#please forgive any errors I got my wisdom teeth removed this morning and I’m nauseous and high as balls

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Ah fuck forgot to post it here… Ectober day 1

PATH OF WHITE STONES

[Warning for dead bodies/corpses, fanon-typical horror &c.]

Between Amity Park and Lake Eerie, there were miles and miles of woods. Dark, and twisting, and easy to get lost in. You could walk ten feet into the woods, and when you looked behind you, already you'd lost sight of where you came from. Who knows how many people have gone in and never come out? Who knows how many have thought the woods were the perfect place to hide a body?

Even before the portal opened in the Fentons' basement, even before the town of Amity Park really believed in ghosts, there were stories about those woods being haunted. Stories of people getting lost until they met a kind stranger who led them back out, and then vanished. Stories of people seeing creepy shadows in the corners of their eyes, and hearing whispering voices telling them to get out.

Danny had never put much stock in these stories, until one day, he went into the woods, chasing down an angry bear ghost, undoubtedly one of Vlad's, though the man himself hadn't shown his face. He'd made Sam and Tucker stay behind, since, while he could just fly above the trees toward home, they could easily get lost.

It wasn't long before Danny felt a tug in his chest, like someone puling on an ice-cold thread tangled up in his rib cage. At first, he tried to ignore it. He listened for the bear, kept his eyes peeled for any sign of its eerie blue pelt or its extra extendable claws, but somehow, he'd lost it. He kept getting distracted by that tug in his chest.

Not giving up, but sidelining the bear hunt for a moment, he followed the tug in his chest, letting it guide him toward an oblong ring of mushrooms underneath a huge tree, where the tug kept pulling him down, down. Against his better judgement, he shook off his fear and started to dig. Less than a foot bellow the dirt, something white poked through, and Danny picked it up, thinking it was a stone of some kind.

What he held in his hand was no stone, but a human vertebrae.

Jakob Wrona, died 1976, stabbed in the neck by his brother.

Danny's eyes widened and he dropped the bone with a yelp and a start. He didn't want to know who they came from, but the name had popped into his head unbidden. The tug, which had faded momentarily, returned, this time, pulling him in a different direction.

Again, it pulled him toward the ground, and again, he unearthed a human bone, this time a femur.

Maria Vasquez, died 1980, pushed down the stairs by her husband.

Danny couldn't breathe, and was too busy staring in horror to thank the Ancients he didn't actually need to, then the tug resumed, pulling him deeper into the woods. The next one was buried deep, more than six feet, and Danny sunk into the ground with intangibility, rather than dig, already knowing what he would find, but unable to stave off his morbid curiosity. He knew as soon as he reached the body, still fleshy and crawling with maggots.

Kaitlyn Chu, died 2004, strangled with a wire by her academic rival.

Danny remembered seeing the news when Kaitlyn Chu went missing. It had been just a few months before his accident, just before the girl was supposed to graduate high school. To him memory, no one was ever charged with her disappearance, and since no body was found, most assumed she'd ran away. How many had gotten away with murder just by burying the body in these woods.

The icy tug led Danny back upward. Deeper and deeper into the forest, to a great old tree with hollow looking roots. He reached into the hollow roots, and up, and with a crack, he pulled out a shoe, the mostly decomposed foot still inside. With a shout, he stuffed the shoe back into the hollow tree with intangibility.

Peter Hanson, died 1992, attacked while on a hike.

It was all too much. Forget the bear. Danny would let it rampage against the various woodland creatures for all he cared about it now. He shot up into the sky, ignoring the chilling pull in his chest as he flew over the woods at top speed, and it adjusted ever few seconds, trying to pull him toward a different body, a different story he didn't want to know.

He could see the edge of the woods, and Fenton Works beyond it. He had gone much farther in than he'd thought, but he was almost home free. The pull in his chest shifted again, this time pulling him so hard he dropped out of the sky and crash landed on the forest floor. Whose bones would it be this time? Who wanted to be found so badly they could wrench him out of the sky. Practically trembling with nerves, Danny followed the pull once more, hoping to get it over with.

It brought him to the middle of a clearing, where, if he looked up, he could see stars. He laid down on a slight indentation in the soil, turned intangible, and let the ground swallow him until he was about three feet down, and he settled right into the corpse below.

Daniel Fenton, died 2004, killed by one of his parents' lab experiments.

Had there been air, Danny would have gasped. He tried to jump back up out of the ground, but it was as if the bones were holding him there. Struggling, he finally managed to shake them off, and at top speed, he rocketed out of the grave, out of the clearing, and out of the woods.

It had to have been Sam and Tucker who buried him, but why had they never said anything? This must've been why they'd looked so surprised and shaken up when he returned to school. Why had they never said anything? Should he?

In the end, Danny never brought it up with them, either his shallow grave, or the new ability he'd discovered to find the restless dead. But he still thought about the corpse in the woods sometimes. Hard to forget where you are buried.

#please forgive any errors I got my wisdom teeth removed this morning and I’m nauseous and high as balls #danny phantom #fic #ectoberweek2022 #day one #dp #danny fenton #angst #things i wrote