#clone danny and his adventures in unwittingly becoming a ghost zone folk myth. his relationship with ghosts and the zone are so lovely to m

[starry-bi-sky]

Danny's used to finding lost kids in Amity.

The ghostly kind, that is. But the human variant happens on occasion too, usually when a too-lax parent takes their eyes off their child for far too long in the park. But he digresses.

It happens more often than he would like. He's not really sure what the family dynamics between ghosts are like in the Zone, he hasn't gotten around to asking about it. Although, it's not like he would be able to anyways — hard to ask questions about something you don't know much about. So far, it all seems kinda... laissez-faire.

Point is: Danny is used to finding lost kids in Amity.

It's since lost its novelty on him. Kids are kids everywhere, dead or alive, human or not. And kids are curious, and portals between the Infinite Realms and the Mortal World are rare in both dimensions. The braver ones will want to explore the things that are new and unknown to them, and they'll do so without any thought of what might happen.

The lost kids Danny finds are, more often than not, just kids who got curious about the portal and got too close to it, and ended up falling through. And in their panic and haste, accidentally fled the lab and got lost in the city.

Like right now.

The noise he makes as he squats to the ground, his knees bracketing his shoulders, is... well, the best way he could describe it is that it kind of sounds like a pigeon coo, or the trill a cat makes when you touch it while it's sleeping. It's as soft and as quiet as he could make it, while still being loud enough to be heard through his mask.

Ghostspeak is not a language that you can learn... technically speaking. That's because the majority of Ghostspeak relies heavily on core vibrations, of which Danny and other humans don't have. The verbal components that Ghostspeak does have also aren't done with the human vocal chords in mind, so most of the sounds Danny can't make.

...Except for a few.

The little noise he makes whips through the tunnel both him and the kid are in. The boy's terrified sniffling abruptly stops, if only because it's cut off by a teeny, startled gasp, and him snapping his head up at the sound.

Danny, crouched reminiscently like a frog, and a solid six feet away, tilts his head just slightly. He hunches his shoulders in and dips a little closer to the ground — it feels a bit awkward on his back, but he's found that moving unnervingly, even if it has to be animalistic, tends to help a lot in situations like these.

Lots of ghosts thrive off being weird and off-putting and inhuman; acting like one usually gets a lost ghost to calm down faster than if he didn't.

He can't parse how old the boy is — physically, he looks about eight, but he could always be older — but he can see shimmering, blue tear tracks streaking down his face. There's a snake-like seam stretching from both corners of his mouth and connecting up to his jaw, and little patches of scales around his yellow-eyes.

The boy's eyes go wide at the sight of him, before his pupils abruptly shrink into needles. The temperature plummets and the boy's mouth peels back to reveal two curved, deadly-looking fangs, and a perfunctory hiss comes out of his mouth.

"Go away!"

Danny does not go away, goosebumps rake down his arms and spine, and he cranes his neck until he hears it pop. The ringing in his ears subside, he braces and reaches back— "Ḩ̶̢̤͉̜̔̕- H̶̩́͋e̶̘̋̅̈̀ļ̵͎͉̑̒̚p̵͙̫͉̏."

He can't help the soft grunt that escapes him after, swaggling his head left and right like a lion shaking out its mane. His mask hides his grimace — he generates enough of his own ectoplasm to understand Ghostspeak and to have a few intrinsic abilities of his own, but compared to an actual ghost, it's minuscule.

It's like trying to speak in a register lower than your throat can handle; on a technical level he can in some aspects, but it still hurts to do. It's one of the few actual words he knows how to say, most are just sounds. Rumbles and trills and purrs that he's somewhat perfected.

The boy's face scrunches up, he shrinks a little away from Danny, looking both equally wary and judgmental. Which.. yeah, fair. That's the usual response. The boy croaks: "What?"

Danny tilts slightly forward — only enough to shift from a crouch to a partial kneel. He points at the boy, and then slowly draws his finger back to point at himself. "H̶̩́͋e̶̘̋̅̈̀ļ̵͎͉̑̒̚p̵͙̫͉̏," He repeats, throat straining, "ḩ̴̲̘̺͗͂ě̵̳̼̝̀̎͠͝l̶̬͈͍̳͂̓͆p̷̢̡̧̛̩̟̆̅͐͘."

He reaches back and tries to flare what little ecto-signature he has, and follows up with a low-rumbling noise he knows for certain means 'safecomfortsafe'.

Danny points to the exit of the tunnel: "H̵̼̹͎̊̏́͑̂͘͜ǫ̴̠̺̜̞́̕͜m̵̪̋e̸̢̞͔̞̺͛̽."

That seems to catch the boy's attention, his head perks up and his folded, pointed ears flap slightly. Unsteadily, his knees draw away from his chest, some of his distrust melting away like frost under the sun. "You- you know where home is?"

Danny can't say the word 'yes', its out of his range and his capabilities. But he knows how to mimic the sound of 'pleased', so he presses his cheek to the ground — ignoring the unpleasant clack it makes as mask thunks against concrete — and nods, replicating the trill.

The boy looks hopeful, a crack in the ice, before suddenly remembering to be wary. He shrivels back again, his brows furrowing and eyes narrow. "Who are you?"

"H̷͇͚̹͝e̶͉͑͗͒̂͝ĺ̸̡͇̟̅p̸̰̕." Danny repeats, because he doesn't know how to say "Phantom" in ghostspeak, and not every ghost knows English — Wulf is the first to come to mind in that regard. He points again to the exit: "H̵͈͉̖̳͚̾̀͐̄̀ö̶͖͑̄͝ḿ̷̨̭̬͋͆̃́e̵̺͑."

"Is that all you know how to say?" The boy asks, (more like demands) "Help and home?"

Danny nods again, he sits back up and slowly crawls back outwards from the tunnel, gesturing for the boy to follow. "H̴̤̊o̶̢̳̻͓̿m̵̘̘̀e̸̡̝̼̓̉," is all he says, "H̴̤̊o̶̢̳̻͓̿m̵̘̘̀e̸̡̝̼̓̉."

He only crawls back a few steps before stopping — he's not actually going to leave until he's certain the kid was going to follow him. And so far he wasn't moving, yet.

They stare at each other for a few long seconds, Danny watching expectantly. Emotions run rapid and rabbit across the kid's face, flickering between uncertainty and consideration. After a few minutes, victoriously, the boy drops his legs and begins to follow.

Danny rewards him with a very pleased trill. Perhaps some of his joy bleeds through his signature— the lines in the boy's face disappear for a moment as a little giggle escapes him.

"What are you?" The boy asks him once they're closer to the entrance, Danny holds his arm out to prevent the boy from walking out, and then peers out of the tunnel for stragglers. It's the middle of the night in Amity Park, but you never really know. "You don't feel like a ghost."

Ah, well. Danny glances at the boy, how does he explain liminality to someone who might not grasp the concept, and might not even know English? He barely understands himself what he is.

Danny shrugs, and points to himself, "H̷e̵l̷p̴."