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When Danny is fourteen the world ends.
—
He’s not entirely sure why he does it if he’s being honest.
Their experiments had failed before, smoking broken sparking things, smoldering materials with no defining feature to infer their original intended purpose, devices of truly dubious purposes that just made his life unfairly difficult. Danny is more than familiar with Fenton failures, he has to be, but he just can’t shake the feeling that this time it’s different.
It’s hours after the ghost portal Danny’s parents had essentially spent eons of their lives working on, and Danny is halfway into hazmat suit with Sam and Tucker watching curiously behind him when something breaks.
Tucker, ever so invested in capturing digital footage, has backed into one of the millins of trays in the lab and knocked over a glass beaker. It shatters as glass beakers are oft to, echoing curiously in the silent room and Danny is transported to an uncomfortable sort of memory. Hiccuping sobs and red palms, the frantic whispers of a nine year old Jazz as she struggled to scrub the mystery liquid from his flaming palms. The memory triggers a phantom sting and Danny distractedly runs his fingers over faded scars as he straightens up from his crouch.
It’s not particularly difficult to usher his friends out of the lab with an apologetic smile turned to them as he shuts the lab door. Their initial interest has faded and Danny waves away Tucker’s apologies as he herds them upstairs, they’ll find something else to keep them busy till it’s time for them to leave.
Afterall, he can always clean up the glass later.
—
It’s 5:00pm
—
Dinner had been a bust. A lackluster, muted occasion, the cloud of disappointment wafting over his parents hangs so heavily he can practically feel it as it smogs over his skin and creeps into his lungs. He tries to ignore the curl of guilt taking residence under his skin.
When Danny figures it’s socially acceptable, he mumbles a quiet “I’m sorry the portal didn’t work”, ignores how it sounds like he’s lying through his teeth, ignores how he sort of is. Places his plate in the sink and flees.
—
It’s 9:00pm
—
The glow-in-the-dark stars on Danny’s ceiling are formed into multiple constellations and sections of the milky way. He remembers hours upon his Dad's shoulders as his mum supervised from the floor and Jazz laughed, laying starfish spread on the carpet. He misses the feeling, treasures the warmth the memory brings and the reminders of love tucked into the stars.
Danny spends sleepless nights like these tracing the patterns, naming the stars. Most of the time it calms him, helps, but in the eerie stifling stillness blanketing the house, it doesn’t.
His parents didn’t even try going down to the lab, instead retiring early, Danny imagines he could hear the badly muffled sobs coming from his father and the occasional interjectory sniffle from his mom. The guilt turns his stomach, the feeling of anger and frustration he’d felt as the whirring of the machine went down and it turned out to be another fluke, another Fenton failure, he was still the son of two crazies, great. Danny is better than that, he should be.
The glass is still there, he has to clean it. Danny gets up
—
It’s 1:00am
—
Cleaning up the glass spirals into an all out cleaning affair of sorts. Which means that Danny wanders around the lab voluntarily for the first time in years picking things up and setting them into piles. He knows better than to shift stuff around too much so he sets loose papers into some semblance of order, rights leaning beakers, gets distracted puzzling over schematics and the scrawling handwriting of his mother detailing plans and equations,he can’t figure out but is too fascinated to drop. He picks up empty trays of what he can assume to have been treacle his dad had most likely set aside out of sight of his mother and forgotten to retrieve. Danny busies himself trying and failing to ignore the hulking gape in the wall.
Eventually, Danny wanders over to it, he’s run out of reasons not to.
It’s cold enough to sting even through the glove he’s wearing and briefly Danny wanders what sort of material it’s made of. Planes and rocket ships are made of Titanium and Aluminium and while Gadolinium is the coldest metal currently discovered Danny highly doubts his parents were getting their hands on Gadolinium even with all the grants they got. He could always ask, he guesses, he knows he won’t.
