The night air is crisp, the kind that bites just a little but isn't enough to make you shiver. The streets are quiet. Too quiet. A flickering streetlight buzzes overhead, casting long, jagged shadows along the pavement. I've walked this route a hundred times, but tonight, something is off.

A feeling creeps up my spine, a whisper of unease curling in my gut. I can't place it yet, but I've learned to trust that instinct—it's saved my ass before. I glance around, casual, like I'm just scanning the street, but my hand drifts to my hip on its own, fingers brushing the grip of my gun. Just a precaution. Just in case.

Then I see them.

Four figures. Spaced just far enough apart to block the entire sidewalk ahead. They're walking slow, deliberate, like they belong here and I don't. My pulse kicks up, but I don't change pace. Turning around now would be stupid. Running would be worse. I need a way out, need a way to shift the odds before they fully close—

Scuff.

The soft scrape of a shoe behind me, barely there, but I hear it.

Shit.

I move. Not a full spin, just enough to shift, going to press my back to the wall so no one's behind me. My heart is pounding now, heat rising in my chest. I scan the area as I move, measuring distance, checking angles. If I bolt left—no, too open. Right? Dead end. The only way out is through.

I just need to get past them.

I can feel the weight of my gun against my hip, my knife strapped at my side. If they move first, I can—

PAIN.

White-hot, blinding. A crushing impact slams into the back of my skull. My knees buckle. Vision warps.

My head is ringing, a sharp, pulsing ache spreading from the base of my skull down my spine. My vision swims—lights and shadows bleeding into each other in a disorienting haze. My knees threaten to give out, but hands clamp onto my arms, yanking me upright before I can crumple.

I shake my head, try to focus—but everything feels off, like I'm underwater, drowning in my own dizziness.

Then I feel it.

A rough tug at my hip. My gun. Gone.

My knife is ripped away a second later. The weight vanishes, and my stomach sinks.

No. No, no, no.

My pulse hammers as I struggle against the hands gripping my arms, twisting against their hold. My boot knife. My last chance. If I can just—

The thought is cut off.

Another shadow moves in, stepping close. My vision is too blurry to make out details, but I hear the voice—low, steady, deliberate.

"…ends his regards."

The words barely register before the boot slams into my stomach.

A sharp crack sounds in my ribs.

The hands holding me let go, and I fold inward, collapsing onto the pavement. My breath punches out of my lungs, my body locking up in instinctive panic as pain blooms through my core.

I try to suck in a breath, but my ribs spasm. My muscles curl inward on their own, my arms wrapping around my head, trying to protect what's left.

Breathe—just breathe.

I try, but my ribs won't expand. Pain lances through my chest, sharp and unforgiving. My lungs feel crushed, every inhale shallow, weak. My arms are locked around my head and neck, a pathetic shield against what I know is coming next.

I need to move. Need to fight.

But before I can force my limbs to work, another impact—hard and fast—slams into my side.

CRACK.

A bat? A crowbar? I don't know. My body lurches with the force, instinct forcing a strangled sound from my throat. I can't stop the wave of nausea that follows, the metallic tang of blood pooling in my mouth.

Another hit.

Then another.

Blinding, suffocating pain, over and over, until my mind starts breaking it into fragments. The strikes blur together, too much to process. My body is losing the ability to react, nerves firing but muscles refusing to obey.

I try to roll, to find an opening, but hands shove me back down.

"Stop squirming."

A knee crushes into my back, pinning me.

I gasp, cough—wet and ragged. My arms twitch, but there's nothing left to do.

Through the haze, a voice drifts in.

Casual. Detached.

"Make sure he's done."

The next impact lands, and the world goes dark at the edges.

The world is a haze of pain and pressure, my senses fracturing with every blow. My body barely registers individual hits anymore—just a constant, numbing thud thud thud as boots and metal crash into flesh and bone.

I can't move.

I can't even flinch anymore.

My ribs are cracked or broken, I know that much. My left arm—useless, pinned under me at an awkward angle. Every time I try to pull air into my lungs, it comes ragged, wheezing, wet.

Then a kick to the face.

My head snaps to the side. A crunch. A hot, sharp sting spreads across my cheek and jaw.

A new kind of pain flares through my skull, different from the others. Wrong. Like something inside just gave way.

I can't take much more of this.

Something in me starts to go numb, my mind trying to pull away from my body—a survival instinct, maybe.

The voices around me blur, distant, like I'm sinking underwater.

