A/N: Okay, I know the prologue was short, but hey! It's a prologue! What were you expecting?!

BlueMouse: So that's why we're updating this the exact same day! (smiles happily)

Kara: Yeah. And as a REALLY big warning, this story kicks off in a hella dark mood, but I swear it will lighten up . . . if not much . . .

Sam: (grins evilly) Dark is good . . .

Danny: Um . . . Sam? You've got that evil look again . . .

BlueMouse: (hide behind Chibi) Chibi, Sam scares me.

Tucker: (sigh) Sam tends to scare a lot of people. . .

Chibi: Um . . . let's just get the disclaimer over with.

Danny: (nods) Chibi owns nothing.

Tucker: So she could appreciate it if you didn't sue her.

Sam: (grins evilly)

Chapter 1: The Incident

Sam Manson, age 16, was walking down the street in her usual gothic getup, including the combat boots. She had just spent her day at her favorite restaurant, listening to gloomy and depressing poetry. Just the way she liked it. The day was also going to her liking. It was gloomy, dark, cloudy, and looked like it was going to rain soon. She took a deep breath, savoring the smell of the wind that comes just before a storm. It was always such a fresh smell and she loved breathing it.

On this fine evening, Sam was heading home, but this time, she took a different route. She headed through a dimly lit allyway to get to the street on the other side. She felt like there were eyes on her, and that someone was following her, but she dismissed it to her imagination since, let's admit, she was getting rather scared. She realized too late that she should have listened to her instincts because the next thing she knew, rough hands had grabbed her and had shoved a foul smelling cloth over her mouth. She tried to scream, but it was muffled so she kicked backwards as hard as she could and felt her foot connect with flesh and smirked as she heard the groan of the man and felt his grip on her loosen.

Sam chose that time to wrest free of his grasp and started to run but . . . something was wrong . . . she felt . . . dizzy . . . the world was spinning and darkness was creeping in on her vision. She felt herself falling and realized as she blanked out, that the person who had grabbed her, had put something on that cloth that she shouldn't have breathed in . . .

Crap. . .

000

Sam woke up, tied, gagged, and with a horribly sour taste in her mouth. And . . . there was the distinct hum of a car's engine, and she felt the vibrations and bumps of the tires on the road and then remembered. She had been kidnapped. She immediately began to struggle and shout out profanities to 

the driver of the car, gagged though she may be. However, the ropes were tied securely around her feet, arms, and wrists and she was unable to break free. That's when she heard laughter coming from the front seats. There were TWO men up there . . . not one like she had originally thought and noticed that the guy in the passenger seat was looking back at her.

"Uh . . . hey boss, it seems our little toy has woken up." he said, in a slow tone of voice as though he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Although his body mass made up for that. Sam mentally named the guy looking at her, 'Muscles' and the driver, 'Mastermind' since Muscles had referred to him as 'boss.'

"Are the ropes secure? We don't want her getting loose." Mastermind said as he kept his eyes firmly focused on the road.

"Duh . . . yeah! I tied them good and tight the way you told me to, boss!" Muscles said, jabbing his thumb at himself and looking strangely prideful. Sam glared at him.

"Good . . . And I'm sure that no one will come to the castle tonight. It's a great night for ghosts and everyone is just too scared by that phoney legend." Mastermind said, making sure Sam heard in order to discourage her hope for rescue.

Sam just continued to glare. Neither hopeful, nor discouraged.

"Hey uh boss," Muscles said, turning slightly to face Mastermind, though his body was still mostly turned towards Sam. "Can I have a turn with her? You know, after you're done? Can I?"

"Of course, but you better not walk in while I'm having my way with her, otherwise you can just forget it." Mastermind growled and Sam's eyes widened realizing why she was kidnapped.

Oh fuck, I'm gonna get raped!

000

Danny Fenton, age 16, was walking though the secret corridors of the old, (supposedly) abandoned castle. He made his way over to the security and control room that his best friend, techno geek, Tucker Foley, age 16, had created. He was the one who had hooked up disguised cameras so that they always knew who was in the castle and who they should keep away and where people went so that no one discovered them.

They had been living at the castle since they were both age eight and at age nine, Tucker, blessed with techno smarts, had wired the castle so that it was a mechanical haunted house. With a push of a button, doors would slam shut. The flick of a switch they would lock and stay locked until that switch was flipped again. Messing with a dial would make the lights flicker or would make gas lamps turn lower or brighter. And one button sent a swift gust of wind down one of the many hallways.

For two runaway orphans, the castle was paradise. Although . . . Danny never considered himself an orphan. He was kidnapped and taken away from his older sister Jazz, who would be 18 by now, and his parents at the age of 6. For two years he was experimented on with technology that was being used to hunt specters or ghosts and it eventually killed him . . . well . . . not quite. He was perfectly alive with a heartbeat at night from sundown to sunrise, but during the day, he was a ghost and had used those ghost powers to break him and Tucker, who had been recently kidnapped at the time of the incident, and was his cellmate, out of the research lab.

Those scientists never found them although they had been chased from town to town until they finally lost those Guys in White when they came to the town of Amity and took up refuge in the castle.

Danny sighed as he broke himself out of his reverie and looked at the monitors to see a car pull up at the front of the castle. Danny was immediately interested. It was a good night for a haunting after all . . . But when he saw the two shady characters who stepped out from the car, Danny's interest instantly turned into anger. He hated when criminals used his castle as a hideout. Danny watched as they opened the back of the car and pulled out a struggling . . . girl?

Danny was fascinated by this girl. This girl whose dark clothes blended in with the night, whose black hair was dampened by the rain, who was kicking although her legs were tied, who was screaming although she was gagged, and whose eyes glared fiercely at her captors as if she could burn holes through her heads.

I've gotta help her . . .