Phantoms Eternal

Phantom recovered enough to dive for his counterpart and caught him, though, it obviously hurt them both. Human screamed beyond his pain, and gripped Phantom’s shoulders tightly as he forced them to go intangible. They passed through several floors of an abandoned building, until Phantom was able to slow them down, and they landed with a thud on the basement floor.

Two loud grunts sounded and were followed by a long sob of unendurable pain.

“Human?” Phantom whispered, through his own pain, and his companion’s voice; weak and in agony, sounded from across the room.

“I . . . I’m over here,” his whisper was thin, and the sound of crawling came in the darkness. However, that darkness was suddenly split by a light, and a loud cry sounded from Human as he covered his face, the entire lower part of his body completely motionless.

“What’s wrong?” Phantom’s voice came, and in the light, his hands passed over the ground as he searched for his counterpart, his green eyes clouded over, and it was clear he was blind.

“Found us,” he wept. “Skulker . . .”

Phantom froze and looked as frightened as Danny, and scrabbled along the ground frantically as he tried to locate him.

“This presents an interesting dilemma,” the Ghostly Hunter said, and placed himself between the two, which forced Phantom to stop his movement, and both boys trembled.

“Leave us alone, Skulker,” Phantom tried for bravado, but his voice trembled too badly to even begin to appear intimidating, and again, his hands searched frantically for his counterpart. “Just turn around and forget you found us.”

“I can’t do that. It wouldn’t look very good to have the Ghost World’s, and the Earth World’s greatest Ghost Hunter not able to find such easy prey.”

“Skulker,” Danny’s voice trembled even worse than Phantom’s, and he dug his hands into the dirt and tried to pull himself over to his counterpart, though his legs never moved. “Please, just leave us alone. We’re no threat to you.”

“Well, I can see that, but I’m not the only one who saw you. There are some people who want to speak to you and I think deserve an explanation. You are, after all, supposed to be dead . . .” he looked from one to the other. “And also, in one piece.”

Danny coughed violently, and moaned as he clutched his ribs, and Phantom trembled as his form flickered and waved.

“We’re almost dead anyway,” they said in unison.

“A few more days won’t make any difference, and no one has to know.” Phantom slid to the floor, and inhaled deeply as his form actually waved.

“Skulker, please, let me touch him,” Danny begged. “He needs my energy or he’ll disappear. Not . . . that it matters to you, I suppose,” he said, and he moaned as he collapsed to the floor.

Skulker stepped back, Phantom reached out toward where he’d heard Danny’s voice, and their hands touched. There was a small flash, and then Phantom weakly crawled over to Danny, took the boy in his arms, pulled him up so that he sat on the ground, and his head fell weakly against Phantom’s chest. Phantom weakly dragged himself and his counterpart across the floor, and leaned up against the wall. Obviously getting weaker by the moment, he settled Danny in his arms on his lap, and looked up at Skulker, obviously able to see again, and he cradled his trembling counterpart.

“You look . . . bigger . . . than I remember,” Phantom sighed, and Skulker frowned.

“I’m sorry, Phantom,” Human sighed regretfully, as his blue eyes looked up into Phantom’s green ones. “I . . . I can’t stay . . . conscious,” with that, his eyes closed, and he collapsed completely against Phantom, who closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall though he never relaxed his hold on Danny.

“And you look smaller,” Skulker answered Phantom, and he sighed.

“We are,” he said, and his breath exhaled in a blue mist as he slowly slid along the wall to his side, and followed Danny into oblivion.