How marvelous this technology was. Erik had always been ahead of his time, fabricating the strangest devices that would boggle the mind of any scholar, leaving him dumb and bland. But THIS… Erik almost regretted his time in the complete solitude that the ghost zone had supplied him with. Over the years, his own inventions had progressed in complexity, and he now observed that they could easily be seen as the product of a world parallel to the one he was currently standing in; it was as if progress had forked off in two directions, creating entirely different possibilities. Erik found this new world impressive, but far too colorless. Had these people no sense of beauty? All around him were the jagged, careless edges of efficient (if dull) metal. Gray was the dominant color in the room by far, but there were occasional patterns, which he assumed to be messages of some sort, painted on seemingly random surfaces. He recognized ectoplasm, the energy source of ghosts, to be the obvious power source to a few mechanisms. The inventors of these must have been quite careless, providing freely so much information.
It was no matter, though. Erik was curious to see how the human race had evolved since he had died, possibly in the most literal sense. He had no idea how long he had been inside the ghost zone, for he had not intended to leave. Something had pulled him mercilessly across the void, with the everlasting quickness of a single moment of intense pain. Now he was here, back in the world he had grown to despise. Now he was truly the Opera Ghost, the Living Corpse that everyone feared! The Angel of Doom… how perfectly fitting THAT title had become! Becoming intangible and invisible, Erik glided upwards until he could see the sky. He looked down, studying the scene. The first thing he saw was an odd building, the one he had just exited. Two words in English were etched upon an extremely gaudy sign.
"Fenton works"…
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
"I swear, this is just TOO weird!" Danny grumbled, trekking angrily through the halls of his school, Sam and Tucker at his side. "Your ghost sense going off? Gee, that's rare," Sam replied sarcastically. "For the umpteenth time this week! I haven't even seen ONE ghost!" Danny snapped. "And seriously, how many ghosts do you know that would just follow me without doing anything?"
"The Box Ghost," Tucker said, and at Danny and Sam's confused expressions, he explained, "he tries, but never really DOES anything."
"Hardy har har," Danny huffed, then after a second wilted and said, "look, guys, I'm sorry. I'm just so nervous! My ghost sense has been going off left and right, but I haven't seen any ghosts! I think I have a… stalker, or something." Tucker raised an eyebrow, "a ghost stalker?"
"… I just realized how stupid that sounded."
"What tipped you off?" Sam teased with a mischievous smile. "Well don't you think it's a little weird?" Danny persisted, causing Sam and Tucker's moods to turn serious. "Kinda… but as long as whatever it is you're sensing leaves us alone, there's no problem, right?" Sam said hopefully. "As far as we know…" Danny responded, made uneasy by a choking sense of foreboding. Despite Danny's ominous predictions, the day went by as usual; that is, until the explosion.
It was all over the news. Many people claimed that it was a terrorist attack, while others claimed that it was an extreme reformist, trying to get a message across. Some said that it was just some nut that got his hands on some explosives. Danny, Sam and Tucker, however, knew better than to assume that this was caused by the actions of a human. The students of Casper High were sent home immediately, for fear of more "bombings". As soon as Danny walked in his front door, Jazz was on him like a tiger, hurling questions at him. "Oh my gosh, Danny, are you all right? I heard about it on the news! I took the day off to study for a big test, and of course the teachers didn't care, because…" a hard look from Danny got her back on topic. "A-anyway! Was it a ghost? I'll bet it was! Did you kick its transparent butt?"
"Um, Jazz? Chill," Danny said dryly, walking past her. "There was no ghost. I mean, what kind of ghost would blow up a BOOKSTORE?"
As soon as Danny was sure that Jazz was not trying to spy on his conversations, he turned on his computer and pulled up a video chat room, where Sam and Tucker were already waiting. "OK guys, I got Jazz out of the way."
"That's a relief!" Tucker laughed, "god knows she's more likely to stop YOU than any other ghost!"
