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starry-bi-sky · 4 months

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Clone^2 - graveyard shift

The dinging of the door alerts Sarah of someone walking in, and she barely glances up from her phone to see who it is. It's past midnight and somehow her coworker John managed to convince her to take over his graveyard shift at their convenience store. He owes her one, because she's been standing here for an hour and nobody's come in.

Not a surprise to her - nobody likes to stay out past sundown in Amity Park, even after nearly three years of ghosts appearing all over the place.

But still, it happens sometimes. So she doesn't look up. The dinging bell just lets her know that it's not a ghost, and that's really all she can ask for. The last time she worked late and a ghost came in, she was cleaning the shelves from some weird goo for an hour.

However, the lack of footsteps in the store after a few seconds worries her enough that she forces her head to lift. And a frown weaves its way onto her face when she sees no one at the door, nor anyone in the closet aisles.

...Shit, was there really a ghost here? Can they ring door when they come in? Normally she sees them just phase right through. And normally they glow, bright and jarring that leaves a migraine building behind Sarah's eyes.

Her eyes quickly scan the shelves again, looking for anything out of place -- anyone with too many heads, or too many teeth, or snakes for hair. She's pretty sure a coworker saw that once when they were working graveyard.

But she still sees no one. Apprehension raises the hair on the back of her neck, and she straightens up from her lean against the counter. Fuuuck. Was this one of those... marshmallow ghosts? An animal ghost?

Sarah really does not want to have to fight off a three-eyed raccoon looking-thing with eagle feet. She's heard the horror stories. And there was no way to contact the Phantom or the Red Huntress to come pick it up -- and she wasn't gonna try her luck with the Drs. Fentons.

Her fingers itch for the broom hanging on the wall behind her. It probably won't do much against a mutant raccoon-ghost-monster, but it'll make her feel better.

There's a rustle and crinkle in the candy aisle, and Sarah's hands are curled around the broom before she could blink. Her heart beating in her chest. She walks out from the counter, the bristled end raised like a bat in the air as she creeps apprehensively towards the noise.

There's nothing there when she peers around the side, and the aisle shelves are tall enough that she can't see over them.

She raises the broom higher. Sarah was in softball. She could take out a raccoon-eagle-hybrid.. thing.... easily. She just... needs to pretend its a golf ball. Except golf isn't softball so that's a terrible comparison.

Oh god she was gonna get her face ripped off, wasn't she.

John so owes her one. So much.

Creeping down the aisle, she keeps her ears perked for any new sounds. But all she can really hear is the soft pop music playing on the store speakers -- chosen by yours truly from her own personal playlist -- and the hum of the freezers. Ugh. This was not good for her paranoia. Like, at all.

Sarah's down at the end of the aisle when she feels a quick set of taps on her shoulder. Her nerves are already shot, so she shrieks and whirls around on her foot, swinging the broom blindly.

Only to be met with sudden and blunt resistance. Blinking rapidly, Sarah stares up and sees a black gloved hand gripping the broom handle tightly, small white bandages peeking over the side around five fingers. Following the hand down connects it with an arm, and then a chest, and suddenly she's staring at a black hoodie and black jacket.

When she tilts her head up, Sarah comes face to face with the bone-white mask and the terrifying, unearthly green eyes of their local vigilante, the Phantom.

...Holy fuck. It was the Phantom.

He was taller than she initially thought. Was her jaw on the ground? Probably. It was flapping like a fish out of water. "I- uh, you-- buh--"

Slowly, the Phantom raised his free hand and wrapped it around the handle of the broom. Sarah watches, wide eyed still and stammering as he firmly plucked the broom out of her hands and turned to lean it against the shelves.

Something about him doing that must've kicked her brain back into gear, because the first thing that comes out of her mouth is; "Your eyes are really green."

And she was going to lock herself in the freezer in the back for that one. She feels her face grow hot with embarrassment, and the Phantom only looks at her blankly. Her eyes shift nervously. "Well, it's true."

It was! The green eyes of the Phantom was his most defining feature other than that unsettling mask he wore. Especially considering they were the same color as some of the ghosts. It was one of the many, many creepy things about the guy.

Looking at it gave her the same, faint headache as when she stared at a ghost for too long. So Sarah drops her gaze a little to avoid it.

The Phantom remains silent, but he raises his hands and signs something to her that she doesn't understand. Fuck, that's right. He didn't speak - and Sarah doesn't know any ASL.

Sarah cringes. "Sorry, I don't know ASL."

She can feel his burning green eyes boring into her, and he remains as silent as the grave as he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a phone in a plain black case. She watches him turn it on -- or at least she assumes he does, there's a privacy protector covering the screen -- and type something into.

He holds it up to her face when he's done, and she squints at the screen. In the notes app, a small text reads; 'We're ready to pay.'

..Oh. This wasn't Sarah's night. Embarrassment flashes hot through her and she forces out a laugh in order to try and quell it, Phantom shoves the phone back into his pocket. "Oh! Oh, right! I'm sorry, I'll uh- get up to the front--" She stops in her tracks.

Wait. Did that message say 'we?'

She smiles nervously, tilting her head up at the Phantom as her brows thread together. "Um," she swallows dryly, "we?" Didn't... didn't the Phantom work alone?

As if startled, the Phantom jerks. And for the first time since he showed up, he blinks and turns around. Which personally, doesn't bode that well as the Phantom swivels his head from side to side like he's looking for someone.

Sarah thinks, after the Phantom stalks up to the end of the aisle and looks around, she hears him sigh. And when he walks back, he snatches the broom with an elegant twist and knocks it against the shelves.

Thud, thud, thud!

There's very, very quiet shuffling that Sarah would have missed if she hadn't been looking for it, and then silence for a few seconds, before suddenly there's a small child pushing past her side and over to the Phantom.

And in the process, scaring the shit out of Sarah.

She squeaks and jumps, nearly tripping over her own feet as the child makes a spot next to the Phantom's side. "Where did you come from?!" She says, her heart pounding against her ribcage.

The child says nothing, just stares at her through a creepy bone-white mask reminiscent of the Phantom's. Although unlike the Phantom, he was wearing some... kind of... dark red ninja outfit?

Sarah really wasn't quite sure. It was partially covered by a jacket that clearly belonged to the Phantom and with the sleeves rolled up multiple times to his elbows. The jacket alone nearly obscured the sword attached to his hip.

...Why the hell did the child have a sword.

She looks between Phantom and the child, at a loss for words. Why-- why did the Phantom have a kid with him, why was the kid wearing a mask like his.

"You have a child with you." Sarah says bluntly, her voice flat. It betrays how shocked she feels. The Phantom doesn't say anything, as she should have expected, but he does nod shortly.

The child bristles slightly, but says nothing. Part of his mouth was uncovered, and she watched it twist downward into a scowl at her. Unlike the Phantom, his eyes were not green. She couldn't see his eyes at all, actually. They were shadowed by the mask.

There's the sound of paper thwipping, and like a magician pulling out a card, the Phantom holds out a note card to her. He stares, expectantly, and Sarah reluctantly takes it.

Written in neat writing and bold sharpie are the words; "This is Wraith."

...And that's it. Sarah glances up at Phantom. Then at the supposed 'Wraith'. Then back at Phantom. "You're bringing a child with you to ghost hunt?" She asks, and okay, maybe she's not able to hide all of the judgement leaking into her voice. "And you gave him a sword?"

The Phantom stares at her blankly, or well, probably blankly. All of his expressions are unreadable with the mask he wears. But the kid, Wraith, bristles again like a stray cat. His scowl deepens, he puffs up, and he opens his mouth like he's about to say something.

...Only for the Phantom to immediately snap his hand out and cover his mouth. Wraith makes an angry sound, and Phantom drags the boy into his side, seemingly nonplussed as he twists his wrist and pulls another note card out of nowhere.

"He is perfectly capable of handling himself." The card reads, and then continues; "I would not have been able to stop him anyways. Wraith would have followed me regardless."

Did he have these prepared?

Best not to question it, Sarah decides. The Phantom has always been strange. So she just nods mutely and stuffs the two notecards into her back pocket. "Okay," she says, and moves around the Phantom. "I'll check you out up front."

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #clone^2 #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpdc crossover #danny covering damian's mouth as the phantom and the wraith will never *not* be funny to me #anyways i was thinking about this for the last two days and finally decided to write it #red huntress was also originally supposed to be here but i couldn't get a good flow going #had the idea of damian wearing danny's jacket as the wraith at first and needed to write it down #is it impractical? yeah. but its only until danny can get him a jacket that fits #amity park be cold at night okay?? damian is Littol he needs the extra layers #danny being bruce’s wayne clone -> bruce wayne being tall -> DANNY is tall #tried to kinda capture how lowkey unsettling the phantom can be from an outside perspective #was kinda successful? not much for him to do current that’s creepy tho other than stare

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snaileer · 1 year

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That Which Is Alive

He’s backed into a corner, the GiW cornering him like a wild animal, shooting holes through him without a second to dodge. “We’ll never stop until we kill you all!” They yell, righteous as ever. And Danny pauses.

