewinds.

A good scientist, a rational scientist, never draws conclusions while she's still gathering evidence. So as long as she's still watching—

A hitch in the tape. She's at the beginning. Maddie presses play.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

As long as she keeps watching, she doesn't have to do anything with this information. All she has to do is watch.

So she watches. She rewinds. And she plays. She can't look away—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here—"

She doesn't dare.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down h—"

All she can do is rewind—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let y—"

And rewind—and rewind—

"Mom and Dad would kill me if—"

Until she finds evidence contrary to her theory…

"Mom and Dad would kill me—"

Or she finds Its inevitable End.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I let you down here."

Rewind.

"Mom and Dad would kill me if they—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

Rewind.

"Mom—"

-

[AO3] [FFN]

[reading-wanderer]

Ectober Day 4: Goo

Content warnings: implications of ghost death

After seeing the picture from their first trip, Maddie thinks the cave warrants another look. Unfortunately, no cryptid this time, but they do find something else.

Ectober Masterlist

They were back at the cave. This time, though, Maddie had demanded to come along after seeing Vlad’s picture. They were also better prepared with a lamp for each of them, the two extras supplied by Maddie, and each of them carrying their own cameras as well, though Maddie and Jack’s were cheap disposable ones. The spray cans of “Masters-Fenton Glow Spray” had been topped off and increased in number after a couple afternoons in the chemistry lab.

“Alright!” Jack whooped as they came to the mouth of the cave once more, “time to catch us a cryptid!” Maddie and Vlad shared a look behind him, their own excitement tempered by the fact that the creature might not be as civil this second time around— especially not if Jack was going to try catching it.

“Now Jack,” Vlad chided, “don’t forget to stay with us this time, okay?” Jack winced at the reminder. They had gotten lucky that Vlad had managed to make it out on his own unharmed last time— a fact that Maddie had spent the last week drilling into their heads at every chance she got.

“Okay,” Maddie said pulling the backpacks out of the car and handing the other two theirs, “I made sure we have rope, walkie talkies, glow spray, and snacks for each of us.”

“Sweet!” Jack cheered, “thanks babe.” Vlad rolled his eyes.

“Did you pack the other spray?” he asked her in an undertone.

“Better,” she grinned, pulling a taser out of her own bag and putting it in her pocket, “Gift from daddy.”

“Rad,” Vlad grinned back, “and I managed to borrow a foil from the fencing club.” He ducked into the car for a moment before pulling the short sword and an inexpertly altered belt from the boot. “I’d rather have a sharpened rapier, but better this than nothing.”

“Alright, let’s Go!” Jack called, already a couple feet deep into the cave. The two outside laughed and chased him in.

-x-X-x-X-x-

The first part of the walk down is just as uneventful as the first time. The glow spray from last time had long since faded, but it leaves a pale grey goo behind that they use to retrace their steps. With three times the light, they also manage to catch glimpses of some cool rock formations. It’s not until they pass into the area Vlad got left at the last time that they finally find something.

“Were those… there before,” Maddie asked as she panned her flashlight over the wall near where he had seen the creature. Large gouges were taken out of the wall, almost like something had raked their claws through the stone. They were weirdly smooth too, but—

“They would have been in the picture,” Vlad answered as the hand not gripping his flashlight went down to the hilt of the sword at his waist, “that’s about where the creature was standing.”

“Hey dudes,” Jack called from a bit farther down as he crouched next to another of the deep holes, “what do you think this stuff is?” Vlad and Maddie shared a look before hurrying to his side. At first, Vlad thought he had just placed a pile of their glow spray on the edge of the hole to prank them, but, as he got closer, it was clear to see that this stuff was something else entirely.

It was some kind of goo and it glowed green, but that’s where the similarities ended. The goo glowed several times brighter than any batch of spray they had ever managed to create in the lab. It was also more of a blue-green or cyan and had several darker patches. Jack scooted a bit closer to the edge and glanced down. “There’s more trailing down the side of the pit,” he reported.

“Hold on,” Vlad said, slinging off his bag, “I have some jars we can use for samples. Let’s take it back to the lab on campus and analyze it.”

“Good idea,” Maddie praised, “is this going to be enough, or do you think we should try grabbing some of the stuff from lower down?”

“More would be better,” Vlad hummed, “but I’d rather not take the chance of one of us falling over the edge.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack announced as he proceeded to lean right over the edge, “there’s a huge glob right here.” Maddie and Vlad lunged for his legs, pinning them to the ground so he wouldn’t just tip over and fall. “Got it!” He sat back up with a large orb of goo in his hands. The chunk seemed a bit more solid than the rest, holding shape rather than oozing all over the place.

“Here,” Vlad said, shoving one of his jars towards Jack, “put it in there.” Given that Jack was the only one of them wearing gloves, Vlad didn’t bother complaining about the fact that he had picked up an unknown substance with his hands. Maddie, on the other hand, immediately started berating him for doing something so stupid.

-x-X-x-X-x-

Despite their little discovery, the rest of their trip remained uneventful and they quickly made their way back to the dorms, promising to meet the next morning in the lab they had commandeered for their experiments.

Vlad ended up being the first one down in the lab, not that it was a new thing. His mother had long since impressed upon him the importance of an early start to the day. It gave him time to examine the goo they had found as well.

He had left it in the samples fridge, hoping that the lowered temperature would prevent any deterioration of the material. Thankfully, the goo looked just as vibrant and glowing as when they found it. Interestingly, it seemed like they had grabbed more than Vlad remembered, the goo filling up three fourths of the jar. Pulling out his notebook, Vlad sat himself at one of the stations and started writing down his initial observations including where they had found it and when.

He was soon joined by Maddie, who pointed out a couple of her own observations. “So what do you think it is?” Vlad asked, prodding the sample with a glass rod as he attempted to remove some of the slime without dislodging the larger, more solid chunk, “do you think it’s, like, the monster’s spit or something?”

“It can’t be,” Maddie pointed out, “or you would have noticed the creature as soon as it opened its mouth last time you guys went down there.”

“Maybe it’s from something else entirely,” Jack boomed, startling both of them.

“Jack, are those chips,” Vlad asked, capping the sample jar preemptively, “you know you aren’t suppose to have food in the labs.”

“Maybe it’s from a Ghost!”