Danny is fourteen, curiosity itches away at him and the portal plans he’d taken a look at flash to the forefront of his mind. Maybe he could help, make them happy, ease away some of the guilt he feels inside. It’s a selfish thought but dammit it’s convincing enough.
He nods to himself, just a quick poke around, he highly doubts he could make anything worse.
—
It’s 2:40am
—
The hazmat suit as always is a pain to put on and he spends an embarrassing amount of time flailing about before finally, he’s all kit up…, well nothing could ever convince him to put on the helmets so maybe he’s technically missing something, it doesn’t matter.
Danny grimaces as he notices the crinkled up sticker his Dad had ever benevolently bestowed upon him. He peels it off and blinks at the image of his dad’s beaming face, it’s impressive quality. Okay he decides and places the sticker on a table as he walks to the portal.
—
It’s 2:50am
—
The gaping maw in their basement is admittedly a little daunting so Danny understandably hesitates as he squints into the dark. He’s gotten this far however, he can’t exactly stop, Fenton pride and all that. Danny sighs and walks in, it’s cold.
—
It’s 2:52am
—
He probably should have brought a torch he realizes as he stumbles around. It’s pretty hard to poke around when he can’t exactly see anything. Running his hands all over the walls would be stupidity he normally would believe he’s incapable of, but as everything grows impossibly darker it starts to look like he has no choice in the matter. The famous Fenton stubbornness has led him farther into the portal than expected, Danny had no idea the damn thing was so long, it really shouldn’t be.
Danny gives up. It’s late, it’s uncomfortably dark and he’s deeply regretting picking at his dinner.
He spins around, intent of carefully feeling his way out and starts reaching out to the wall.
An alarm goes off, beeping loudly and echoing in the quiet. It’s startling.
Danny trips
In some ways the click of the button Danny catches himself on is louder than the echoing of the incessant beeping. He takes a second, nothing happens, he sighs then, and a quiet whir follows the sound of the breath exiting his lungs. Danny-
—
Danny is fourteen when he dies.
It takes an eternity and occurs in the blink of an eye.
It burns
Lights him up from the inside with a force so ferocious he can’t help but scream.
It hurts
The scream ripping it’s way out of him claws his throat bloody.
He’s aflame
Danny is on fire, he’s made of flames and ashes. Sulfur is the breath coursing in his lungs and acid his lifeblood. His bones are of arsenic and his art beats to the tune of lightning strikes. Danny is dying
Danny dies and death gives little reprieve. He does not want to be the fearful wrathful roiling being he becomes, born of pain and untethered from his very self.
Danny does not want to die, Danny wants to live, Danny wants-, Danny wants
Want is a frail fickle things, want is a bold brazen thing
Danny comes back and comes back wrong .
The ectoplasm flows in molten waves and tethers his roiling flickering being to his body.
Danny is made , Danny becomes
—
Danny is alone
Stumbling out of the glowing pulsating doorway he is faced with the reflection of a malformation of a being, a ghastly cursed thing.
There is no breath in his lungs to scream when an unexpected flash of light recedes and Danny is faced with the reflection of something worse stood in place of the phantom.
Himself
—
It’s 3:00am
—
Danny is alone
No one comes, no one arrives to soothe his terror, to hold him, sweep gently away the hair plastered to his forehead and kiss away his tears.
Danny is alone, he’s going to have to get used to it.
—
The slow crawl back to his room is exhausting. There is lead in place of his bones and the reflection of a boy he does not recognize as himself haunting him.
The constellations on his ceiling invoke no comfort, the thought of galaxies prompt a deep feral desire in him, he knows yet not what it is.
He is a dead boy wrapped in hollow skin, a monster.
He closes his eyes
—
Danny walks around in his hollow skin wondering why no one can see the wrongness permeating his very being. The creature he has become, the abomination.
It does not matter in the end.
The Lunch Lady is the first ghost of many, and things only get worse from there.
—
When Danny is fourteen the world ends, then stutters back into motion and keeps turning.