In the Dead of Night You Went Dark On Me

Be Anchored By Your Side

This is stupid. So stupid. Why on earth would they just change everything to watch one dude who seemed to be having a hard time? Well, that's because that dude has been having a hard time since freshman year. And that dude made a very concerning comment about being a ghost when he was delirious with pain, but for some reason Dash can't put it past him that this dude might not have been lying about that. Sure he said to forget about it, and that it wasn't true, but what if it was right?

What if Danny Fenton, the boy Dash has bullied since before he knew what the word bullying meant, was dead? What if he died in their freshman year and none of them knew about it. What if they'd been dealing with a ghost problem closer than they ever thought?

The information the Fenton's pushed out when ghosts first appeared in Amity Park stated that all ghosts were evil, deeply rooted in their need to terrorize anyone not part of the undead. That was proven wrong by Phantom and many of the other ghosts, and they have since revised their previous statement. It was now a known fact that, while some ghosts were created as ghosts, most of the ones that now frequented Amity Park were previous residents of the very place they haunt. The ghost pirate kid was a kid who died too young. Ember was a teen who wanted to be famous for her music. The hunter ghost was obviously a hunter who liked to collect the beings and creatures he caught. Phantom was… unclear. No one really knew his back story, no one had tried to ask. Though, it was pretty obvious that you shouldn't ask a ghost how they died, so that was out of the question.

The ghost was strange, compared to all of the other spectrals that floated in and out of their lives. Phantom never spoke of his goals, other than to keep the people happy. He seemed to be a teenager, however he had definitely grown up and changed since he'd first shown up at Amity. For one, his physical appearance had changed. He was more muscular, the suit he wore used to be extremely loose, and it now was practically skin tight. The gas mask he had on covered most of his face, but the bright green eyes seemed to belong to an older face now. He was also taller. It was strange, none of the other teenage, or child ghosts that frequented their town seemed to change or grow, but Phantom did. Phantom grew and changed.

Danny Fenton used to be a very different kind of kid. He was outspoken, used to participate in class, and got good grades. Other than his mediocre, honestly pitiful, physique the boy had throughout his entire life, he was a very well off kid, with a very bright future. He could have very well been an A+ student with a scholarship to go to the top colleges for astronomy, and be a very well off scientist who wins Nobel prizes. His freshman year, he began cutting classes more often, and his grades dropped low. Far too low. At some point, they dropped under Dash's grades, and that was hard to do.

What if something had happened to Fenton, something horrible. What if Fenton, the boy he constantly shoved into lockers, the boy he constantly teased and shot insults at was actually dead? What if Fenton had been dead for the past three years? How could none of them have noticed? Dash was never friendly with the kid, but he was the most physical with him. He hadn't seen Fenton hug, or even touch any of his friends since freshman year. Any of the times he'd pushed the boy down, he seemed solid enough. There were no signs that he was dead. Other than his temperature. The kid ran cold. He was always wearing a stupid hoodie, one that mostly covered his hands, one that he could pull over his head and ears. There were several times throughout the years where Dash would push Fenton, and his hands would feel numb and last that way for more than ten minutes after. He always chalked it up to a related ghost nearby, but any time there was skin on skin contact, he feared he would get frostbite. That was part of the reason he no longer pushed with his hands.

This entire week they'd been watching him, they had struggled throughout the entirety of it. Fenton was a master at evading people, disappearing without a trace. He was freaking Dash out, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was probably a mistake to start keeping tabs on the boy, he wouldn't like it if he were being watched without his permission, but the circumstances were slightly different. Dash wasn't dead, and his classmates hadn't watched him die, then snap his neck back into place after he woke up from said death.

Dash stared at his phone, his thumb having been hovering over Paulina's name for the past two minutes. It was late. Really late. They had school in the morning, and he really shouldn't bother her. But she had told him to call her if he needed to. She said she would answer. And this wouldn't be the first time he'd called her at four in the morning. That kind of made it worse. He ruined her sleep schedule already, he shouldn't call her over this. Over something that didn't even make any sense. Something that had been keeping him up for the past few days, all throughout the weekend.

They had more important things to worry about. Paulina didn't need to be worrying about the false anxieties that kept Dash up awake through the night. He really shouldn't be calling her. He will just talk to her in the morning at school so that- "Hello?"

Dash froze. He hadn't realized he'd actually called her. He hadn't meant to. He hadn't meant to wake her up. It was nothing. There was no reason to call her this late at night. She should go to bed. She'd already left his house way too late last night, she couldn't have gotten more than three hours of sleep already. He's just going to tell her that it was nothing, that she should just go back to sleep, that he'd see her in the morning. "I think Fenton is dead."