Then a hand grabs my shoulder, rolling me onto my back.

I blink blearily up at the night sky, black shapes shifting in the periphery. My vision is fading in and out, white spots eating at the edges.

A shadow steps forward.

I stare up at the barrel of the gun.

Everything else fades.

Pain, exhaustion, fear—it all dulls, swallowed by the creeping void stretching out beneath me. My body barely registers sensation anymore. My breath rattles in my chest, each inhale shallow, strained.

I can't fight.

I can't move.

This is it.

A laugh slips past my lips—ragged, hoarse, bloodied. It isn't much, just a pathetic wheeze of sound, but it's real.

The guy holding the gun hesitates. Just for a second.

I see it. The flicker of uncertainty. The way his grip tenses. Like he didn't expect this, like this was supposed to be the moment I begged, pleaded—

I don't.

I just grin up at him, teeth red with blood, broken, fearless.

I don't care anymore. I just wish I had been able to put up more of a fight.

BOOM.

Darkness.

-DF-
-DF-
-DF-

There should be nothing.

I should be gone. A bullet to the skull isn't something you walk away from.

I should be waking up in Valhalla. Or Hell, If my Christian friends were right

But I'm not.

Because there's only pain.

Agony rips through me, wipes away every thought, every expectation. There's no gentle fade, no peace, no silence—just raw, searing torment.

Fire.

Electricity.

It rages through my body, crackling and snapping, a storm made of pure suffering. Every nerve is alight, sizzling, burning as if my entire being is being torn apart and stitched back together at the same time.

I try to scream, but there's no air in my lungs.

I can't see. Can't think.

There is only white-hot agony.

I am breaking apart.

The pain isn't just in my body; it's in something deeper, something beyond flesh and bone. It feels like I'm being ripped open and put back together wrong. Every cell burns. Every nerve is a live wire, sparking, screaming.

I can't move.

I can't breathe.

I don't even know if I still have a body or if I'm just raw existence, suspended in agony.

Then, something shifts.

A presence. A weight settling into my bones that wasn't there before. Something alien. Something…cold.

Then, through the storm of suffering, a voice.

"DANNY!"

It's desperate, high with panic. A girl's voice.

But I don't recognize it.

And—that's not my name.

I drop to my knees, gasping.

The pain doesn't just vanish—it lingers, crawling under my skin, leaving my muscles twitching with aftershocks. My whole body is trembling, raw, like I've been dragged through fire and struck by lightning at the same time.

I suck in a breath.

It's shaky, uneven, but it's air.

I can feel again—my body, my limbs—but everything feels wrong. Smaller. Weaker.

I lift my head, blinking hard, trying to focus.

I'm not outside anymore.

The street is gone. The pavement. The blood.

Instead, I see metal walls, blinking monitors, wires running along the ceiling.

A lab.

The realization barely registers before movement catches my eye.

Two silhouettes rush toward me—figures small, childlike.

Their voices reach me, frantic, terrified.

"Danny! Are you okay?!"

The name means nothing.

I try to focus, try to push through the fog in my head, but my vision tilts—the world spins out of control. My limbs go slack.

Darkness crashes down again.

-DF-
-DF-
-DF-

Consciousness returns slowly, reluctantly.

Everything is too bright. The air smells sterile, thick with antiseptic and something faintly metallic. A steady beeping fills the silence, rhythmic, distant. How the fuck did I survive.

I feel heavy. Weak. Like my body isn't mine.

My fingers twitch.

The sensation is wrong. My hands feel too small. My limbs are too light. A quiet panic stirs in my chest, but I force myself to stay still, to listen.

Someone else is here.

I can hear soft breathing nearby—slow, steady, asleep.

I try to move. The second I shift, pain flashes up my spine, a deep, aching soreness instead of the sharp agony from before. I grit my teeth, breathing through it.

My eyelids feel like lead as I force them open.

A hospital room. Plain, white walls. Machines hooked up to me.

And a girl sitting beside the bed.

Black clothes, combat boots. Dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Her arms are crossed, her head tilted to the side as she sleeps in the chair.

I stare at her, heart kicking up for reasons I can't place.

She looks… familiar.

But I don't know why.

Something is wrong.

Not just the hospital. Not just the girl in the chair.

Me.

My body feels off. Too light. Too weak. Like I'm not even fully there.

I flex my fingers. They respond, but they feel small, thin, fragile. My arms rest on top of the hospital blanket, and as I stare at them, my stomach tightens.

