Prologue
Danny watched in silence from the back of the room as the teacher continued to drone on about something he had already learned.
It had been like this since he was ten. He would go to a school and learn for a year, then his dad would be transferred to a new city. It had just been him and his father, Jack, for several years now.
It looked like Dakota city would be the flavor of the year.
The place was nice enough, but the curriculum was a little behind from his last school. This left him relearning again.
Because of his constant migration, Danny never actually got to make any friends, so that left him to learn what he could in hopes of making the year go by faster. This was the first time that he found himself too advanced for his class.
Danny slipped into a sort of autopilot that he had developed a couple years ago. He felt himself going through the motions, but his mind wandered as he reflected on his life.
This whole mess started when he finished his last day of the fourth grade at Amity elementary school. He came home after saying goodbye to his friends, Sam and Tucker. He was smiling as he walked through the door, but his cheer soon slipped away when he saw the despondent look on his father's face.
It was that day, that he found out about the accident. It was this accident that stole his mother and beloved older sister, Jazz.
His parents had been the leading scientists in ectobiology, meaning that they studied ghosts and everything that entailed. They were in the middle of the creation of their greatest invention.
It was supposed to be able to punch a hole into the fabric of reality and create a portal through to the land of the dead. It had the potential to increase their research tenfold.
Danny was not actually there for the accident, so he only had his father's account. Apparently, Jazz had come home early from the middle school due to an assembly. The curious little girl was happily sucking on a lollipop as she sat up on the counter swinging her legs. She was proud of her parents' profession, and she showed it by taking an interest in their lab work. The twelve-year-old had her long red hair in a ponytail and she wore a teal sundress. Danny's mom, Maddie, had red hair cut off at the shoulders and she had a lithe frame compared to her husband. She was wearing a teal bodysuit.
After some calibrations on the portal door mechanism, Jack had left the room to grab some fudge, as his Fenton genes had left him a bit hungry.
The next thing he knew, the alarm was blaring and the lab was on lock down. Jack had tried to find out what was going on in the lab, but the large metal bulkheads had closed him off from the inner lab, and he had forgotten to install windows. The next thing he knew, he felt the rumble of an explosion and the house shook around him.
Thankfully, the reinforcements in the lab walls held and when the bulkheads finally allowed him to enter, all that was in the room had been vaporized and all that was left was a black smear of ash.
He had been so proud of all that he had created, but this accident had shaken Jack's faith in his research.
Consumed by grief, his father took up a new job at a new rising company called GenomaTech. Due to it being small, it had to move around a lot to create momentum.
That is what led to his current situation. Here he was walking around a foreign school in a foreign town, completely alone.
He was brought out of his musing by a loud noise beside him. He had somehow ended up in the hallway and it looked like some kid was getting bullied. The poor kid looked around his age. He was black with dreadlocks. He wore a yellow button up shirt over red pants.
His bully looked a little older. He was heavily built with a maroon shirt and tan pants, though his pants sagged to show the top of his boxers. His most notable feature was his hairstyle. His hair was gelled up and had an alternating pattern of red and yellow. It almost looked like fire.
The bully threw the poor kid into a locker and looked like he was about to punch him again, but he was stopped when a guy of equal size grabbed his hand that threw him to the ground. This guy was a large black guy in a blue button up that was open over a white shirt. His buzzed hair was covered by a green bandanna.
The two ridiculously large kids traded insults and ended with the white guy walking away while the victim and his protector left their own way.
Danny's shoulders slumped and he walked away. Even the bullies didn't pay attention to him. He was invisible wherever he went. He sighed sadly and put his hands in his pockets. He turned and started his way down the hallway. The clock said that school was now over. He had zoned out for pretty much all of the day, so now all that was left was for him to go home.
His recent musing made him take pause at the thought and he suddenly had a sinking feeling. He really didn't want to see his father right now. He pulled out his cell phone and sent a text to tell Jack that he would be home late.
One of the perks for working for GenomaTech was that Jack got paid a lot of money. It was a small company run by some Billionaire big shot named Edwin Alva, so they paid top dollar for engineers of high quality. Danny's dad did not fall short of this at all.
That was how Danny ended up with his own cellphone. Of course, he did not advertise that he had it. He knew how dangerous the streets could be. He sometimes questioned the legitimacy of starting a company in a city riddled with gang wars, but since he was just a kid, he said nothing.
Due to the dangers, Danny had found himself in need of a place he could go to hide away on the days when the memories became too much for him. That led him to a warehouse owned by the very man that his father worked for. It was located on the docks, and Danny knew that the gangs were localized in the main part of the city, so he hoped that this place would escape their focus. He was very aware that he was trespassing on private property, but he always made sure to stay out of sight as he made his way to his usual spot.
He walked out and sat down on the edge of the docks and swung his legs as he looked over the body of water before him. He looked longingly down to the water below him.
