I don't know if anybody still does DP Angst Day, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

I actually wrote this in June; my friends and I were having a quick writing contest. I won "best technique"! (Then again, there were three entries and three categories… But hey.) I lengthened it for Angst Day. The short version is directly after the end of the long one.

It started slowly, which is probably why he didn't notice it.

Ever since the accident, his heartbeat was slow, maybe half of what a normal human's would be. And when he embraced the change, and controlled the powers, his fate was sealed.

Whenever he transformed, his heartbeat slowed to an almost non-existent pace. But when he changed back, and became human again, the constant thump-thump was slower than before. Not enough for him to notice, though.

And now that ghosts came every day, he was in ghost form nearly all the time. His grades dropped at an exponential rate, and his family almost never saw him.

When he was Fenton, there were only a few beats a day; hardly enough to keep his sanity grounded. He wasn't sure he was an even half anymore. But he was still alive… right?

Then it happened.

He was just sitting there with his friends, nothing happening for once: a welcome reprieve. But suddenly he gasped; not ghost-sense, but instead a painful tightening in his chest. His barely-there heartbeats increased quickly, blood pounding in his ears. He gripped his chest, scared out of his mind.

As quickly as it had come, it was gone.

His heart sputtered out, ending in one final, ominous thump.

He touched his lip, and found green-flecked blood. He glanced at his concerned friends. All three of them knew.

His heart had stopped.

He was dead.

It started slowly, which is probably why he didn't notice it. Every time he transformed, there was less of that reassuring thump-thump to keep him grounded. It got down to only a few beats a day, but by then he was in the other form so often he barely noticed.

But when it sped up quickly for seemingly no reason and then sputtered out, ending in one final, ominous beat, he knew.

His heart had stopped.

He was dead.

Review and tell me which you guys liked better!