Warning: Suicide Attempt!!

It took him a good two hours to decide how to word his letter, but he completed it with a resolved admission. It'd taken him even longer to decide to write the letter in the first place, but he'd made up his mind. When he… went through with it, they needed to know that everything was okay. That they shouldn't feel obligated to mourn him. He wasn't exactly their human son, after all. He was already half-dead, a blight on the living. A freak. A vessel of cobbled organs and ectoplasm, an object with no significant feelings. His pain is irrelevant; he is irrelevant

Danny folded the notebook paper into a neat square and left it on his desk. He signed it with Sharpie and pointed his desk lamp on it so they wouldn't miss it later. They'd be so relieved.

He could imagine Maddie's face when she found his note. Oh! she'd say. He was just a ghost, thank God! It's not like we're mourning a human.

Jack would nod, earnestly. Good thing we can put our guilt aside now.

He'd said everything he wanted to say. Now, it was time to put his plan into action. He'd waited long enough.

He left his bedroom and entered the Fenton laboratory with caution; a learned habit. His parents were at their work stations, analyzing ectoplasm samples. He'd hardly seen them out of the lab in the past few weeks. It made sense, anyway. They had more important things to worry about than their delinquent son. Not when they literally had their work carved out for them. Jazz tried her best to reason with them, she really did, but they were dedicated to their latest project.

Their ignorance only hurt a little less than the vivisection had.

Maddie looked up from her counter and caught his eye. She smiled at him and waved. It occurred to him that she must think he's there for the desktop computer. He forced a smile back and moved on. It was better not to dwell on the fact that she was diluting samples of his ectoplasm into different mixtures.

Steady hands pull a scalpel clean across his chest and giddily exclaim, "Look, Jack! There's more than one layer! Isn't it intriguing?"

"We should collect samples from each of them so we can contrast them later. It'll make a great report!"

He dismissed the memory with a shake of his head. That day didn't matter anymore, he couldn't let himself dwell on the source of his misery. His anguish had barred his soul the deception that his life meant something. His feelings? Insignificant. His pain? A delusion.

He was seeing clearly for the first time in a long time now… and at that moment, it was almost as if he was free.

The weapons vault swung open with a sickening 'creak'. Rows upon rows of weapons adorned the walls; an arsenal. All he had to do now was select one for the job. It would be easy to do it, but he wanted to make sure that he chose the perfect instrument of death. Preferably something that hurt. He wanted it to hurt. If he was going out, then he might as well ensure that it was a loud ending. It's what a freak deserved.

There were the M31s and the Proto-V-Blasters… but they seemed too bulky. Plenty of firepower, but not practical at all. Next were the Specter Pistols and his parents' latest model, the Jack-Gun-XR3. They were the perfect size, but they had weak cartridges. Unless he wanted to burn himself, they wouldn't work either. No, the perfect accomplice would be the Ecto-Ray-403. It was compact but packed a heavy blow. There was no doubt that it would obliterate him.

Danny removed it from its rack and turned it over in his hand. His heart pounded in his chest, taking its final beats before sweet reprieve. He felt giddy. In a matter of minutes, he wouldn't have to shoulder the weight of living. The endless cycle of never being good enough, of being torn down over and over and over… life was not good to him. This was his fate. Taking his own life would solve everyone's woes. Now the world wouldn't have to hear his pathetic pleas and nobody would have to endure his bullshit.

He was finishing the job the portal started. It was pitiful, really, how long he'd tried to hold onto life. Now that his parents had disillusioned him, the world could finally sever ties with Schrodinger's abomination.

He pressed the gun against his temple and let his finger rest on the trigger. From this angle, the blast would rip straight through his head and kill him instantly. He had to make sure everything was aligned, lest he risk hospitalization.

Suddenly, a cadence of footsteps snapped Danny out of his reverie. It occurred to him much too late that he'd left the vault door wide open and that he was about to be caught. Before he could move, Jazz—fiery hair splayed upwards and clutching a familiar scrap of paper—threw herself into the weapons vault. "Danny."

She had his note. She must have checked on him after he left and found it. Shit.

"Don't do this," her voice broke. "Danny, we love you. Put the gun down. Please."

Danny's voice hitched in his throat. He had to do this. He couldn't keep living in a world that wasn't for him. He couldn't keep suffering in silence, he just wanted out. Jazz would never understand. He loved her, but he hated himself so, so much more.

Jazz stepped forward and Danny realized that she wasn't alone. His parents had trailed behind her, eyes wide in horror. Maddie's hood was pulled over her face, but her jaw was practically on the floor. Jack wasn't much better, eyes darting between his daughter and his son in shock. They must have noticed Jazz's mad sprint towards the vault and followed the commotion. Damn it.

"Danny, I swear to God if you pull that trigger—!" she shouted.

He couldn't afford not to. Now that they knew his plan, they'd ask him why. Then they'd shackle him to the cold chains of life, placing him under enough surveillance that he couldn't try anything. If he was taking his life, it had to be now.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

Except he wasn't.

