Trapped.

That was the first sensation the ghost remembered: the feeling of being trapped. He had the vague feeling he had existed before that, like the ghost of the ghost zone itself. Like a presence always there, giving you the feeling you were being watched. A conscious unconsciousness.

But now he was trapped. Bound to a single form. Torso, head, arms, hands. He wasn't sure how he knew that but he did. His mind struggled to push beyond the boundaries of his form, to break free, but he was trapped. And every inch of him ached with the sensation of existence.

As the blinding light receded, the ghost was bombarded by other sensations until he thought his head would explode. Touch, sight, sound, smell—it was all too much. The ghost's brain began shutting off his senses to focus on one at a time.

Sight.

He looked down at his hands. His hands. The thought was new and yet familiar. He stared at them as they glowed eerily beneath the gloves he didn't recall putting on. Ten fingers, two hands.

Ectoplasm swirled beneath his skin, threatening to break free but unable to. The ghost flexed his fingers as he floated in the glowing green room. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a scream.

Sound.

It was more like a yell than a scream, and it was full of terror. The yell echoed off the walls of the chamber, overwhelming the already dazed ghost. He flung his hands over his ears trying to drown out the piercing sound. His eyes clenched shut as his head throbbed. The sound surrounded him, panicked him. The eyes he had shut snapped open as he searched for the source of the scream. It didn't take long to find it.

Sight.

The green glow that had been so intense before had faded as the ghost became accustomed to it. Now he saw an oddly familiar boy several feet from him. The boy's hands were raised and shaking with terror as he stared wide-eyed at the ghost crouched by the floor. His face was distorted in the scream he let out. Before the sound even stopped echoing the black-haired boy took off in a run towards the exit of the passageway.

If the ghost had known how to scream he would have too. His new-found senses were being overpowered by his environment and he hovered, hands still over his ears, in a corner of the glowing room. But something about the boy had excited his curiosity. He had been too familiar, pulling at memories the ghost didn't know he had.

And so the ghost rose, tail curling behind him as he floated after the boy as if in a trance. As he approached the swirling doorway, other sounds met his ears. Voices that were familiar, but whose words were undecipherable. Yells, clamors, gasps. Words. Yes, he could almost make them out, if he just strained a little harder.

The ghost passed through the door of the portal and entered a room of grey walls and metal tables. Basement. Lab. The words floated to his mind as easily as he floated above the floor, but the ghost wasn't sure where the words came from. He gazed around the room, eyes catching the movement of the boy from earlier. Then two other movements, two people. One was racing for a table with strange devices on it, the other was backing away from the ghost, hands clenched in front of its face. But it was the boy in the white suit from earlier who captured his attention.

The ghost hovered toward the boy who backed away in terror, stumbling over chairs in the process. In his attempt to escape, the human slipped and fell on his back. He threw his hands in front of his face in one last attempt to protect himself from the ghost.

Those hands.

The ghost stopped advancing, but continued to hover above the boy. His eyes locked onto the human's hands, which shook with fear along with the rest of the boy's body. The ghost peered with intense curiosity at the black gloves the boy wore and the hands beneath them. Lifting his own hands he noticed just how similar they were. Nearly identical, if not for the white gloves on his.

In one swift motion the ghost boy grabbed the outstretched hand of the human on the floor and pulled it close to his face.

Touch.

The feeling was instantaneous. Warmth coursed from the human's hand to his own fingers, filling a need he didn't know he had. The black-haired boy let out another yell and tried to pull away, but the ghost held firm. He was amazed at the feeling of touch, the feeling of clutching the boy's hand. It was heavier than expected, much heavier than the ghost's own body, which defied gravity. And it pulsed with life. Although the heartbeat was faint through the gloves, it was rapid and fierce with the terror rising in the human.

"Danny!" a voice yelled from behind. That's right, though the ghost. He looked down at the human beneath him, recognition slowly increasing. Memories faded in and out of the ghost's mind, memories he knew were not his own. Playing with his sister Jazz, researching planets online, putting on the white hazmat suit at Sam's request, cautiously entering the ghost portal, and then—

"Get away from him!" Sam yelled out. A whirring, squealing sound rang out and the ghost turned just in time to see a blast of energy shooting toward him.

Pain.

He hadn't been fast enough to evade it. The blast seared into him, burning him, sending his senses screaming. He slammed against the wall behind him and slumped onto the table. Ectoplasm began dripping from the wound in his shoulder. It wasn't a bad wound—Sam had been thrown off by the unexpected recoil of the gun—but the feeling of such intense pain was new to him. Sam took aim again, and the ghost felt panic rise up in him, urging his body to action. Before Sam could pull the trigger, the ghost vanished.

He wasn't sure how he had done it, and he definitely wasn't sure how to undo it. But somehow he was safe. And invisible. He winced at the wound Sam had inflicted, making a mental note to steer clear of his parent's weapons in the future. No, Fenton's parent's weapons.

Before he could question too hard at the implications of that, he remembered Danny sprawled out on the floor. Invisibly, he snuck down from the table and floated toward the boy, holding his shoulder with care as he moved. Sam and Tucker had already rushed to Danny's side and were helping him to his feet.

"What was that? Are you okay?!" Tucker asked. His voice pitched from the fear he had felt just moments before.

"I'm not sure," he responded. "And…" A chill ran down Danny Fenton's spine. The room was so cold he could see his own breath. "I'm also not sure."

Danny struggled to stand but as he did a wave of nausea swept over him. He steadied himself in a nearby chair.

"That thing was definitely a ghost," Sam said, answering Tucker's question. "It didn't hurt you did it? Why was it in your face like that?"

The ghost boy hovered closer to the trio, understanding more and more of their conversation. Danny shivered again before responding. "No I…I don't think so," he flexed the hand that the ghost had grabbed. "It didn't hurt me, but I feel…sore all over. And sick, like my whole body's been turned inside out."

"You're lucky you weren't killed!" Sam continued. "We saw the light and heard you scream and…" she trailed off. "We weren't sure what to think for a second there."

Danny let out a shaky laugh, his breath rising in the cold. He wasn't so sure he hadn't been killed. Sam hadn't seen the ghost as clearly as he had when it came after him. Even in his terror, Danny didn't miss the eerie similarity. Except for a few changes in color, the face that peered down at him menacingly had been his own.

Danny wasn't the only one who thought this. As the spirit hovered invisibly beside them, the gears in his head were also turning. But nothing made sense. Memories from before the portal swirled around him, both human and ghost memories. What was he?

The mirror by the sink at the far end of the room caught the ghost's attention. He floated toward it, the conversation between the three friends fading to the background. As he approached the mirror, he struggled to become visible again, afraid of what he would see, afraid of what he wouldn't. He pulled at an energy deep inside him, willing himself into visibility.

And then there he was. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but this certainly wasn't it. The face that blinked back from the mirror did indeed resemble Danny's, but that was about where the similarities ended. The ghost's eyes widened as he reached up to touch the glass, cool and smooth beneath his fingers. White hair, piercing green eyes, tanned skin. And his whole body was giving off an otherworldly glow. The ghost boy gave a weak smile to his reflection. Not bad. Not what he was expecting, but not bad. He was…concerned that he looked so human, though, because every inch of him screamed—

"Ghost!" yelled a trio of voices behind him.

Oops.