“That’s what none of you ever seem to get,” He says and chuckles darkly, rising smoothly and slowly from the floor.

He straightens just soon enough for the agents to see as the holes in his torso meld back together and disappear.

Danny looks up at them with eyes like pools of liquid ectoplasm,

“Death is for the living.”

#dp #dc #dp crossover #danny phantom crossover #danny phantom #danny fenton #guys in white #GiW #creepy ghost danny #creepy danny fenton #amity park #Sam manson #Tucker foley #the infinite realms #ghost king danny

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deadchildsuperhero · 2 years

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I love when Danny Fenton is absolutely horrifying to anyone that lives outside of Amity park. Like everyone that knows Danny thinks he's a small, cute, kinda akward cinnamon roll, but when outsiders see him it's just an cryptic, eldrich monstrosity imposing as a child.

He stares at you and it's like you're stuck in a nightmare you'll never get out off. Those aquatic blue eyes feel like the deepest, darkest part of the ocean and you're drowning in them and suffocating.

He says something completely normal but you can't help but fliching, like there's static lacing his voice and a certain sharpness with every word He says. He continues talking but you feel like there's hundreds of fingers scratching chalk boards at the same time.

He looks completely fine, handsome even. But you can't help but feel unnerved. You look closer and see things unearthly, like how his teeth are to sharp; How his ears are a bit to pointy; how his skin looks far too pale and how they still say cool even in the hottest summers(not the normal kind of cool, an....unnerving kind of cold.); how his pupils are like a cat's, in the right conditions thin as a slit, like a snake's but even more dangerous somehow; How his hair seem to move on their own, even when there's no wind at all,it still flows a, soft, unearthly way.

He doesn't breath, he doesn't blink, he doesn't move, it's like he's a statue. He stands next to you and it's like the air goes cold, like all the sound and all the colour disappears. Like you've been thrown into a endless pit of suffering where the only thing to do is await your inevitable death. Then he leaves, and everything's fine again.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dp #I love creepy Danny so much #Let him scare the shit out off outsiders please #Like he just wanted to ask if this guy was ok #And the guy just immediately gets down on his knees and pleads him not to drag him to the deepest part of hell #Danny just wanted to ask if he was ok #Amity park residents just wondering what's wrong with the outsider #They don't realise smoll tiny Danny Fenton is a cryptic monstrosity

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rainybyday · 1 year

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Pt 1 | Pt 2

Jazz didn’t know she was different just as much as she didn’t know the definition of ‘normal’.

She started out fine as rain, a beautiful baby girl with pale blue eyes and wispy hair with an ear-splitting cry. She was a healthy baby, a beautiful one at that once you get passed her loud screaming.

The first few years of caring for Jazz were simple as much as it was exhausting. She was a giggling bundle of joy when Jack would swing her around, she stayed perfectly content with her stuffed rabbit when Maddie was in the lab, and she never created a fuzz as she babbled at anyone and everything, even into an empty room.

Maybe that was the first sign of her abnormality. Similar to how the first mistake the Fenton parents made was to leave their daughter alone more and more often.

They didn’t see their daughter's first steps and the encouraging whispers with her as they clapped and cooed. They don’t understand that she always had someone to guide her away from the green chemicals around the halls but was unable to stop her parents from feeding her contaminated food. They don’t hear how she always seemed to talk to the air, giggling and laughing into an empty room along with the process of other voices.

Maybe that's how it started, but her... abnormalities weren’t mentioned until she was enrolled in daycare.

The teachers didn’t know how to handle the too-smart girl as she explains why she won’t read the children's books they provided. They don’t understand why she prefers to be alone in the classroom when recess time came about. And they certainly didn’t understand how this young child, this baby, understood the biological system of the human blood system.

(They don’t see nor understand the ghosts of lonely children trying to play in a room filled with living children, all ignoring their presence. But Jazz could see them, hear them crying in child-like frustration and curling into themselves as they watch the living with envy.)

(Jazz, like the sweet girl that she was, took it upon herself to help. So, she would read out loud to the dead children before realizing they already heard of the stories this daycare had far too many times and demanded different books to entertain them. She would beg the caretakers to leave her in the classroom to keep reading for the children that were left behind far too many times. For children who died a long time, they were very quick to pick up their education as much as Jazz with learning the alphabet to understanding multiplication to learning about biology.)

(The day she had to leave and enter 1st grade was the day she watches the children all leave one by one. She didn’t cry like one would expect when watching her friends leave before her, because she knew they had to leave one day. That's what Granny Vicky told her when she talked about the kids at school. All she did was stand next to the teacher at the door and waved them all goodbye.)

(And if she cried at home with Big Sister Annlee and Sister Rosa then no one would know. Not even her parents.)

The neighbors didn’t understand that the noises they would hear for many nights were Jazz sneaking out late in the night and not a wild raccoon. They didn’t bother to understand until the husband went out the back to take a smoke only to see a child dropping from her parent's fence and booking it towards the streets. She didn’t stop for his cries for her to come back and the husband went back to tell his wife what he saw as she called the local police.

They both waited that night, watching the window as the husband sat down on the sofa with a drink in hand with the wife jittering around the living room. It was later nearly 3 in the morning when they saw the signs of red and blue lights before they could sigh a sigh of relief.

(They didn’t see the way the poor girl cried with flush cheeks or angry red eyes. Didn’t understand as they went back to bed with the knowledge that the girl was going back home when her parents themselves didn’t know.)

(Jazz learned from Annebeth about how the women in burned gowns would always gather in the spring and summer days to sing and dance in the forest in memories of their lives before. She was told to ask first before joining and so she went up to a pretty lady in a green ivy gown and emerald jewels if she can visit their nightly dance. She watched as the woman laughed with a gentle look before she declared how wonderful it was for a young lady to still have manners these days before agreeing to see her that night.)

(Jazz would then visit the ladies and young women in gowns in the night and watch as they dance over water and moonlight, their burns fading away into beautiful white skin. She was told to not bring a flashlight as they didn’t want any light or fire near their celebrations. Jazz learned to dance in the spring and understood how to sing sweet melodies in the summer with other girls dotting and adoring her as one of their own.)

(When she was pulled away by a man in blue and white, she wanted to scream bloody murder, but she was taught better than that by her Big Sisters. So, she silently got in and watched with sad eyes as the Big Sisters she was walking with also looked devastated at her forceful withdrawal.)

Maddy didn’t notice at first how much time her daughter was spending with her now. But to be blunt, it was more of Jazz following and watching her rather than going up and talking to her. Hence, she didn’t worry about her daughter's behavior as long as she was able to do her research. It was during the third week of doing this did her daughter ask if they could go to the doctor.

“Are you sick,” Maddie worriedly looked over her daughter as she reached a hand out to her. Jazz paused, as if the concept of being sick was foreign to her, before nodding rapidly.

“Yeah! I think I’m a little sick Ma... and, and I don’t want you to get sick either. So you have to let the doctor check you too in case I got you sick!”

(Jazz wondered what she was looking at and tilted her head in a curious manner. The spark, a wisp actually, was so very small and fragile looking inside of her Ma. Bearly there if Jazz didn’t take the time to watch her Ma at the dinner table as she ate another slightly green pancake.)

(When she asked around it was actually Old Man Whithel that told her, as he sat on her window stand, that it was the start of a new life, or as he put it, “another doe-eyed sibling for ya to take care of you hear little miss.”)

(Jazz was excited by that news. A baby sibling! Even better, Jazz noticed as she was jumping at the tips of her toes, that it looked like it was a boy with baby black hair and blue eyes too! Jazz was so excited for her new baby brother to come and couldn’t wait until her Ma can finally visit the doctor like how one of her Big Sisters’ told her.)

(She was going to a sister, a sister in charge of her little brother.)

But alas, she didn’t see nor understand why she never considered ‘normal’ to her fellow Amity Parkers. Didn’t understand that the bright firey hair she adored herself or the bright teal eyes she would always be complemented by the others were seen as to abnormal.

She can hear the adults when they talk about her ‘quirks’ and she stood strong when other children said she was a freak like the rest of her family. She wasn’t afraid of the attention she received because, in the end, their words never made sense to her, hence, could not hurt this little girl.

That all changed when a boy, a classmate of hers, called her a witch on her way home.

