Few know, and fewer care that a whole other dimension exists apart from our own. It is called the ghost zone, and ghosts are exactly what inhabit it.
For a long time, they had been mostly separate, apart from the occasional haunting when they were able to get into our world through natural portals – rips in the very fabric of time – that formed once in a while. Ghosts would come through, while a roughly equal number of humans would go through as well, balancing the equation. Famous examples of that is the case of the Roanoke colony, or the Bermuda Triangle. Those missing are now obviously in the ghost zone, while the invading ghosts are either banished by ghostbuster types or fade away from being in our world too long.
It was this way for a long time, until one world's knowledge of itself advanced so far that artificial portals could be opened and kept open for more than a natural duration. Inevitably, the worlds would touch at these points, and it was just another fatal step to the irrevocable consequence: the beginning of the war of the worlds. When two cultures mix, it's never smooth sailing.
Danny Fenton could tell you that firsthand. His parents were the ones that pioneered the ghost portal – an artificial "wormhole" to a new world. One day, being clumsy and curious (normal for a 14-year old boy), he ventured into the thing and was zapped with thousands of volts of electricity and ectoplasm at the same time. It was a wonder he ever woke up, but when he did, he found himself uniquely gifted with the powers of a ghost, and the ability to transform into one. He was a hybrid, a halfa, a half-ghost: the product of the merging of two worlds. As of now, a total of three, including Danny, exist.
Yet another step to the end, but would destiny declare Danny to be the one to save both worlds?
Ever since then, with his parents' portal still open half the time, he puts his ghost power to good use flying around and catching the rogue ghosts, to be returned to their half of the universe.
One ghost Danny remembers catching vividly is named Penelope Spectra. It was a drawn-out battle between her cutting words and his own feelings of despair and helplessness, but in the end he learned her secret and was able to capture her. Spectra had the unique ability to absorb human despair and turn it into a virtual facelift for her ghostly self. Of course, she was very good at putting people down in order to achieve her ends. She was sort of like a dementor in a way, except for her ageless attractiveness when she was disguised as a human.
Our story begins as Spectra is floating in the ghost zone, simmering over her latest experience of being caught and released, like paltry game fish. Hovering near the corresponding entrance to the Fenton's portal, she considered re-entering and getting some more human grief and worry – it was like a drug to her. She could feel her skin sagging – or was it just her imagination?
A bronze gleam caught her eye in the middle of the swirling green and black atmosphere so typical of the ghost zone. She turned to see an ornately carved mirror just floating near her, but she wasn't surprised – weird things floated past all the time. Gravity didn't always apply here. She grabbed it, marveling at its craftsmanship. Ice-blue crystals adorned its bronze edges, with a large crystal set in the handle. She ran her painted claws over it and gasped: the crystals were as sharp and hard as diamonds.
Then she looked at her beautiful self in the mirror and screamed. She thought her skin was sagging a bit, but this was hyperbole! An wrinkled, warted, beak-nosed old woman she barely recognized looked out at her, so ugly she couldn't bear to gaze at it closely. But she saw enough to realize it was her (she had those same sunglasses!), horribly distorted in the mirror. What kind of mirror was this, that returned a reflection to terrible to look at?
She didn't care how beautiful the mirror itself was; she couldn't stand this insult. In a fit of temper, she threw the mirror at the portal's metal wall, thinking it would shatter, but at that moment, it opened and it went through – into the human plane!
Spectra had seen enough. Anywhere any piece of that mirror was, she wasn't going. She sped away from the place, letting her legs merge into a spectral tail, trying to erase the horrible image from her mind.
If the portal had stayed closed, a lot of grief and hardship could have been avoided. Unfortunately, there was someone in the lab where the portal was at that moment. Danny Fenton was the one who had opened the portal. He was just going to release the Box Ghost into the ghost zone for the third time today. It had been a long day, obviously. He brushed raven bangs away from his blue eyes and sighed loudly. Automatically, he pushed the Fenton Thermos into its release device and pressed the button to open the portal. The mirror shot through the gap and exploded on the floor.
There was a flash of blue light and the pungent smell of smoke as the large crystal on the handle broke, and small glass specks and shards of the glass flew everywhere. It was unavoidable that some of it would hit Danny – one glass speck flew into his eye, and one straight to his heart.
The pain hit immediately, and Danny cried out.
Heya! Umm, this is like a prologue. From here on, it'll all be told from different characters, mostly Sam. Next chapter it'll be Tucker though. What do you think so far? Does it convey the setting? PLEASE REVIEW and tell me, I won't ask for them in future chapters:)