Work Text:
The tape recorder clicked on, the soft whirring reverberating all around the cold walls of the Archives.
Jon licked his lips, trembling hands reaching for the next statement in dreading anticipation.
“Statement of Daniel Phantom, regarding being Someone Who Wasn’t. Original statement given on August 9th, 2017. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, The Archivist. Statement begins.”
Dear Jonathan Sims,
If you are reading this, then I am already dead, which you might come to find ironic as you read this Statement.
My original name used to be Danny Fenton, although you might know me as Danny Stoker, Tim’s deceased younger brother.
For this to make sense, I’ll need to explain from the beginning, how this all really started.
As Danny Fenton, I grew up with two “scientist” parents who were obsessed with ghosts. And I mean it, I had an older sister, I can’t remember her name, but she was the one who raised me when our parents were so focused on their work, even when she wasn’t that much older than me.
What were they so focused on, you ask? A ghost portal. A portal that was supposed to connect to a different dimension inhabited by ghosts, to be more specific.
And, well. Let’s just say it worked, but not without a price.
I don’t remember the details, but something happened, and the portal opened on top of me, killing me instantly.
You can see why I said it would be ironic, right?
Well, the thing is that it didn’t actually kill me. Not all the way through, at least.
At the same time that the portal shocked me with enough electricity to power a small town, my corpse was bombarded with incredibly high concentrations of ectoplasm, effectively bringing me back from the dead.
As you might know, Jon, no one who dies comes back the same. That ectoplasm became a part of me, and I changed into something other. I wasn’t a human anymore , not really , but I also wasn’t a ghost either . I was something in between, something that shouldn’t exist.
With the portal open, ghosts started coming through, not all with good intentions, which is how “Phantom” came to be. Someone needed to stop them, and I was the only one qualified for the job.
I had two friends, I think. Sam and... Tucker, maybe? I’m not sure, I don’t remember them. They helped me a lot during that time, even though I remember having some disagreements with them.
I can imagine you rolling your eyes now, Jon, maybe thinking something among the lines of “ghosts don’t exist” or that they might just be “avatars of the End”. I am very aware of your reputation as a skeptic, after all.
Were I Fenton or Stoker, maybe I would have corrected you, maybe I would even have explained to you how ectoplasm works and how and where to find a ghost.
But alas, I couldn’t care less, even more so when such information would be wasted in the likes of you, who would most likely never encounter anything outside your little carousel of Fear.
Whether or not you believe in ghosts does not affect me in any way, but neither will it help you to deny the things I say here.
It certainly didn’t help me.
At some point in time, due to the circumstances, I was forced to fight an alternate version of myself, a version from a future where my friends and family all burned to death in an accident at our favorite restaurant, and I was the only one who survived.
He was the most evil man I’d ever met in my life. He took great pleasure in killing and destroying everything around him, and showed absolutely no remorse. It didn’t matter whether it was someone he had once had dear or not, in fact, I would say he liked it more when it was someone he knew. I wouldn’t hesitate to say he was Desolation itself.
There was nothing I was more afraid of than turning out like him, turning into him.
That’s why... That’s why, when I lost everyone in that damned explosion, I ran away.
I was so afraid of losing all of my humanity, of destroying the few things I still had left, but the grief was too much. I couldn’t bear the thought of continuing to live without them, to continue to live with all this guilt, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
I couldn’t kill myself, I couldn’t erase my humanity to make it more bearable, I couldn’t do anything but suffer, alone and in pain.
It was too much. I almost considered giving up everything just so it would stop hurting.
I think that was the period I remember the most. I remember crying and screaming, many and many times, with no one to listen, just how unfair it was. I hated every aspect of myself. The one who opened that stupid portal, the one who wasn’t human, the one who survived the explosion, the one who was doomed to become a cruel villain, the one who was doomed to never die when everything around him came to waste. I hated him. I didn’t want to be him. I didn’t want to be Danny Fenton anymore.
So, well, maybe it wouldn’t be surprising to you that this is exactly what I got. So you wish it, so shall it be, as they say.
One day, I walked past a strange shop. There was nothing exactly eye-catching about it, not in the way you’d be thinking anyway. It looked like any little niche vintage shop you’d find hidden at the corner of a city.
There was nothing special about it, but as I walked past it, there was something that wanted me to go inside, something that pulled me towards it.
Aside from being a vintage shop, I couldn’t tell you what exactly they were supposed to selling there. There were a lot of objects and costumes, but there were no price tags, almost like those things were just decorations for the place instead of products.
When I went in, there was no one, no cashier, no customers, no one. I waited for a long time, and I almost left, but I was stopped by a smiling mannequin.
That is the best description that I have for it. A mannequin. There were no defining features to them, no meat below that skin, no saliva inside that mouth, just a mannequin.
To you, maybe, that would have been an instant red flag, a sign to leave and never go back, but to me, who was used to seeing ghosts in all shapes and forms, that didn’t scare me at all.
It made me an offer. I could get to live as someone else for ten years, to start anew with a new family and a fresh identity that I could mold to my liking, I could get to be Not Danny Fenton for ten years.
It came at a price, of course. These things always come at a price.
I would have to give up my human body.
I don’t think you’d understand even if I explained it to you, Jon. Or maybe you would, who knows? I just know that price seemed so pathetically small to get the chance to stop being me, that I accepted it without hesitating even a little.
And that’s how I became Danny Stoker.
A part of me expected to regret it, that it wouldn’t be enough for me to get over them, but to my surprise, it never happened.
I had everything I had ever wished. I no longer had parents that were obsessed with ghosts, I didn’t have to sacrifice my grades to play hero, I had more friends than I had ever thought I would and an awesome older brother, and I felt confident and loved just for being myself. I was even popular, something I could have never achieved on my own as Fenton.
People really are that replaceable, aren’t they?
The thing is, over the years, I forgot that I had ever been Fenton in the first place.
It felt like a distant dream, something that I thought had happened and just wasn’t true, and if it was, it didn’t matter. I had always felt more comfortable in the skin of Danny Stoker, anyway.
My happiness didn’t last, however. Once those ten years were up, they came for me, and, well. You know the rest.
I lost everything. I lost everything, but above all, Tim lost his brother.
I knew how badly it hurt to lose someone, and I tried coming back for him, I really did. I tried to tell him so many times, but every time I tried to show myself, he thought me to be part of The Stranger, so I had no choice but to watch from the sidelines. Like a ghost.
A Phantom.
His grief was what brought him to the Institute. His grief was what brought him into the Archives.
I’ve been watching you for a very long time, Jon. I’ve been watching you since you first recorded that Statement, since you started learning more about the supernatural and the Fears, I’ve. Been. Watching.
I was there in the Unknowing, you know? I watched Tim press that goddamned button. I watched everything erupt in flames and leave me the only one left standing.
That was when I realized. I was nothing more than a pawn for this very moment. I had no other purpose than to make Tim Stoker die in the ritual of The Unknowing, than to make you die and become something else, something Above Human, The Archivist.
And now that that purpose is fulfilled, I have no other use for The Mother of Puppets.
I wrote this Statement as a word of warning, Jon.
The Web has something big prepared for you. I couldn’t escape from its grasp, but at least you can try.
Best regards,
A Phantom.
“Statement ends.”
Jon breathed heavily, choking back on a sob, reaching to turn off the tape.