Pt 3

Tags: @igotafewbadideas @skulld3mort-1fan @iamheretoconsumeandsharethatisit @runfromthemedic @angelheartgamer @overtherose @avelnfear @amercurio @justreadingthefanfics @learning-to-fly-on-my-own @emergentpanda-blog

#jazz fenton #jazz is creepy #jazz is adorable #jazz is smart #for a child at least #ghost #unnatural #danny fenton #Maddie Fenton #jack fenton #amity park #dp x dc #dc x dp #i swear is a cross over let me get to part 3 #baby jazz just wants her time to shine #let the sunshine baby make freinds

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vala-dreams · 2 years

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Dp au in my which everyone's dead except Danny.

So how would this work? I haven't given much thought to it tbh.

You know how ectoplasm is toxic to living creatures? And Amity park is filled with ambient ectoplasm? And also there's an active ghost portal spewing ectoplasm fresh from the zone 24/7??

I think that would be a solid reason for the slow death of pretty much everyone there. Everyone except Danny. Why? Because he isn't dead he only half died and then he came back.

So the ectoplasm does nothing harmful to him. His ghost side ensures that. But that isn't the case for everyone else.

For everyone else, Amity Park was normal one second and then,,,,not. Malevolent ghosts started appearing, a ghost superhero too, the sky was this faint shade of green, everything had this almost unnoticeable emerald green tinge. It gets harder and harder to breathe as the weeks pass by.

And they don't notice.

They used to, there used to be shouts of fear, or excitement (from caspar high students), gasps of surprise, some kind of reaction everytime Danny flew by, chasing yet another ghost. But not anymore.

Most of them didn't speak anymore, choosing to lie stiff and motionless, always in the same spot. They stared ahead, glassy eyed like they couldn't see him. Maybe they couldn't. He doesn't know.

But there are others who can. Others who aren't frozen still, who talk and scream and hiss and growl something feral and vengeful. He doesn't like them very much. Maybe it was something he did? The wraith woman with the hazmat suit and guns yelled at him the most. And she never missed her mark when it came to those guns. He doesn't like her much either.

There's another red haired woman. Girl. She's frozen though. He doesn't know how he can tell she had red hair. Or that she was a girl. It's weird. Her skeleton looks just like any others. He doesn't like her much either, she makes him sad without even saying anything. Not that she would ever speak again.

The one thing that he likes, he supposed, is flying. Sometimes when he flew high enough the sky would turn black and cold and stars would flicker like candles. (Stars. What were those?) But he'd get tired eventually and have to go back down.

It's fine though, the green skies aren't that bad either.

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rosemaidenvixen · 6 months

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Wittebane

Ao3

tw: description of cadavers, canonical levels of Philip Wittebane creepiness

Easing it up as gently as she could, Luz pried open the window a crack, just enough to peek inside. Finding nothing but darkened rooms and silence she slid the window open the rest of the way and crawled in. Dropping soundlessly to the carpet, she turned and reached down to help pull Willow in after her. Two more figures followed Willow and soon all four of them were standing in the dark living room.

Luz pulled out her high beam flashlight, relying on your phone only to drain the battery so you didn’t have it at a critical moment was a rookie mistake, a column of bright white light cutting through the gloom. Willow and Amity grabbing their own flashlights and doing the same “Alright let’s try to find the basement then we can search top to bottom,”

Boscha scowled, she didn’t have a flashlight, just her bat in its case resting on her back with the strap around her shoulder “Remind me why we’re breaking into some old guy’s house again?”

Luz, Willow, and Amity all shared a flat look. They’d never planned on including Boscha on their expedition, but Boscha had found out about their plans at the last minute and threatened to expose them unless they included her.

Amity pulled in a deep breath through her nose and stepped towards Boscha with a look of measured patience on her face “This house belongs to the Wittebane family, when the original owners died they passed it down to their sons, Caleb and Philip Wittebane,”

The four of them moved through the room, guided by the beams of their flashlights, searching for a door that would lead to the basement.

“Apparently they were close growing up, but then Caleb and Philip had a big falling out where Caleb left and never came back, ever since Philip’s been living here by himself,”

“Really? What happened?” Boscha said, clearly curious despite herself.

“The story is that Philip didn’t approve of Caleb’s fiance,” Amity continued “And wasn’t shy about saying so,”

“Over here guys,” Willow spoke up, holding open a door to dark stairs leading down.

Without hesitating they all headed over and started trooping down the stairs, Willow and her flashlight in the lead.

“Ok…” Boscha said slowly, her and Amity bringing up the rear “But then why are we breaking into this Philip guy’s house?”

“Because eleven months ago Caleb and his wife were in a car accident where they both died,”

“Again, what does that have to do with us?”

“Because less than a week after they died the morgue was broken into and their bodies were stolen,” Luz spoke up this time “They found the wife right away, whoever stole her body just dragged it out to the parking lot and set it on fire, but no one knows what happened to Caleb’s body. The police suspected Philip, but there wasn’t enough evidence to get a warrant,”

Even with the only light coming their flashlights Luz could see Boscha’s face become noticeably paler as they reached the bottom of the stairs “So we’re here to…”

“We came to see if Philip stole Caleb’s body, and to see if we can find it,” Willow concluded.

Boscha’s face was gaunt as they swarmed around the small basement space examining the walls “Well there’s clearly nothing here, water heater, washer and dryer,” she cleared her throat “So let’s just go back upstairs and–”

“Hang on,” Amity cut in “I think I found something,”

The three of them gathered in around Amity, who was standing in front of a brick wall.

“I think there might be a–”

The wall shifted and swung inward, revealing a door cut out of the section of brick.

No one moved, no one spoke. They’d all agreed to come here but actually finding this was a game changer.

Luz swallowed hard but then stepped forward, flashlight at the ready “Let’s go,”

“Are you serious!?” Boscha hissed “You want to go inside the spooky basement tunnel, oh hell n–”

“We’ve come this far,” Willow stepped up to Luz’s side “I’m seeing this to the end,”

Amity joined them “This could be dangerous, but if I leave now I’m always going to wonder. And if worst comes to worst there are four of us and one of Philip,”

Boscha shut her mouth, face red, but she joined them at the mouth of the tunnel all the same.

They headed down the brick hallway. It was so narrow and twisty they had to go single file, and even with their flashlights they could never see more than a foot in front of them at a time. After a minute they turned a corner and the tunnel opened up into a large room, the flashlight beams bouncing off of metal and glass furniture fillinging, the four of them cautiously spreading out into the space.

The room was rectangle shaped, all four walls brick. Most of the floor was concrete but up against the wall furthest from the door the concrete abruptly dropped away into dirt leaving a bare space against the far wall. A bunch of shelves were lined up haphazardly against one of the side walls, well not really shelves more like bare metal racks loaded with boxes and books, bottles and cans and other seemingly random objects.

Next to the other side wall, as close as possible to the dirt while still being on the concrete, there was a twin size bed frame with a mattress made up. Crisp beige sheets with hospital corners and a pristine white pillow. A towel, t-shirt, and a pair of shorts folded with stark precision lay on the end of the bed. A metal tub full of water, shimmering in the beam of Luz’s flashlight, sitting on the concrete by the foot.

The sight, while mundane, was bizarrely out of place, seemingly belonging in a hotel or a dorm room rather than a dingy basement, landing straight in uncanny territory.

Luz shuddered once at the sight then turned away.

She had to focus, they were here to find Caleb’s body, not puzzle over Philip’s weird guest room set up.

As she looked away, she spotted a desk pushed up against the wall right next to the door. Several tables set up with what looked like lab equipment surrounded it. And something else…

“How– how could this Philip guy hide all this down here!?” Boscha said incredulously.

“I think this is an old bomb shelter,” Willow spoke up “Depending on when it was built it might not even be on the house’s blueprints,”

Luz was only half listening, stepping closer to the desk, spotting several open books on it. The books looked old old, handwritten in a language that Luz didn’t recognize, with several pictures that Luz could only describe as anatomy diagrams, and a series of pictures that looked like someone being buried alive but backwards. Shaking her head, Luz tore her gaze away from the books and continued on, honing in on a soft buzzing sound. Moving between the tables, Luz spotted a minifridge sitting on the floor crammed between two of them, humming with electricity. Crouching down low, Luz reached out and pulled the door op–

Bright light flooded the dark space as she scrambled back with a shriek, sending all the others rushing over.

“What’s wrong Luz!?” Amity called out “What did you…”

Shocked silence settled over them as they spotted the contents of the fridge. Staring and staring like they couldn’t believe their eyes. Which if the others were anything like Luz, they absolutely couldn’t.

Bones. Dirty white wrapped in plastic stacked neatly on the small set of shelves each with their own unique label, but all with the initials ‘CW’ scrawled on them.

