It was early morning in Liberty Square at Disney World. The first guests of the day were still just arriving, so the park was not yet crowded. Mickey himself was out and about, dressed as Steamboat Willie and driving the Riverboat around Tom Sawyer Island.
Cast Members on the Boat: I'll tell you a tale of this park's big mascots
And it's hey to the starboard, heave ho
They've got the stuff that all the hot girls will want
They're the wonderful Disney heros
Disney heros, heros
They're out and they're on the go
They protect us all and they never will fall
For they're wonderful Disney heros
Heave ho
Heave ho
One little guest was also onboard, and very excited. "I wanna see Peter Pan an' Hercules an' Aladdin..."
His grandpa laughed. "So you like the heros, eh? You planning on going on the Haunted Mansion?" He pointed to (one of the greatest) rides, a foreboding-looking house sitting at the edge of Liberty Square.
"Are there heros in there?" asked the boy.
"Well, in a way. See, the ghosts can get themselves into some pretty big trouble, namely a trio of hitchhikers. But they have each other's back and they always get out of it and save the day in the process. Heros or not, they're ironically the liveliest people here!"
Cast Members: Heave ho
Heave ho
Heave ho
They're the wonderful Disney heros!
Meanwhile, inside, Master Gracey of the Haunted Mansion was riding through on a Doombuggy testing a new idea. "I just don't feel this is true to the original vision," he said to his wife Lilly who was riding with him. "I mean, replacing 'Grim Grinning Ghosts' with a silly classical number?"
"Well, let's just try this out," said Lilly.
"Alright, but I'm the tiniest bit nervous..."
Ghosts: We are the ghosts of the Mansion
Imagineries made us and named us well
Leota, Emily, Sir Gilmore, and Prudence, Little Gus, Phineas
Gracey smiled. This was decent! They then reached the Hitchhiker's crypt.
And then there is the craziest who waits here at the end
The wackiest of all ghosts (and he's sort of our friend)
He bounces round and always tries to bother Leota
He's the main guy, that Ez-
But when they reached the mirror where Ezra was supposed to appear...they saw nothing. "EZRA!" yelled Gracey.
Ezra sat up on Splash Mountain looking down at Cast Members. "Man, how come they get to have all the fun?"
Brer Fox and Brer Bear peeked out from around the corner, "Hey, it's some ghost!" hissed Brer Fox. "Think he's got any meat on him?"
"Well, uh..." started Brer Bear.
"Course he does!" Brer Fox cut him off. "Everything does!"
Two vultures, the Boothill Boys, laughed from a tree. "That's where you're wrong," said one. "He's just dead."
"Dead?" said the other one. "We eat dead things!"
"So we do...we'll pay you guys to catch him."
Brer Fox eagerly pointed at Ezra. "Get him, Brer Bear!" Brer Bear thumped towards Ezra, but fell down the flume into the briar patch when the ghost simply stepped to the side.
"Take this!" Brer Fox swung an axe at Ezra's head, but nothing happened.
"Ha!" laughed Ezra. "When you're dead, you can make anything go through you!" Ezra suddenly fell out of sight. "Including the floor! See ya!"
Brer Fox, not yet grasping the ghost rules, was stunned. "WHAT! He buried himself!" The fox grabbed a shovel and started frantically digging.
One vulture grinned. "Wow, watching this is just as fun as eating dead stuff."
Ezra, meanwhile, was slipping away outside. "Beat that one, Brer Rabbit!"
Climbing out of the briar patch, Brer Bear suddenly lunged at Ezra, crushing him onto the ground. Brer Fox tunneled out next to them. "Got him! Now let's hand him over to the vultures!"
Ezra glared at them. "All I want to do is come here, check out girls, and fantasize about being human and YOU guys won't leave me alone!" Ezra calmly walked through Brer Bear. "I'm going home."
Mr. Bluebird perched on a tree next to him. "Isn't going through stuff fun?"
"Of course. A lot of stuff about being a ghost is fun. I used to love it. It's just...lately I've felt different. And I don't know why."
As Ezra walked back to the mansion, he didn't notice an odd tenctacle coming out of Splash Mountain's river, as if a famous villain was spying on him...
I'm sort of annoyed at how I wrote Ezra in this first chapter. Hopefully he'll be more of himself in the next ones.