Danny remembers the pain he felt when ectoplasm invaded his DNA. When part of his humanity was shredded away and replaced with something foreign.
All the emotions that ran through him, stopping his train of thought in it's place. The only thing he could think about was the pain.
Then it was empty. Hollow.
He was scared when he woke up, when he realized the changes that shifted into his body. Realized he was the very thing his parents hated.
But he wasn't scared, not really. He saw the terrified faces of his friends and he just seemed to feed off of it. Mimicking what he saw.
He didn't realize it at first. Not until he was alone and that empty feeling came back. That strange hollowing feeling deep inside him that told him something was wrong.
He couldn't feel anything. Nothing really evoked emotion from him.
His parents had to be right. Ghosts were hollow consciousness that mimicked what it was like to be alive.
He was dead.
He was dead.
He was a monster, a hollow shell of himself. He was broken after that night. How was he supposed to handle it?
He didn't tell anyone.
How could he? He kept pretending everything was okay. Stayed awake at night, staring at his ceiling, thinking but not feeling.
Jazz noticed. Of course out of everyone, she was the one to notice something else was off. She found out his secret, and she knew there was more.
And she didn't drop it.
She kept pushing and pushing, until Danny snapped. All but yelling at her. A faint feeling of anger was all he felt, but it wasn't enough he was still empty.
Then Jazz made him cry.
The relief that flooded him when the first tear drop fell was unreal. He wasn't sure if he was crying from sadness or the happiness.
It took her almost twenty minutes to break that barrier Danny created around his emotions.
He had died.
Even if it wasn't completely, he died. He was in shock. This whole time that he thought he was a monster, he's psyche was just trying to protect him.
Protect him from the realization that his life was over. It didn't matter if he still had a heartbeat at times. That he still need food, sleep, and oxygen.
He lost a part of him that night.
Jazz held him as he cried. Sobs and laughter mingling in something borderline manic.
And she stayed to hold his hand through the depression that filled him afterwards. She held her baby brother's hand while he tried to navigate all the emotions that flooded him.
He died, that didn't mean he was a monster, and he had every right to grieve what was lost.