CW-Skull

CW-Hand r.

CW-Hand l.

CW-Ribcage

CW-Spine

CW-Femur r.

CW-Femur l.

Seeing something so macabre and gruesome organized with the cold precision of storing leftovers made her stomach turn.

“Oh my god he actually did it,” Boscha whispered “Philip Wittebane stole his brother and skeletonized him!”

“Guys,”

“Oh man this is so messed up,” Luz scooted away from the fridge, still unable to tear her eyes away.

“Guys,”

“And what’s with the bed!?” Amity hissed “This is all so–”

“Guys!”

They all whipped around at the urgency in Willow’s voice. She was standing in the dirt, the beam of her flashlight illuminating a pale branch sticking up out of the ground–

The realization hit Luz like a punch to the gut.

That wasn’t a branch, it was a hand, thin fingers as pale as moonlight poking up out of the dirt.

Amity covered her mouth, smothering a small gasp, from off to the side she could see Boscha turning green.

Luz couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, heart beat hammering. It was bad enough that Philip had chunks of his brother in a fridge, then he’d just dumped the rest in–

Wait…

Moving slowly, Luz turned back towards the still open fridge, then back towards the dirt plot illuminated by Willow’s flashlight. The fridge. The dirt again.

“Something’s not right here…”

“Yeah no shit!” Boscha hissed “There’s body parts in a fridge and more in the–”

“No, I mean, both of Caleb’s hands are right here,” Luz gestured towards the fridge, bags labeled ‘Hand r.’ and ‘Hand l.’ still sitting there on the top shelf “So that hand in the ground can’t be…” she trailed off but Amity was quick to pick up.

“If…if Caleb’s in the fridge, then who’s buried in the…”

No one said anything, horrified silence settling over the four of them as they stared at the fingers poking up out of the dirt, leaving the whole room as silent as a grave.

Which was why they all heard the thump coming from the narrow hall so clearly.

Luz whipped around, more thumps–

Footsteps

Coming from the hall, her heart shooting up into her throat.

“Over here!” Willow whisper shouted “Behind these shelves,”

The four of them scrambled between the metal racks, angling to conceal themselves behind the boxes and books stacked on them. Cramming into the narrow space and killing their flashlights seconds before the footsteps reached the room, overhead light on the ceiling flashing on. The four of them blinking in the sudden brightness.

Blood rushing in her ears, Luz cautiously peeked around the box on the lowest shelf.

A man with long ash-blonde hair pulled back–

Philip Wittebane

Stood by the desk just a few feet to the side of the doorway, setting various grocery bags on top of it.

Luz ducked back just as Philip stepped away from the desk, moving towards the dirt section of the room. They had to hang tight, wait for Philip to leave and then make a break for it, just had to make sure he didn’t spo–

“I’ve waited so long for this day,”

Philip’s voice rang out and all thought stopped.

“I’m so excited to meet you,”

Luz’s blood ran cold, completely frozen on the ground, feeling Boscha trembling from where she was pressed into her side, a roaring in her ears as she waited for Philip to step around the shelves and–

A crunch echoed out in the basement, followed shortly by another, then another.

It took a few seconds for Luz to realize that the sound was shovel meeting dirt.

She risked another peek around the box, heartbeat still thrumming. Philip was standing in the dirt, shovel in hand, leisurely digging away.

Wait….was Phililp talking to the dead body buried in his basement? That was seriously messed u–

The fingers poking out of the dirt twitched and her mind went white.

Suddenly she realized the pictures in the book weren’t backwards at all.

Luz watched, heart booming and mouth dry, as Philip set the shovel aside and grasped the fingers, pulling the buried figure up.

She had no idea what she expected for a body a weird old man pulled up out of the dirt in his basement, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this.

It was a boy, around her age, maybe a year or so older, gangly and gawky. Pale skin and long blonde hair smeared with dirt, but between the angle and Philip standing in the way she couldn’t get a clear view of his face.

Releasing his fingers, Philip put a hand on the buried boy’s shoulder, leading him away from the dirt and onto the brick.

“Brace yourself,” Philip spoke “This will be cold,”

There was a sudden splash of water, sputtering and a strangled gasp from an unknown voice, Luz getting a glimpse of rivulets of water running down the concrete to soak into the dirt.

“Come now you’re fine, no need for dramatics,”

Luz still couldn’t see them clearly, but she heard the rustle of fabric, caught glimpses of Philip ruffling a towel through damp blonde hair, of him picking up the shorts and t-shirt from the edge of the cot.

“Wha,” the boy spoke again “Wha hih–”

Philip made shushing noises, the sound making Luz’s skin crawl, and pushed the boy’s shoulder down to seat him on the edge of the cot.

“Wha,” the boy mumbled “What is…”

Philip chuckled “Only minutes old and already starting to speak, you truly are a miracle,”

“Wha…what is…” Philip held a hand to his mouth, silencing him.

“I understand you must be confused, I will try to explain things the best I can,” Philip raised a strand of blonde hair on a single finger “But first something must be done about your hair,”

Philip reached into his pocket and pulled out a hairbrush, seating himself behind the boy on the bed, nudging his shoulder to turn him ever so slightly. Raising the brush to run it through the boy’s hair.

It was just hairbrushing, nothing inherently gross or weird about it. There were a lot more gross and weird things just in this room. But something about the scene in front of her gave Luz the willies.

“I always admired my brother Caleb growing up,” Philip spoke “He was strong and courageous and the best brother I could have asked for, but then he fell into sin and temptation and ended up losing his life because of it,”

A pause of the bristles in pale hair “Fortunately I was able to preserve the best of him and use it to craft a son, you,”

“M– me?” the boy stammered.

“Yes you, I crafted you from the dirt the same as the lord crafted Adam from the dust. I suppose in a way you are my brother’s son, which makes me your uncle,”

“Un…cle?”

Philip chuckled, a sound that could be called warm if it was in any situation besides this one “Yes I’m your uncle Philip, Caleb always said that if he had a son he’d name him Hunter, so that will be your name,”

“Hunter…”

Philip tucked the brush back into his pocket and stood “My brother may have fallen prey to temptation, but I won’t let the same happen to you,”

A click and a metallic clink echoed through the room.

“No need to worry, this is just until I know I can trust you. Now you must be hungry, I’ll go fetch you some oatmeal,”

Philip turned and walked out of the room.

As soon as he was out of sight Luz felt fingers dig into her shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here before old man Wittebane comes back,” Boscha hissed in her ear.

Moving with a calmness she didn’t feel, Luz slowly stood and peeked around the shelf.

“Luz what are you doing!?” Amity whispered.

“You remember Azura book six, where she broke into the warlock’s cavern?”

Amity gasped “And found the minotaur he’d summoned!”

“Do you have to do this nerd stuff now!” Boscha snarled.

Luz ignored her, cautiously taking a step out from behind the shelves.

All the townspeople told Azura that the warlock’s minotaur was a being of pure evil that served the warlock and terrorized villages on command. But Azura was able to see that the minotaur wasn’t evil, he was just a prisoner of the warlock. And she used her power to set him free.

Stepping fully away from the self, Luz took a deep breath and approached the…boy sitting on the bed.

“Hey….how’s it going?”

She’d never met Caleb Wittebane, but she’d seen pictures of him on the news when the morgue robbery happened. And now that she could see the boy’s face clearly the resemblance between him and Caleb was undeniable. His hooked nose, the shape of his jaw, his tangled blonde hair. Pulled into a low ponytail with a single lock hanging down in his face, perfectly mirroring the graduation photo that the newspaper had printed.

Had Philip styled his hair to look just like his dead brother’s? Because that was all kinds of creepy.

She also saw the metal cuff, wrapped in fabric padding, locked around the boy’s wrist. Connected to a chain that was bolted to the brick wall next to the bed.

“Hi there, my…my name is Luz,”

He stared back at her, face blank “...my name is Hunter,”

She stopped two feet away from him. This close she could see that the resemblance was strong but there were differences as well. Subtle things, magenta eyes, pointed ears. Nothing grotesque, but things that had no place on the human body. The combined effect landed squarely in the uncanny valley.

Stop it Luz he might look strange but that doesn’t make him evil, he still deserves help.

From behind she heard footsteps approach.

“So…Hunter,” Amity spoke up “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you out of here,”

Hunter didn’t say anything, just blinked back at her.

Willow took a seat on the cot next to him, gingerly grasping the chain with one hand “We need to get the key before Philip stashes it somewhere we can’t–”

“I’ll get it,”

The three– four of them turned towards Boscha.

“Are you sure?” Luz asked.

Boscha slid her bat out of its case, smacking the end against her palm “Trust me,”

They watched Boscha make her way back down the narrow brick hall, bat in hand, until she vanished from view.

