Prologue: The Memoir & Last Will of Daniel Fenton
Dear Reader:
If you are reading this, then I have "gone ghost" for the last time. Sorry, just a bit of dead humor. Whether I stuck around as a full-ghost or went on to the afterlife is something that I can offer no forethought towards. I'd like to think that I would have found enough peace in death to move on, but I doubt that very much. I'm the type of guy who always has regrets, one who always second and third-guesses himself, the kind of person that generally remains a ghost for a millennium or more.
First, I'd like to dedicate this memoir to the two women that made me the man/ghost that I was when I was alive. One you will no doubt recognize as my fire-cracker of a "sister", Jasmine Naomi Fenton Nee Travis. The other you will no doubt recognize as one of the many ghosts my cartoon character was depicted as having faced, Ember Fenton Nee McClain.
For starters, I'd like to clarify a few things for you. One: despite the insistence of the writers of the cartoon based on my life as a half-ghost hero, I do not go around picking fights with every ghost I come across. That would be both incredibly stupid, and quite rude to boot. Ghosts exist because spirits of the dead have unfinished business with the living. Many times, people like me, who can see ghosts even if they are not trying to be seen, are needed to help these ghosts find peace and move on to the afterlife. Two: I was not going around as a half-ghost in my teens. I was already well into my twenties, and a successful lawyer working for my father's rival Vlad, when the accident that caused my first transformation occurred. And no, it had nothing to do with a supposed portal into the fictitious ghost world. Instead, it was a near-death experience that was so terrifying that it was cut by the writers of Danny Phantom. Three, Jasmine Fenton Nee Travis is not my sister. She was my best friend, and practically my sister, since I was in Kindergarten, and had remained as such until I finally clued into the fact that we had feelings for each other. Four, Ember Fenton Nee McClain was a pop star, but she didn't use her ghostly powers to enhance her music's effect. And her hit song, Remember, was not a hypnosis spell to build an army out of her fans, she could do that with her sheer talent. To prove it, I will show you the lyrics to Remember:
Yeah! Ohh-ooohhh!
It was, it was September,
Wind blows, the dead leaves fall,
To you, I did surrender,
Two weeks, you didn't call…
Your life goes on without me,
My life, a losing game,
But you should, you should not doubt me,
You will remember my name…
Oh, Ember, you will remember!
Ember, one thing remains!
Oh, Ember, so warm and tender!
You will remember my name!
Your heart, your heart abandoned,
You're wrong, now bear the shame,
Like dead trees in cold December,
Nothing, but ashes remain…
Oh, Ember, you will remember!
Ember, one thing remains!
Ember, so warm and tender!
You will remember my name!
Oh-woo-oh-woo, Ember!
You will remember!
Ember, one thing remains!
Ember, so warm and tender!
You will remember my name!
Yeah! You will remember my name!
You see: rather than a song meant to hypnotize her fan-base, this song was a pouring out of heartbreak and spite towards an ex-lover. This heartbreak and spite was what pushed Ember into my arms, and for that I am eternally grateful. I can tell you one thing: as long as the ghosts of Ember and/or Jasmine remain in this world, I am not moving on.
Another thing, I would sooner die than have anything constricting my hearing when my dearest Ember is singing. I need to hear her voice as much as I needed air to breathe before this ghostly shit happened.
Finally, if I have "gone ghost" for the final time, it is because I've chosen to do so. I am, for all intents and purposes immortal. The only way for me to gain full-ghost status is by staying in my ghost form for a Century, 3 decades, 5 years, 40 days, 13 hours, 25 minutes, and 19 seconds. Even if you are reading this, it is not decided whether I will actually go thru with the wait or not.
As for my will: it is decided that my entire fortune will go into Fentonworks Ghost Whisperers United.
Farewell cruel human existence,
Daniel Jack Fenton
Defense Attorney
