Welcome to the dead zone, meaning the tiny lump of brain cells in my mostly empty skull that still function in a strange and cosmic way that ensues strange stories and tales which you will see in more of my writing. For now the tiny lump is still alive, but if you can listen close enough you can hear their screams of agony as they’re dying a horrible slow death inside the empty vacuum between my ears. Yeeah, so here I am in all of my not-so-glorious glory. Forgive my crappy writing skills. I’m warning you early on that I SUCK. Okay now that that’s out of the way;

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Danny Phantom or any related characters. They belong to Butch Hartman.

Oblivion

Quiet can’t really be described in a logical way. Quiet is quiet, meaning no sound, or lack of sound completely. The only instance in which an exception can be formed is when the only thing you hear, or ever will for the rest of eternity, is the mind-warping, absolutely deafening silence that lies within the deep realms of Oblivion.

For those who make it that far, they’d wish they had never lived, died, or anything in-between. His case was no different, or perhaps it was in the cosmic recesses of the void, but only remotely. We bring you into this story just as a young man had arrived at the very gates of Oblivion, and was facing the gatekeeper who would forever hold his soul in the deepest pits of what some call ‘a fate worse than hell’…

There was no light, and there was no sound. There was no anything save for the empty void that stretched on far into the recesses of eternity, of which there would never be any end. He didn’t need to move, one because he didn’t know if he even could, and two, no matter how much he moved, there would never be any escape.

“Thou art from between the realms are thee not?” a deep voice boomed through the darkness. At first it seemed that the speaker was yelling, or had raised his or her voice, but upon closer analyzing, the voice was only made loud by the silence that surrounded it.

He looked ahead. There was still nothing, but he answered, hoping his own voice would not boom so loudly in the abyss. “Yes, I suppose I am. Who are you? Where am I?” Much to his dismay his voice did have a much louder volume than intended, and he desperately hoped that whomever it was that was listening had not taken it as an offense.

“Thou art in the realm known only as Oblivion, where you shall spend the rest of your spiritual, physical, and mental life. Who I am is of no importance to you. You only need know that I am the Gatekeeper, and you shall never get past me.”

This time he had been ready for the loudness of the voice, and managed to keep from what he thought was wincing at the intense volume. “Why am I here?” he called, no longer shrinking away from the sound of his own voice.

“You have died, or to put it simply your physical body has been destroyed. Your mind and your soul now belong to us, for you have committed many deeds that govern us to imprison you. Your mind and consciousness will know no other sensations than the seldom ones you experience here. You will not die, escape, or become old here. You have become part of the fabric of time, and will feed it. You are a slave to the Continuum, and will forever remain that way.”

“Deeds? What kind of ‘deeds’ have I committed that ‘governs’ you to keep me here?”

“You have forever altered the timeline in more than one universe. You have caused harm to come to many people, and for that you are here. You have caused great chaos in the ghostly realm which cannot be undone. Your future self destroyed almost everything in one universe. These acts are inexcusable, no matter how much good you have done in recompense for these instances.”

If he could have collapsed he would have been on the floor, or whatever was the bottom of here, in less than a second. All that time he had given up for protecting people, all the things he had sacrificed for their safety, and all of it had gotten him nothing but a free ticket to the darkest fate in any galaxy.

He hung his head. Finally actual movement. He could feel his body, and he curled and uncurled his fingers. The substance they closed around when they were curled felt nothing like air. It seemed more like solid guilt emanating from the lost souls trapped in the eternal darkness.

Without realizing it his eyes began to tear up. Apparently they could do that. What surprised him was when they had fallen from his eyes, and were beginning their descent down his cheeks, they were a silvery pearl, and emitted a small amount of light, a very comforting spectacle in the deep gap between reality and true death.

But what had made him cry? He wasn’t angry, or happy, that was for damn well sure. He was sad yes, he was miserable yes, but it was something much deeper than simple, empty sadness.

Then it hit him. His mind had brushed past the subject and made him tear up. He had let people down. His family, his friends, people in general. Even when he was protecting them he had let them down. He had unleashed the unknown evil of the Ghost Zone and tried to make up for it by playing hero. Well playing hero hadn’t cut it, playing hero still got people hurt, still damaged property, still ruined everything. Everything.

“What are you doing?” The voice was different this time. It was not the steely, factual tone it was before, in fact it sounded genuinely, confused.

“Crying I guess,” he replied quietly, his voice finally at the volume that was tolerable.

“I understand what it is you are doing, but how are your tears angelic?”

“Angelic? What are you talking about?” Now he was thoroughly confused, first he was a freak in society, then a wretch in the pits of Oblivion, and now he was angelic?

“Yes, only tears of angels are of the silver pearl and glow. How is it a mere boy is able to understand the deep sorrow angel’s tears signify?”

Two words could be used to describe his feelings right then: dumbstruck, or dumbfounded. Either way you ended up with the severe look of misunderstanding that adorned his face.

“If your tears are truly angelic, then a great mistake has been made, greater than any other I have ever seen. Your place is not here, of that there is no doubt. You shall return now to whence you came, and shall nay return as long as I guard this gate.”

In a huge rush his senses came flooding back to him, smell, touch, everything, and as his swirling mind was thrown back into his awaiting body, he was aware of a single thing, a single memory of someone smiling, and wherever they were, it was bright.

As the haze over his mind began to fade, he came to notice his eyes were closed, and as he slowly opened them, he was met with a shining amethyst that had survived in his memory through the deep black of Oblivion, and a single word,

“Danny?”

So goes the tale of the angel, fallen to Oblivion, then risen again with greater glory than ever told by a mortal or otherwise. Tall tales to be told lie ahead, and many are taller than some of the oldest stories in the histories of the galaxy, and all share the single boy who changed the world.

Ta da! There, my first one-shot! Mmkay, read, review, all that jazz, and I’m out of here.

-dzd