“Are you sin and temptation?”

Luz, Willow, and Amity all simultaneously jumped and snapped their heads in Hunter’s direction, the boy flinching under the force of their combined gazes “Un…uncle Philip said that outside was sin and temptation, so are you…”

Luz glanced at the other girls, the three of them sharing an uncomfortable look.

“Hunter…” Luz took a seat on his other side, making sure to give enough space to not crowd him “I know Ph– your…uncle said that, but I promise you it wasn’t true,”

Hunter just stared at her owlishly.

“Yeah,” Willow spoke up, Hunter’s head swiveling in her direction “There are bad things out there, but there’s plenty of good things to. And staying locked up like this is no way to–”

A crash and a shout and suddenly Boscha was sprinting in out of the hall. Breathing hard and bat clutched in a white knuckled grip, the end smeared with red.

“I got the key but we gotta go now, I knocked Philip out but I’m not sure how long he’ll stay down,”

She tossed the key to Amity, who swiftly leaned in and unlocked the cuff from Hunter's wrist. Allowing Willow to pull him to his feet, the five of them dashing back through the dark tunnel.

“Go go go!” Luz led the way as they sprinted up the basement stairs back into the house proper. Not even bothering with the window, all thoughts of stealth gone now, making a beeline for the front door. Tearing it open the five of them racing out into the night.

Amity outpaced her, dashing into the bushes where they stashed their bikes. Pulling them free from the shrubbery and handing them out before mounting hers.

Luz quickly glanced around at the others, seeing them all mounted on their bikes with Hunter seated on Willow’s handlebars, and pushed off, the four of them pedaling with all their might back up the road.

As they climbed a hill the others quickly outpaced her, Willow taking the lead even with carrying Hunter. Confident that the others were safe, Luz paused at the top of the hill and risked a glance backwards.

Philip Wittebane stood at the edge of the porch, one hand bracing himself against the railing, the other pressed against his temple. Blood spilling out between his fingers and running down his face.

Blue eyes pierced through the darkness, glaring straight down into her soul with a look of pure hatred.

A violent shudder coursing through her, Luz turned back and started quickly peddling to catch up with the others, the four sets of wheels with five passengers speeding off into the night.

#the owl house #luz noceda #willow park #amity blight #boscha #philip wittebane #hunter #corpse description #canonical levels of philip wittebane creepiness #frankenstein's monster au #hunter wittebane #rmvwrites #halloween prompts

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butthatsjustatheory · 2 years

Note

Maybe it would be easier to catch either of those two with the mirror with some sort of bait.

Maybe! What would be good bait though??

#I don’t wanna be like #super weird or creepy with this theory tho #I’m not going to #chase him around school #or stalk him #just to make him look in a mirror #don’t want Wes’ reputation lmao #anyone got ideas?#unreality #amity park #danny phantom hannah #dp hannah #danny fenton #danny phantom #danny phantom roleplay #wesley weston #( idk if I need to add him to the tags )#( but I will )

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shower-phantom-ideas · 6 months

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Bruh emotional support ghost kid? Well thats what they are calling him

Suicide cases in gothem are about to fucking plummet boiz cause this one weird blue eyes, black haired boy is now heading to your location.

How does he know where to be? Having a bad day and are all alone? No the fuck your not cause don’t turn around now but theres some shiny blue eyes coming at you from that dark ally. Oh shit hes here to drop some information about you and your lost loved ones that he should know. Oh god the closure. How could you have been afraid on this sweet, creepy, boy who just helped you find your way.

Meanwhile Danny is chillin in Gothem cause the GIW hate it there (none of they equipment actually functions in Gothem so it’s either super haunted or actually not haunted at all). Then all of a sudden he gets approached by a random ghost begging for his help because their sweet baby girl is about to do something horrible. Oops now all the ghosts are following their most loved ones around just to make sure they are there to rush to Danny for help when all else fails. Now hes getting to fulfil his protection obsession double time because one hes helping protect people from themselves and two hes protecting everyone in Gothem by stopping people from becoming villains for revenge. Plus he gets to see first hand how hes making a difference because all those people he saved are sending him some good vibes from all across Gothem.

Thank god he followed Jazz around so much to slightly absorb some of her phycology knowledge over the years. Plus it was actually pretty interesting so she gave him her old text books. Shes also helping him deal with the rare events where he can’t save someone. Just a moment too late or he stops them but they later succeeded in the hospital. Neither are his fault. Now only if he could convince his core of that.

Anyway why Gothem you ask? Amity Park would have been just as good tbh but imagine Batmans face when he finally gets to be face to face with the emotional support ghost boy. Why is he here? Bruce is fine. Batman is fine. Hes not gonna do anything crazy. It’s just a hard time of year. Around their death always gives him grief. But hes an adult and can manage it.

“You know they are so proud of you.” The boy states. As if it’s clear as day, even though it’s Gothem and never a clear day. Batman blinks at him, stunned for a moment. “What?” This boy can’t possibly know that. No one will ever know that, Bruce can only hope. “They see their home, full of such life. That big house that felt so empty, so cold, to them as well for years. Then you filled it with Family and Love like they had always wanted for you. They are so proud of what you have turned it into. Somewhere full of life and warmth.” A small smile graces his face as finally “you have made your parents so proud” and its all he can do to contain himself. Emotions are running high and sue him because he really did need to hear that ok. The boy suddenly looks to Bruces right with a confused face “aren’t all basements like that though?” Before Bruce can even get a word in hes gone. Just vanished before his eyes.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dpxdc #dp x dc #batman #I just wanted to write danny walking up to the buggest toughest batman and make him cry tears of relief #danny is helping his subjects find closure while always feeding his protection obsession #let him be interested in his sisters word #also god imagine bruce just having a bad time of it cause is the anniversary of his parents death #than the ghost kid just walks up and tells him exactly what he needed to heat #yes they are proud of the word batman does #he knows he has saved lives #but what about him as a father #would his father be ashamed of his parenting skills #would his mother be discusted at how he treats his children #he always remembers his parents as good parents so he wants to do right by them by also being a good parent #anyone can risk their life for another but few can be a good father #actually it’s easy just love your kids and sont walk out and leave them with an insane bitch of a mother #dad im lookin at you #and dknt marry your fucking step sister dad #isnt our family tree circle enough. why must u follow in grandmothers footsteps #at least with him is marrage related aye?#oops im rabling about my daddy issues teehee

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glow-in-the-dark-death · 3 months

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Glowing Green

Everyone at some point has vaguely heard about the Uranium Fever, how it glowed green which became very popular, many people liked the aesthetic of it.

The people who worked in creating things with uranium were the ones who had the most contact with it and began to show side effects especially when in the beginning when they didn't really know just how bad it was to people.

Now lets switch the uranium to ectoplasm

The Fentons are always wearing those suits to protect themselves from the harm of ecto,

But what about the rest?

Jazz and Danny don't casually wear the suit anytime not even in the basement,

Where they have it everywhere not properly contained

The Portal is there

Always open

Always leaking ecto into their home

The food they grew up eating tend to be on some level always contaminated

They've been ingesting ecto

The only reason Danny survived having the portal open on top of him was because of his life long exposure to it

Nothing Else

Now the portal is new, before that there was only enough ecto to contaminate inside their house

But with the portal open with no precaution to just how much ecto it begins to leak outside of their home into Amity Park

The town begins to glow green

Ecto is not a natural thing on Earth for humans

Humans were never suppose to have been near so much ecto

This has consequences

Amity Park known for being 'The Most Haunted Place in America'

Will truly become a Ghost Town

If ya'll are a bit curious about the history behind it check this out (?・・)σ

Just an Idea

#dp x dc #danny phantom #dc x dp #dpxdc #batman #danny fenton #dp x dc crossover #dc x dp crossover #ectoplasm #ecto #liminal amity park #creepy amity park #amity park #dc x dp prompt #prompt fill #story prompt #prompts #writing prompt

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home-of-renn · 1 year

Text

Anyone got any good fics about Danny's Obsession?

Or anything that involves spooky/feral amity park??

Or better yet, anything about Danny's reveal - but where his secret doesn't get leaked cause whoever found out realises something about Danny/Phantom/any member of the trio that makes them keep their mouth shut??????

I'm in the mood for some ✨ flavour ✨ tonight

#fic rec #fic recommendation #dp fics #fanfic rec #fanfics #dp #danny phantom #danny fenton #creepy amity park #amity park #link your own fics #dont be shy #feral amity park #ao3 #ghostly obsessions #weird trio #i wish i could look up extremely specific tropes and concepts somehow

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lollystocks · 7 months

Text

To Blossom

Ectoberhaunt 2023 Day 2: Botanomancy (and a lil dash o technomancy)

Sam tends to her houseplants, her mother tries to connect, and Amity feels the effects of its rip in space-time. Words: 5,087 CW: minor injury, blood, self-injury, possession (mentioned), dissociation, mentions of a firearm

---

Her plants were getting grumpy. Again.

