A/N: Dunno what this is.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.


34. Stars

He was floating on his back, his hands behind his head, gazing upwards. This high up in the sky, above the clouds, the streetlights couldn't interfere with the view. There was no moon, and yet it wasn't completely dark. The clouds below him glittered in the starlight, exhibiting a fairy tale landscape, with high snow covered mountains and deep valleys. Imagination could put rivers down there, and tiny houses, a railroad track, a horse pulling a cart late at night. Danny had no interest in the clouds.

He was drifting, his mind empty, taking in the vastness of space and the billions of stars out there, mind boggling distances away from him. Every time he tried to grasp the enormity of what he was seeing, he felt himself growing smaller, more insignificant. A deep yearning to be out there, to look down on the earth, to travel to other planets, other stars even, took hold of him, and for a moment he let himself dream that one day, he would.

He smiled in utter happiness, feeling somehow part of that dark emptiness above him, another star among stars. Then, with no regrets, just like he promised himself, he let go of the dream, and plummeted down to the misty mountains below him that lost their apparent substance when he fell right through them. Back to earth, down to reality, life was waiting for him. Life that consisted of eating, sleeping, school and ghost fighting.

The next morning, he took down the last of the NASA posters that had decorated his room all those years. No more dreaming. The stars would forever be up there, he would forever be down here, bound to earth, to Amity Park, keeping the ghosts at bay, so that some day, other people could go out and reach the stars.