Okay, this chapter doesn't have an end scene like the last few, where it shows Darius and his family, because it was a little anticlimatic. It will probably be at the beginning of the next chapter. Oh, and if you're squemish, have fun reading the end of this...

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He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

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It was getting increasingly hard for me to spend my days wandering around Amity Park. One reason was that since I knew where Sam worked I could easily visit her, and wanted to very badly. But after all, she was married, and I had to be careful about how I acted.

The second reason was the ghost attacks. They happened frequently, and often I was near enough to hear the victims screaming. I had to grit my teeth and continue walking, going against four years of heroism. Darius would save them, I knew that, but it always seemed like he couldn't get there fast enough. Besides, they didn't deserve to be rescued by me, a murderer, who has the blood of two on his hands.

Sometimes I would cover my ears, not caring what anyone thought. And then sometimes Shadow couldn't block their panicked thoughts from entering my head. Someone, anyone, help me please! I don't want to die! No! Don't kill me!Their internal shrieks of pain echoing around me, driving me insane. Somehow I'd keep walking, hands on my ears, wishing they would be saved or die and stop screaming.

It was always like this, until once a voice I recognized penetrated Shadow's barrier. Why did I pick today to leave my ectogun at home? This ghost is hurting innocent people! A familiar scream echoed through my head. Help! Please! … Danny… Please… I stopped, frozen where I was. The ghost had Sam, and Sam had called for me. My legs began to work again and I sprinted into a side street, and transformed.

I flew back towards the scene, towards the enormous ghost that was holding Sam hostage. It was huge, an ugly monster with sharp talons wrapped around her. My hands balled into fists and I launched a red ectoblast at it, using more power than I should have. The ghost looked at the blast, but couldn't avoid it. Instead of knocking the ghost aside, like I thought it would, the blast collided with its face and the ghost began to disintegrate.

At first I floated in place, too stunned to do anything. Then I saw the fist that held Sam began to vanish, and sped forward, catching her just as she began to fall. She had her hands behind my back and her face in my shoulder, and I pulled her closer to me, for once forgetting the blood on my hands. Sam looked up into my red eyes, silently studying my appearance. "Danny?" she whispered.

I looked away from her, suddenly remembering the evil I had done, and shook my head no. We began to descend, and as soon as my feet touched the ground she let go of me and took a few steps back, looking unsure about what to do. I looked at her again, turned, and was about to fly away when she put her hand on my shoulder. "Then who are you?"

She walked in front of me and I stared at the ground. "I am no one who you should know. I have stolen from people, I have abandoned the innocent-"

"You didn't abandon me." Sam said, cutting me off.

"And I have murdered. I don't want you to know me, I don't want to stain you with blood. I… I'm sorry I interfered." Her hand dropped, and I floated off of the ground.

"Thank you for saving me." She said, and I go back and hug her, kiss her, thank her for being so trusting. But I couldn't. Instead I turned invisible and flew away, soaring through the sky until I found a place to land and change back.

Once I was back to normal Shadow spoke up. "Why didn't you read her thoughts?'

"I didn't want to. I shouldn't have saved her, and reading her mind would only have made it harder for me to lie."

"So it's alright to listen to her mind as David but not as a ghost?'

"Yes. My ghost half is the one who killed Vlad and Valerie, not me." Shadow made a sound in between a scoff and a groan, but didn't say anything more. I stepped out onto the main street and found it swarming with people. Then I heard Sam's voice ringing out, "Leave me alone! The ghost didn't say anything to me when he rescued me, I don't know who he is, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for trying to turn this into a news story!"

I shoved my way through the crowd, getting closer to the circle of reporters around Sam. "Miss, why do you think this ghost chose to save you when he hasn't saved anyone else?" Sam tossed him a death glare and told him that she had no clue. "Do you know if this ghost is connected to Danny Phantom, the ghost boy who vanished twelve years ago?"

Sam didn't answer for a moment. "No. Danny Phantom had an emblem, a white D with a black P inside. He would never get rid of it." She sounded sincere, and I instantly felt guilty for hiding it. But I didn't want her to recognize me. "Now leave me alone!" She shoved past the reporters and walked into me. "What is your problem?" Sam said, before looking up and realizing who I was. "Oh, sorry David."

"Come on, I'll help you get out of this." I began to shove my way back through the crowd, making a path for Sam to follow. Finally the amount of people began to lessen, and we were able to walk side by side. "What was going on back there?" I asked, opening my mind to receive her thoughts.