Not that Sam held it against them. As much as she had tried to make her dark, brood-perfect bedroom a comfortable home for the waifs and strays she had picked up from Amity Park’s nurseries and garden centers, (and perhaps a private garden or two), she only had so many hours in the day. The best temperature and humidity control money could buy helped of course, but between school, ghost fights, activism, and deliberately spending as little time as possible in her parents’ house…

Well. The grumpiness was understandable.

But Sam had found a rare, spare, afternoon with no obligations. Her homework was mostly up-to-date (she was refusing to do any of Lancer’s reading until the English department unbanned The Bluest Eye); the protest at Axiom was on pause until Tucker had okay’d her security plans; it was a Sunday so there were no new updates for The Grand Speadsheet; and she had already published two blog updates this week with the next one fully drafted. (“The True Amity Park Horror: A Miniature Surveillance State; or, The Bitches in Cheap Bleach Could Do With Being More Subtle When Spying On The Entire Town, part v”)

The irony of calling out the GIW’s spying operation was not lost on her.

And seeing as ghost attacks didn’t stick to a pre-circulated schedule, there was nothing to do on that front except keep the pager on loud, and get on with one’s day.

So, following an oh-so-wonderful lie-in, Sam was playing her favorite kind of politics: horticulture.

Following certain complaints, Sam had abandoned the concept of a general fertilizer and had bought a whole series - one each for tropicals, leafy, flowering, fruit, and cacti. The succulents would have to just put up with the latter. Windows thrown open, a torn up magazine protecting her dark hardwood flooring, a series of expensive and totally unused mason jars usurped from her mother’s kitchen, and a large jerry can of water sat at the ready, she set to work mixing up some please-just-fucking-grow juice for her many, many children.

Or she would have, had her pager not chosen that moment to scream at her from her window sill. A grating, 8-bit version of Ghostbusters (“the most frighteningly accurate depiction of ghosts in any move ever Sam, it’s iconic.”) that served as their “Fentonworks scanners have picked up a big ol’ signal somewhere, perhaps check it out gang” signal. Louder than the beeping was the profound sense of alarm from her plants. Or so she imagined.

Sam leaped up to silence it before it reminded her parents of her existence, knocking the jerry can over as she went. She ignored the chugging spill, slamming the “dismiss” button on the pager and then scrambling to find her phone among her copious bedsheets. By the time she extracted it, there was already a message:

Fanny Dampton: already on it, boxy’s throwing a tantrum at walmart

That would at least save them some time. Accessing the Fentonworks scan system to pinpoint a location always lost them a few minutes.

Sam typed with one hand, and started donning her boots with the other.

Man Sampson: Woodsborough Park or Elm Rd?

Fanny Dampton: elm

Fucker Toe-ly: moms got the car gonna take me a while to get there on dads bike

Man Sampson: I can swing round to get you, meet me at the end of your road, do NOT forget the extra thermos this time.

Fanny Dampton: i think i got it guys!

Fucker Toe-ly: bestie how are you typing and fighting

Fucker Toe-ly: i didnt forget it how dare

Fucker Toe-ly: i was giving it a premeditated and intentional vacation in my sock drawer

Fucker Toe-ly: she was tired

Fanny Dampton: i think i got it guys

Man Sampson: No that’s a good question, how are you typing and fighting?

Fanny Dampton: im not

Man Sampson: So when you say “you got it”??

Fanny Dampton: i ran off to GG and by the time i got back jazz had thermosed boxy. i ‘stole’ it from her so mom and dad couldn’t take boxy for testing. hid it in my leg, will get it out later.

Fucker Toe-ly: bestie im still not on bord with you using random body parts as storage it cant be good for a growing boy its also nasty as hell and also what about ectocontamination from the thermos

Man Sampson: I’m not sure Danny needs to worry about ectocontamination, Tuck.

Man Sampson: It’s also so on brand for you to be able to perfectly spell .“ectocontamination” but not “board”.

Fucker Toe-ly: what are we if not our brands? - francis bacon, probably

Fanny Dampton: look it’s all good guys, just need to focus on the hard part now - the family walmart shop

Fucker Toe-ly: god gives his hardest battles to his deadest soldiers

Fucker Toe-ly: what yall buying

Fanny Dampton: mom wants a gun

Man Sampson: Jesus Christ.

Fucker Toe-ly: aaaaaaaahahahahahahahah

Sam flopped back onto her bed, giving herself a minute - the come-down from “ghost attack mode” would take a sec, even though the problem had solved itself in rather nicely.

Sam nearly cried out when the handle of her bedroom door rattled.

A muffled voice forced its way through. “Sweetie? What have we said about locking your door?”

Sam sat up, slowly. Took a breath, and made her way over. “I said I’d stop re-installing the lock when you learn how knocking works.”

“Samantha Manson you wi-”

Her mother’s impending monologue on respect, rules and roofs was interrupted with a wide open door and a dead expression. “Yes, Mrs Manson?”

Her mom blinked, swallowing her previous tirade. It looked like it tasted sour. “Sweetie, I know it’s a joke, but your dad and I have asked you multiple times to drop the “Mrs and Mr Manson” thing. It’s-”

“A pointed nod to the irony of your formal standards of familial respect, yeah.”

“Samantha, can we please not do this?”

How rich. “Mom, it might help if you tried to actually-”

“-’understand why you do this rather than seek to use the blunt instrument of parental authority to control you’, or something, right?”

Sam blinked. Her mom could barely hide her smirk.

“We do listen.”

Sam kept her face blank and said nothing. Pointing out the obvious would do nothing but lead to yet another argument in a doorway, ripe for door-slamming and possibly injured fingers. These things always happened in doorways.

Breathe, Sam. Your silence will say enough.

Her mom broke eye contact first, glancing into the room, eyes widening the slightest bit at the soaked magazine pages on the floor.

“Oh Samantha, you really need to take more care in here. The floorboards…”

“It’s just water, Mom, and the paper got most of it.” Her heart rate was ramping up again. Her hands were flailing. “It’s fine, and you know what, why would you assume I wasn’t being careful? Like why is carelessness and thoughtlessness your first thought? I’ve clearly set up precautions against filtered water you can literally see that, but you couldn’t consider that maybe it was you trying to barge in here that could have startled-”

“-I assume a lack of care because I know you Sam, I’m your mother, and as much as I love you even you must admit you’re prone to impulse, undue planning, you take your possessions for granted as you know your dad and I will simply replace them for you at the dro-”

“-What did you want, Mom?”

This time it was her mother who prolonged the silence, maintaining eye contact, breath firmly controlled. Sam made a note of it, but would sooner die than admit who she had learnt her most effective habits from.

“What I wanted, Samantha, was to invite you down to the garden to do some gardening. Together.”

Sam rolled her eyes.

“Why is that such a shock to you, Sam? I’m elated you’ve taken to botany so well. God knows I tried to get you into it as a girl, not that flowers or weeding held any sway over you. But now you’re entering a new phase of your womanhood, you’re developing a sense of aesthetic taste, domestic pride, a new sense of responsibility, shedding your teenage fascination with the gloomy and macabre-”

“Literally what gives you that impression? I’ve got 3 animal skulls right there on my shelf Mom-”

“-Well you’re not wearing that awful makeup-”

“-Because it’s a Sunday and I only woke up an hour ago! Don’t tell me we’re two minutes into our first interpersonal interaction of the weekend and ‘cause I’ve not put my eyeliner on yet you think I’m, what, I’m ‘shedding the goth’-”

“-You are developing more refined tastes Samantha and I don’t see why you would deny that!”

It was taking all her willpower not to scream. She felt that if she turned around now, every plant in the jungle of her room would be giving her a menacing thumbs up. Tear her a new one!

“Oh my god Mom it’s just a bit witchier! Subcultures have fashion cycles too! Like yeah I’ve put my old band posters into storage and bought an oil painting at that auction we-”

Sam stopped. Breathed. Why did every conversion with her mom get so derailed?

Well because her mom found ways to sneak insults into every conversation, that’s why. Because she could do that. When Sam tried, it got her grounded.

It also tended to derail their conversations even further.

There were two ways to deal with Mom when she was like this. Way one, give her what she wants - a fight. Rise to the bait, throw some back, speak her truth, let the conversation switch between radically different topics at a whim.

Way two was de-escalation, and was far harder. It required a metric fucktonne of self-control, but mostly, just three ingredients.

Ingredient one: Stay On Track.

