Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to... most things, really, including this.


Deep within the Ghost Zone, past the Fenton Portal, past the swirling vortexes of infinite pain, past Carnivorous Canyon and the Far Frozen, there lies a door.

On the surface, it's a normal door, all things considered. It floats among hundreds of its brethren, all of them an eerie purple but seemingly inconspicuous. Behind each one, however, is something decidedly bizarre. One might hold a portal to the Human World, another might be the sole entrance to an undead monster's lair. It is nearly impossible to tell one door from another. Unless you know your own door like the back of your hand, it is perfectly reasonable that you may one day leave your lair and never be able to return, losing it amongst the myriad purple lairs that litter the Zone.

It is behind one of these doors that our story takes place.

Like its door, the lair inside masquerades as normal, nearly human. Seeing it, one might suppose that it belongs to any number of professional workers, whether the owner be a doctor, a lawyer, or a businessperson. But the blood-red plush couch dead-center in the room reveals the lair's true purpose, especially when one considers the poor, distressed ghost sitting upon it, or the note-taking shrink floating next to him. This lair is the residence of a certified psychotherapist.

The ghost on the couch, the patient, may be well known to you. Or perhaps he isn't. The latter is the most likely, considering the ghost's reasons for seeking professional help. The ghost wears a black trench coat that fades into tatters where his ghostly tail ends. He grasps a cane in his pale, glove-like hands, gripping it so hard that his knuckles would be paper-white if he were alive. Instead of eyes, a curious sort of red-tinted glasses sits on his face, showing nothing but more red underneath them. Otherwise, there is nothing at all on his face—neither eyebrows, nor a nose, nor a mouth. Finally, a wide-rimmed hat hovers on the floor beneath the couch, having been dropped by the ghost in lieu of more emotionally-pressing matters than keeping a neat look about him.

"I just feel like I have no identity anymore," he says, his voice muffled as he talks into his trench coat. "Without a face, I'm—I'm forgettable! All my life I'd wanted nothing more than to be somebody. Now I can be anybody. And I'm still not happy! Why am I not happy?"

The ghost floating beside him nods understandingly. Compared to her patient, she is devastatingly normal-looking. Her face is young but made-up in lipstick and lavender eye shadow. Every once in a while, she glances over her thin sunglasses to reveal a pair of sly green eyes. Her hair is strikingly orange and swept up to show her pointed ears. Her posture is the polar opposite of the faceless ghost's. While he is slouched as if to hide himself from her gaze, she sits straight and tall, one hand on her clipboard and one outstretched to lay itself comfortingly on her patient's shoulder.

"We all feel out of place in our bodies sometimes, Amorpho," she says soothingly. "Just—some of us more than others. Can you help it if everything you show the world is a façade?" Her words are momentarily as sharp as barbed wire before becoming gentle once more.

Her patient turns his face to her. "All of us?" he asks desperately.

"Mm-hmm." She puts down her clipboard and floats behind the ghost, getting in a position in which she can rest another hand on his shoulder.

"Even you?"

She pauses, her calming grip stiffening. "Yes, dear, even me."

"But—how? You're beautiful, Spectra… and you can stay that way as long as you want, unlike me." The self-pitying patient can't resist tacking a dig at himself to the end of his sentence.

His therapist gives a deep sigh, the first genuine thing she's done during the course of this session. "You'd be surprised." She lets her arms fall onto his chest for a moment, giving the bewildered ghost a sort of half-hug from behind. If she realizes she's doing this, she doesn't let it show.

"Wha—what do you mean?" The faceless ghost is nervous all of a sudden, but he doesn't pull away. He turns to her, startled to find their faces so close.

"I mean that we all have masks, dear," she says as her sunglasses slide down once again, giving her patient a great view of her electric green eyes. "It's refreshing to see someone admit it."

The pale ghost seems to have lost all thoughts of self-deprecation by now. By his tone, it's certain that he would be smiling if he had a mouth. "Refreshing?" he says.

"Practically… rejuvenating," she replies as she leans in, closing the distance between them.

Her patient has a split second to morph himself a pair of lips before they were stolen with a kiss.


The faceless ghost floats out of the lair dizzily, obviously quite reluctant to leave. Stopping abruptly, he turns, as if just remembering something. "Same—same time next week?" he calls at the office door.

"It's an appointment," he hears his therapist call back.