I swallowed the last of my cold pancakes and followed my Father to his private study. The walls were covered with bookshelves that covered nearly every inch of the walls. We walked toward a fireplace on the back wall. My Father pulled a statue of his head forward. The fireplace opened up.

"Lady first." My Father told me. I walked down the erie staircase to a locked titanium door. To the side was a keypad.

"Excuse me." my Father said, "If you ever need to get into here, the passcode is "M4DD13." He entered the code. The door slid open to reveal a lab of some sort. "What is this place?" I asked.

"My lab. Pretty impressive, right?" He awkwardly smiled. "It's more than I thought you had." I said since I never knew we had a lab under our home. "What do you do here exactly?" I asked.

He looked at me. "Ghosts, Dani, I study ghosts."

"What? You?"

He chuckled. "Yes...I didn't want you to know as you might have gotten scared and ran way or something. But lately you have seemed to have matured quite a lot. So I assumed now would be a good time." I walked around the lab. Various gadgets and thingys laid on tables and walls. A few had screens, a few had contents, a few ahead triggers.

"Father wh-" I started. Father cut me off.

"Danielle, Doesn't 'Father' seem too formal?"

I stared at him in confusion. "Yes, but that's all that I have ever called you."

He smiled. "Could we stick to dad, or Vlad?" I thought for a second... "Yeah I guess..." I didn't really know what to say. He turned away and opened a drawer filled with guns that looked like they came from space. He saw my jaw drop. "Want one?" He asked.

I nodded.

He then looked through the weaponry. "To big... To small... oo underpowered... Ah, how about this?" He showed me a small silver pistol. I didn't expect to actually receive one. "For me? Are you really going to give a 12 year old girl a space pistol?" I was wondering if dad was in his right mind, or if he even had one left.

Straight faced, he told me, "Danielle, not only to I study ghosts, I also hut them. They come to our world through these portals. I have one, I'll show you it later if you want." I nodded. "Anyways," he said, "They enter our world and lay waste to it. As a rich man of America, I feel as it is one of my duties to protect our country from...ghosts."

I kind of stopped listening. Everything was so shiny and hi-tech. "Cool..." I said, even though I wasn't listening. "Could I have my space gun now?" He frowned at me and told me that the guns were "Ectoplasmic Blasters", or "Ecto-Blasters" for short.

"How do I load it? Where does the magazine go?" I had watched a few cop shows on TV and they always talked about guns and reloading and whatnot, so I had some knowledge in guns, but not much.

He handed me a small clear tube. "Here," He pulled out on instruction manual, "Take this too. You are going to need how to learn how to use it." I rolled my eyes. How hard could it be? "there's a catch to this, isn't there?" I asked suspiciously.

"Yes, Dani. Yes there is."