He could end it here. No one would know until it was too late. It would be so easy. Just a little push and he could join his mother and sister. He would never have to be alone again.
Sure, it might hurt, but it couldn't last too long, right? There was no way it could be worse than the pain he felt every time that his father would look at him with that faraway look. It couldn't hurt more than the pain he felt when he had to drop everything he knew and had to move somewhere else. It couldn't hurt more than the loneliness.
He stared down at the water longingly, only to have his reflection disturbed by droplets. As if a signal, he released all of his grief above the water. Grief of long-lost family, grief of losing the only family he still had and grief of losing anyone he could call his friends. As he watched the many ripples, he could not find anything that gave him reason to be here anymore. He would just have to scoot a little more forward, then...
He was stopped by his phone buzzing. He looked down to see a reply to his earlier text. His father was requesting him home. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and stood. After one last longing look over the horizon, he turned to head home. He was too weak to do it again.
XxoxX
Danny stepped into his current home and quietly closed the door behind him. The modest house was a single floor with a dining room and kitchen to his right and a sitting room to his left. He walked down the hall and past the bathroom on the left and the laundry room on the right. Finally, he took the last left and closed the door behind him.
He dropped his backpack on the floor and flopped on the bed on his back and stared up at the poster that he had taped up on the ceiling. His room was mostly bare other than the dresser with his clothes and the shipping box. He figured there was no point in unpacking because he knew they would be leaving again. The only reason that he took the poster out was because his mother gave it to him when he told her that he wanted to be an astronaut. It was just a simple starry backdrop with a somewhat cartoonish rocket ship in the middle. Now he would stare up some days and he would think of her when she gave him a proud smile and she pat him affectionately on the head. Sometimes he could still feel the phantom touch of her fingers running through his hair. He shook his head suddenly to clear his mutinous thoughts.
He drew himself up before he pushed his door open and walked down the hall and into the dining room. He sat down quietly at the end of the large wooden table. There was a plate set out for him with a piece of chicken, some broccoli and a side of mashed potatoes.
He sat down, but he didn't really have an appetite. It was normal meals like this that seemed to highlight the change in his dad. Danny longed for the days when his father would cook with ectoplasm and make the food into something more exciting. Now he found himself pushing the mundane meal around with his fork.
"You shouldn't play with your food."
Danny jumped at the gentle reprimand. The words were spoken evenly and with a calm, emotionless tone, unlike how it had been several years prior.
There was a time when Danny's dad would enter a room full of energy and smiles, brightening the day of all who saw him. Now all that was left was a shadow of his former self.
Jack Fenton was just as large as he was before the accident. He towered over Danny and many others. He wore a dark brown suit with a white button up shirt and a navy tie. Years before, he would have been sporting an orange jumpsuit that matched his wife's.
Danny hated what his father had become. There were no more smiles, no more laughs, no more "Hey Dan-o!" More importantly, there were no more hugs, no more proud hair ruffles, no signs of affection.
"I got a call from your school today,"
Danny was pulled from his resentful train of thought by his father's gentle voice, "Was something wrong?" he asked in an equally gentle tone.
Jack gave Danny a firm stare, "Your teacher said that you were spacing out in class. We need to make sure that does not happen again."
Danny was hurt by the rebuke, but he was used to his father's disappointment by now, so he straightened his slumped shoulders and he looked into his father's eyes, "I apologize." he said in a clipped voice. That would be his only compromise. He would apologize, but he would not be sorry for his own grief.
Jack did not seem satisfied with his response.
"Do you think this is some sort of joke?" he began in a low tone, "How do you expect to fill the legacy left behind by your sister and mother with an attitude like that? Your sister was top of her classes and your mother was brilliant."
Danny inwardly winced, but did not outwardly show that the words affected him. This is usually how their conversations would go. His dad would talk about how amazing the women in the family were. This would leave Danny feeling empty and inadequate. The only solution he was able to come up with was just to leave, so that's what he did.
"Excuse me. I am not hungry. Good night."
He walked calmly and evenly to his room, ignoring the protests, if any, that came from his father. Once the door was locked, he lost all composure. He reached into his moving box and pulled out a small bear. It was a brown teddy bear with a white lab coat. It also had a large white ball of hair on its head and a fluffy gray mustache under its nose.
This was Bearbert Einstein.
Now, Danny did not really see himself as someone to play with stuffed animals, but Bearbert was an exception. This was Jazz's favorite toy. When he held it, he could imagine that he was hugging his beloved older sister. He could always go to Jazz if he needed a place to hide away. He knew that she would never pile unreasonable expectations on him.
He hugged the bear to his chest and he curled up under the space poster.
"I'm sorry I'll never make any of you proud."
End
A.N. For the record, I have next to no experience writing sad stuff. This is mostly just a practice to improve my writing. I recently discovered Static shock and was struck with inspiration. Here's hoping I do well.