“Thanks for the offer Mom, but I’ll stick to my bedroom plants, thanks.”

“And while they’re looking lovely - besides that weeping fig of course - we are fortunate enough to have plenty of garden space, where plants can actually thrive. Are you unappreciative of that privilege?”

Ingredient Two: Don’t acknowledge insults that have nothing to do with the topic.

“I just want to focus on my bedroom, Mom. I don’t like the garden that much, you know that.” Not totally the truth - the greenhouse was pretty great. Mostly because it was firmly her territory. The perfect lawn and perfect flower beds were her mother’s.

Mom sighed, and set her shoulders. She was gearing up to say something. Something hurtful, no doubt. Sam braced, and prepared for Ingredient Three - when it gets really bad, disengage entirely. Shut the door. It wasn’t running.

Her mom said, “Well, we can do something about that. What would you change about the garden?”

Sam blinked.

And stalled.

“Samantha?” A nervous laugh. “Anyone in there?”

Sam frowned. “Um. Sorry?”

“You don’t like the garden. That’s a little hurtful as I put so much effort into it, and I think it’s rather beautiful, but I want you to like it too. So. What should we change?”

This was entirely new. Sam had no plan for this, whatever it was.

“Is it that it’s too “neat”? You’re “rewilding” attempts in the greenhouse are far from what I can deal with in the garden, and your father only convinced me to allow it was the greenhouse is mostly out of sight, but perhaps we-”

“Are you being serious?”, asked Sam. It wasn’t said with spite, or even incredulity. Just suspicion. Maybe even hope.

Her mom carefully folded her hands in front of her. She’d understood perfectly. “Dead serious, Sam. I- I want us to share something. We’ve never had something we could do together, except maybe swimming when you were little (but then you wanted to stop), and now that you have this wonderful new hobby, and it’s something I like too! So even if it means ceding some ground, if it means being able to spend some time with you that we both enjoy, even if it’s not really my company your enjoying but I get to see you enjoying yourself with me, then that woul-”

“It’s too much of a monoculture.” interrupted Sam, who had taken a small, defensive step back into her room.

“I’m sorry?”

“The lawn. It’s not just “too neat”, or “too perfect.” Like yeah I think it looks ugl- no, actually, it’s not that, it’s like it genuinely makes me uncomfortable. Those perfect lawn stripes are, they’re like this symbol of America but only in this really gross, plastic-and-fructose-syrup way, you know?”

Her Mom hesitated. She began to speak, but Sam barrelled onwards.

“And it’s not just how it looks, ‘cause like, turfgrass lawns are just such an issue. Like you have to put so much effort into keeping it up because it’s an invasive species and not meant to grow in the US so you have to keep it going with just so much fertilizer and even paint which runs off into rivers and causes eutrophication but then you also have to douse it in pesticide which kills of pollinators and you have to aggressively mow it with that massive fuel-guzzler-”

“Okay you hate my lawn, but you can’t ask me to lose the whole lawn!”

“Why not? We don’t use it for anything - you entertain on the patio, we don’t use it for games or even walking, it’s just there!”

“I won’t have our beautiful land just be mud-”

“Mom you asked for my opinion!”

Her mom blinked, and, for some reason, shut up.

“You can’t do that you can’t come to me with a sob story about bonding and ask me something point blank and get angry at my response without letting me finish the goddamn thought.”

Her mom opened her mouth, closed it, and gestured with her hand. Please, finish the goddamn thought. She folded her hands in front of her again.

Sam nodded. “Thank you. Look I can send you articles, there are alternatives, if you want to do that and if you want to take my mere suggestion seriously. Like, moss, or clover, or wildflowers. Or maybe even do something with all the space? You’ve got the planters crammed up against the patio. You could fill the space with more planters and have paths fill that space if you wanted to do something really cool. And make habitats for the pollinators. Like the botanical gardens.”

Her mother’s eyes registered that. Their trip together for her thirteenth birthday had been her mom’s suggestion and she hadn’t given Sam much of a choice. Sam had reluctantly adored it all the same.

The small succulent from that trip had stayed on her desk ever since. Alone, until earlier that year. When it suddenly gained a whole host of siblings.

Time to disengage.

“Look Mom, I’ve got to finish this. Mopping up the water. I’ll send you those articles if you’d like, though.’

Her mom straightened, smiled with lots of teeth. “Of course, Samantha. I’ll read them.”

Sam nodded, and went to close her bedroom door. Her mom gently stopped her. “I’ll be in the garden, if you need me.”

A thin smile. “Sure thing, Mom.” She closed the door with a soft click.

Sam liked to imagine the plants were angry on her behalf. They’d seen the whole thing, and obviously they’d be on her side.

Sam grabbed a dirty t-shirt from her laundry basket and set to mopping up the remaining water. As she worked, she counted all 38 plants her in room and noted their locations, light levels, water levels, obsessively-

God, she just couldn’t make her mom understand. That it wasn’t about looks and aesthetics and beauty, it was about the- the- the inherent sanctity of plant life, the codependent relationship between flora and fauna, the exchange of air and breath, the nutrient cycles, that her own

daughter you are mine the daughter of green the daughter of ultraviolet the queen of roots uncountable through the ground the city the planet

you are ruler you are monarch the flowers the leaves the vines these are your children these are your subjects these are your responsibility

you understand child you understand my daughter that humanity is infection is gnats is too-much-water is invasive grass it must be purged this pest

is yours to feed on to take their nutrients they are flies in the trap you will do my bidding my sweet greendaughter they will do yours you are chlorophyll you are ectoplasm shed your meat dissolve the juices of your flesh you-

…

Sam gasped and clutched her hand. She had somehow managed to find a sharp-enough pencil with which to stab her palm. She looked up, brain catching up to the fact that she had managed to drag herself to her desk, even amid the episode.

That was good. New, but good. Her body was able to act to pull her out, now. Even if she didn’t remember it.

Just another example of feeling eerily disconnected from her flesh body.

She fell into her office chair, and her head fell into her hands. She breathed. Always fucking breathing, like it’s a chore. Fucking oxygen. It never felt quite right, these days.

She needed to center herself. She knew the steps. Couldn’t remember the fucking steps. They were in the notes app on her phone. Where was her phone?

On the ground, by the jerry can and the mason jars and the magazine pages. Okay. Easy.

She sat up, walked, then half crawled to the same spot on the floor. Crossed her legs, sat upright, faced the desk, keeping the pencil in sight. Flexed her injured hand, and reached out for her phone.

She found the list quickly enough - she’d put the shortcut on her homepage.

5 See

Sam spoke aloud to the room. “I can see my phone; my desk; the window with the tree in full bloom. The raccoon skull on the windowsill. And the jerry can, it’s still got a bit of water in it.”

She shuddered a breath out. Unlocked her phone again and read the next line.

4 Touch

Sam closed her eyes and concentrated. “I feel the small stab wound from the pencil in my left hand. It fucking hurts. I feel that my right leg is a bit damp from sitting on the floor. It’s cold. I feel my boots on my feet, because I never took them off. I feel my pajamas on my skin.”

A longer breath in, and one out. She carried on, no longer needing the list.

“I hear the air conditioning, even though it’s not very hot. I hear the odd car on the road. I-”. Sam hesitated. How honest are you meant to be during these things? “I still hear the echoes of the voice. I hear words like ‘daughter’ and ‘queen’ and ‘flesh’ and ‘green’. But not with my actual ears. It’s a metaphor, kinda.”

“I can smell the lemongrass candle I’m burning. I can’t think of a second smell. Maybe my own body odor? I haven’t showered yet.”

“And I can taste my own ass-mouth, as I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

Sam sighed, and opened her eyes. A bird chirped from the tree. She furrowed her brows and stared.

“You couldn’t have done that earlier buddy? I had to admit I heard his voice instead, you tardy bastard.”

The bird probably didn’t laugh. But it sure sounded like it.

Before she could forget, she opened the Grand Spreadsheet on her phone, and went to the “SAM” tab. She logged the time, with the note “short episode. Mild self injury broke it, no memory of that bit.” and hit ENTER.

Five seconds later, her phone rang - the screen flashed the caller ID “circuits mcgee 🌱 🤓✌🏾🧑🏾‍💻🍑”

He started talking the moment she accepted. “Ohmygod Sam are you okay??”

“I’m calm enough to have filled in the spreadsheet so let’s say yeah.”

“FUCK. You were doing so well, it’s been weeks, thought we’d left ‘em behind for good. What’s the injury?”

“Stabbed my palm with a pencil. Not very hard, I don’t think? There’s a bit of blood but it stopped already.” Sam opened her hand to inspect the little puncture. A small spec of gray left by the pencil and some dried blood, and it stung to hell, but she had had far worse.

