Summary:
Danny should feel lucky to be alive. After a month held captive by Vlad, barely remembering his life before, and nearly dying in his escape, he is finally safe, with friends in the Far Frozen. And yet, dread gnaws at him- a massive revelation at the edge of his consciousness, forgotten until the dead of night.
It was a lie. All a lie. His past, his memories: all false. Amity Park, his friends and family: all real but… not his.
The secret locks in his throat, unthinkable. He stays silent while the yetis welcome him as one of their own. But they do not know. And he can not tell them.
He is not the Danny they think he is. He is not Danny at all.
Notes:
Hello lovely readers! Welcome to my story for Invisobang 2024! It has been a long time coming and I am so excited to finally share it with you all!
As you can see, this story is the second in a series. For those who read "Hope Can Be Heavy Thing to Hold," this is its much anticipated (by me at least) sequel! Part of me doubted this day would ever come. It's been almost 5 years since I wrote Hope and while I always planned that there would be more to the story, life (and other phic ideas XD) kept side-tracking me. My writing has changed and improved at lot since the end of 2019. And I really hope those lessons produced a better story than otherwise.
For those joining from Invisobang, welcome! Please do not feel intimidated by the fact that this is a sequel. My hope is that this will be a enjoyable story, even without that background. (Though if anyone gets curious and checks out the previous work, I will not complain of course XD)
Since this work was written as part of Invisobang, I was lucky enough to work with two wonderful artists. Suzukiblu on Tumblr made this lovely artwork and posted it here . Mysterious-ink-slime on Tumblr made her own piece, link to be added once it's posted. A huge thanks to both of them! Go give their art all the love!
Also, a special note on the title! For years, I had my heart set on naming this sequel after this particular GFM song and now I have! Graveyard of Identities by Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh; you can watch the music video here . This song is about the transforming power of pain, letting the old die, and rising as someone new. To me, it compliments the theme of this story perfectly. Special thanks to CJ and Maggie for inspiring me with their art and listening to me talk about my own.
And the specialist thanks to my sister, Nervousdragonrebelpie on Tumblr and listening to me ramble about this story for months. This story is much better thanks to her listening ear and thoughtful suggestions.
Finally, thank to all you readers. I love and appreciate all your support and encouragement. And I eagerly await all your thoughts and feelings and screaming at me in the comments. XD Happy reading!
Chapter 1
Was this… death?
Floating sightless, soundless. Almost without thought. Too far away and hazy for fear. Just the numb warmth of darkness.
Drifting without form, the fragile center lay exposed. Something gently brushed. Cradling mist; Soft pin-pricks of cloud. Smell-sight-taste of green, old pennies and lime. The feelings arose, more shapes of ideas than anything real.
The world shifted, brightening into bleary focus. Something inside stirred, the sensation like blinking without eyes. Awareness flickered sharper and then dim. Sharper, then dim.
A vibration caught on his consciousness. Many and small and gently plopping like… rain. Rain, streaming down, around, through. Understanding slowly dawned and then… awe.
Green, crisp and bright as a spring day, overcame him. It flowed in, warm and safe and all encompassing. It filled his mind, every part of himself.
And… Mind. He had a mind, a self. He existed. He was a person. He was still here. Maybe he wasn't-
Darkness rushed back, like a wave crashing on the shore. A gentle death-like sleep took him.
Suddenly he was falling. Air rushed passed and bonelessly, he impacted.
The shock of cold stole his breath more than the crash. Something light and airy cushioned his fall, his face half buried in the chill.
Heavily, his eyes dragged open. White filled his dim vision. In the distance…. The sound tickled his ear, an electric roar. Struggling, his gaze drifted up. Blurry silver and blue shapes quickly approached.
His mind crawled, thought unreachable. Unable to process, unable to move, mind and body weighed down by crushing exhaustion.
But confusion chipped at the edge, clawing for purchase. Fear, familiar and ever present, lingered under the surface, though neither rose to awareness, the fatigue too great.
Darkness pulled him down again.
Beeping near his head crashed through the darkness. He was lying down, soft plushness underneath him. Familiar… too familiar….
