Prompt by DP-Marvel94: "Something was different with him. It had been for a while, and to his horror, Danny Fenton thinks he might have finally pinpointed it. He's felt off, strange, like his memories, his life, even his own body was foreign to him because...he might not be Danny Fenton at all."

This is part 1 of 2, I didn't get the second part done in time.

Not Myself
—

It was the little things that made him doubt.

The big ticket stuff — that was all there. Danny Fenton, age 14, lives in Amity Park. Names of parents and extended family, memories of childhood vacations, embarrassing secrets—and dangerous ones.

But the little things, things that most people didn't think about… some of it seemed to be missing. He didn't know what backpack pocket he kept his erasers in, or which desk drawer held his scissors. He didn't know how he organized his own closet, or his bookshelf, and looking at the titles, he didn't remember even reading half of them.

His shoes felt wrong on his feet, no matter how often he tied and re-tied them. His hands felt clumsy when grabbing things, and he kept dropping objects, breaking them.

Sometimes, when he woke in the middle of the night in his own bed, he would forget, at first, where he was. The quiet blue walls looked nearly black in the night, and the fixtures of his room - the bed, the desk, the model rockets - things that looked so familiar in the daytime would, all at once, feel foreign.

It was like someone had snuck in and replaced all of his things with slightly different, slightly off, copies. Just similar enough to what he remembered, that he couldn't put his finger on what was different. All he knew was that something was different. As if the whole world had been nudged just a little to the left.

Sam and Tucker didn't see it. Whenever he asked them, held up an object that struck him as wrong, they would stare at it, puzzled ,for a second, before furrowing their brows and casting skeptical glances at him, instead. "Yes, that's always been there," Sam would say, about the scuff on his chair or the dent in his locker. Or, "I dunno, man, it's your junk, not mine," Tucker would shrug when Danny wouldn't stop flipping through his textbooks, or rifling through his own backpack, scowling at the fraying seams.

Jazz was a little bit more optimistic about it, though just as unhelpful. "You're a teenager, Danny. You're growing. Maybe it's not the changes in the environment you're noticing. Maybe it's the changes in you."

And his parents—(and wasn't that a sign of how off-center he was, that he'd slipped up in front of his parents)—got starry eyed when he mentioned his experiences, looking more intrigued than thoughtful.

"That sounds like the Mandela effect," his mother said, and from nowhere produced a pad of paper and a pen to take notes. "So—How long have you felt like you've been living in a parallel universe?"

Needless to say, Danny shut down that line of thought quick as he could. But it did make him wonder.

That was the sum of it, wasn't it? Either nothing had changed, and he was crazy; everything had changed, and no one else had noticed; or he had changed, and it only made it seem like things were different, when in reality, the difference was him.

He started by making a list. He liked lists, he found. Though that too, was an oddity — none of his previous notebooks or journals had them, not before three weeks ago. Not before everything started feeling off. But lists helped him organize the mess in his head, helped him put numbers to his questions.

1. Am I crazy?

He didn't feel crazy. Maybe it was hard for him to tell, since he already led such a crazy life. But his gut instinct rarely steered him wrong, and in a world where the dead walked and humans could get superpowers, it didn't hurt to play this one safe. He put that option to the side.

2. Is everything around me different?

—Not everything. His house was exactly as he remembered it. His parents, his friends, those were right down to the finest detail. Surely if there was some sort of nefarious ghost thing going on, he'd be able to tell the difference in his friends right off.

But—

3. Are some things, but not all things, different?

This one, he couldn't answer. He felt so, but no one else seemed to be able to agree. There were ways to explain that away, of course. He made a sub-list for why:

3. a) Reality Gauntlet

3. b) Nocturne's Dreams

3. c) Parallel Universe

3. d) Mind-Bending Fenton Gadget

3. e) Time Travel Shenanigans

There were ways to test these, but they weren't easy. Clockwork, he thought, would probably be able help with at least three, if Danny could just find his lair. The clock tower seemed to go missing at the most inopportune times…

Shaking his head to clear it, he moved on to the last question;

4. Am I different?

"Am I different, Sam?" Danny asked, gently nudging the chair in front of him just before Polluka's 3rd period Algebra class started. Sam looked up from her notebook and turned to give him an eyeroll.

"Besides the fact that you keep asking weird questions nowdays?" she deadpanned. Danny raised his chin defiantly, though, so after a moment, she turned thoughtful, giving the question the attention it deserved. "Well—you're happier, I guess."

Danny blinked. "Happier?" he repeated.

"Yeah. Up until last month, you were—stressed. I mean, I get it," she made a dismissive gesture with the pen in her right hand. "Same thing, day after day. Multiple ghost attacks a week, sometimes interrupting you in the middle of the night, no free time, failing grades—"

"Oh that's another thing," Tucker cut in, pointing. "You're doing better in school."

Danny frowned. "Am I?"

"Dude, chill. It's not like you've turned into Jazz or anything. You're just getting your work in on time. There's a world of difference between a 75 percent and a zero."

Danny's frown increased. "And you're not—" he paused, casting a glance around. "Worried?"

Sam frowned at that. "Worried?" she echoed. "—About what? The fact that the ghost attacks have let up a little?"

"No, I mean, worried that I'm— different." Danny said, troubled. "That I'm not myself."

Tucker clapped his shoulder. "You've been doing better," he pointed out. "Why would that make us worried?"

Danny opened his mouth to answer, but then—closed it.

Overhead, the bell rang. Mr Polluka walked into the room, briefcase in hand, shutting the door behind him. "Alright, settle down, everyone, we're doing quadratic equations today, but first let's go over last week's test—"

Danny heard none of it, already lost in thought.

So. He was different.

Sam and Tucker, the two people he relied on most, who knew him the best, confirmed it. Good changes, they assured him. Better changes.

But still. Different.

Danny pressed the palms of his hands together, thinking. His friends seemed to attribute the change to the downtick in ghost attacks, not to any change in his core, his self.

Maybe they were right, he mused. Maybe he'd just been tense, strained, borderline depressed. Maybe there was nothing, deep down, to be worried about. The changes were good ones, uncanny feelings aside. Why shouldn't he just… roll with it? Not look a gift horse in the mouth? Could he do it?

Could he ignore the nagging doubts that kept tugging at his mind?

Polluka passed the tests back, a cascade of papers finally making it to the back rows. Danny took his test, and passed the rest on, scanning the pages of fractions and equations for errors. And then, finding none, Danny looked back at the very front page, glancing at the grade scrawled in red at the top.

A+! Well done!

Danny stared at it for a long, long moment, feeling as if the world had gone still.

Then, carefully, he set the test aside. From his notebook, Danny dug out his list, and circled number four. Beneath, he wrote,

I'm not myself.