It was late. Past midnight. Danny had to pee.

That doctor that came in every couple days had given him a bedpan since he couldn't get out of bed without an immense amount of pain. That was cool and convenient and all, but he was getting sick of using it; he'd rather use the actual bathroom. It'd been forever since he'd used one of those, even a fake one.

But that hurt. A lot. Did Danny really want to put himself through that pain just to use an actual toilet?

Lazily, Danny turned his head to the side to look at the door to the bathroom connected to his room. His eyes moved from the door to the clock on his bedside table, then back to the door. It'd been nearly twenty minutes since he woke up with the need to relieve his bladder. If he didn't make a decision soon, he would probably wet himself.

He was sure the hallucinations already thought of him as weird enough without adding bed-wetter to the list of his issues. He could have peed by now if he hadn't had the sudden need to travel the short distance to his bathroom. When he thought about it, Danny figured he wouldn't have that need in the first place if the agents would just take him out of his cell for a minute or two.

It had been weeks since the last time he remembered being taken from his new cell. He was getting restless having to stay in one place for so long, no matter how comfy it was. The new setting his mind placed him in could only hold his attention for so long when he knew there were doors that lead to even more interesting places. Thinking that over, Danny made his final decision.

Breathing deep, the young halfa heaved his body to the side, putting him almost on the edge of the bed and facing the bathroom door. His face scrunched up in pain and his body tensed with the whole movement. In the moments he took to make himself relax, Danny rethought his plan.

Maybe he didn't want to use the toilet; his bedpan never failed to work and the effort it was going to take to get across the room was becoming more and more unappealing by the painful second. But when the teenager opened his eyes again they landed on the bathroom door that lay mockingly open and he felt a rush of motivation. He could barely see the black and white tiled floor and black marble counter tops in the small room. Just above the counter was a long mirror that allowed him to glimpse even farther into the room.

He stared through the doorway at that mirror seeing an expensive looking shower and tub, and, in the farthest corner of the reflective surface, he could see the toilet. Yes, he resolved, he was going to see every part of the world his insane mind put him in no matter the cost.

The pain emanating from his chest was numbing to the point that he could relax again. Taking another deep breath, Danny prepared himself for the next step. He'd have to do this as quick as possible; like taking off a band-aid; just get it over with. As he released his breath, he released all the mixed, twisted thoughts clouding his mind and focused purely on the bathroom.

Mind thoroughly emptied, he launched himself up, swinging his legs onto the floor, and propelled his body in the direction of the doorway. The seconds it took to get to the bathroom had his legs burning from lack of use and sharp pangs filling his chest, but they slipped his mind as easily as the memories of his life from before.

Before he knew it he was laying on the bathroom floor, the tiles cooling the pain in his back and flaming limbs. The ceiling, he noticed, had black designs painted by the corners of the room accenting the beautifully carved molding of the wall. The shower was surrounded by fogged glass and made of similar black marble as the long counter tops opposite of it. The tub was also quite large and made him realized the bathroom itself was larger than he originally thought.

Danny could only relish the beauty of the lavish room for so long before his purpose for coming there in the first place made itself known. The young halfa reluctantly moved his head to look above him where a shining porcelain throne was. With a groan, he plopped his head back down to prepare for the journey to the toilet.

Fifteen minutes later found Danny panting at the edge of his bed where he had fallen. The top half of his body was partly strewn across the bed, the bottom half was crumbled at the floor. Part of him wanted to never do that again if it continued to cause him so much pain, but the thrill of having actually gone somewhere not only after staying still for so long, but having done it on his own outmatched the pain.

Now that he was sitting still again, the teenager felt the pain coming back tenfold. Sharp pangs bolted up and down his sore body. His head throbbed from a headache that was forming from the many times he fell through his travel and it hurt to breathe, now. It was moments like these that made the boy want to crawl in a hole and die. He doubted there were any holes in his cell, though, or that the agents would let him die in the first place.

Finally, Danny's breathing was somewhat close to normal; at least it was quieter. He reveled the quiet atmosphere. While his sleep should be peaceful, he was instead haunted by past experiments and modes of torture. Sometimes it was just the humming of his old cell. Even now he could remember the hum and the soothing vibrations it caused.

He could feel those vibrations floating through his aching limbs. Thinking about them, he felt himself drift into sleep, his eyelids growing heavier with every wave. He wanted to feel them more, so he heaved his limbs up one by one onto the cloud-like bed. Danny then positioned himself to sit back against the headboard, arms limp beside him, just enjoying the familiar sensation.

And then it clicked; those weren't just his imagination. He could actually feel the room vibrating.

Fear grasped his chest, making it feel tight and choking him. His breath hitched and the implications of the vibrations making their return fell heavy on his weak shoulders. Knowing he was back in his old cell was comforting and terrifying all at the same time. The cell itself was a comfort, as always, to be in; it was his safe place.