"Tucker, mind focusing? The guy running that bookstore almost died, is in the hospital in critical condition, and all you can do is joke about Danny's sister?" Sam snapped. Tucker shrugged, "apparently."
"About that. Either of you have any idea what kind of ghost would want to blow a place like that up?" Danny intervened, bringing his friends back on topic. "Not a clue," Tucker and Sam said simultaneously, then both looked vaguely surprised. Sam was the first to recover. "We could go out and sniff for clues, but my mom's on hyper drive and won't let me set foot outside the house."
"You know Amity Park," Tucker said, "there's always SOMETHING being blown up. Those news hacks just like to blow it out of proportion. Things will be back to normal by tomorrow."
"You're probably right," Danny agreed, "let's all meet up tomorrow night for a little recon."
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Once again, like so many times before, Danny and his friends found themselves searching for an unknown threat. Danny, in his ghost form, flew a slight distance ahead of Sam and Tucker, who rode on electronic scooters to keep up. The trio was combing the streets of Amity Park, searching for this new, odd bomber. They were ready for anything… except the sudden intrusion of strange and beautiful music upon the still night air. Amity Park had one church, which was used to house many different religions by renting out sections to different groups. The eerie sounds of a lonely organ drifted upon tufts of air, creating immense beauty and sadness with each painfully perfect note. Sam, Danny and Tucker, whether out of suspicion or something more, honed in on the source of this strange phenomenon. Danny motioned for Sam and Tucker to wait outside the building while he went in to investigate.
Danny glided silently into the eerie church, invisible and intangible. As he grew closer to the source of the sound, he saw a dark figure sitting at a large organ. As he grew closer, he saw the telltale glow surrounding the shape.
A ghost!
"Sorry to interrupt, but do you do tutoring? I could really use some help in music theory," Danny announced confidently, causing the ghost to halt abruptly. "And this is again my undoing!" Danny heard the ghost hiss to itself, though he had no idea what it meant. "Um, yeah, you DO know I'm here, right? I could be talking to a brick wall right now." Pausing, he contemplated the thought and said, "I actually could be… can ghosts do that?" The dark ghost rose to its feet silently, not making any move to turn and face Danny. Danny blinked. "Seriously, would it kill you to say something? Ohh, bad pun." The ghost stayed still enough to be a photo. "Well, I hate to attack without cause, but I bet you've done SOMETHING wrong. Batter up!" Danny hurled an ectoplasmic ball of energy at the ghost. Danny's bravado evaporated as he felt a thin strand of catgut (not that HE knew what it was) curl around his throat, sapping his strength with a sharp jerk. He hadn't even seen the ghost move… he really needed to start paying more attention in these fights! In a split-second reaction, Danny went intangible and pushed away from the deadly noose, a mere heartbeat away from a savage tug that would have lopped his head clean off.
"Whoa!" Danny exclaimed, suspended in midair, rubbing his neck, "dude, chill!" The ghost stared at him blankly, and Danny got a chance to study it. It was a man, very tall and extremely thin. He would have guessed that it was a skeleton, but he couldn't really imagine a skeleton being that well-dressed. The ghost looked like we had just come from his own funeral, decked in head-to-foot black. There was also a mask, but what can you expect from a ghost? He and Tucker had a bet going about how long it would be before they saw one in a coconut bra. "OK, you haven't said a thing, and it's kinda starting to creep me out. Do you even understand what I'm saying?" The ghost seemed to think about this, and after a brief moment he replied, "I believe that you are speaking some form of English, though what you are saying continues to be a mystery." Danny blinked, startled by the civility of the ghost's tone. "Ooookay then…" he said, recovering, "WHAT... ARE... YOU... DOING... HERE?"
"I am not deaf!" The ghost snapped, tightening its grip on the proven to be dangerous string in its hands. "OK, OK!" Danny stammered, raising his hands in a sign of surrender. "Not deaf. Gotcha." The ghost's eyes glinted dangerously through the mask, and Danny landed on the ground, backing up. "Look, you win! I'm not gonna attack!"
