I, Danny Fenton, was having one of the most boring Saturdays in human history. The golden late-afternoon light streamed through my window, illuminating a pile of quantum physics and advanced metaphysics books that stared back at me, as if mocking my existential misery.
"I'd trade all this theory for five minutes of peace and quiet," I grumbled, rubbing my tired eyes.
Peace and quiet. Relative concepts when you live in the Fenton household. From downstairs, the familiar symphony of my parents' chaos rose: the high-pitched whine of a soldering iron, the animated voice of my mother, Maddie, explaining the principles of ecto-containment, and the thundering baritone of my father, Jack, belting out his latest musical hit.
"...AND WITH THE RAY-GUN, WE'LL GET THEM! GHOSTS ARE NOTHING BUT PESTS, WE'LL CATCH THEM AND PUT THEM TO TESTS!" My father's voice made the walls literally tremble.
I couldn't help but smile. They were... a lot, but deep down, they had good hearts. More or less.
My stomach growled, reminding me that I'd skipped lunch in favor of trying to decipher my father's writings on the "Ecto-Subjacent Reality." It was time for a fridge rescue mission.
I went downstairs, sidestepping a pile of anti-ghost weapon instruction manuals and passing by family photos side-by-side with diagrams of spectral creatures.
"Hi, son!" My mother was wearing her orange jumpsuit, calibrating a device that looked like a water gun from the apocalypse. "Studying?"
"Something like that, Mom," I replied, opening the refrigerator. I pushed aside a bottle of "Ecto-Juice" (Don't ask me what flavor it was…) and grabbed the leftover sandwich. "Just reviewing some things."
"That's my boy!" My father slapped my back with a force that nearly sent me into the fridge. "A true Fenton! Soon, you'll be by our side, patrolling the borders between life and death!"
"Yeah, Dad. Thrilling," I said dryly, retreating to the relative safety of the living room.
That's when I saw, through the front window, a scrawny, lanky figure running out of the house next door.
Peter Parker.
I looked at him with a twinge of envy. Peter always seemed to have somewhere to go, something important to do. And, somehow, he always disappeared at the strangest times, only to reappear hours later with a dirty suit and a look of deep exhaustion.
I had my suspicions, of course. Who wouldn't? Living in the same neighborhood as Spider-Man was one thing. Being neighbors with the guy who mysteriously vanished every time the web-slinger appeared was... well, pretty obvious. We had moved in 15 days ago, and I still hadn't had the pleasure of meeting him, only enjoying Aunt May's amazing cookies.
I finished the sandwich with a sigh. The loneliness of these school holidays without my friends was a constant ache. I needed a distraction. Something to do.
"Danny, my boy!" My father's voice echoed from the basement door, full of dangerous enthusiasm. "Come take a look at our newest project! It's going to revolutionize paranormalcy forever!"
I hesitated. A "project" from Jack Fenton could mean anything, from a toaster that burned the image of a ghost onto bread to a device that accidentally tried to disintegrate the sofa. Curiosity won over my boredom.
"Okay, Dad. I'm coming."
Going down the stairs to the Fenton lab was always a unique sensory experience. The air smelled of ozone and cold steel. In the center of the room, dominating the space, was a huge construction I had never seen before.
It was a booth, a little larger than a shower stall, made of metal and thick glass. It had double doors at the front and a control panel full of blinking buttons and levers. From the top, thick tubes connected to generators that rumbled softly. Inside, you could see two steel supports, one for the feet and one for the hands.
"What is that?" I asked, my curiosity overriding caution for the millionth time.
"This, my dear son," my father announced with a dramatic gesture, "is the newest and greatest Ghost Portal ever created! This time it will work!"
My mother approached, wiping her hands on a rag. "It's based on our theory that there is a parallel plane of existence, a purely ectoplasmic dimension, which we call the Ghost Zone. This portal will create a stable bridge between our world and that one!"
"That's... incredibly dangerous, isn't it?" I said, looking at the machine with growing apprehension.
"Danger is Fenton's middle name!" my father laughed. "The first is 'Ghost-Hunter'! We designed it with the best intentions, Danny. Imagine the knowledge! The understanding of what lies beyond!"