The vibrations being detectable in his hallucinated world was what unnerved him. He had gone a record number of days in his limbo, not having to see the agents or feel the burn of weapons and poison on his sensitive skin. If he could feel those vibrations, then his mind must be slipping back to reality, the very last place he wanted to be.

Danny curled in on himself atop the bed he grew to love. He wished they would drug him up again so he could stay in his illusion. If he hadn't lost all his tears early on in his stay with the Guys in White, he would let them all fall at once.


A few days later, Danny was still recovering from the vibrations he had felt that night. Since then he hadn't seen Ember or even heard any of her music like he sometimes did after her visits. Sadness blossomed every time he thought about the undead pop star. She always had something interesting to say when she stopped by and that was what he really needed at the moment.

The young halfa knew the doctor, butler, and Vlad were worrying about him more. The number of worried glances he received during their visits grew marginally since Ember's appearance. Maybe they didn't like her hanging around him. Figures men would be the ones to take away anything that made him even the slightest bit happier, even in his illusions.

Once again, Danny was alone in his room. He hadn't felt his old cell since he fell asleep the first time and he hadn't been thrown back to reality yet, either. Now he spent his days waiting and listening. It was like a trance taking its hold on him as he always had to keep his guard up, so when he was forced to the reality of torture and pain he would be ready.

It was in that trance that Ember found him when she visited that afternoon.

After the livid ghost girl was thrown into the Ghost Zone, she gathered Desiree, Technus, Johnny, and Kitty to concoct a plan. Desiree was able to use some womanly persuasion, much to her chagrin, to distract the male ghost guarding Vlad's portal. While she did that, Technus snuck in and used his tech abilities to crack the code on the portal.

From there, Ember, Johnny, Kitty, and Technus snuck in, the latter three hiding within the basement lab while Ember creeped through the Wisconsin castle in search of Danny's room. If she was caught and thrown back, the other three would take turns trying to get information from either Vlad or Danny.

The teenage boy was staring straight ahead. No emotion played on his face and his eyes didn't even turn to Ember when she phased in. She fleetingly thought Vlad might be trapping the phantom in his castle and Danny realized it just recently since he was acting so weird. Figuring she needed to break him out of his trance the pop star floated over to him and sat down in the bed right in front of him, criss-crossing her legs.

Ember barely caught his eyes twitch to actually look at her instead of through her. A smile spread on the ghost boy's face, stretching stiff muscles. "I thought Vlad was keeping you away from me," Danny said in his raspy whisper, "I don't think he likes you with me, but I like you here, so I'll let you stay."

There was that strange way of speaking, thought the pop star.

"Vlad might be able to throw me out, but he can't keep me away for long. I have my ways" Ember said with a wink. "So, why're you here?"

"What?"

"Why're you here, at Vlad's? Did he kidnap you? Did ya finally turn to the 'dark side?' What's the deal here and why are you acting so weird?"

It took a minute for Danny to catch up to the rapid fire of questions. He didn't know the answer to most of them. The hallucinations only ever asked questions that he knew the answer to no matter how ill his mind was, so why were they asking different ones now?

"I-I...uh...I'm not?" the boy stuttered, his face falling and fear grasping him.

"Not what?" She wasn't going to let him confuse her with his cryptic answers.

"R-real...this isn't real...not Vlad's..." Danny backed his head away from the pop star and played with his hands nervously. His sky blue eyes flickered between the ghost's fiery green ones and anything else in the room as he tried to form a real answer for the girl.

"Dipstick, you'll have to do better than that." she grabbed the boy's chin and forced him to look her in the eyes. At the movement, the halfa flinched and tried to pull away, but her firm fingers kept their hold. "I'm not leaving here till I get the answers I want and you can't trick me with this little act you got goin' on."

Ember had decided that the ghost boy in front of her couldn't actually be in some deranged state. He was stronger than that, a fighter all the way. All the ghosts knew that from the start, that's why they always came back to fight the young hero. He was their greatest entertainment and he couldn't be broken, he had to be acting like that just to get Vlad to let him go or the pop star to leave.

She was just as confused as Danny appeared to be. Everything just happened so fast and nobody had any answers to the strangeness; all she wanted was to get one straight answer. Why did Phantom disappear? Where did her and the other ghosts' favorite haunt vanish to? Why were Phantom and Plasmius acting so weird lately? She refused to leave until she got an answer to at least one of her questions.

Absently, Ember realized Danny was trembling slightly in her clutch. Ignoring him, she continued her small rant.

