Chapter Text
So when I lose my gravity,
In a sleepy womb, drifting as I dream,
I'll wake up soon, to realize the hand of life,
Is reaching out, to rid me of my pride
And all allegiance to myself...
"Still Feel" -- Half-Alive
It was mid-August, in the waning days of summer, when it happened; The day that would change Danny's life forever. He had just turned 14 that summer, and in only a few short weeks, he and his friends, Sam and Tucker, would be starting their freshman year of high-school.
Between the three of them, Danny was the least thrilled to be starting fresh at a new school. Casper High was a new and unfamiliar place, full of unfamiliar faces. Sure, his older sister Jazz would be there, as she'd been attending Casper High for the past two years, and of course the other kids from his middle school would be transitioning with them, but it was still a pretty big change.
In the meantime, Danny and his friends tried to make the most of these last few weeks of summer. They were currently hanging out in his family's living room, trying to ignore the sweltering heat. The AC had broken down a few days earlier and a late summer heatwave had inconveniently arrived just in time to turn the Fenton family home into a hot brick oven.
Danny's parents had gone out to pick up a few missing parts for the AC a couple of hours ago, insisting that they could fix it themselves; they were genius engineers, after all. He couldn't really argue with that, as they had made quite a few creative contraptions over the years. And most of them even worked! The exception to that being their proprietary ghost-hunting equipment. You see, Danny's parents had a bit of an... obsession with ghosts. They were determined to capture and study the paranormal phenomenon. They had even built a portal to what they had dubbed the "Ghost Zone."
When Danny casually mentioned this to his friends, the pair immediately perked up, eyes alight with excitement and curiosity.
"Wait... Your parents built a GHOST PORTAL?" Sam asked, sitting up from her inverted position on the couch, sounding quite intrigued.
"Uh. Yeah. It's in their lab in the basement," Danny answered.
"You've gotta show us!"
"Yeah, dude! That sounds awesome!" Tucker added.
"I don't know, guys. I'm not really allowed in the lab without--"
"We'll be in and out, real quick. No one'll ever know!" Sam insisted.
"Yeah! Besides, we've never seen your parents' lab. I bet there's a TON of cool tech in there!"
Danny eyed his two best-friends, as the pair ganged up on him with begging puppy-dog eyes and sickly-sweet smiles. He sighed in defeat.
"Alright, fine. Let's go." Danny got up and led the way down to the basement with Sam and Tucker close behind. The air grew cooler as they descended the stairs into the dark, the underground lab being insulated from much of the summer heat.
At the bottom of the stairs, he reached for a switch on the wall and with a clunk, the room lit up with a mechanical hum and the sterile glow of florescent lights. With plain tiled floors and stainless-steel wall panels, it was a rather unremarkable space. Along each wall was a row of metal counters, teeming with all manner of scientific paraphernalia. But on the wall furthest from the stairs lay the object of their quest:
The Ghost Portal.
It was a simple geometric opening set into the wall, with a cylindrical interior chamber, lit faintly by a series of glowing circuitry. The trio explored the lab with childish fascination as they approached the portal, Tucker ooh'ing and ahh'ing at the various pieces of ghost-hunting equipment scattered about the lab, his technophilia on full display. Sam, on the other hand, followed Danny to the portal entrance, her own fascination with all things dark and spooky revealing itself.
"So, your parents really think they can open a portal to some kinda Ghost Zone?" she said stopping next to Danny as they stared up at the vast opening.
"Yeah. They've been working on this thing since before we were born. It's like their life's work." Danny was a bit of a skeptic when it came to all this ghost stuff, but the concept was still fascinating. It was just a shame it didn't work.
"Yo, Danny! Catch!" yelled Tucker, tossing something towards him.
Danny turned just in time to catch a HAZMAT suit to the face. "Huh--Ack! Tucker, what the hell?" He pulled the white jumpsuit off his head with a peeved frown.
"Put it on, dude!"
"Uh, why?"
"'Cause it'll look cool? I dunno, man. Maybe that portal is radioactive. Who knows what your parents used to make it. Safety first, right?"
