I felt compelled to write something darker than Deathtales, this idea of a Timephoon alternate ending just appeared in my head and I had to write it.

Hopefully lighter content is coming soon, hopefully before the season 3 premiere. Lighter content such as the second chapter of Road Trip, which I promise I'm working on, just slowly.

WARNING- This story contains implications of self-harm and suicide. It's not overly explicit but don't read this if it would be harmful to you. Ultimately every single one of you is more important than the number of reviews and likes.

Louie was alone in a void, trying to remember what had happened, leading up to the loss of everything. He swore he could hear screaming but when he turned around it was all just silent, still, and solitary. His eyes and head hurt from the brightness of everything and he had to put on his rarely worn glasses and blink for a minute before everything calmed a little and he could reflect.

This had been his fault, his scheme. He remembered how perfect of an idea time travel was and how perfectly it had all fallen apart. He remembered standing in an empty room close to tears waiting desperately for his family to blink back into existence. And then, the part that hurt to remember, he remembered arguing with his mom. He remembered her accusing him of being selfish and careless, he remembered him accusing her of being just like him. Then, grounded for likely the rest of his life, he turned around with tears stinging his eyes, stopped only by a shaking, smoking time tub.

Louie had only had 11 seconds to react. As a glow began to build from the time machine Louie dove towards it, protecting his family from the impending blast. The ringing of the explosion still haunted him and he had no idea how long he'd been in this blank space. It was empty, devoid of color except what he had on him, devoid of anything material but painfully full of sensation. Sharp smells assaulted his nose until it bled from sneezing, sounds, mostly horrible and screeching, caused his head to ache. The brightness of the void made him dizzy, and on occasion, he could swear he saw stretched unnatural forms, the phantom purple-blue color of a light spot that appeared in front of your eyes after staring at the sun for too long. Sounds, sights, smells that were not really there. As for taste, his mouth only tasted of blood, from the nosebleeds he assumed. Touch was not spared either, for he was in a constant state of pins and needles all over like his whole body was cut off from proper blood flow at all times.

Louie did everything he could immediately to fight those feelings. He took inventory, careful not to set anything down. He had allowed a drop of blood to fall from his nose into the void, hoping to find comfort in the splash of red that would offset all that white. The blood had disappeared in an instant. He couldn't be sure the same wouldn't happen to his belongings. He had his glasses, which already sat firmly on his face, he had a can of pep, a shiny rainbow pocket knife from some touristy place in the mountains, his scheming notebook, a pen, about ten dollars and fifty cents, and his phone, which had no wifi, no service, and no functioning clock. He knew he was there for a long time but the clock never wavered from the moment he had disappeared into this void. He blasted downloaded music, listening to the same songs over and over and screaming along until his throat was raw from singing. He took pictures, tracking the changes in his appearance as he aged. He memorized those changes when the phone battery finally crawled to zero and he could only use his phone as an overpriced and generally terrible mirror. He kept a journal, writing down his stream of consciousness for that was all that he had to hold on to as he got older.

He spent a lot of time writing about what he thought his family would be doing in the real world. He thought that his brothers would grow up to be very successful and happy. Dewey would be an actor, or a musician, or an adventurer. Maybe all three, he had the energy for it. Huey would become a detective, or a professor, or a scientist. Probably all three, he had the mind for it. Webby would for sure become a spy. His mom would continue to be an adventurer and a pilot, his uncle would continue to be a worrywart and a sailor. Scrooge would continue to be a multibillionaire, assuming that Glomgold hadn't won the bet, which seemed impossible. Louie was almost happy to envision the happiness of his family. Almost. Then his pen ran out of ink. He kept writing, though.

When his hair got long he cut it with the pocket knife. He spent a lot of time staring into the pocket knife. Eventually, the can of Pep had emptied of Pep and the pen had dried out and his phone had died and he was beginning to outgrow his hoodie but his knife stayed sharp and shiny and provided him a rainbow in an otherwise tediously bright and colorless world. Nowadays he could only rely on that cutting rainbow and the red of blood, which was constant. He felt like he spent a lot of time staring at the knife and a lot more time waiting to die. His stomach was so cramped and desperate he had long awaited death by starvation but it seemed that in the void you only got the pain and never the payout. And you didn't even get the satisfaction of seeing red on white.

All in all, Louie spent 11 years going mad in the void. He'd grown tall and thin, his hair wild and choppy, his eyes perpetually red from crying, his body scarred from discovery. The only piece of his mind that was intact was the part he reserved for believing that his family had gone on to live happily, together and safe. It would make everything worth it to know that they had grown to do great things in his stead. It would make the moment 11 years ago where he had taken the blast to spare them all worthwhile if they grew up to be great.

All in all, it took Gyro 11 minutes to fix the time tub and return Louie to his place with the family. Della was in tears for the whole eleven minutes, blaming herself for his actions, for the show of self-sacrifice. The others tried their best to comfort her though they were also afraid, wondering where Louie had landed in time and having no idea that he had landed out of it.

"I've located him," Gyro said confidently, and Della sat up, waiting to have her son back, waiting to apologize for the tough love. She did not get the chance.

"How could he be Louie?!" Della gasped out loud, looking at the willowy, hollow looking young man who lay before her in the fetal position.

"Hm. Seems like time passed differently for Louie than it did for us. A simple malfunction of the machine, likely caused by overuse-"

"Fix him! Get my son back!" Della demanded, clenching a fistful of the ruffled collar as tears streamed down her face. Louie sobbed too, as his brothers and Webby gawked at him like he was some zoo animal.

Gyro detached himself from Della's crazed grip and nodded.

"Launchpad, bring him to a private room. I should have him back to himself by morning."

Louie was monitored for most of the night, provided a feeding tube and a saline solution, kept comfortable while Dr. Gearloose scowled down at him, muttering theories and possible solutions. All the while, Louie sat stunned, tears flooding from his eyes while he tried to process everything. His life had doubled in the span of 11 minutes, leaving his brothers far behind. He was as out of place here as he had been in the void. His brothers were strangers to him now, he'd spent so long living with the imagined versions of who they'd grow up to be. There were sketches in his scheme notebook of what he'd imagined for them, along with long, rambling notes, some to them and some just for himself about what hell was like. He'd described it vividly and reflected now on how it should be impossible to fit 11 years of damnation into 11 minutes, and how it was a cruel joke that his brothers hadn't grown in that time span as well. It was miserable looking at his brothers, now he was no longer the youngest, and trying to find familiarity in those he had known and loved 11 minutes ago but could hardly recall from a decade ago.

"I think I've got it!" Gyro was giddy as he stumbled upon a breakthrough.

"You'll be yourself soon, Louie." Louie just stared through the scientist as he left, reaching for the only thing that was familiar.

Afterward, the family read the journal he had kept, charged his phone and saw the pictures, and began to understand why Louie would have never been himself again. He could not spend 11 years in torment and then act like it had only been 11 minutes. In the void, there was no official law of time and there was no official release of death. When both were returned, Louie Duck chose the allure of the second option. In time, upon reading journal entries scrawled in blood, they began to understand why. Della, who herself had been trapped for 11 years far from the people she loved, understood best of all. Louie had been right, they were far too similar.