"What screws up our lives the most is the picture in our heads of how it's supposed to be."
- - -
Danny wasn't supposed to go outside. He wasn't allowed. The men in white suits told him he was dangerous, he was evil. He had to stay inside to keep everyone safe. Sometimes, not very often anymore, they ran tests on him. Those tests hurt. More often than not they kept him conscious when they did it, said he had to learn how unnatural he was. As if he didn't already know. It had been two years already.
When Danny was nine his parents had been so excited, they had made a portal into another world. A world of ghosts. But when they tried to switch on the machine it hadn't worked. Feeling dejected they left their nine year old son and his friends downstairs and moped around upstairs. Danny's friend Sam told him to go and have a look inside. Danny hadn't wanted to, it was big and creepy looking. But Sam had pressed the issue and so after pulling on a little hazmat suit he ventured inside. There had been so many wires that he managed to trip on one but he caught himself before he fell. He looked confused at the beep he heard and looked to find that in his attempt to not fall he'd pressed a button. A button that said ON. And before a sense of fear and dread could completely overtake him the machine whirled to life. Electricity buzzed through him. Every nerve in his tiny body lit with pain. He screamed. And then it all went dark. When he woke in the hospital he was diagnosed with a slightly abnormal heart beat and low temperature but was considered okay enough to leave. They expected the symptoms to get better. But they didn't. Danny's heart slowed down to dangerous levels, but he felt fine. His temperature dropped further, making him feel like ice to the touch but he didn't feel cold himself, only to others.
The machine was on, his parents were happy and thus, unaware of their son's changes. He gradually figured out how to use the strange abilities he'd developed. He could turn invisible, though not always by his own will. He could float and fly, again sometimes it happened before he wanted it to. He could shoot lasers from his hands that eventually he learnt was ectoplasm. But it hurt to do so, the energy seared his flesh. In human form anyway. Half a year after the incident and Danny figured out he had another form. A form where the 'lasers' didn't hurt him. That was about the time that ghosts figured out the portal wasn't dangerous to them. It was a way out. Danny tried to help keep them in, which resulted in his friends Sam and Tucker to find out about his powers. He begged for them to keep it quiet. He was scared his parents would hate him. And with ample cause too as they always swore ghosts were evil.
Then about a month after he turned 10, after an argument with Sam about weather he was evil for stopping his parents from seeing a ghost, which was their life dream, she told his mother what he was. Danny had never felt so betrayed and in his anger he lashed out at her, accidentally shooting a 'laser' at the wall near her head. She'd screamed and called him evil but Danny protested. He was good right? He just wanted to keep the town safe by keeping ghosts away. In his distress things around him began to float. His mother watching in shock and fury. She shot him down with a net. It burned him, he couldn't go through it. He begged her to take it off. "It hurt's." He'd cried. "Please, mum take it off."
"Don't call me that you ectoplasmic scum. You stole my son." She had growled in reply, dialing a number on her phone.
"I am your son. Mum please." Danny sobbed. It hurt, her rejecting him, it hurt more than the net stinging his skin. At that moment Tucker came downstairs, flanked by Jazz who'd only just recently found out. Maddie was on the phone and Sam was standing smugly over Danny.
"Sam, what did you do?" Tucker cried.
"I told the truth." Sam answered. "Danny's evil Tucker. Didn't you listen to anything his parents said? Ghosts are evil."
"Danny isn't evil! He's the nicest person out there, remember when Paulina pulled your hair in the sandpit and called you ugly how Danny shoved her away and said you were prettier than her? He had his powers then. He didn't use them and he defended you. Remember when Dash tried to break my glasses again? Danny tricked him into giving them back, again not using his powers. He's not evil. He's our friend. He's my friend." Tucker yelled. Jazz was too horrified to speak, the net was making ugly red burns on her brothers arms. She rushed forward to pull it off only for her mother, who was done on the phone, to keep her away.
"You're hurting him!" She finally managed to say.
"It doesn't feel pain it just wants you to pity it." Maddie said coldly. "Take Sam and Tucker home."
"But-"
"Take them home now Jazz." Jazz flinched at her mother's cold expression. She looked at Danny fearfully.