"Wait! Hold that thought, guys." Sam turned away to pull a Polaroid camera from her bag and held it up, ready to snap a picture. "Danny, can you go stand beside the portal? I wanna get a photo of you with it."
"Uh, sure..." Danny moved to stand in front of a control panel on the wall, beside the opening of the machine. "Like this?"
"Yeah! Just hold that suit up a little higher," she instructed, and Danny complied. "That's great, now... Smile!" she said with a click and a flash.
Danny blinked away the stars in his eyes and lowered the HAZMAT suit with a sigh as he stepped away from the machine. "Okay. I showed you the portal. Can we get out of here now? My parents could be back here any minute. Besides, they say it doesn't work, anyway."
Sam moved closer to the portal, holding up her camera for another picture. "Aw, come on, Danny. A Ghost Zone? Aren't you curious? You gotta check it out."
Danny looked back at the portal, staring into its gaping maw. The eerie glow of its dim blue circuitry was almost mesmerizing. He'd be lying if he didn't admit to being even a tiny bit curious of what lay beyond its threshold. If he really wanted to be an astronaut in the future, he needed to be prepared to step outside of his comfort zone and into the unknown. Like a true explorer!
"You know what," he said with a growing smile, "You're right! Who knows what awesome super cool things exist on the other side of that portal!"
With a newfound sense of adventure, he slipped on the white jumpsuit--with its black rubber gloves, boots, and collar--and zipped it up as he approached the opening of the machine.
"Hang on," Sam said, stopping him to peel off a sticker of his dad's face from the front of the suit. "You can't go walking around with that on your chest."
"Thanks." Danny turned his attention back to the opening and felt a wave of trepidation wash over him as he stepped into the dark inner chamber. Something about this felt off, like he was stepping into his own grave. He tried to shake off the feeling as he moved deeper into the machine, placing a hand against the wall to steady himself while he looked around.
As he peered into the dark, he recalled the events from earlier that week. His parents had invited Danny and his sister down to the lab to show off their "greatest accomplishment" and they'd looked so proud of themselves as they'd unveiled the Ghost Portal. They were so excited to finally turn the machine on and show their kids the fruits of their lifelong research. But when they'd plugged the machine into the power supply, and watched it spark and fizzle out, the disappointment in the lab had been palpable. They'd been so certain of their work, that to see it crumble into yet another failure, was heartbreaking.
Danny felt bad for his parents. They had worked so hard to provide for him and his sister, between their own passion projects and the freelance engineering gigs they'd do on the side to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. It was a shame they couldn't get the machine to work, even a little bit. Danny didn't know much about his parents' ghost research, but that day he'd wanted nothing more than to fix the problem, just to see his parents smile again.
Stepping deeper now into the cavernous inner chamber, he kept a hand on the wall to guide him as he peered into the gloom, wondering what could've caused the machine to malfunction. He took another few steps forward, nearing the far end of the chamber, his hand sliding along the wall until it passed over an open panel and a small round protrusion. Suddenly, his foot bumped against a thick cable on the floor and he shifted his weight in surprise. That's when he felt the protrusion beneath his hand sink into the wall with a click!
He stumbled back and saw the control panel where his hand had been, the buttons labeled on and off. He soon realized what he'd done as the chamber let out a heavy CLUNK and began to whir and hum, the glowing lines of circuitry growing brighter as the sound crescendo'd to a deafening peak. Danny heard his friends calling out to him in surprise, but he found himself frozen in place as he turned to see a bright green light bloom at the end of the chamber into a brilliantly blinding flash!
Suddenly, a massive surge of energy ripped into his body! It took his breath away--pulled from his lungs in a painful scream as his muscles contracted violently, body spasming and convulsing as every nerve burned and sizzled! His heart pounded erratically in his chest, harder and faster than he'd ever felt in his life, as though it might explode! He clutched at his chest with another painful spasm, doubling over in pain as he tried to take a breath. It was an agony like nothing he'd ever felt before. It felt like dying. Like his body was being ripped apart, molecule by molecule.
Then as quickly as it began, it was over. His eyes rolled back as he collapsed to the floor, a blackness overtaking everything.
...