A slimy voice echoed in his head. 'Son, you're awake.'
The boy's heart rate spiked, a jolt of panic. Burning red eyes flashed in his mind, a clawed hand squeezing his wrist.
He gasped, whole body flinching. Blurry eyes flickered open to all consuming white. Dread surged. No. This couldn't-
The beeping grew louder, followed by the cacophony of pounding feet.
The boy flailed weakly, heavy body struggling to move. In his elbow… something hard and cold. His arm jerked violently, other hand scrambling. A stab of pain, a release of pressure. Cold wetness welled up, a flash of green on pale skin.
'Now Daniel. Stop being difficult.'
No, not Daniel. Never Daniel. Danny. His name was Danny.
"Great One, calm down. You are safe." A calm voice cut through A furry, horned face… wearing a surgical mask?
Panic swelled. Who? Where? What? This wasn't-
A different, higher voice. "You are safe, Great One."
Great One? No, that wasn't… His mind scrambled for purchase, words and thoughts slipping.
"His ecto-pressure is dangerously elevated." "He's going into shock." "Sedate him."
He didn't... Where was he? Where was Vla-
The pinch of a needle, jabbed into his neck. No! He would be good. He didn't need to be punished again-
Consciousness ripped away.
An unknowable time later, Danny drifted up through the darkness. Soft and gentle. His heart beat slowly, a calm, even timbre. And he was, at last, aware.
Soft fabric under him, wrapped around his body. The quiet, ambient sounds of lights buzzed in his ears. Far away water dripped. His own soft breathing. Soft white light ghosted over his eye lids.
Said eyes blinked slowly, half-lidded. They felt so heavy. An experimental wiggle of his fingers… the boy groaned, sudden sensation hitting him. Everything ached, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Every inch of his skin felt raw and fresh, like it had been removed in pieces and now was newly reassembled. Like a weird gross puzzle.
Danny laughed at the idea and a second later, his lungs spasmed painfully. He let out another, louder groan.
"Great one?" A loud, worried voice cut through the air.
His heart skipped a beat, the surge of fear returning. He'd woken up earlier, hadn't he? Laying on his back, beeping by his head, all consuming white. And now… He finally registered the towering figure at his bedside.
"Who…?" His voice shook, weak and unused. "Where…?"
The figure leaned closer, the face becoming visible. A furry muzzle, sharp teeth, icy horns.
Danny tensed, a flash of panic. But… the wide, concerned blue eyes. A memory bloomed in his head.
Tightly hugging a white, furry yeti in an icy place.
Instantly, the boy relaxed. "Frostbite?" The names came out with hardly a thought, the knowledge just there in his head.
The yeti's expression softened, visibly relieved. "Yes, it is me." A gentle paw gripped his shoulder. "Relax. You are safe."
Safe…. The word ran in his mind. It felt like an impossible improbability. But… Frostbite was a friend, right? The yeti's kind eyes and jovial laugh rose in his mind, the image strangely distant.
Danny let out a breath, a surge of relief coursing through him. But the action made him grimace, nose wrinkling.
"Are you in pain?" Frostbite asked eagerly. "Here, allow me." He fiddled with one of the tubes attached to Danny at his elbow, just passed the sleeve of what was maybe a hospital gown. A plunger depressed. "That should dull the ache."
The boy gasped as something cold entered his vein. He blinked rapidly, surprised as the pain dulled to a small pin prick in the back of his mind.
"Wow…. That's… that's so much better." He smacked his dry lips.
"Water?" The yeti offered. A glass with a straw appeared and with a flip of a switch, the bed shifted under him, allowing him to recline.
The cup lifted to his lips, Danny drank shakingly. The cool water soothed his sand-papery throat, a blessed respite after… after….
He couldn't remember. That sent a stab of worry. But he was here with Frostbite, one of his friends. Allies? The shape of that felt right. He'd gotten here, somehow. Wherever here was.
Finally the boy swallowed. "Where am I?"
"In our medical facility." Frostbite answered. "You have been in and out of consciousness for quite a while. This is your first time being coherent on awakening."
