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The clocks were ticking.
All around him, clock faces tick-tocked at different speeds, a gentle metronome of sound. Some were old, beautiful grandfather clocks with ornate woodwork and gold enamel, waiting to be wound; others were sleek, fluorescent digital clocks, casting a luminescent glow as he passed them by.
Clockwork sighed. He switched his staff from one hand to the other, drumming his now younger fingers against the wood. There was an unidentifiable energy vibrating through him, through his chamber, causing his forms to switch rapidly. He glanced between the different clock faces, waiting for something.
This energy signature had been slowly building over the course of the day. Clockwork could feel the vibrations off of him, as if a bomb were exploding in silence behind him. His arms felt like taught skin, even though he had no earthly body. His form shimmered into old age.
“What?” he shouted to no one as his form shifted yet again. The rapidity with which he was flowing through time was nauseating him.
Without a word, the energy exploded into a chaotic wave, causing the edges of his form to fizzle. Clockwork choked and leaned forward on his staff, clutching tightly to stabilize. The energy became a pressure against him, squeezing his body in on itself. The clock faces rippled in response, suddenly ticking faster than normal. Even the edges of his home swayed. And then--
A glow burst into life beside him; his all seeing eye. He glanced up, still leaning forward on his staff, still rapidly shifting through forms, and watched as the eye dulled and came into color. It was showing him something.
“What’s this, now?” he mumbled, pushing himself straight. The pressure had reached its apex and was slowly ebbing, but still pulsated around him.
The eye came into focus. It didn’t reveal much, but Clockwork could see what looked like three young humans. Their skin was smooth, their features rounded and soft. Adolescents. Faces still youthful. Clockwork clicked his tongue; it was rare for his all-seeing eye to show him specific humans.
One of the humans, a skinny, dark-haired boy, was standing at the head of what looked like a solid metal gate. He was standing half inside, half out, his hands clutching something that was white, black and long.
Clockwork drifted closer, still clutching his staff. The energy continued to pulse.
"Well, I have always wanted to go inside of this thing," the boy said, touching the sides of the gate. He seemed nervous. "I mean, I can't even imagine all the awesome , super-cool things that exist on the other side of this portal."
"C'mon, Danny, just take a quick look," one of the other humans said from behind the boy. A young female, also dark-haired, nervous but with a palpable excitement.
"I… don't know," he said. "I mean… why me?"
" Your parents built it," the third human replied, taking his backpack off and walking up to the portal. "C'mon, man, just look at it." The first boy didn't reply. Instead, he turned back to the dark portal before him, pulling the black-and-white suit in his hands over himself.
"I… don't understand," Clockwork said. He leaned back from the eye and froze it with a wave of his hand. "What is the significance of this event?” The energy tensed. The clocks started to slow their ticking.
"Show me what happens after this!" he cried upwards. He raised his staff. "Show me why this is important!" The clock faces began to glow stark white, and their ticking ceased. Slowly, each one illuminated with images unlike anything Clockwork had seen before.
The boy, the dark-haired boy named Danny, would take on another identity. His hair would turn a brilliant white, his eyes a fluorescent green. He would adorn that suit from that day forward.
He would become a ghost.
This portal would become a crossroads between his world and theirs. Ghosts would roam freely among humans, and this one young human would keep them at bay. Clockwork saw faces of those he knew well, many of them former humans themselves, taking advantage of the rare access to their past world. This young boy would keep these ghosts at bay with powers no human should have, and would grow in strength and notoriety as he used them.
"How fascinating,” Clockwork said. His eyes followed the clock faces, too numerous to take in at once. “This youth will continue to live, yet utilize the powers of the Ghost Zone. How fascinating indeed.”
A soft th-thud filled the room. Th-thud, th-thud, th-thud. Clockwork had heard it before, but it had been so long it took him a moment to realize what it was.
“A heartbeat,” he said, leaning on his staff. The heartbeat was quick, as if running from him. Clockwork closed his eyes in thought.
"I understand,” he said. He waved his hand to start the eye’s vision once more. “If he goes into the portal in the middle of a heartbeat, he comes out with these... ghost abilities. However, if he is between heartbeats…” he opened his eyes.
One by one, the clock faces faded to black, as if someone draped a curtain over all of them. Clockwork clicked his tongue and nodded. The sign of death. If the faces were blank, that meant that there was no future to show. He waved again, and the clocks resumed as normal, ticking as if nothing had happened.
