Chapter Text
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Danny found a rock. Well rock would be a bit small of a description, but it wasn't a boulder. It was just barely big enough for his small frame to sit on, feet dangling down toward the green swirling around him. He didn't know if he was right-side up or upside-down, not that it really mattered. There were no close markers to check against and such concepts seemed foreign in a place where doors floated with no support. The Zone was way too big in his opinion.
Massive but felt empty sometimes.
Like now, like right now he was sitting on a rock that was in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The doors and islands that hung around, some areas denser than others, were absent. It was simply him, his rock, and nothing as far as he could see. There were no doors, no other rocks, no islands, no weird sentient mists of ecotoplasm, no blobs, no rouges, nothing. Save him and his rock. It was his now he decided. He found it, out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing else was around to claim it. That was important in the Zone. Claims. Ghosts were massively territorial. Everything was owned by something, someone.
He shifted on his rock. It was a black rock, could of been obsidian but he had no clue. It would be cool if it was obsidian. A glass rock produced from the heat of an erupting volcano. Didn't even have to be earth obsidian. Could be from a world no one even knew about. That would be cool. It was decided, regardless of what the rock really was, he was going to call it phantom obsidian, it was his rock after all. He got naming privileges. He shifted again.
Time was odd in the Zone. It existed. Clockwork confirmed that, but since Space was merely a suggestion at best, Time was the same. Even in the afterlife some physics rules still applied. Only the bigger haunts, the bigger lairs, had consistent Time. They affected the Space around them, and thus got Time as a result. So Danny, sitting on his lone rock, in the middle of absolute nowhere, didn't have Time.
He felt as if time was moving, but he was still half living, so his body had its own time. The faint beat behind the hum of his core, the fact his ectoplasm pulsed rather then flowed gave him an internal clock. A way to know time had passed but it was unique to him and him alone. Sitting on his rock, it could have been a few hours, a few days, hell maybe he'd been sitting here for years already, just idly kicking his feet. He knew somehow that wasn't the case. That he'd been gone a small handful of hours at best. He ignored that, ignored that he knew exactly where the Fenton portal was to his current location. He ignored that he knew where a lot of things are relative to his position. He ignored that he should probably be going home.
Jazz was for sure worried. Sam and Tucker were probably concerned but would ultimately brush it off once he got back, as long as he wasn't gone for longer than a few hours. He did just storm out of the house into the portal the moment his parents left the house, after all.. He shifted on his rock. It felt a little softer. He pulled his knees up to his chest, heels using the tiny bit of space on the rock to be able to hold the position.
He just…
They had…
They had ended a small Ectopus.
It hurt.
Jazz couldn't understand on the same level.
Sam was only disgusted because it was an animal.
Tucker joked about not being able to eat it.
He barely understood the hurt.
An ache deep in his ribs. The understanding that something had just died. Ceased. By his parents hands.
They were so, so happy.
Like when the portal finally worked. Turned on by his sacrifice. A single minded emotion that didn't pause to contemplate the why's and what ifs.
Before Jazz would have tried to convince him it was a good thing. Their happiness. Before his life was the catalyst to their greatest work, before every meal was accompanied by talk of dissections and autopsies. Before.
When it was just guesses backed up by a little bit of evidence. And they were the town crazies. Them being happy meant more interaction, more family time. Weekend trips and birthday celebrations.
After.
After it meant single-minded fervor. Latching on to hypothesis’ like they were proven theories. Talk of ripping a clearly sentient and sapient being apart molecule by molecule.
They were so happy.
It hurt so much.
Jazz felt it passing. But he heard it's screams. She knew it was gone. He felt the hole it's existence had left. He ached with it. Sam and Tucker weren't close enough to the house when it happened to know.
He curled tighter on his rock. Just a little bit longer on his rock. Then he'd go home.
Just a little longer.
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