“Yeah but Sam, you know as well as I do that around here, an injury healing fast doesn’t necessarily mean ‘all is well’.”

He had a point, there. “You’re right, but I’m being honest actually, it really is tiny. I can send a pic if you want confirmation I’m not just bei-”

“Don’t you fucking dare send me a picture of your wound Samantha Manson.”

Sam let out an honest-to-god giggle.

The line beeped.

“That’s Danny, wanna-?”

“Yeah add him in.” said Sam, as the texture of the background noise changed with the opening of a new line.

“Oh my god, Sam are you okay?”

“She’s good man, sounds like a small one.”

“They’ve gone down in severity and frequency, I honestly think we’re coming to a close on that.”

Danny’s voice again. “I know you don’t like talking about it over the phone, want us to swing by for a debrief?”

“Honestly there isn’t much to it that isn’t what I’ve covered before. I’m his daughter-queen again, we love plants, we’re eco-fascists, yada yada.”

“It’s not the info that’s important Sam, it’s you saying it.”

Sam nodded, before remembering they couldn’t see her. “Good point. Even so, a full debrief feels unimportant. I can just…” Sam hesitated, then completed the thought. “I can just tell my plants.”

A short, but uncomfortable silence over the phone. She had hoped that comment would land better.

Tucker spoke first. “So no change on that front?”

Sam reached out a hand above the pothos hanging near her desk, and with a slender finger, beckoned it upwards. It rolled, like it was stretching itself awake, and a leafy vine reached up to her fingers. Curling around it, not dissimilar to a cat.

mother, she imagined it crooning.

Her thumb gently stroked a leaf. “No change on that front. If anything…”

“It’s getting stronger, isn't it.” asked Tucker.

Sam didn’t want to answer that. But Tucker’s correct conclusion was unnerving. “Was that a lucky guess, or…”

“...It might be the same for me.” He said, in a small voice.

“For fuck’s sake guys, there’s a tab on The Spreadsheet for this! Why is this the first I’m hearing that you’re both getting… more?”

“Well sorry Dr Fenton-”

“Don’t call me that-”

“-but what with updating it with all the spying I’ve been doing on half of fucking Caspar High-”

“Tucker tracking your symptoms is more important than tracking Dash’s-”

“Guysguysguys, let’s all pipe down, kay?”

The conversation went quiet, again. They all took a moment, planning their words.

Sam broke the silence. “I’ll go first, if that’s okay?”

Their noises of assent came through simultaneously.

“Okay so point one: Danny, you’re probably right about Tucker and I not being totally on it with documenting our developments.” Sam twirled around in her office chair, eyes darting about her room. “I can only speak for myself, but it’s mostly just that not much has changed? Or more that it’s changing gradually? Like I have an episode, I can log that. But ‘I think I’ve got a bit more control over my houseplants this week than last week, and a tree might have tried to talk to me yesterday’ feels like an unimportant update. I dunno. What about you, Tuck?”

There was an awkward silence. Some shuffling. Neither Sam nor Danny stepped in.

It was something of a habit amongst them. Thinking space didn’t always need to be filled with noise, especially when it was obviously someone’s turn to talk.

Eventually, “Ah man. It’s less that, more like, I guess you’d call it denial? Like… okay, skipping a bunch of keystrokes when hacking the GIW and using your brain instead is something I can probably brush under the carpet until I put it into words in The Spreadsheet which is either ironic or fitting I guess.”

That was new. Tucker had been developing… some sort of connection to his networks and cybernetics. At least enough to have rare insight into how those systems functioned, and sometimes being able to intuit novel solutions, or just know when something would bug. And one time, he may have granted his phone partial sentience. But a direct input into his code? New.

“Well that, and, agh. Right okay, full cards on the table. Sometimes, I go to put something about myself in The Spreadsheet, and I get this itching feeling. One high up in my chest that’s too deep to scratch. Not sure what to make of it, but I don’t like it. So I avoid triggering it, okay. Probably just anxiety.”

Another silence. Sam froze.

Danny asked, “A kinda itch that’s like, ‘stop that right there’?”

“Well yeah.”

Sam’s heart rate spiked, all the plants on her desk standing to attention. “Wait, you get that too?”

“Not you too, Sam.” came Danny’s voice. He sounded small, defeated.

“Okay this wasn’t me covering anything up, I’d just never like, consciously thought of it like that before?”

“Okay, you both get an itch that makes you not want to do something - in your case Tucker, it’s when you’re like, compromising your own security?”

“Yeah. Or like, my privacy, or data.”

“Sam?”

“Well it doesn’t come up very often? Can’t even think of a time, just that what Tucker said rings a bell?”

The sound from Danny’s line had changed. He must have found somewhere away from the shopping crowds.

“Okay. Tuck, what kind of feeling do you get when you, I dunno, patch in a new security protocol to The Spreadsheet?”

“Well I feel satisfied, obviously.”

“Yeah but is it a different kind of satisfaction to like, doing well on a test? Is it specific to when you’re hacking something?”

Sam could hear Tucker processing that. She had to process it too.

Tucker eventually managed an eloquent “Fuck.”

“Is it like, like a slight vibration? Feels like a warm cat purring on your chest?”

“Yes, Sam, that is exactly what Obsession feels like.”

“Shit.”

“Well I guess we can stop speculating that the denizens of Amity Park are slowly developing ghostly traits, if Sam and I are developing Obsessions.”

Because that was the crux of the whole matter.

For the last year, the three of them had been doggedly tracking the changes in the population of their little town. People acting just a bit stranger, a bit more compulsive. Heart rates and breath rates decreasing. No obvious reactions to blatant ectocontamination in the cafeteria food.

Voices just a bit more distorted over the radio, or tv. Heaters turned down, AC turned up. Tucker had even set up a bot to analyze the blinking rate at Caspar High and some local offices to compare with similar places elsewhere in the state. Unsurprisingly, the citizens of Amity Park didn’t feel the need to blink as much.

Shrugging off the voices in the cornfields, the apparitions in the woods, the shivers down your back when you look at a cemetery sideways. These adjustments had come quickly to the population due to their sheer frequency - The Horrors only hold sway when they surprise you. But the blatant unease the town residents gave to outsiders wasn’t just shrugged off amongst themselves - it was firmly, blatantly, ignored.

“No but you guys are special cases, you both had prolonged, individual overshadowings by powerful ghosts and your obsessions are related to them. Most of the town have either been mass-influenced, or just had quick stints as meatsuits. Like we’ve known for a while something’s happening but it feels like it’s speeding up for some people - Paulina’s never been this concerned with being pretty, or Wes with being up in everyone’s business. Then there’s the school building itself which is a whole ‘nother-”

Sam cut in. “Okay okay, we definitely need a big meeting to talk this through. Today?”

“Probably not, I’ve got mom’s actual normal gun to deal with…”

“I found a weakness in our backdoor to the Mayor’s Office’s security and it’s got me paranoid, I gotta patch it before something happens…”

“Okay, tomorrow after school? Yours, Tuck?”

“Sure thing, I’ve got the car tomorrow too. I’ll pick you up on the way in, Sam.”

Sam scribbled the reminder on a note. “It’s a date, gang. I’ll try and put together like, a report, I guess.”

Danny said, “I’ll catch up with you guys on the school steps tomorrow. Stay sa- Mom Jesus Christ that’s not how you- guys seeyousoon.” and his line went dead.

“Talk soon, Sam!”

“Talk soon, Tucker.” She hit the red phone icon.

The pothos, without encouragement, had continued to climb into and around Sam’s hand, gently holding a leaf against the pencil wound. The rest was clamped tightly around her wrist and forearm. Too tightly.

With the feeling of being watched, Sam turned her head, glancing around the rest of her bedroom. Every plant had shifted slightly, reaching for her, leaves and stalks fighting gravity to be closer to her.

mother, she imagined, again.

She extracted her hand, and walked briskly to the door. She strode quickly down the bright hallway, and down the grand staircase, grabbing her father’s set of keys from the hallway bowl. Reaching the front door with the full intention to shut herself in the plantless, steel, diesel and chrome deathtrap that was her father’s car and just drive, she stopped with the door handle in her hand.

A slight tickle filled her chest. An itch.

She turned to look through to the kitchen, and could see her mother in the garden beyond. Her usual hairspray-hard hair had rare flyaways, and a streak of mud marred her perfect neutral makeup. She knelt by a flowerbed, a tray of poppy seedlings on a paving stone beside her. Babies that Sam didn’t know yet. Her mother gently teased aside the soil with her trowel, placing each seedling bundle with care.

Sam’s chest warmed as she watched her mother. It hummed. She let go of the door handle, set her shoulders, and went to join her mother in the garden.

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