Chapter 1

She never actually considered him a ghost. But once she and her husband had upgraded, so to speak, their lab, she could calculate so much more. He was different from other ghosts. A clear observation of this was seen as he never haunted anything, anyplace, or anyone. She now had about ten different ghost specimens, but for now he could only be categorized as a glob of ectoplasm with full mental capacity and an oddly stable matrix.

Other ghosts' matrix were stable, but not nearly as much as his. Other ghosts had a more dominating nature, sometimes going two ways between obsessive and aggressive. He was neither, until he had to be in the reflexive self-defense state of mind. Other ghosts wouldn't care about humans. It was unclear whether he did or didn't. Other ghosts thought of their hauntings as the marking of their territory. She didn't know whether he was doing the same thing by pushing his kind away from this city, thus defending his turf, or by attempting heroism in the light of its citizens.

He was different. Very, very different. As a registered level seven being, he was more than capable of annihilating everything he saw, so long as it wasn't coated with or consisted of reenforced anti-ectoplasmic liquid, which would harden drastically to serve as a barrier against his kind. Or in this case...

She looked up from her computer and the countless notes, theories, and recorded observations scatter around it.

...a containment unit.

This ghost here was elusive, so much that he was considered a rarity. By a fortunate stroke of luck they had managed to stun and capture him. He was no prize, but a level seven like him could be extremely useful in her studies. She could fashion new and even improved anti-ghost materials. Since there were so many ghosts in Amity Park, he could easily be key to finding their main weaknesses, something that no one had ever known before.

But he was awfully cocky for a prisoner at her mercy. His way of interaction, or rather, communication, was different from other ghosts' in the fact that being here almost seemed natural to him, as if he had been penned up and locked inside an inescapable glass unit a hundred times. He talked casually, like he was talking to a friend. He brought up conversations that tended to slide fluidly from one topic to the next. It never caused her to stray too far from her work, but occasionally she would bite the line and fall into one of his pointless chatter sessions. Sometimes it felt like he was talking on the phone, which was technically the same since there was an intercom built into a rounded corner of his unit, but everything he said was said naturally. It was like he wasn't even thinking about it, he just...said it. Whatever was on his mind, he talked about. At east until the intercom was deactivated.

He acted like a human teenager when she cut it off like that. He looked so annoyed and sometimes even shouted something to her. The way he kept gesturing to her and then the intercom and then to her again made it perfectly clear that he was irritated by what she had done and was now angrily demanding that she turn it back on. It was exactly like a teenager's reaction to being grounded from the phone. That look in their eyes, that frustration in their systems, the way they would yell things out and act like it was the end of the world... It was written all over him.

And it was enough to confirm that he was personifying himself more than any other ghost she had seen. He not only looked like a teenage boy, but spoke and acted like one as well. He even seemed to have hormonal fluctuations, but she knew the idea was a little farfetched to have a hint of truth to it.

The level seven, or just "seven", as she sometimes referred to him by, stopped picking at the edge of his white glove and looked at her with thoughtful eyes.

"I suppose you don't have something better to do than sit there and stare at me?" he remarked, a lopsided smile forming on his face.

"I have no need to justify my actions toward you, ghost," she said defensively, slightly embarrassed that she had in fact been absently staring at him.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "I have a name, you know. If you could say it just once, that'd be great."

"Why?"

"Well for one, it means you acknowledge me as something other than a guinea pig-"

"Which you are less than," she interrupted.

He rolled his eyes again in a very irritated manner. "Right. Okay, something other than whatever is less than me."

Her turn to reveal some arrogance, no matter how childish it may be for a scientist of her rank. "There is nothing lower than you. You ghosts are lucky you even exist."

He frowned. "Harsh." Sarcasm, another difference between the seven and other ghosts. There were ghosts who looked like teenagers, but they hardly acted like them, let alone spoke like them. "So lemme ask you something. You say we're lucky to exist, but you see us as so low on the food chain here that-"

"You aren't even on the food chain. Another thing that lowers your status. You are nothing more than lesser beings formed from ectoplasm and postmortem consciousness."

