Invisible Nothing
By: Wilona Riva
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.
Fish Mirror
Maddie couldn't remember when the mirror came into her possession. It was silvery hued, fish-shaped, and had beautiful glass bubbles decorating the edges. The oddest quality about it was that it didn't reflect ordinary objects. She peered closer into it, noting as if something strange was floating just out of the corner of her eyes, then she saw him, just for an instant.
She whirled around. No one in the hall except her.
She looked back into the mirror and saw the boy the again. He didn't move away this time. He looked surprised to see her. She smiled.
"You must be Danny," she said, thinking back to something Jazz had said that morning. Her daughter was off at the library, saying that Danny didn't feel like tagging along. She had just shrugged it off, till she saw the boy.
He closed his mouth and nodded.
"And you are a ghost?"
He nodded his head, then sharply shook it in negation.
"Okay, not a ghost, but not human, but something in between?"
His eyes lit up and he nodded.
"And somehow you're stuck in between this world and the next, and only Jazz can see and hear you, but this mirror can show your reflection," she stated. "Why choose our family to haunt?"
He pulled out a small notebook and a pen from the back pocket of his baggy jeans and scribbled something on it. He held it up to the mirror and Maddie read:
Not my blasted fault. I woke up this morning like this, Mom. It's like my whole existence was erased. And how did that mirror find its way here; we just saw it in the drama department at school?
Maddie was shocked. "You're my son?"
Yes. I really don't know what happened to me or how I got like this, but Jazz says the picture and the poems may have a clue. I think the mirror is linked as well.
"Show me," she demanded. Something tangible was placed in her hands. A small spiral bound notebook was open to a jungle scene with a strange statue with three jewels in its forehead. Maddie thought it might have been some ancient goddess that ghosts once worshiped. She read two of the three poems scrawled in the margins, then gasped.
"Danny?"
He looked at her expectantly.
"You're not real."
"This projection of you is just your soul trying to reach out for help. Your body is stuck wherever this place is." She tapped the notebook. "Because you're half ghost, you unconsciously projected your human form to the only people who could help you. You're more than likely trapped in your ghost form. I need to see it, please. I promise, I won't kill you or anything."
Danny hesitated for a moment. Could he still become Phantom? He hadn't tried all day, but was it worth the cost of his life? Well, she did promise.
He met her eyes in the mirror and slowly reached inside himself for the cold spot that housed his icy core.
Maddie watched, fascinated that this humanest of human children slowly began to glow white around the center of his frame. The light materialized into rings which began to move slowly up and down to reveal a negative image of himself, with a jumpsuit, not unlike she and Jack wore. His color scheme seem to be black and white, only to be broken by the blazing emerald green of his eyes, which were now looking at the ground.
"This is fascinating, Danny," she said, feeling the notebook taken from her hand. "What is your name in this form? Inviso-Bill?"
Gah! I really need better PR. No, my name is Danny Phantom, though most people call me Phantom. Before all this happened, I was manipulated by several villains who either framed me or manipulated me with mind-controlling ghost artifacts forcing me to steal for them. You and Dad hated me and were determined to "rip me apart molecule by molecule." That's why I hid what I was from you guys. I was scared. I am scared. I'm sorry. I didn't do all those things on purpose. I'm just trying to help.
Maddie's motherly instincts kicked in. "I understand, Danny. We'll keep this between me, you and Jazz. Anyone else know about this?"
Sam.
"The goth girl Jazz hangs out with sometimes?"
Yes. She's dreamy. Uh, pretend I didn't write that, please. I really don't need Jazz teasing me on that.
Maddie laughed. "Okay, Danny. We'll have to work on this tomorrow. Jazz should be home in a few minutes and I've to get dinner ready. Jack's out of town on a call."
Okay.
His image flickered, then was gone. Maddie wasn't surprised, to say the least, to discover that she had a son who was a half-ghost. She'd seen freakier things in her college days.
