Chapter 4! That's all I have to say.

Since we were now scorned and hated by all, my parents and I traveled across the Ghost Zone. My hatred towards them both decreased slightly. They were all I had left now, and I had begun to forget why I had hated them.

For a few years we lived in an uninhabited part of the Ghost Zone. It was full of everything that humans had lost. At least there I could escape the eyes of my parents by hiding amongst the numerous objects.

Without the title of king and queen, my parents seemed to lose the will to exist. The problem with that though is that ghosts can't commit suicide like humans, and they took out their misery on me.

"Jeremiah! Where have you floated off to? Come over here this instant!" I floated over from where I had been hiding and bowed in front of my mother. She waved her hand and blasted me with a pitifully weak ecto-blast. "Don't ever hide from me again. I may not be the boss of this world, but I'm still the boss of you!" she blasted me again and I pretended to flinch.

Along with my mothers pointless punishments there was my father. He was going insane. Everyday he would think it was his coronation. "Where is the Stone of Scone archbishop?" I of course was the archbishop, and the Stone of Scone was a pile of socks I had rolled up. I pointed to where the pile had been ever since my father started living in the same day over and over.

"Ah good." He said. "And do you have the crown?" I nodded and held up a bucket. After doing this so many times, I had learned that if you talk, then you have to start all over. Don't ask me why, I'm not the insane one.

Now you're probably wondering why I put up with this stuff. After you lose your best friend, your home, and your title in one day, it kind of does something to your confidence. In other words I was a wreck. My fourteen year old mind believed that maybe now since my parents were not royalty, they would have more time for me.

Yeah right.

So I spent two years of my life trying to please them the best that I could. This would have continued for much longer, had the warden not shown up. That's right warden. Apparently, a sixteen year old kid, a weak ghost that could barely float, and an insane man posed a threat and were to be captured.

Stepper (Weird name isn't it. He said it was a family thing) was the warden of the jail set up just for us. It was the first Ghost Zone jail since all of the previous wrongdoers had been held in the now nonexistent dungeon of our nonexistent castle.

The warden had a white suit and was bald. His skin was grey and he looked fairly old. He smiled a rotting tooth smile at me as I struggled against the guard that had handcuffed me and was forcing me into the back of a white van.

"If only my son Walker could see me now. But he's still with the livin." He said in an accent that reminded me of a place full of cowboys and oil. "It took me two years to track you fellas down, and now you'll be goin to my prison." Wow. Two years to find a place full of dirty socks and three people. He must have been busy.

My mother was pushed into the van easily, but my father was a different story. "No one will interrupt my coronation! I had to send my own father into a dark abyss to get the crown!" I stopped struggling and stood still from shock. This was the first experience with treachery I had had.

So that's where grandfather Dark went. The fog that seemed to have been covering my eyes since my fourteenth birthday lifted. My terrible hatred came back more fiery than ever and I felt insane power flow through my veins. So that's what my family did? Killed each other for the throne? Then I guess I should follow with tradition then.

The glowing handcuffs on my wrists snapped and the guard was sent flying. I raised my clenched fists and glared at the stupidly named warden. Quite to my surprise beams shot from my eyes and blasted Stepper in the stomach. By then I was surrounded by guards and both of my parents were in the white van.

Stepper stood up straight and yelled, "What are you waiting for? He's only a sixteen year old varmint! Attack!" The ghosts all flew at me without a second thought and I saw the warden stand there as if watching a play.

I could take on one ghost. Heck I could probably take on four the way I felt, but the thirty that there was overpowered me. I fell to the ground, bleeding ectoplasm in several places, and locked up with about six pairs of handcuffs.

The warden loomed over my fallen form with his rotten toothed smile beaming from his face. "You have quite a nasty glare there kid. I didn't have that power till I was three times your age." I assumed that he must have been a fairly old ghost.

"Now, there's some rules I need to lay down for y'all." He said in his southern accent. "Well actually there's just one. My prison is my world. I make the rules, and you follow the rules. Got it?"

"That's two pardner." I said, mocking his drawl. My rage was still influencing me, and I was a teenager. This guy sends his guards to beat me up and now he pretends to be superior to me. Can you blame me for being rude? Apparently the warden could.

He looked incredibly angry as he glared down at me. "You have real purdy eyes for a young fella." He hissed. "Big and red. I wonder what would happen if you lost one of your peepers." I felt my 'peepers' widen as Stepper reached down towards my left eye.

Pain exploded through my head as the warden exacted his revenge on me. I was positive that I was screaming although all that I heard was a loud wheezing noise ringing through my head. I realized later that it was Stepper's laughter.

Then the pain died a little bit. My senses returned and I felt my remaining eye roll around in its socket. Another disadvantage to being dead is you can't pass out and end the pain. I heard myself screaming and couldn't stop. It was like being trapped with someone else.

Then I felt myself writhing on the ground in agony. The taste of ectoplasm filled my mouth and then I could smell it. It was metallic and sickeningly sweet. Finally my sight returned and my eyelid snapped open.

Having one eye is not pleasant. It was like I had lost the whole left side of my face. I had to turn my head in all directions just to get the gist of what I had seen before. Stepper was standing over me with that grin of his on his face. In his hand was a dull red marble.

With a sickened jolt I realized that the marble was my eye. He had ripped it out of my head. I gagged weakly and he laughed again. "I'll have to give this to Walker when he crosses over. A memento from his old man." This time I did through up, and Stepper wheezed harder than ever.

"The ex-prince doesn't like talk about his eye? Oh well. It was getting boring anyway." He stuck the eyeball into his pocket to my disgust again and then motioned to his guards. "Load him in the van boys." Then he floated off to the front of the van somewhere in my blind spot.

The guards lifted me into the white vehicle and it lurched forward. My parents said nothing and I weakly closed my eye. The pain in my empty socket was still overpowering all else and I sat in stiff silence until the van stopped.

The guards dragged us into a large looming building. Barbed wire surrounded the place, and there were high towers with guards. That was about all I could observe with my limited eyesight.

We were escorted to a small cramped cell with one bed and two piles on straw. My mother grabbed the bed and my father shoved the two piles of hay together and laid down also. I sat on the floor and closed my eye.

We were the first prisoners in the Ghost Zone jail.