"And may I inquire as to why you did so in the first place?" The ghost's voice was low and ominous. "You were playing an organ in a deserted church in the middle of the night."
"Is that a crime?"
"No, but you gotta admit, it's pretty creepy."
The doors of the room slammed open, and Sam and Tucker charged in. "Hang on, Danny! The cavalry's here!" Tucker screamed, waving an ecto-gun wildly. "We heard a blast, so we—oh." Tucker was silenced by the very imposing figure of the black-clad ghost looking down on him with contempt. "Uh, don't let is interrupt anything. We'll just be going now…" he started to walk away, but Sam grabbed his arm sharply. "Listen, spook! If you want to hurt Danny, you'll have to go through us!"
"Umm, Sam?" Danny tried to interject, but Sam continued yelling at the ghost. "So you'd better just run of back to the ghost zone before we kick your creepy butt—"
"SAM!" Danny shouted, waving his arms to get her attention. "We stopped fighting, like, five minutes ago."
"Really? Why?"
"Umm…" Danny hesitated, not wanting to tell Sam that they could all have their necks snapped in a matter of seconds. "W-well, we don't know if this ghost has done anything, so we might as well give it a chance to explain itself—"
"IT?" the ghost's voice was almost a whisper, but held the quiet severity of thunder. "Gah! Uh-uh-'he'! That's it! He!" Danny stammered, fearing the lasso that could easily kill him and his friends. He could feel the anger coming off the ghost in waves, but tried to act as calm as possible. 'I bet he can smell fear…' he thought shakily. "A-and it's really not fair to attack him without hearing his side of the story… right?" he looked to his friends with a silent plea. They both nodded dumbly, and turned expectantly to the ghost.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
How utterly amusing! These children seemed too absorbed in their gentle bickering to spare any attention to the monster surveying them! Erik almost wanted to laugh… and wished that he could understand half of what they were saying. He spoke almost every language ever invented by man quite fluently (the ghost zone giving him the time and tools necessary to learn both modern and dead languages), but these three seemed to be speaking a completely new dialect. Now they were staring at him. Erik hated being stared at, even if it was not for the usual reasons. They attacked him, and now expected him to cheerily engage in story-telling? Well, they were only children, he supposed, and he had not killed a child yet (excluding poor Reza…).
"I am not here with the intention of harming you, or anyone else," he started, his temper flaring slightly as the watching faces were clouded by disbelief. "I am, however, by no means above doing so." The expressions changed to fear. What a delightful little game. "I therefore suggest that you leave me be." The three youths looked anxious now. Erik started to wonder why, but his question was soon answered by the one whose name he had not heard, dressed in a most unnerving shade of yellow. "We'll be out of your hair in a minute; we just have one quick question for you!" Glancing at the one that Erik assumed to be "Danny", the other boy added, "it's, ah, part of a survey." At Erik's silence, the boy continued, "blow up any bookstores lately?
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The ghost seemed surprised by the question (not that you could really tell with that mask). "… Ah, yes." He said at length, though his tone lacked any of the malicious gloating that Danny usually associated with destructive ghosts. "Um… why?" Danny asked, taken aback by the ghost's blunt confession. The ghost shifted uncomfortably, "certain documents held within are… were… surprisingly… accurate." Danny would bet he looked as confused as he felt. "… Well, uh, earlier you were asking about crime, and that kind of IS, so I'm gonna have to take you back to the ghost zone," he said, grabbing the Fenton thermos. The ghost straightened his figure to look taller and even more menacing, "and spend eternity lost inside that endless void?" he growled, defiance clear in his voice.
THIS was going to be difficult…
And there's the end of chapter 1! Please leave a review, unless you just feel like spouting criticism. Then, I guess, don't. That aside, I hope you guys enjoyed this!