They're too scrawny. Stick thin, not the muscle I had carefully built.

I try to push myself up—bad idea.

The second I move, the world tilts, nausea coiling in my gut. My muscles protest, too exhausted to hold my own weight. My arms shake, failing, and I collapse back against the mattress, breath coming in ragged gasps.

Something isn't right.

I reach for my voice, for anything familiar, and the sound that comes out is—

Wrong.

Too high. Too young.

My chest rises and falls fast, panic threatening to set in. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing deep breaths. One thing at a time.

First, figure out where I am.

Then, figure out why I'm not dead.

I steady my breathing, forcing down the rising panic. One thing at a time.

The hospital. The machines. The wrongness in my body.

And the girl.

She's young. A kid. Fourteen, maybe fifteen at most. She's curled up in the chair beside my bed, arms crossed, head tilted to the side as she sleeps, like she's been there for hours.

Why the hell is a kid in my hospital room?

I squint at her, studying the details. Jet-black hair, a little messy, cut just past her shoulders. A black choker, dark clothes, combat boots resting on the tile floor. A short plaid skirt with green highlights.

She looks… familiar.

I try to place her, but my thoughts are still foggy, my mind slow, like my brain is running on half-power.

Then another realization slams into me, fast and hard.

Why am I even alive?

I should be breathing through a tube, barely clinging on after that beating if I survived. But I'm not. No ventilator. No wires strapped to my face. My ribs should be shattered, my skull cracked open. But aside from a deep soreness, I feel… functional.

Weak, yes. But not dying.

This is wrong.

A cold, uneasy feeling crawls up my spine.

What the hell is happening to me?

I need to move.

I don't know why, but instinct demands it. Maybe it's the wrongness pressing in on me—the creeping unease of waking up somewhere I shouldn't be, in a body that isn't mine.

I brace my arms against the bed and push.

Bad idea.

The second I try to sit up, my muscles fail me. My arms shake, too thin, too weak, and I barely manage to shift before collapsing back against the mattress, chest heaving.

What the hell?

I grit my teeth, forcing my breath to steady. I'm not used to this. My body should be stronger. Heavier.

I try again, slower this time, dragging my legs off the bed. My feet touch the cold tile, and I push up—only to nearly crumple the second I stand.

The world tilts. My knees buckle.

I stumble forward and slap a hand against the wall, panting, trembling, forcing my legs to hold my weight.

This isn't right. None of this is right.

My head throbs, but I push forward. Step by unsteady step, I limp my way toward the small bathroom attached to the room.

I need to see.

I need to know why I feel so damn wrong.

I reach the sink, gripping the porcelain hard enough for my fingers to go numb.

Then I lift my head, eyes locking onto the mirror.

And everything stops.

I freeze.

The reflection staring back at me is wrong.

Not mine.

My breath catches in my throat.

I lean in, gripping the sink tighter, as if squeezing the porcelain will somehow anchor me to reality.

But the boy in the mirror moves with me.

I freeze.

The person staring back at me isn't me.

He's young. Too young. A scrawny, pale kid, barely into his teens. His black hair is short and messy, bangs falling over his forehead like he just rolled out of bed. His face is too smooth, too unfamiliar.

But the worst part?

The eyes.

Wide, blue, and staring back at me in the same horrified realization I feel crawling up my spine.

My breath hitches.

I raise a shaking hand. The reflection does the same.

No. No, no, no.

This isn't me. This can't be me.

I lurch forward, slamming into the sink, my fingers gripping the porcelain so hard I think it might break. My chest heaves, air coming in shallow, rapid gasps.

This is a nightmare. This has to be a nightmare.

I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself to breathe. When I open them again, the kid is still there.

And he's me.

This is a nightmare.

It has to be.

But the cold porcelain of the sink is real. The burn in my muscles, the ache in my ribs, the air dragging through my lungs—all of it is real.

I stare into the mirror, my pulse thundering in my ears.

My voice shakes as I whisper, "What the hell?"

The sound that comes out is wrong.

Too high. Too light. Too young.

I stumble back, hitting the handicap rail behind me, fingers clutching the edge like a lifeline. My hands are trembling. My knees feel like they'll give out.

I gulp down a breath, but my mouth is dry, my throat too tight.

No. No, no, no.

My heart pounds against my ribs, fast and uneven.

This isn't real. It can't be. It can't be.

I need to wake up. I need to wake up.

I grip the sink harder, my fingers digging into the cold porcelain. My chest rises and falls too fast, panic clawing at the edges of my mind.