Quite a while…. It was coming back to him now. He only remembered waking up that last time, panicked at the sound of the beeping by his head. His eyes flitted to the device… a heart monitor.
That was… strangely familiar. His stomach twisted with dread, echoes of previous panic. The heart monitor reminded him of before. He had been… somewhere, somewhere bad. His mouth felt dry, the memory just out of reach…
Danny swallowed. "How did I get here?"
"You triggered a perimeter beacon." The yeti said, voice taking on a grave tone. "A patrol found you in the snow, unconscious and dangerously unstable. The guards rushed you here and we attended you. It was… We were worried for a long while, that your injury was too great." His voice wavered with emotion, an air of heavy grief. "That you would… leave us. But…" A watery smile bloomed. "The most dangerous part has passed. You are recovering wonderfully. And you are finally awake."
"Yeah…." That was… a lot. Danny's brow furrowed. His mind swam, relief, sadness, and… a mounting unease clashing.
Frostbite seemed to pick up on the feeling. "What is it, Great One?"
"I don't…" He bit his lip. "That's… a lot. Thank you for finding me and saving me. I'm grateful, really grateful. I…I know I'm safe. But…" His insides twisted, a queasy feeling. "I…I apparently almost died and I don't… don't remember what happened."
The yeti's eyes rounded, the concern turning worried. "What is the last thing you remember?"
Before… the heart monitor beeping near his head, a room with white sheet and fancy wooden furniture. A man with white hair, a smug smile, and red eyes.
"Vlad." The knowledge hit him like a truck. "I was at Vlad's mansion!" Danny jolted, trying to sit up more fully with a wince.
"The other half ghost?" Frostbite put a paw on his arm, gently lowering him back to the bed. "You are enemies, are you not?"
"He… he kidnapped me." More images flashed. The plain, impersonal bedroom. The metal panels of the training room. The trap door in the greenhouse. "Vlad kidnapped me. He was…keeping me captive." His face wrinkled in a grimace. "He made me call him Dad and train with him and watch football…"
"Plasmius keeping you captive." Frostbite looked just as stricken. "That is worrying…."
Danny's stomach turned, sickened. "He… he hurt me." Vlad's hand across his face, electricity searing his limbs, locked in a small dark space. "He did something to my mind." The jar of Lethean water, the tree with red and blue berries. "I didn't remember anything. He was trying to brainwash me into being his… his perfect son but…"
He was missing something, something big. The gap loomed, dark and constricting. His voice quickened, from something uneasy and wary to panic. "I can't… I can't remember."
"It is alright." The yeti tried to soothe.
The calm voice failed to ease the distress. "I can't remember." But… the dark, earthen passage. The lab, bathed in green portal light. Jars and beakers, tables and weapons. The foreboding door. "I was… I was in the lab. I was trying to escape but…" Broken glass and metal, spilled ectoplasm. Vlad's mocking voice. "He… he interrupted me."
Danny's blood chilled, dread dropping in his stomach like a stone. He saw it as clearly as Frostbite across from him.
Vlad's face set in a sneer, as hellish as the vampire he played at. The taser in Danny's hand. He jabbed with it but… too late. The man caught his wrist, fingers squeezing. 'You oppose me at every turn.'
"Vlad… he broke my wrist." Numbly, the boy stared down at his right hand. The wrist was unwrapped, no sign of the fracture. He felt sick.
"I tried to fight him." Electricity pouring from his hands, Vlad twitching on the floor. "But I wasn't… wasn't strong enough."
Harsh, hateful words echoed in his mind, too far away to remember. Tears had been on his face, back there in the lab and…. Now, here in the medical wing.
Frostbite said something, paws moving toward his face but all Danny could see…
On the floor, Vlad looming over him, his eyes insane, full of dark possessiveness. Agony gnawed at Danny's heart, the feeling of his world crashing down around him.
"He held me down, electrocuted me." Danny trembled, the tears falling. "I couldn't move, couldn't fight back. It… it hurt, my core hurt so much."
A look of understanding, of revelation flashed on Frostbite's face. But the boy barely registered. Just the comforting furry arms moving to embrace him.