The seven looked up for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed in thought.

"Meaning...?" He gestured for her to complete the sentence.

"Meaning you and the rest of your kind are nothing above a mockery of what was once before you."

Another pause, this one lasting longer than anything she had heard today.

"Please say my name," he said. "It sets me aside from all those other ghosts. I'm not like them and you know it. Doesn't that make me something else? Doesn't that earn me a name, other than 'ghost' or 'seven'? I would really appreciate it. It doesn't have to be my full name, my last one is fine. I'm just asking you to say my name. It's not that hard, just a simple request."

"Why should I bend to you?" she retorted. "You're only different personality-wise, save for a few minor physical properties."

"Why is it so hard to say my name? I'm not asking you to go rob a bank. I get experimented on practically every day, can't I ask just one little thing from you?"

She narrowed her eyes and glared at seven for a short time before turning back to her work. There were plenty of numbers involved, and she couldn't let a mere ghost distract her from a lifetime of work and efforts, soon to be met with rapid progress and raw information. Experiments applied to seven had been useful so far. However, he wasn't just the blob of ectoplasm he should be. His body wasn't made entirely of ectoplasm, unlike every other ghost she had looked at. Though his physical traits were those perfectly balanced in a typical ghost, he had other traits that stumped her and forced her to halt certain aspects of her research. In fact, he had put down half her "foolproof" and "surefire" theories. Seven would have to be separated into an entirely new class.

It was impossible to do that, though, because he still had too many traits belonging to a normal ghost. Basically, he was different, yet not different. That was why half her theories had been false. Years of work and dedication were proving to be lies, nothing but faulty glints of pride that were supposed to be impeccable. But now seven had breached them without even trying. In turn, it made her question everything else she thought she knew.

Right now the only thing she knew for sure was that seven had unique properties that she had never before seen in other ghosts. According to her findings that simply wasn't possible! He was too ghost to be considered different, but was too different to be considered ghost!

And what's more, he kept speaking to her as though he was alive, even though he clearly was not. He always said something about living and dying, both of which were impossible for him. Parts of him even looked alive. He had a heartbeat, he needed to breathe, he needed to eat. He needed what was not necessary to sustain himself. If he wasn't fed his weight dropped. If he didn't breathe he would pass out. She never attempted to stop his heart, but she could tell he needed it beat so he could, as he would phrase it, "live".

All these were nothing to normal ghosts, yet seven had fully functioning organs. Because he ate and drank, his liver and kidneys had to be working. Actually, everything had to be working. Not a single part of him was shut down, because he in himself was functioning just as a human would.

She gasped. Everything in him was functioning...which would explain why he had adolescent mood swings! Hormones were being produced inside him, which kept everything in him in check, including the involuntary organs such as his heart and stomach. So then... She sighed. So then it was possible for a ghost to have and even produce hormones...meaning yet another theory had vanished, proven faulty again.

She glanced at seven, who had gone back to picking at his glove. It was frustrating to know that all her work was being wasted, but by disproving one theory he had created the truth. He was more useful than she first thought...

"Glub...gluuuub..."

She turned from her computer again, just to see what he was doing this time. He had his nose gently touching the side of the glass perpendicular to her, his reflection showing as he smiled and held his hands, palms backward, over his ears. A fish. He was making a fish face. His eyes were crossed, giving him a comical look.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked, not much curiosity in her voice.

He smiled at his reflection. "I feel like I'm in a fish tank, so I figured, why not act like a fish? Burble...gluburble...bluuuug...glub..."

He turned his body so it was parallel to the ground and tapped his heels together in a way that made it look like he had fins. It was more evidence of his strange persona. Other ghosts would sit still until aggravated. Seven chose to actually do something to pass time. What he did was usually silly and childish, but he didn't have much else to do.