"What if something from there tries to come here?" I asked, pragmatically.
"Ah, we have safety protocols!" my mother assured, pointing to a large red button on the control panel. "The Fenton Emergency Shut-Off cuts all power instantly. And the doors are made of an ecto-steel alloy no specter can pass through."
I took a closer look. There were loose wires, an exposed circuit board, and a power meter seemed to be stuck in the red. It looked less like the Large Hadron Collider and more like a homemade death trap.
"Looks great, Dad. Really. But I think I'll... go back to my room."
"Oh, not so fast!" My father put a huge arm over my shoulders, preventing my escape. "We need an initial systems test! A non-biological test. All you need to do is enter the chamber, place your hands and feet on the supports, and help us check the structural integrity readings from the external control panel. It's perfectly safe!"
My stomach knotted. Enter the machine? The machine that was supposed to rip the fabric of reality?
"Dad, I don't know..."
"Go on, sweetie," my mother encouraged, smiling. "It'll only take a minute. Your father and I need to monitor the energy levels from out here. You'll be our eyes and ears inside the chamber."
I looked at their hopeful faces. They were so excited, so proud. And deep down, beneath all the eccentricity, they were brilliant scientists. Maybe... maybe it was okay. Maybe I was being paranoid.
With a sigh of resignation, I agreed.
"Alright. Just a minute."
"That's my boy!" My father rubbed his hands together, heading animatedly to the control panel.
I pulled the heavy lever on the chamber door, which hissed and opened. The air inside smelled of static and new metal. I entered. The space was tight and claustrophobic.
"All right, Danny?" my mother called.
"All... good," I replied, my voice slightly muffled by the glass.
I placed my feet on the lower supports and my hands on the upper ones, which automatically adjusted, holding me in place. I felt exposed, like a moth pinned to a board.
"Initiating power sequence!" my father announced.
Outside, I heard the hum of the generators rising to a growl. The lights flickered. On the panel, green lights began to blink.
"Power levels at 30%... 45%..." my mother read the meters. "Structural integrity is solid, Danny?"
"Seems good!" I shouted back, feeling a strange tingling in the air, as if it were about to rain inside the basement.
That's when I saw it. One of the loose wires near the base of the portal flickered with a blue spark. The spark jumped, hitting the metal structure of the chamber itself.
"Hey, Dad! There's a loose wire over here!" I tried to point, but the restraints held me immobile.
"What? I can't hear you, son! The generators are too loud!" my father yelled, turning a crank. "Power reaching 80%! Almost there!"
The hum became a roar. The tingling turned into an electric itch on my skin. The lights flickered violently.
"Jack, the ectoplasm levels are unstable!" my mother warned, her voice laden with alarm.
"It's just the vortex opening! Perfectly normal!"
I felt genuine fear. This was very wrong.
"Dad, stop! Stop the machine!"
But it was too late.
A flash of blinding green and white light exploded from within the machine, enveloping me. A pain like nothing I could imagine shot through me—a cold that burned, an electricity that froze. I felt every cell in my body being torn apart and reassembled at the same time. My bones vibrated, my vision went white. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The world dissolved into a chaos of pure, absolute energy.
I heard the muffled, terrified screams of my parents, and then the sound of a button being slammed hard.
CLICK.
The roar ceased. The light vanished.
Darkness.
I fell onto the cold metal floor of the chamber, which was now dark and lifeless. The doors opened with a hiss of released air. The pain was gone, replaced by a strange, floating sensation. Gasping, I tried to pull myself together. My whole body tingled.
"DANNY!" My parents rushed towards me, their faces pale with terror. "My God, son, are you okay?"
My father helped me, trembling, out of the chamber. I leaned against the structure, my legs feeling weak.
"Wh... what happened?" I stammered, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.
"There was a power surge! An insulation failure!" My mother was checking my pulse, her hands shaking. "You scared us half to death!"
"I... I'm fine," I insisted, though I didn't feel fine. I felt... different. Light. And cold. "I just need some air."
I staggered up the basement stairs, ignoring their worried protests. I needed to get out of there. I needed space.
I entered my room and leaned against the door, closing my eyes. My breathing was returning to normal. Maybe I was okay. Maybe it was just a shock. A really, really big shock.
