Danny woke up with a profoundly splitting headache.

The young, 15 year old halfa clutched his head with white gloved hands, letting a moan escape his lips. His brow was streaked with sweat, his snow white hair falling over his toxic green eyes. Danny felt horrible, like his insides had been frozen, reheated and then stirred around with an eggbeater. Danny Fenton, in the form of his alter ego, Danny Phantom, was unsure of where he was. Whenever he tried to recollect what had happened to him, he would cring as it felt as though ridiculously sharp and needlessly long needles were being repeatedly jabbed into his temples by a beefed up muscleman on steroids. So in other words; It hurt. A lot.

The half ghost could only vaugely remember entering the Ghost Zone through his parents' Ghost Portal, probably to explore the deeper reaches of the supernatural world or something. He recalled passing Clockwork's Tower, but after that, things got fuzzy like a Tv screen with bad reception and a magnet on it. As he looked about, the pain and discomfort in his body ebbing gradually, Danny realized he was lost.

For one thing, the sky was a gloomy shade of gray, with the occational streak of red. Bloodshot, inhuman eyes appeared on what could possibly qualify as clouds, blinking at him, and effectively weirding him out. The halfa hovered over bleakly coloured dirt that was dry and cracked, dead vegetation rarely poking from the soil. A flower bloomed in his shadow, only to wither and die the instant it reached the peak of it's accelerated growth. Bones littered the ground, some bleach white, others charred black. A skull grinned wickedly at Danny, only to have a crevice open up beneath it, swallowing it whole. He could've sworn he saw tentacles and eyes in the cracks shadowy depths as the crevice snapped shut. The young Fenton swallowed nervously, his throat suddenly parched. He had no idea where he was, but he knew for a fact that he did NOT like it here.

As he moved about, the halfa felt a pressure on his body that he didn't notice before. Looking down at himself, he saw his insignia baring hazmat suit torn in several places, glowing white bandages wrapped around him in various places, stained with a mixture of green and red; His blood.

He was injured? When did that happen? And someone had tended to him, probably whoever lived in this decaying place. Danny wasn't too keen on finding out who it was, for obvious reasons. The teenager floated higher, trying to see the land better, and to spot any way out. As he got a bird's eye view, he saw that he was on an island...a floating one. Below the dim skyline, the underneath of the island was a hypnotic swirling ectoplasmic green, a tell-tale mark of the Ghost Zone. So he was still in the specter world, and so that would make this island some ghost's lair. The thought of what sort of ghost would call a place like this home was not a plesant one.

This place made the Frightknight/Pariah Dark's lair look like gumdrops and icecream by comparison, but with equally lacking taste in decore. Broken stone staircases rose from the background, crumbled and disused. Collapsed walls formed a half-barrier around the islands edge, which could be seemingly pointless since ghosts could easily fly over them or phase through it. However, these walls appeared to be there for the sole purpose of hanging depressing and in some cases, rather gruesome paintings, abstractedly painted in fresh blood, ectoplasm, flesh and ash with such attention to detail, Danny was forced to look away to calm his coming nausea. As he looked away, his glowing green eyes landed on something in the distance. Curious, he floated over to it, his feet morphing into a tail in the process as a force of habit.

A black marble collumn rose like a spike from the ground, intricate markings carved into its circumference. Hanging from it by 3 eerie, green glowing ropes, was a freakishly long strip of cloth. On said cloth was a list, with text so small it was impossible to read, and giving off a blood red glow. When Danny tried to read the text, it seemed to flow and swirl hypnotically, making Danny's eyes cross involentarily and give him a headache between his brows. The halfa shook his head to clear it of the possibly seziure inducing font. Danny looked the list up and down, making sure not to let his gaze linger too long on one spot. His eyes rested on the regular, bold and underlined print at the very top of the list.

TO DIE

A shudder ran up the 15 year old's spine. He was dreading this place more so by the second. Danny's toxic green eyes darted around him, searching for some means to escape. A door, a portal, anything. He didn't want to spend a moment longer in this life-forsaken place.

Life forsaken...an ironic, yet fitting proverb, young ghost.

Danny whirled around, heart racing, trying for find the source of the mysterious, bone chilling voice. Cold, hissing laughter echoed in the halfa's skull.