Hands and feet, cold and tingly… then wet. Ectoplasm welling, sickly neon green. "I…I started melting." Danny froze in Frostbite's hold, eyes wide and devastated. "Vlad shocked me and I started mel.. melting."
His hands and feet dissolving away, staring at the ceiling through his tears. "Vlad… he tried to… to kill me. He tried to kill me."
That was it. That must have been it, the earth-shattering thing he was forgetting. The green spreading to his shoulders, his hips. His core locking up, shaking with agonizing shocks.
In his mind, Vlad hovered over him, shouting. A boom, metal crumpling, sudden icy chill. He couldn't move. Helpless. He was going to die…
In Frostbite's arms, Danny shook. "I… I thought I was going to die." Sudden silence. A figure kneeling over him, unseen through his tears. "I was melting… I… I couldn't move."
His heart ached with longing. Familiar faces flashed in his mind. His parents, Sam and Tucker, Jazz. "I…I just wanted to go home. I barely remembered them, barely remembered who I was." The memory flickered, finding his parents' picture in the book in Vlad's office, his real name printed in the pages, and the sheer joy that had overtaken him. "I just wanted to go home." He was trying to go home to his friends and family but…
In the lab, a mouth hung above him, lips making the words 'I'm sorry.'
Danny recoiled at the memory, burying his face into Frostbite's fur. It… it didn't make sense. Vlad would never say he was sorry. He couldn't remember… but he was dying, his mind swimming, far away and terrified and-
"I didn't want to die!" The boy practically screamed. The force of the words, the sudden realization had him violently pushing himself from the yeti's arms. "Am I dead?!"
"No. No. No." Danny pulled at his hair. He'd barely gotten to live and now he was dead. "I can't… I can't be dead."
"No, great one." Frostbite's paws appeared on his arms, gently pulling his tugging fingers from his hair. "You are not dead."
Danny blinked, the panic rushing out of him. His heart, or the illusion of one, still pounded, yet shaking arms gently lowered "But…. but I melted." He flinched at his own words, the next coming out quiet, pained. "How?"
The yeti chief's brow furrowed. "You said you were in your enemy's lab when this happened. Perchance, do you remember a portal there?"
The boy's brow furrowed, surprised by the question. "Yes?"
Frostbite nodded gravely. "I suspect you teleported into the Realms." Danny's lack of understanding must have been obvious on his face, because the yeti's expression softened, voice soft and slow like he was talking to a hurt child. "Teleporting is one of your abilities, even if it has not developed fully yet. When your body… dissipated, you would have been reduced down to your core."
"My core?" Danny looked down at his chest, raising a shaky hand to it.
"Yes." The yeti nodded. "Grievous injuries will condense a ghost into their core. As long as the central part of their being remains intact, a ghost can survive. But," Worried eyes fixed on the half ghost. "Cores will crack and fade if there is a deficiency of ectoplasm."
The boy's mouth felt dry. "Like in the human world."
"As in the material realm, yes." Frostbite agreed. "In a last ditch effort to save you, your core mostly likely used the last of its energy to teleport into an ectoplasm rich environment."
"So I went through the portal." Danny bit his lip, voice shaky. "But…I don't remember that. Why don't I remember that?"
The yeti gently reached forward, pulling the ghost boy once again into his arms. "Most ghosts do not remember the time spent as just their core. It is like… your human sleep, I believe. Or unconsciousness."
"Yeah…" That made a type of sense. Distantly, Danny remembered darkness, the feeling of drifting, disconnection from his senses. He swallowed. "So I ended up in the Zone. What then?"
"You presumably drifted for a while." Frostbite motioned to the boy's core. "The scans of your core we took while you were unresponsive suggested you had recently re-formed. This is consistent with your lack of external injuries. You most likely came back together in the ectoplasmic nebula near our island."
Danny's brow furrowed for a long moment, mind processing. Finally… "I… re-formed? What… what does that mean?"
