There is nothing to fear in the dark.

Darkness
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Chapter 5: Superheroes

Maddie sighed, stretching her arms out above her head. She was lying on her back on the hard stone floor, her ankles crossed. Bringing her hands back behind her head, she was careful for the tender bruise on the side of her head. Her eyes glazed slightly as she stared off into the dark nothingness of her cell.

In the intense silence, her heartbeat thudded loudly in her mind, her breath rasped in her throat like a jet engine, and her stomach growled from lack of food. Between the thumpings, grumblings, and whisperings of her own body, she could make out the sound of the condensing moisture dripping off the ceiling and running in rivulets down the walls. Her eye twitched every time a drip crashed into the growing puddle beside her head. Chinese water torture indeed.

But more than that, she was searching for the scratchy, unsteady breathing of the cell's only other occupant. However much she was loathe to admit it, that ghost was her only link to the real world; the only thing keeping her sane in the hellish darkness. A harsh cough echoed through the air, chains clinking as the phantom's entire body spasmed. She winced a bit in sympathy. The boy's cough had grown noticeably worse over the past several hours.

"Maddie?" the ghost whispered.

She turned her head to the side, glancing off in the direction of the voice. No glowing eyes met her gaze. "What?" she wondered.

"If I die, what would you tell my family?"

Maddie raised an eyebrow and was silent for a moment. "You're a ghost. You can't die."

He sighed. "You still don't believe that I'm only half ghost?"

"I believe that you believe you are still alive," she said after a pause, "and perhaps that's all that matters."

Twin, neon orbs flickered into existence in the dark. "But," he persisted, "if I die, would you tell my family?"

"Tell them what," she murmured. Suddenly she pushed herself to a sitting position and then rocked herself to her feet. She moved across the room, anxious energy needing to be burned. One hand trailed along the wall and her feet took exactly three steps before twisting on her heel and heading back in the other direction. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn.

"Everything," he said. "How I died? Locked up like an animal in the dark? That I suffered to the end?"

Maddie paused in the middle of her pacing to throw a glance in the boy's direction. "What kind of question is that?"

The boy was silent, only his eyes giving away the fact that he was still awake. "I mean," he finally continued, "you have always wanted to capture a ghost and rip it apart, right?" He hesitated for a second. "You don't really care what ghosts feel or how they are treated?" His voice went up at the end, making that statement into a half-asked question.

"Ghosts don't feel emotions," Maddie interjected softly, pacing again. Three steps, turn, three steps. Full ghosts don't feel emotions, she amended in her mind. This one…

"Exactly," he insisted. "But humans do. Would you tell my family how I died? Would you put them through that kind of pain?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because. I need to know." Silence stretched. His green eyes stared at her, praying for an answer. "I need to know if you care."

Maddie bit her lip, avoiding the glowing gaze. What kind of person does he think I am? Of course I care about humans… Turn, three steps, turn, three steps. I'm coming off as that uncaring?

"You care about humans," the ghost whispered. "You don't care about ghosts." The eyes fell to the side as he tipped his head. "Why? I need to know why."

She shivered at the question. He's not trying to ask if I care about humans. He's asking why I don't care about ghosts. "Ghosts don't have emotions or real thoughts. They don't feel," she repeated lamely. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn.

"What if they did?" he asked. "What if you found a ghost that, for some reason, could feel?"

Yes, what if there was a ghost that could feel? She shook her head sharply at the thought. Ghost Hunting Rule… she trailed off in her own mind, her eyes staring at the boy. What if…

She sighed. "When my Danny was little, he always used to pretend he was a superhero. He'd tie a towel around his neck and use a spatula for a sword." A bubble of laughter trickled up her throat at the memory. "He'd chase down all the evil 'ghosts' that were terrorizing our house and lock them up in the bathroom." She finally stopped her pacing and slid down to the ground in an easy crouch.

The eyes blinked at her. "Why are you telling me this?"

"You know what he'd do after he had them all trapped? He'd let them go." Maddie smiled at how absurd the thought was. "Every time, no matter how evil the ghost seemed or what it did, he'd always let them go. He said it was mean to keep them trapped. There wasn't a single malicious bone in his body when he was little. There still isn't."

Phantom gazed at her silently. "I'm still not following…"

Maddie sighed. "Perhaps my son knew something at five that I need to learn at forty."

"That everybody – even ghosts – deserve a second chance?"

"Yes," she whispered, closing her eyes. "And that maybe you shouldn't judge someone based off of what he is, but rather who he is."

"So you're trying to say you're reconsidering the whole 'I'm an evil ghost' concept."

Maddie flicked her eyes open and glanced in his direction. The glowing eyes were dancing with barely restrained delight. "I'm trying to say I'm open to learning more about you."

Phantom's smile was so big it made his eyes crinkle. He laughed softly, his chuckle devolving into a harsh cough. "Well…" he rasped when the coughing had subsided, "what do you want to know?"

To be continued…