Clockwork focused on the orb-like eye, watching as the young boy zipped up the suit. He stepped fully into the portal, the only light on him coming from outside. His friends watched anxiously, eyes darting between the portal and the door behind them.
"I wonder... what will happen?" Clockwork mused.
He watched as the boy -- Danny -- stepped cautiously into the darkness. He watched as his hand grazed a switch embedded into the side of the portal, so sensitive that it enacted without Danny realizing.
Clockwork listened as Danny's heart pumped when he pressed the button. The beating was so loud it was drowning out the ticking of the clocks. Danny’s hand released the button.
His heart was between pumps. That was when the shock came.
Clockwork flinched as Danny screamed in pain, thousands of volts of electricity and ecto-energy coursing through his small frame. Clockwork knew enough to know humans were not equipped for that kind of energy input. The boy convulsed, his flesh searing, the ecto-energy tearing at him and through him. Clockwork was so focused on the horrifying scene before him he nearly missed the fact that the beating had ceased around him.
The shock ended, and Danny’s body was ejected from the portal, crashing into one of his companions behind him. The two of them crashed into the far wall with a sickening thud, and both crumpled to the ground. The girl was frozen beside the portal, eyes wide in shock. For a moment, there was silence in the room. Then, the girl moved.
"Tucker! Danny! " she screeched, running towards them and dropping down to her knees. "Oh my God! Are you okay? What happened?” The boy Danny had hit was dazed, rubbing his head, glasses gone from his face. Danny was draped over him, unmoving, save for the tendrils of smoke coming off his shoulders.
“I think I--I hit my head,” the boy murmured, squinting up at the girl. “It hurts.”
“Don’t move,” the girl instructed, crawling forwards. She lifted the boy’s cap and winced as blood dripped down his face. “It’ll be okay. Just don’t move. Danny?” The girl gingerly held Danny’s shoulders and turned him onto his back on the other boy’s lap. “Danny?”
Still no sound in Clockwork’s cavern. The ticking continued faintly in the background. Clockwork shifted to his younger form.
The front of Danny’s body was burnt. His chest seemed to have borne the brunt of the damage from the portal, and his torso was blackened and charred. His arms and legs lay useless beside him, his eyes half open. The blood splattered over him made his skin seem white. The girl trembled as she looked him over, carefully avoiding the damage to his body.
“Danny?” she said a third time, in a voice so small Clockwork could barely hear. Her trembling was so great that blood smeared his cheek when she went to touch him. The other boy, although injured himself, was watching intently, eyes wide. He looked up and matched eyes with the girl.
“Tucker,” she said in that same small voice, “I n-need you to call an a-ambulance.” Tears were free-flowing down her cheeks. “Can you d-do that?”
“Uh… yeah,” the boy said, still dazed. “Is he…?”
“I--” the girl started, but a choking sob stopped her words. She curled her hands into fists on Danny’s chest, fingers covered in blood. “We can’t h-have his p-p-parents find us like th-this.”
The boy nodded solemnly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device. The girl stared at Danny, muttering to herself. “ No, no, no, no, no…”
It would be some time until the trio were discovered. Danny’s parents would arrive to find an ambulance outside their home, with nothing but sorrow within.
A week later, they would lay him to rest. Clockwork watched it all unfold, feeling somewhat… solemn. He never involved himself with ordinary humans, for their lives were so fleeting, there was barely any point. This one… this one felt different.
The funeral faded from his all-seeing eye, the subject of its focus now just a memory.
Such an incredible future there could have been; a human with the abilities of a ghost. A half-living specter. What would it have been like?
(And what of the now-active portal to the human world? It seems to be forgotten…)
Five days later, while scanning the Ghost Zone for anything of note, Clockwork received word of a white-haired, green-eyed, young ghost who was wandering around the Zone without a name, a plan, or a reason. When he inquired about this ghost’s whereabouts, no one could provide a straight answer. All they knew was that he was “highly unusual”.
When Clockwork returned to his cavern, he used his all-seeing eye to locate the ghost. It was precisely who he thought it was.
“Are you still going to do your duty, young ghost?” Clockwork asked, although the ghost could not hear him. “The portal is still open. Ghosts will still enter the human world.” Clockwork smiled to himself.
"Will you still become Danny Phantom?”
The clocks continued to tick-tock, tick-tock.