Past Tense
It happened so fast, Danny couldn't believe it.
In general, Danny was stronger, faster, and tougher than any ghost he had encountered, save Vlad Plasmius and obviously, Pariah Dark. (He supposed he could include the Fright Knight in there, but the ghost was pretty easy to defeat provided one had a pumpkin nearby.) He'd been at this for five years, and it was old hat now.
He was about to go into college.
There was nothing special about this attack. Just a nameless, faceless snake ghost with glistening fangs dripping venom. Danny could take it.
It wasn't supposed to bite Sam.
With a roar of rage, Danny trapped the ghost, but too little too late. He dove to Sam's side; she was shaking, seizing from the venom. Her skin was clammy to the touch.
"Help me! Someone, help me!" Danny screamed, but there was no one to help. There was no ghostly power in heaven or on earth that Danny knew to save Sam.
She was dying in his arms.
"I'll get you to the hospital. No, I'll take you to my parents. They can fix it." Danny picked her up. "Hang on, Sam. Hang on, Sam. Hang on!" It was a mantra, a plea.
That was when he saw Death.
"A specter attending to the dead? How quaint," breathed the cloaked ghost, scythe held high.
Danny blasted it. "No! You're not taking her!"
Death didn't blink, didn't even move; the blast was ignored, passing through him the way Danny could phase through walls. "You cannot fight death, boy," it sneered. "You, of all creatures, should know that."
"Not Sam," Danny pleaded. "Not Sam. It's my fault. You can't have her."
"Accidents happen. You are not responsible. If you keep her from me, you merely delay the inevitable."
Sam was gasping softly, her eyes closed, her skin pale.
Danny grasped at straws. "A trade," he suggested. "Me for her." He transformed, from Phantom to Fenton between two rings of light. "I'm already half-dead, anyway."
The ghost was silent. "You have life still," he noted. "Very well. A trade." He raised skeletal fingers. "Her life in full, in exchange for a sentence: twice as long in my master's servitude. Since yours is merely half a life."
Sam floated from Danny's arms with a wave of Death's thin hand. "Sign here, boy." The contract and pen appeared in Danny's fingers.
Danny looked at Sam, and signed in red ink.
"It is done. A half-life for a life." Death raised his scythe, and Danny gasped, sagging; chains weighed down his arms. "The suffering you inflict on her is greater than that she has now. Live and die with that knowledge."
He swung.
The venom pooling in Samantha Manson's veins poured in a green river from her side, forced spectrally from her.
When she awoke, Danny Fenton lay dead beside her.
The cause was poison.
fin