Finishing up his lunch as soon as he can, he quickly made his way to a quiet corner of the library, a place where he knew would be deserted at this time of day. Taking out the emitter, Daniel tried to discern any abnormalities, knowing that the device was the root cause for the absurdities this morning. Unfortunately, the device LED yielded the same yellow color as before. However, pressing the main button provided no response this time around. Daniel did notice that the device was becoming uncomfortably warm. Remembering Alice's words, it did seem odd that the device could overheat from just powering and switching a set of LEDs... unless there was more than meets the eye.
Daniel's first solution was to plug the emitter into an external power source. From previous experience, the device was never meant to be standalone for long periods of time, and it will need to be constantly recharged. Plugging it in into the nearby library computer seemed to do the trick, as the LED resumed its blue-yellow-green cycling as a sign of operation. Taking a sigh of relief, Daniel was glad that something went his way today. He pressed the large button once more, in hopes of changing some sort of previous setting on the device. However, the device immediately returned to its unruly ways. In fact the device might have actually been more chaotic this time around, as the LED blinked and changed in a more and more rapid fashion, and Daniel thought he saw a small wisp of smoke leaking from the back of the emitter. Knowing that the device was overloaded, Daniel instinctively went to disconnect the device. But fate had something else in store, as Daniel felt a strong spark flow through him from touching the overheated and buzzing device, leaving him blacked out.
"Ugh. Whoever made this device should have done more quality testing for safety," Daniel mumbled after waking up from the incident. He was rubbing his head in an effort to ease his mental numbness, although he found himself to be unscathed, for the most part. "Wait, why would I be ok? A shock of that magnitude should have lasting damage. Not that I'm complaining, but why?"
A brief inspection of himself immediately gave him his answer, as he noticed that his hand was somewhat...translucent. His entire "body" was in a wispy, pale state. 'Ghostly' might be more applicable, as Daniel found himself floating several feet off the ground. A few more inches, and he could touch the tiled ceiling of this old library. Below him was...himself? More actually, it seemed to be his physical body, lying unconscious on the floor next to the computers. Speaking of which, the emitter was completely burned out, with black scars melded with the colors of the plastic strewn across the device. Clearly, it had suffered a full malfunction and might be beyond repair.
Meanwhile, Daniel was still in disbelief of his ethereal state. He was waving his arms, maneuvering his legs, making unintelligible sounds, and trying to pinch himself; however, all actions proved that he existed as a more spiritual form now. For a moment, he considered himself a victim of the placebo effect, and that he was actually still asleep from the shock. But the placebo effect required one to have preexisting desires, and Daniel was at a loss as to what he desired from his ethereal state. Even with the regrettable events with Ms. Ellsworth this morning, there was no reason why his body should lie unresponsive like that. Surely, he didn't want to die, right?
No no, death was definitely out of the question, as Daniel made a dive for his inert body. He has read from some stories that this was akin to a body and soul phenomenon, where a soul can return to its body by contact. Even holding onto this hope, Daniel was denied his sanctuary, as some form of shock affected him when he was about to touch his body, preventing his reentry. Additional tries provided the same result, with the only consequence being that Daniel's form was getting fatigued.
"No, if I can't get back to my body, what...what do I do?" Daniel said fearfully, face buried in the palms of his hands. As much as he wanted to cry like he has done when he got lost from his parents in years past, Daniel has vowed to not be a crybaby during tough times. It was a promise he made with his father after his parents divorced. His dad also told him that a scientist always calmly contemplate through all details before acting. After a moment of pondering, Daniel decided to consult someone else for help.
As if right on cue, Daniel though he heard a shriek coming from the far end of the library, a rare occurrence in a stereotypically quiet environment. Floating across endless shelves of stacked books, Daniel came face to face with a fellow 'ghost'. This ghost was a female brunette with a slightly overweight stature. Her thick glasses could barely cover her tearful eyes. Judging by her look, she was probably a sixth grader just like him. Daniel went over to try to give the girl a comforting pat on the back, only to realize that his arm would sink through the girl's form, eliciting another loud shriek.
"Hey. Don't cry. Tell me what happened."
The girl briefly stopped her sniffling to stare at Daniel with timid eyes. "I...was just sitting there," she pointed at her comatose form, which was leaning back at the receptionist's seat. "I suddenly received this terrible shock, and when I woke up, I turned into a ghost! I tried to go back to my body, but the shocks returned, so now, I'm stuck like this." Finishing her explanation, she began to wail once more.
As much as Daniel wanted to comfort the girl, her testimony was worrisome. If the girl suffered the same fate as him, did others follow suit? Sensing a larger disaster than he had anticipated, he made his way out of the library. He briefly tried fiddling with the door before finally submitting that he couldn't interact with any physical entities in this form.