"Your core rebuilt your body using the surrounding ectoplasm." A large paw patted the boy's back. "You are fortunate you drifted into a nebula. The plentiful, active ectoplasm creates a rich, bountiful area for injured ghosts to re-form, and for the new creation of many others. And you found yourself so close to friends…" Frostbite smiled encouragingly. "The Divine must smile on you, indeed."
The half ghost did not feel very encouraged. He stared at his hands, insides twisting. "So this is a new body…" He shakily removed his gloves, eyes trailing over the familiar fingers. The short, round fingernails, the light green skin, every crinkled line in his palm… everything looked the same as he remembered but… "Are you sure I'm not a full ghost?"
Frostbite squeezed one shoulder comfortingly. "Yes, I am sure. I myself saw your internal anatomy continues to reflect that of your human body. And on your core, the ability to transform between your two forms remains visible as well."
Danny let out a sigh of relief. He looked at his hands again. Suddenly… he needed to be human again, needed to see that he was still alive. His aura flickered, mind searching for the trigger.
"Do not try to change yet." The yeti gently reprimanded.
Disappointment rushed through the boy, guilty unease flickering. Had he done something wrong?
But Frostbite continued before he could ask why. "The potential for your human form still exists, but without real world matter to reassemble it, it is inaccessible. We have been providing material world water and nutrients to you intravenously but your body still requires more time to recover."
"Oh." Danny nodded in understanding. "That makes sense. Wait.." His eyes widened, his nose wrinkling in distaste. "What do you mean you saw my internal anatomy yourself?" He side-eyed the yeti.
With that, Frostbite's face turned apologetic. "My apologies, Great One. I mean, we had to perform surgery." His expression turned serious, crinkled with worry. "Our scans found a foreign object embedded in your core. It was periodically electrocuting you, causing… dissolution in your extremities."
The boy's eyes widened, stomach twisting. Frostbite had said at the beginning that it had been touch and go for a long while there but…
"It was worsening so…" The yeti paused for a moment there, arms gently squeezing the shaken boy. "The other doctors and I performed surgery and extracted it."
Well, that was a relief. After a moment, Danny swallowed. "Can I see it?"
Frostbite paused, giving him a searching look. "Are you certain?"
Decisively, the boy nodded. "Yes."
"Very well." With that, the chief opened his arms, gently placing Danny back on the bed.
The boy had a long moment to blush, just realizing. He'd been sitting in the ghost's lap for most of that conversation, like he was a little kid. He wiped his face with his hands, trying to shrug off the embarrassment.
Meanwhile, the yeti stood, rifling through drawers. After about several seconds, he returned. Frostbite gravely presented the jar.
Wordlessly, Danny took the container between his hands. He studied the contents. A tiny metal strip laid there innocently, y shaped and as long as the end of his pinky. "This is it." A lump formed in his throat. "This is what Vlad used to… to try and kill me."
The full ghost's face scrunched up, eyes alight with anger. "I had suspected this device was the cause of your injury. To violate one's core like this…" His nostrils flared, expression positively murderous.
Danny swallowed, eyes just starting to widen.
Then Frostbite sighed. Again, compassionate eyes turned to the half ghost. "I vow Plasmius will never touch you again, not with the might of the Far Frozen standing beside you." He shook his head. "Still, I am relieved you escaped." A paw squeezed his shoulder. "The Divine delivered you to our paws and found you safety. I am much joyed to see you recovering."
Danny's heart squeezed, warmed by the words. The boy slumped, heaving a sigh. "I… thanks for taking care of me." Still… his insides twisted, overwhelmed by it all.
"It is my pleasure, Great One." Frostbite beamed.
The boy grimaced. "Can you call me Danny? Please?"
"Danny, then." The yeti nodded seriously.
The half ghost forced a smile. He really was grateful to Frostbite. He appreciated the comfort, but…
The boy yawned, a sudden tiredness coming over him.
"Ah, I should leave you to rest." The chief stood. "Press this button if you are in need of any assistance. Sleep well, Danny."
"Thanks." The half ghost nodded.
With that, the yeti left. The door closed and Danny was alone. Soon, despite his anxiously twisting insides, sleep took him again.