That's when I looked at my hands.
And they were disappearing.
"What?" I whispered.
Before my eyes, my skin began to glow with a pale, ghostly luminescence. My hands, my arms, became semi-transparent. I could see the grain of the wood on the door through my own flesh.
Absolute panic seized me. I turned and looked in the mirror above my dresser.
The boy in the reflection wasn't me. He had my face, my build, but his hair was white as snow, glowing with a supernatural energy. My eyes were a piercing electric green, set in a pale, translucent face. I was wearing not my normal clothes, but a black and white suit that seemed fused to my skin, with gloves, boots, and a stylized symbol on the chest that resembled a 'D'. A faint aura of green energy surrounded me.
I was dead. I had to be. This was what it meant to be a ghost.
"No... no, no, NO!" I screamed, and the sound came out echoing, as if from a tomb.
The boy in the mirror—the ghost—screamed with me.
My bedroom door flew open.
"Danny, we heard screams, what..." My mother stopped in the doorway, her expression of concern morphing into a look of pure, absolute horror. She was looking directly at me. At this.
Her eyes narrowed, all maternal love replaced by a cold, trained hatred.
"Ghost."
The word came out like poison.
"Mom, wait, I can explain!" my voice came out strange, echoing, desperate.
But she no longer saw her son. She saw an intruder. A monster. She was already drawing one of her plasma weapons from its holster.
"Jack! SPECTRAL INTRUDER IN DANNY'S ROOM!"
I didn't think. I just acted. The fear, the confusion, the panic—all merged into a single primal instinct: run.
I turned to the window and ran. Or, at least, I tried to. Instead of my feet hitting the floor, they floated. I floated in the air, hovering a few inches above the carpet.
"Oh, crap," the ghost version of me said.
Then, I shot off like a rocket.
I went straight through my bedroom wall as if it were made of smoke. There was no impact, just a cold, damp sensation for a moment, and then I was outside, hovering in the twilight air over my own backyard, the city of New York spread out below me.
The view was breathtaking. I could see the skyscrapers of Manhattan in the distance, the lights starting to twinkle as night fell. The wind—real wind, not that ghostly cold—rushed through my white hair.
I was flying.
Flying.
"Whoa," I breathed, my terror momentarily replaced by awe.
The moment didn't last. A blast of green plasma shot past my shoulder, making me yelp and swerve in the air.
"YOU WON'T ESCAPE, SPECTER!" roared my father, who was now on the roof, wearing a full jumpsuit and firing a Fenton Bazooka the size of a small cannon.
I wobbled in the air, my flight instincts still unreliable. I dodged another shot, which hit a tree branch below, instantly charring it.
"Dad, stop! It's me, Danny!" I screamed, my voice echoing through the neighborhood.
"YOU DARE TAKE THE FORM OF OUR SON?!" My father grew even angrier, reloading the bazooka. "I'LL DISINTEGRATE YOU, DEMON!"
I understood. They didn't believe me. They couldn't see who I was. To them, I was just another ghost to be hunted.
My heart sank, a cold weight in my now-intangible chest. I had nowhere to go. I couldn't go back home. The world below me, once wondrous, suddenly seemed vast and terrifying.
Another shot hit me in the arm. This time, it was a direct hit.
"AGGGH!"
The pain was sharp and cold, a freezing sensation that spread from the point of impact. I lost control, spinning wildly in the air and falling towards the ground.
I closed my eyes, bracing for impact.
Instead, I felt a sudden, strong tension around my middle, and then a sharp jerk. My fall was abruptly halted.
Gasping, I opened my eyes.
I was hanging upside down, swinging gently in the night air. A white, sticky web was wrapped around my ankles, stretching back to where it was anchored to the roof gutter of the house next door. Peter Parker's house.
And standing on the gutter, in all his red and blue suited glory, was Spider-Man.
"Well, that's something you don't see every day," Spider-Man said, his voice muffled by the mask but unmistakably Peter's. "A fresh-out-of-the-oven ghost, running from two ghost hunters in power suits. Typical Monday in Queens, right?"