This isn't real. It can't be real.

But it is.

I force myself to breathe, to think, to ground myself in reality. But reality is the problem.

My hands shake as I lower them, gripping the fabric of the hospital gown I didn't even notice I was wearing. The material is thin, scratchy, unfamiliar.

I glance down.

A plastic hospital bracelet encircles my wrist. I squint, forcing myself to read the name printed on it.

FENTON, DANIEL.

My stomach plummets.

I rip at the bracelet, yanking at it like I can tear the name off my skin, like it'll erase the impossible truth sitting in front of me. My breath is ragged, my chest tight, my vision blurring at the edges.

The mirror hasn't changed.

The kid staring back at me is still there.

My fingers dig into the sink, knuckles white.

This is real.

This is happening.

A sound behind me—soft, shifting fabric, a faint rustle.

I freeze.

Footsteps. Light and quick.

I turn too fast, my legs still weak, and nearly stumble. My hand shoots out, gripping the doorway to steady myself as the world tilts.

She's standing there.

The girl from the chair.

She's wide awake now, her dark eyes blown wide with shock.

"Danny?!"

The name hits me like a truck.

"Danny."

The weight of it crashes down, twisting the panic in my gut into something deeper. Familiar. Too familiar.

I know this name.

I know her.

Not personally, but from somewhere else—somewhere impossible. A memory surfaces, jagged and disjointed—a TV screen. A cartoon. A show I watched over a decade ago.

Danny Phantom.

No.

The pieces snap together, and the world tilts under my feet. The short, messy black hair. The blue eyes. The name on the hospital bracelet.

I'm not just in someone else's body.

I'm in his.

A tremor runs through me, my breathing shallow, uneven. My hands grip the doorframe like I might fall through reality itself.

Then she moves.

Before I can react, Sam rushes forward and throws her arms around me.

The air punches out of my lungs. Not from pain—she's not squeezing me that hard—but from sheer, overwhelming disbelief.

This feels real.

Her warmth. The way her arms wrap around me, firm and desperate, like she thought she was going to lose me. The scent of faint perfume, hospital air, something vaguely like smoke and lavender.

This isn't a dream.

This is real.

My brain is still catching up.

Everything feels too real.

Sam's arms are tight around me, holding on like she thought she'd lost me forever. Her grip is firm but careful, like I might break.

She's warm. Solid. Real.

But I don't know her.

My breathing is uneven, my heart hammering in my chest. My fingers twitch uselessly at my sides, like I should be returning the hug, but I can't. My body isn't my own.

My mind isn't my own.

And she knows me.

She thinks I'm Danny Fenton.

I feel my throat tighten. My pulse spikes. My voice—high, unfamiliar, wrong—cracks.

"Wh-who are you?"

Sam stiffens.

Her grip on my arms loosens, but she doesn't let go. Her fingers tighten just enough, like she's afraid I'll slip away.

Her violet eyes widen, scanning my face, searching for something—recognition, clarity, a joke.

But there's nothing.

I see it the moment realization hits her. The slight parting of her lips, the flicker of hesitation. A tiny shift in her expression—uncertainty, fear.

"Danny…?"

Her voice is softer now, the confidence from before shaken.

Like she isn't sure she heard me right.

Like she's afraid of the answer.

I don't answer.

Because I don't know what to say.

Because I don't know who she is to me.

Not the way she expects.

Not the way Danny Fenton should.

I can't think.

I want to, I need to, but my brain is too slow, too fogged, too overwhelmed.

Too much. Too fast.

My limbs feel like lead. My body is failing me, exhaustion crashing down like a wave, dragging me under.

Sam is still staring at me, waiting for something—for me to say something, to explain, to be Danny.

But I can't.

Because I'm not.

A new thought worms its way in, cold and sharp:

What happens now?

I don't get an answer.

Because the world is too bright. Too loud. Too real.

Darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision.

I don't fight it.

I let it take me.

AN

So…. This hooked into my head and would not leave me the fuck alone, the Skyrim story will remain my main story, this will likely have shorter chapters than I aim for with the skyrim one, 6 to 7000 words going forward, main pairing will be Sam, eventually, when shes more 16/17, this world will be much darker, it may start out light but the things lurking deeper in the ghost realm are not childlike, they are not the box ghost or a lunch lady, they are old, they are vicious, they are powerful. May do some crossovers but not sure, anyway, that was the first chapter, hope it set a tone :)