"Who are you?" Danny asked, or rather shouted. His ears made a popping sound, and started to ring, drilling a headache right between his eyes. Seeming to ignore his question, the voice continued to speak in a garbled, yet sharp tone that numbed Danny's very core.

But then, if this place is truely as barren and dead as you claim, what would that make you, ghost who possesses life?

The unknown voice's words coiled around Danny's brain like a snake. His body felt weak, lame.

A freak of nature, your soul and body are trapped forever between the neutral zone of life and death. You are neither alive, nor are you truely dead. You have peaked my interests.

Danny's powers failed him. He fell to the dead earth on his hands and knees, and invisible force pressing down on his shoulders. His thoughts were sluggish and murky.

What are you, boy? Are you ghost? Human? Or are you, perhaps, something more?

"I-i'm..."Danny slurred, unable to stop himself from answering, his lips not obeying him. "I-i'm the defender o-o-of Amity Park..."

The voice seemed to ponder the halfa's involentary answer for a few painful heartbeats. Then another sinister cackle stuck a pinprick needle into Danny's fleshy brain.

A defender of humans. As I had heard. A rather curious obsession for a ghost, even for a halfa such as you. Very interesting indeed.

Danny fell onto his side, his entire body paralyzed aside from the occasional twitch.

Your curiousity of my...artifacts is understandable, boy, but such ignorance to privicy and annonymousy does not come without consequence. This is merely punishment, boy.

Danny assumed the voice was referring to his inspection of the TO DIE list and gory artwork. A fresh wave of nausea and agony spiked in his stomach, but numb as he was, he couldn't even scream. But after a handful of seconds that felt like an eternity, the pain vanished abruptly, as did the weakness.

Your punishment is met. I would have made you suffer further, but your fate is no longer mine to decide, nor end as I will. A shame.

It took Danny a moment, but he finally managed to stand on his white booted feet, knees knocking together with effort.

"Who are you?" he questioned again, when he was able to speak. The voice hissed sharply.

Who I am is no business of yours, boy.

"It's made my business when you've kidnapped me!" Danny retorted.

A dark shadow rose from the ground. It bubbled and shifted, molding into a shape. A floating figure, wearing midnight black robes loomed over Danny. Spiked chains dangled and levitated around its body, from one of these hung what appeared to be an old pocket watch. 4 tiny, ecoplasmic flames circled the figure's hooded head, from which a single glowing red eye stared eerily from the shadows.

"Kidnapped?" the figure inquired darkly, "You are the one who dropped into my lair unannounced, injured and pathetic. I merely tended to your wounds. That hardly qualifies as kidnapping, young halfa."

Danny realized the truth of that statement, but the figure had yet to answer his question.

"Well, if you saved my life, shouldn't I at least know your name?" Danny asked, a bit more politely. "I mean, you talk like you know me. But I don't know anything about you." The hooded ghost was silent for a moment. Then it reached up its black clawed skeletal hands, and pulled back its ragged hood.

The four flames around its head lit its horrific face in an eerie light. The ghost's face was snouted grinning skull, with inch long fangs, hollow eye sockets, and a long forked green tongue. A single blood red eye was stitched forever open in the center of its forehead, slitted pupil locked on Danny's shocked face. Boney horns jutted from the back of the skull, bits of pale flesh still clinging to the bleach white bone.

"I see my appearence startles you, mortal." the skull mused, tongue flickering through its fangs with each word. "You wouldnt be the first."

Danny was at a loss for words. He just stood there in front of the ghost, mouth ajar and gaping. The skeletal figure floated closer to Danny, bone ghost tail wisping. The ghost's mere pressence sent a chill through the halfa's blood.

"This is my lair, the realm where life and death are forever locked in neturality; Limbo." the ghost hissed "And I..."

With a flick of a bone wrist, there was a rumble, and two skeletal tentcles sprouted from the ground. They wrapped around eachother, joining, morphing, taking shape of a giant, fleshy scythe. The blade was black and sharp, the head a pentagon with a skull and crossbone insignia with a purple boarder. Chains dangled from its handle, red spikes running the length of the shaft. The scythe seemed to hover in the air for a moment, before flinging itself into the ghosts beckoning hand. The ghost's skull face twisted into a sinister grin.

"...I am the Grim Reaper..."