I froze, swinging like a human—or, ghostly—yo-yo. I was cornered. On one side, my parents, who now saw me as a monster. On the other, a superhero who would probably throw me in jail, or whoever deals with supernatural aberrations.
"Please," my voice came out as a thread of sound, broken and desperate. "Please don't hurt me."
Spider-Man tilted his head. He looked at me, then at my parents, who were now in the backyard, aiming their weapons and shouting.
"He's ours, Spider-Man! A class 3 ecto-entity!" my mother yelled.
Spider-Man looked at me again, at my wide, frightened green eyes, at the way my semi-transparent hands were shaking. He then looked at my parents, whose anger was palpable.
"Class 3, huh?" Spider-Man scratched his chin. "Looks more like a 'Class A-Affraid' to me."
He gave a tug on the web, pulling me up, towards the roof, until we were face to face.
"So," Spider-Man said, his white lenses narrowing. "Let's try this again. Who are you, what are you, and why are you making the neighborhood's loudest scientists try to turn you into green soup?"
I hovered there, a few inches off the roof, still trapped by the web. This was the moment of truth. I could try to lie, to run away... or I could tell the truth. To my neighbor. To the hero.
I took a deep breath, the cold air filling my lungs in a way I knew was no longer necessary, but comforting nonetheless.
"My name is Danny Fenton," I said, my voice echoing softly in the night. "And... I think I just became a ghost."
Spider-Man was silent for a long moment as I summarized what had happened. Then, he let out a deep, theatrical sigh.
"Man," he said, shaking his head. "Radioactive spider bites are one thing. But a portal to the land of the dead in your basement? That's a whole new level of parent problems." He pointed two fingers at me. "Stay there."
Before I could respond, Spider-Man took a graceful leap, landing in our backyard. I could hear the muffled conversation—Spider-Man using his friendliest "neighborhood" voice, assuring my parents that the "ghost" had escaped, but that he, Spider-Man, would keep an eye out. He convinced them to stand down, the weapons were lowered, albeit reluctantly.
A few minutes later, Spider-Man was back on the roof. He gave me a thumbs-up, I was still stuck.
"Okay, 'Fenton Ghost'. They're temporarily calmed down. But I'm guessing you can't go home tonight, can you?"
I looked at my own house, a sharp pain piercing my chest.
"No. I guess not."
"Right. Well, Aunt May's apartment is too small for a ghost and a spider-man, and I have a strict 'no bringing supernatural trouble home' policy." He leaned over and, with a quick motion, cut the web around my ankles with a blade. "You need a place to stay. And, by the looks of it, someone to teach you how to use these... powers."
I rubbed my ankles, surprised to see the web simply turned to dust. "Why are you helping me?"
Spider-Man leaned against the chimney, crossing his arms.
"Because everyone deserves a second chance. And because, not too long ago, I was a scared kid with powers I didn't understand who had just lost someone very important." His voice lost some of its joking tone for a moment. "And because, let's be honest, it's way more fun protecting the city with a buddy."
I couldn't help but let out a weak laugh. It sounded strange and echoing, but it was genuine.
"So," Spider-Man straightened up, pointing towards the city. "How about a little night flight? We can start with the basics: how to not go through walls when you don't want to, and how to not glow in the dark and ruin all the stealth."
For the first time since the accident happened, a spark of hope ignited inside me. I wasn't alone.
"That would be... amazing," I said, a hesitant smile appearing on my ghostly face.
"Great!" Spider-Man did a backflip, falling off the roof. "But call me Peter when no one's around! And give me my backpack back if you phased through it!" his voice faded as he fell.
I laughed again, a louder, more confident sound this time. I looked at my hands, feeling the human form a bit weaker, I concentrated and felt the human form return, the black hair, blue eyes, opaque skin. I was Danny Fenton again. But I was also something else. Half-human and half-ghost.
And apparently, I had night flying lessons with Spider-Man.
With a thought, I transformed again. The black and white suit formed around me, the power coursing through my veins. Then I launched into the air, a bit more stable this time, following the red and blue firefly swinging between the buildings.
The future was uncertain. My parents were a threat. My body was a scientific anomaly, a monster.
But as I flew under the stars of New York, for the first time in my life, I, Danny Fenton, felt truly... alive.