"C'mon, Phantom, stop staring at me like a scared puppy and answer me," the boy's eye twitched when the ghost said his name. "What's wrong with you! Three months ago you would've beaten me for coming at you like this, now you're just sitting there." Ember thought the halfa looked sorta like a goldfish. His eyes were wide open, his mouth stuttered and tripped on itself, and he twitched like a fish in a bowl did.

"Gah-I can't hit you if you keep acting like this and you know it don't you? You're too pathetic to hit right now-"

"No!" Danny exclaimed. He was done with the pop star yelling at him. If she was real it wouldn't matter as much to him, but she was a figment of his screwed up imagination and he wouldn't stand letting the inner workings of his mind reprimand him for how he was.

The boy wretched his head away from Ember and blindly grabbed at the arm still outstretched to him. If he ever tried to touch the hallucinations they vanished in the wind and he expected her to do just that; vanish. But then he grabbed her arm.

And she was as solid as the tile floor he fell on a few nights ago.

He froze all major body movements and his grip tightened on Ember's arm. If possible, his eyes grew wider and his body trembled more. He could feel Ember's arm. She didn't vanish. She was real. If she was real, then was everything else real; Vlad, the room, the maids and other people that visited him? But it couldn't be real! Nothing was real but pain and torture.

Danny suddenly found it hard to breath and found himself trying to take large gulps of air. His grip on Ember kept tightening and the girl found it hard to believe how strong it could be considering how weak the boy it belonged to looked. Said boy was wheezing now and looked like he wanted to cry, but couldn't muster the tears to do so.

"Ow, hey Dipstick, let go," Ember said while tugging her arm. She gave a hard pull and was surprised when the halfa actually let go, sending her flying on her back on the fluffy bedding. Danny was thoroughly hyperventilating, now, and his frantic gaze jumped from one part of the room to another.

It was all too much for him. What was real anymore? Ember and the room faded away and memories flashed through his mind's eye of the last day he remembered being in his old cell. There was a lunch tray, he was walking down the halls, but no agents were escorting him. The stars! He got to see the stars that night accompanied by a couple dozen agents pointing guns at him.

There was a light, too. So bright. He could see it now, how everything froze before his tear clouded eyes. Dozens of white clad government agents covered in crystal and snowflakes. They were like perfect ice sculptures, their sickly pleasured faces still in place behind the clear, smooth ice.

He didn't stay long enough to find out if they got out of their prisons. Danny was in the air, now in his withered ghost form. Nothing registered in his mind besides how nice the stars would look at Vlad's castle with the city lights too far to pollute his vision. He wanted that, wanted to feel the safety the stars provided him every night that they watched over him when he fought ghosts, or felt sad, or needed escape.

He remembered the elation he felt at seeing Vlad's Wisconsin castle and the clear sky. He remembered the shock on Vlad's lonely face. He remembered the pain of his injuries crashing into him full force.

When Danny woke from his memories, he was still hyperventilating and had curled in on himself. His bony fingers dug into his dark hair and his trembling hadn't given the slightest hint of letting up. He didn't notice the absence of Ember until she and Vlad came bursting into his room. Vlad rushed to the table at the side of Danny's bed and tore the drawer open, looking for something.

The younger halfa watched the man that just hours ago was a hallucination to him, as he pulled a syringe filled with sedative out of the table compartment. The older man turned to his young charge and was surprised when the boy looked him right in the eyes, making him pause.

"Y-you...you're real...?" he asked it like a question, but Vlad knew it was more of a statement. The older halfa set the sedative to the side and sat on the edge of the bed. He didn't know what to do with the drastic change in the boy's viewpoint. He thought it unfair to Danny to send him into unconsciousness when he so clearly needed to figure out what was going on, but what could Vlad say to the boy?

The businessman lifted his hand to comfortingly set on Danny's head, but rethought it when memories of the boy's past reactions to his touch did to him. Pulling his arm back, the man decided to give control to the young halfa, so he could decide what he needed. A shaking hand pulled Vlad out of his thoughts by grabbing onto his casual T-shirt, a luxury he saved for football days.

Danny was trying to calm himself, grabbing anything as if to help pull himself out of his melt down. If anything, his breathing became more labored than before and he could feel his brain going fuzzy from panic. He looked into the faces of the billionaire and ghost teen in front of him, both creased with concern, and watched as they blurred in and out of focus.

Before he could address either of them with the questions on the tip of his tongue, they were gone and the world before him faded to nothing.

Sorry that the events are overlapping so much in the last few chapters. That will change when the characters are more on the same page in sanity and what they're up to.

I don't have a great idea on what the next chapter will be about, so don't be too surprised if it does take a little longer to get up. I'll also be busier the next couple weeks, so not much time to write. I won't make you guys wait as long as the last long break, though. If it seems like that's happening, send me a PM or review to yell at me ;)

Thank you reviewers, followers, and favoriters for being awesome! Keep it up!