Hey there, it's been awhile. It's an understatement, I know. Please take a look at my profile. There's a very important note I left there.

With this, I shall resume the journey I stopped more than 12 months ago.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. And frankly, I don't want to. It's a lot of work to handle.

Humans have a habit of putting each other into neat little categories. They box each other up in predictable expectations and frown on those who act outside these little 'boxes'. Their classifying habits aren't restricted to the living.

Humans have a way of classifying someone as dead through medical means. If someone lacks a pulse and does not breathe, someone is dead. It is a practical and logical way to separate the dead from the living. Sounds a little cold, but that's the way things are. That's human logic.

So, one can either be dead or alive. But wait.

I have overheard a few arguments during the strolls I like to take now and then in the human world. A disturbing amount of them consisted of how someone was alive – breathing and with a heartbeat – yet dead on the inside. Does that mean that not all who are "alive" are actually alive?

Then what about us? We who have no pulse and no need for air yet thinks and feels? We are dead in a medical sense but we live. We experience things, we have emotions, we react, we throw temper tantrums. Does that mean that we are alive, even though we are dead?

Such contradictions. A human can be dead and a ghost can be alive. If so, why the need for the distinction between the dead and the living? There are humans who die inside long before their body expires and ghosts like us live on to see the world long after our body has turned into ashes.

Even if ghosts are considered anomalies, what about legends? Legendary writers, legendary singers, these people never really die. Decades, centuries after their death, people still say that these legends live on through their work. These people are dead, yet they are alive in the hearts of their fans.

So who is truly dead? Who is truly alive? By what should we consider someone dead or alive?

The lack or presence of pulse and breathing?

Whether or not someone has thoughts and emotions?

I can experience, I can ponder, I can interact, but I do not breathe and I have no pulse. Am I dead? Or am I alive?

And the three halfas, who have more contradictions than us all, what would they be? They are not only human but ghost, not only alive but dead. But shouldn't one be either alive or dead? The dead cannot come back to life, the living stop living when they die.

Yet, every time the halfas switch between forms, they flip over the line between the dead and the living. However, no matter what form they are in, their mind is always aware, their emotions true.

So which are they?

Are all humans alive?

Are all ghosts dead?

Are we dead or alive?

Poetess got lost somewhere last year, or maybe it just died because of lack of use. I'm saying this again (check out my profile) to my fellow writers:

Keep writing

It's important. Consistency is very important. I should know. It's the reason I took so long to post this chapter.

Anyway, please do review. Let me know how much the break I took has cost my writing skills.

And it's good to be back.

~Enray