The hallway was as chaotic as Daniel imagined. Numerous bodies of students, teachers, other faculty, and some staff were strewn throughout the corridor. It was like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie, except less zombies and way more ghosts. Near the ceiling, Daniel heard endless chatter from a sea of ghosts, resembling the student body of this school. Some were crying to their friends, others were zooming around in search of their peers. A couple of them were actually just waking up, unprepared for what has befallen them. Safe to say, nothing was under control. Daniel could not see any ethereal adults at the moment.
"My god, it affected the whole school. I can't believe the device could have such a far radius of effect. Wait, could it have been the fact that I hooked it up to a school computer?" Recalling the mechanism of the emitter, it was able to implant thoughts into targets, just like with both his parents and presumably, Ms. Ellsworth this morning. Daniel conjectured that the emitter was doing so through electrical wave transmission. This would explain why the emitter used much more power than expected..., and why it was able to dislocate body and mind with such pervasiveness.
Suddenly, Daniel heard a familiar voice. Rapidly dashing towards him was his good friend, Phillip. The two have known each other since elementary school as they were close neighbors, and while Phillip has gravitated toward learning history and social sciences, he was maintained a great relationship with Daniel. Phillip would consistently ask Daniel for help on his science homework, something that Daniel was more than happy to do. Phillip had a similar stature to Daniel, but he was perhaps somewhat leaner and taller, owning to his propensity to play basketball on occasion.
"Oh hey, so you're a ghost as well, Daniel? Well I guess I don't need to do much explaining, but it's just a complete mess right now."
"Yea..." Daniel gave a small grin. In the midst of these uncertain times, it was good to encounter a familiar face.
"So do you know... or actually, are you the one behind this?" Phillip sternly asked. He recalled that Daniel tended to frequent bizarre experiments, such as the use of electrodes to change one's perception of the taste of rice, or the one time he tricked him to drinking urine by disguising it as apple juice. None as outlandish as this, but it was certainly up Daniel's alley of psychological experiments.
"No no, it's not me. I also woke up to this and had no idea why," Daniel responded. Last thing he wanted was to make himself the target for this disaster.
Phillip gave a couple seconds of suspicious glances before relenting, "Well, I suppose we should find someone who knows what they're doing. I tried finding the teachers, but they seem to have disappeared already. Their bodies are still here though." Daniel scanned around. Sure enough, some teacher's bodies were scattered around the mass of student bodies. Some old, some young, some male, some female. Seemingly, no one was spared. But that begs the question, where are the teachers? Shouldn't they take charge of the situation here?
The thought was soon interrupted when Daniel witnessed a ghost entering a body without any impedance in the far end of the hallway. It was too far to make out their identities, but Daniel did see a trail of wisp seeping into one of the comatose bodies. Soon after, that body, one belonging to a male teacher in his mid-30s, stood up and raised his arms as a sign of triumph. Whether it was self-celebratory was not clear, but it definitely caught the mass' attention. Soon after, there was a rapid rush of ethereal wind, as the ghosts were scrambling to replicate the success of that 'man'. Likewise, they were able to migrate into bodies successfully without the hindrance that they had presumably suffered. But it was clear that the 'souls' were not entering their original bodies. In a brief glimpse, Daniel saw a young athletic girl entering a tall, lanky male body, a fat boy stuffing himself into a popular girl's body, one who was clearly out of his league, and a timid, nerdy-looking girl floating into the body of a middle aged female teacher.
On one hand, Daniel knew it was wrong to take someone else's identity. But then, not having a physical body was not ideal, as it served as the only conduit to the physical world and the solution to their problems. Not only that, Daniel could feel a chill creep up his form as his limbs start going numb. It was like slowly going under anesthesia, a clear sign that the ethereal form was never meant as permanent.
Phillip apparently had the same sensation, as he urged Daniel, "Come on, we gotta find bodies quickly before there are none for us. I'm starting to feel very cold and dizzy now." He immediately zipped away when he found a short pale-looking boy with thick glasses lying at the bottom of the stairwell. Soon enough, his form phased into the body, and the bespectacled boy woke up, adjusting his glasses as he stood up. Once he got his bearing, he was seemingly waving at Daniel, yelling something in the meantime.
However, Daniel couldn't perceive his words. He was sure that Phillip was that boy, but he just couldn't hear Phillip's voice. In fact, the area around Daniel had become much quieter as the ghosts found suitable host bodies. It was another sign that the ethereal and physical worlds were not compatible with each other.
As the corporeal options quickly became limited in this part of the school, Daniel knew he had to search elsewhere for a body. It was not only for the sake of maintaining his essence, but also as a chance of fixing his own mistake. As he floated to another branch of the school, he encountered...