He honestly doesn't already know? "A monster attacked me, and a ghost saved me. Not the usual one, the one in black and red. He left after he did, and then reporters swarmed me asking me to tell them everything about him when I'd just met him." Even though he did tell me more than I told the reporters. I really hope David doesn't ask me anything.

"So you were right after all, he wasn't all bad." Sam looked surprised. "I mean, he saved you." It was so strange talking to Sam and acting like a completely different person. I was getting good at lying.

"You're not going to ask me anything?" Wow, that's really sweet that he remembers what I said.

"No, I figured the reporters gave you enough trouble. Unless you want me to ask you something?"

"Thanks, but you're right, the reporters asked enough questions." She glanced down at her watch. "It's that late? I've got to get home, my husband won't come out of his office for anything and Jamie's going to get home from school soon. I don't want her to come home to a practically empty house." I knew that she wasn't just making excuses, and we went our separate ways.

I went back to the crowd, for lack of anything better to do, and sensed someone watching me. The feeling had happened before, and had steadily been growing stronger, but I never could tell who it was. It made me nervous though, so I turned away and walked towards a more secluded street. I glanced around, trying to look casual, and since no one was there I changed into my ghost form and teleported back to my apartment.

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"Do you think this is a game Daniel? Switching from hero to villain when you feel like it? Killing those who get in your way while putting on a nice face for the public to see?"

"What about all those promises you made to me Danny? About how you would be a hero no matter what? When will Sam become something you're tired of? Will you murder her like you did me?"

I stared in horror at the pair. Their dead eyes bored into mine, and I couldn't look away when I desperately needed to. Why had they come back to torture me? To haunt me? My body seemed to act without me and it said, "You're dead."

Vlad's cruel laugh was like ice in me veins. My attention was drawn to his face, aged a hundred years, rotting and full of maggots writhing just below the pale flesh. His silver hair was almost all gone, having fallen out in clumps- the only part that seemed alive were the black eyes, glaring at me from sockets that were about to fall in. "Death, like everything else, is just another obstacle to defeat."

Next to him was Valerie Grey, but only I would know it. Her skin was shriveled and black, her hair nonexistent, the gaping hole in her chest staring at me like a third tormentor- she looked exactly like she had when I made her that way weeks ago. Decay had not affected her, there was nothing to rot. Valerie's eyes, like Vlad's, were black and full of sinister thoughts flickering just beneath the surface.

Thoughts! Why couldn't I read theirs? In fact, where was Shadow? I tried to follow the connection we had, but only felt a strange emptiness. Valerie answered me now. "Your powers don't work on us Danny, besides, we're not here to hurt you. Physically." She grinned, a black gummed toothless smirk, because her teeth had fallen out since they had nothing to hold them in.

They came towards me, and I tried to step back only to realize that I was in a corner. I tried to phase through, but my powers wouldn't come. Their disfigured forms came closer and I began to shake in terror. Then they did something I didn't expect. Each of them grabbed one of my wrists, Vlad the left, and Valerie the right.

"Daniel," Vlad whispered, almost kindly, "You killed me unintentionally, blasting me once and forcing me to change back into my human form, and then you stood over me as I struggled to fill my lungs with air and failed. After that you fled, and assured yourself that it was all your ghost form's fault. An instinct, a reflex perhaps. But of course you know that your ghost form and your human form are not any different at all, that either way you really are just the little brat Daniel Fenton."

It was Valerie's turn now. "You weren't planning to kill me, but you let your anger get the best of you, Danny. I enraged you, made you remember the past, and you took out your fury on me." She moved my hand as if I wasn't resisting at all, placing it into the hole in her body. "Remember this Danny? You ripped into me and put your hand around my heart, before forming an ectoblast and burning me up from the inside out. All because I didn't love you." She stood on her toes and placed her empty mouth against mine, her lips caving in with no teeth to hold them up. A shudder ran through me and I felt her death spread in me.

They released me and I looked down at my hands, wondering what they had done. Then it became horribly clear. Blood spread from where they had touched my wrists, covering my palms and dripping from my fingers. I tried to wipe it off, stop the terrible red liquid, but I couldn't, it just kept coming. I looked up at me torturers, both who now seemed impossibly tall, and saw them laughing wickedly.

"Don't you get it Danny? You can't be evil and good. And it's too late to choose. You have our deaths on your hands."

"Whether or not you choose to admit it, you killed us both, not your ghost half. Do you really think dear Samantha should be rescued by a murderer?"

And then Sam was there, covered in bloody handprints, and she opened her mouth and began to scream.

My eyes snapped open and I sat up covered in cold sweat. It had been a nightmare. I scanned the room and looked down at my hands, imagining the blood, and spent the rest of the night lying awake.