The laughs and the shouts and the barrages of insults echoed in the monochrome ghost's head as he flew through the ghost zone, tears flowing down his pale, freckled cheeks. His slightly oversized front teeth bit down on his lip, which was scabbed over and bleeding a little. The dark green of the ectoplasm on his lip was the only color on the boy.

Sidney Poindexter was by no means young in ghost years...he was over 60 in fact! But his death age was and forever would be 15. His life as a human had been stolen from him by the bullies and the depression. The boy had jumped from the roof of the school and died when he hit the ground. The worst part was, the bullies did not even care. A small memorial service was held and then the poor boy was practically forgotten.

However his respite in death did not last long. Soon he was trapped in the monochrome realm of his school...forced to endure the same torment he'd tried to escape. He supposed this was God's punishment for taking the coward's way out. Though he could not kill himself, he had started to hurt himself. The scars on his arms did not even faze the people who bullied him. They simply laughed and grabbed his arms just to see him wince in pain.

He was nothing to them.

Now, as he flew through the ghost zone, the desperation to escape had outweighed his fear of simply being faced with more pain and torment. He flew past a marble library-like place, ignoring it and landing on a small floating island. He sat on the rock for a moment, letting himself cry and gazing at his cuts. He then pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket.

He needed to escape.

Nobody would care anyway.

Sidney popped open the bottle and stared at the contents for a moment with dull grey eyes. Eyes that had lost their color and shine years ago. Most others from his realm gained color when they left it. Not Sidney. It seemed like he was stuck in black and white, like an old movie.

He took a shuddering breath and dumped the pills down his throat. It wasn't easy swallowing them without water, but he choked them down. He whimpered and lay on his stomach, closing his eyes and beginning the painful wait for death's release once more.

Ten minutes passed...nothing happened yet. He tried to wait more, but he needed something to do while he waited for death. He always had been a restless boy. He pushed himself weakly up to his knees-hey, he was weaker...that must mean it's working.

He allowed himself a bittersweet smile, knowing that soon enough it would all be over. His stomach and chest were starting to hurt. He took a shard of his mirror from his pocket and started to drag it along his arm. The green of the ectoplasm hurt his eyes a little, but he kept on cutting, watching it ooze out of him.

His vision was blurring, and he was starting to feel cold. He gasped and retched as his stomach made a feeble attempt to push the harmful substances out of his body. Even now, death was trying to elude him. He became too weak to fight it back and his stomach contents came up. It was too late, the pills were already absorbed into his bloodstream.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as the stomach acids burned his throat, which hurt enough already from being choked every day. Some of the bile dribbled down his chin, and a little foam came up. He coughed and choked, nearly falling into his own vomit. He managed to land on his side away from it, but that didn't stop the fact that his body was twitching and convulsing. The drugs were taking their desired effect.

He froze up when he heard the dull thump of books falling to the ground and a slightly gruff cry of, "Oh my God! Poindexter, wh...happened...you..."

Then everything faded to black.

Ghostwriter was normally a calm and collected ghost, minding his own business. He had been let out of the ghost prison on a merit of good behavior. He had just went out and got some more books for his library when he saw the dying teen ghost. Now he was panicking. His core pounded hard in his chest and he knelt by the boy, green eyes wide in horror. He cried out when the boy stopped twitching and fell limp, foam and vomit on his mouth and chin.

The ghost panicked even more, crying out and shaking Poindexter. "Poindexter! Wake up! Wake up, dammit, this isn't funny!" He trembled and looked around for someone who could help. Finding no one, Ghostwriter took it upon himself to lift the dying...or dead...ghost and flew into his home, the book forgotten.

He checked his core pulse...it was there...very faint, but his core was still functioning. He did not allow himself a sigh of relief. The boy was not out of the woods just because he was still alive, if barely so. He gently rubbed the boy's chest over his core, trying to activate the body's ecto-purifying mechanism to clean out the toxins. He heard and felt a strong thump, indicating he had succeeded.

Ghostwriter sighed and rubbed his temples, before he got up and quickly got a warm blanket and a damp, cool cloth. He carefully cleaned the mess from the boy's face, noticing he had freckles on his pale cheeks. In Ghostwriter's opinion, the boy was quite cute, when he wasn't dying. He wrapped him up in a blanket and cradled him, carrying him up to his bedroom.

He lay him on the bed and kissed his forehead, pulling a stool up and sitting by him. He would monitor him carefully to make sure he didn't lose the ghost. He suppressed a yawn and groaned as his eyelids drooped. He would need a lot of coffee.

A/N: Yeah, I oughta warn you this is a pretty depressing story in the start. There will be more mentions of self-harm and suicide. Other than that, I hope you enjoy the story and the many feels it will bring.

Don't worry, Sidney's not going to die. Though he will be very sick for a while.