"Go Jazz, it's okay." Danny said softly. Maddie turned and kicked him causing him to gasp in pain.
"Don't talk to my daughter." She hissed. Danny curled into a ball and Jazz, crying silently led the two upstairs, Tucker by the hand and Sam by her shoulder. She dropped Sam off first despite her living further away.
"See you tomorrow Tucker." The younger girl had said. Tucker shook his head and glared.
"I don't want to ever see you again." Tucker growled storming away. Jazz quickly followed and requested he come back with her to the house to see if he could help her free her brother. She was only 12, she was going to need help. But even though he agreed it was for naught. A bunch of men in white suits came and had Danny locked up in their van. They were taking him away. Jazz and Tucker stared hopelessly at the vehicle as it sped away.
Danny was taken to a lab. The experiments seemed endless at first as was the constant reminder that he was an unnatural and evil creature. He wasn't even worthy of a name. He was subject 1A. Eventually the experiments slowed and so interaction with those saying he was evil slowed as well. But the words had worked down into his very core. So many people claiming he was evil, his own mother, he best friend, they couldn't all be lying could they? And Danny truly began to feel like it was true. He was evil. And he was to stay inside to keep everyone safe.
---
Danny wasn't supposed to go outside. He knew this. Everyone knew this. So why was the strange blue man, who kept changing his age, trying to get him to leave his cell? The man was a ghost he explained. Danny looked at the man with absolute terror and backed furthur into the corner he was curled up in. "I'm evil. So are you. We are supposed to stay away from humans." He whispered.
"I am not evil. And neither are you. Danny, the humans do not understand what we are. They don't understand and so they fear and shun us. But we are not evil. Not all of us. Just like not every human is good. Do you understand?" The blue man explained in a calm manner.
"I do but you are lying. They wouldn't have done this if I wasn't. Don't you see. I am evil. I am dangerous." Danny mumbled. The ghost man floated forward and Danny flinched violently. "No, go away! Stay back." He shouted flinging his arms out to make a stop motion and accidentally shooting lasers instead, they harmlessly hit the wall next to the ghost. He looked at his hands horrified and drew in a shaky breath. His small, thin, malnourished and heavily bruised and scarred body, shuddering as he did. "See. I can't control it. I'm just going to hurt someone."
"Daniel." The ghost said in a somewhat scolding manner. "If you were evil you would not care if you hurt someone. You are afraid of your powers you are rejecting who you are, because some silly humans decided to lock up a young child and mentally and physically torture him just to satisfy their sick need to validate their own existence." Now despite the words being thought of as angry the man spoke in a deathly calm voice. Danny stared up at him with wide blue eyes and found the words seemed to be reaching down to his core where the deepest and most elusive scars floated around him.
"I... " Danny wanted to tell him he was wrong. Didn't he? He was evil. His own family thought so.
"Daniel, please see reason. If you do not I'm afraid I will have to leave you here. And if I do, I won't be able to come back." The ghost said and Danny could hear concern and compassion in the ghosts voice. "You are not evil. I can teach you to control your powers, to develop and control any new ones you gain. I only want to help you reach your full potential."
"But where would I go?" Danny asked worriedly. "My family hate me. My friend betrayed me. The whole town knows about me I'm sure."
"They do not all hate you. But that is something to see at a later time. You will live with me as my apprentice." The ghost said. Danny had long forgotten the feeling of being wanted for anything other than experiments. The feeling seemed to grow and warm his icy skin. He wanted to go. So badly. "You aren't evil Danny. Just misunderstood, even by yourself." The ghost held out his hand and hesitantly Danny took it.
- - -
Danny stood still in the doorway for two reasons. Not a single guard had come nor had any alarms gone off when he was taken from the cell. But the main reason was that one more step and he'd be out in the sunlight.
"It won't bite you." The ghost said with a slight smile. Danny, feeling foolish took a deep breath and stepped out into the sun. He looked around as if expecting himself to burst into flames and perish. But he wasn't a vampire. "Ready to go?" The ghost asked softly.
"But... I don't even know your name." Danny realised. The ghost smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I am Clockwork."