Danny shut his eyes and pulled the trigger. The gun hummed against his head and for a moment, he was free. The agonies of life were behind him and he was one with nothing, blissfully cast into the nether. Until it all came crashing down. Suddenly he was intangible and something tugged at his core, pulling him towards it. The gun evaporated from his grip and the world faded to gray.

The moment before everything dissipated, he caught a flash of clammy hands wrapped around a thermos. He felt like screaming because he knew exactly what had happened.

Jazz.

Maddie lingered at the entrance to the vault, hardly able to keep herself from hyperventilating. What had she just seen? Danny, her youngest, had entered the lab a few minutes earlier. He'd smiled at her, mirth playing across his lips. Seconds ago, Jazz had sprinted after him, frantically pushing aside any equipment that got in her way. She'd been startled, but followed her daughter, ready to give her a piece of her mind. Instead...

Danny had a gun pressed against his head. It was one of their older ones, a good model. Not of her favorites, but it was sleek and had a good grip. And it was pressed against her son's head.

The sight itself was enough to twist her stomach into knots. Jazz was shouting at him, pleading him not to do it. And Maddie was frozen, failing to comprehend that her son had a gun against his head.

"I'm sorry."

He moved to pull the trigger, but Jazz was faster. She lunged at one of the shelves and threw the cap off a Fenton Thermos. Her daughter aimed the capturing device at her brother and surely enough, Danny was pulled into it. Like a ghost. Her son… who had a gun against his head… had been pulled into a device that ghosts. Her mind was static; nothing made sense.

Jazz fell to her knees. Her daughter stared at the thermos in perplexion, entranced by the device. Maddie shook herself from her spell and stepped forward. She didn't know what had just happened, but she knew that it was bad. And she wanted answers.

"Jasmine," she whispered.

She flinched and held the thermos closer to her chest. "Don't."

Maddie blinked. She turned to Jack and he was just as baffled.

"Sweetie, I don't understand what just happened."

Jazz scoffed. "Of course you don't. It's not like this is all your fault!"

"Jazzpants," Jack spoke up, "we just want to know. Why did your brother…?"

"...try to off himself?" she stood and faced them. "It's sick that you don't know already. Three weeks with all those samples from your little 'experiment' and you're not any closer to the truth. Are you really that bad scientists? I've been waiting for you to figure it out for weeks. I tried to support him, I tried so much, but he's broken," she said bitterly. "He's broken because of what you did!"

Maddie faltered under Jazz's accusations. What was she talking about?

"Wh—what about our experiment?"

"That's what it all comes down to. What you did to him. You strapped him down and tortured the everliving fuck out of him. Don't you think," she hiccuped, "don't you think that affected him? He had to come home every day and see the people who cut him open? He couldn't even—even say a word! Don't you think that's why he wants to die?"

Jazz broke down into a fit of sobs again. Jack and Maddie exchanged a glance. Why did Jazz have the impression that they tortured Danny? They'd never 'tortured' anyone!

"Jazz, I don't know where you got the idea that we tortured your brother—"

"Oh, shove it!" she pulled a scrap of folded paper from her pocket. "Maybe this will give you what you want to know."

She threw the paper at Maddie's feet and stormed off from with the thermos tucked under her arm. Maddie called after her, but Jazz was gone before the words left her lips. Numbly, Maddie pulled the piece of paper from the floor and read.

My Suicide Note

Her heart stopped. It was morbid seeing the words in Danny's print, even though that's clearly what the letter entailed.

Hey, so you don't have to worry about me being dead its fine really. I've been dead for a while and just didn't tell you because I thought you'd hate me but now I know you hate me, so it kinda helped me get here. I know that my emotions aren't really real and that I shouldn't be so dramatic, but everything has hurt lately and I just don't want to be here. That and I don't deserve to live because I'm a freak. I guess it would help if I told you I'm Phantom. I went into the portal when I was 14 and died, but somehow I still have a heart beat and can change between human and ghost. I hope that knowing I'm a ghost makes my death easier on you because I know how much you hate me. Maybe my next life will be better. —Danny.

PS Jazz, Sam, Tuck: I appreciate all you guys did for me, but life wasn't right for me. I love you all so much and please don't blame yourselves.

By the time she finished reading, Maddie had dropped the letter. Her son… was Phantom. The same specimen that they had captured three weeks ago. She and Jack had run standard procedures on it… until it curiously escaped overnight. They'd gotten enough samples that Maddie wasn't entirely demoralized, but she'd still been furious for days. Meanwhile, her son… had fallen into a slump. He'd stayed locked in his room for days, according to Jazz. She hadn't realized that her daughter had been hinting something, then, but now it was clear as day.

She'd tortured her son.

As a result, he tried to kill himself.

Neither she nor Jack spoke for a long, long time. They stood in the weapons vault, surveying the state of their negligence.

What the fuck had they done?