"Well can you do something else? It's a little distracting," she said.

His pursed lips grew into a wide, toothy grin as he turned to look at her, eyes still crossed and hands still acting as gills. "Glub, glub!"

She reached for a small lever beside her desk and pulled it down. The intercom deactivated and his shenanigans were stopped, only to be replaced by inaudible yelling and irate body language. Eventually he would move to the far side of the unit and sulk, usually for about fifteen minutes before accepting what happened and going about his business, silently or not. She assumed that he was getting too lonely, and needed something to comfort him. That something had become his own voice. He talked to himself all the time, whenever he felt the urge to say something. He normally did that when she wouldn't talk back to him. He used his voice as a kind of distraction, another method to pass time as well as something to keep him company.

It struck her at that moment, yet another difference between seven and any other ghost. He yearned for human contact. That had to be the reason he kept starting up all kinds of conversations. That was probably the underlying reason that he wanted her to call him by his name. He just wanted to be noticed, to know he wasn't alone.

But... She shook her head and tried to focus on her new findings about the wonders of dead, yet at the same time living, organs working as a human's inside him. ...But he was still just a ghost.

Anyway, back to true research-

There was a short tapping sound on the glass and when she turned to look, he was floating in midair writhing. At first she worried that something might be wrong, but when he stopped to tap the glass again and resume writhing, after which the process repeated itself several more times, she realized that he was still acting like a fish when someone tapped the glass.

Anyway, back to true research, why would something already dead, already lifeless, need dead-living organs? The other ghosts had organs, but none of them breathed or ate or had a heartbeat. In fact, it could take hours for one of them to blink, if they did at all. This suggested that the tear film on their eyes had evaporated and couldn't be formed again due to lack of functioning tear ducts. They had to manually blink, whereas a human, or anything living for that matter, did not.

Her eyes gradually moved back to seven. He was physically different on so many new levels... She watched as his he blinked steadily and frequently, whenever his eyes moved. Any human's eyes moved that same way, displayed that same unbearable urge to blink for the protection and moisturization of their eyes. His eyes had a very evident tear film, further proof of working tear ducts. She had never seen him cry, but knowing that his eyes had that film over them proved to her that she didn't need to see him cry to know he had fully functioning tear glands.

Due to the presence of hormones, it was very clear that it wasn't just the organs that were working. To be able to produce hormones meant every gland in him was working properly, otherwise he would be suffering severely from whatever hormone he lacked. He wasn't suffering at all. He was playing in a cage. If he was suffering then he was the world's best actor.

No! She wanted to slap herself. No, he could never be compared to the living in such a fashion as jobs or careers. She still looked at him, staring as she watched every movement. He was talking to himself again, having already dropped the fish act. Now he was hovering cross-legged, with his body slouched over and his head resting on one hand. The perfect image of a bored teenager, she noted. He didn't know she was watching; he seemed to be much too caught up in the conversation with himself. Just one more oddity to add to seven's list... All this was coming naturally to him. He wasn't forcing himself to look more like a bored teenager than a ghost, it was just happening. And the worst part about this, the part that would throw away yet another theory concerning a ghost's ability to force the image of humanity on themselves, was that his actions made him seem more human than the other ghosts. This was what teenagers looked like when they got so bored they didn't know what to do, and he acted like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And maybe to him, it was.

However, no matter how many theories he marked as true or false, he could never change one fact: he was a ghost. He was ectoplasm that somehow managed to stabilize itself, yet should never have existed, never have been able to form the image of a humanoid. At least the other ghosts had certain properties that explained why they were here today. Seven's properties explained almost nothing. The internal functions... Those were the most baffling to her. How did this happen? How did he come to be when he should be far too unstable to keep himself together? How did he form moving organs, exact replicas of a human's organs that functioned in the exact same way as a human's? Had he done it consciously over time or was it an accident, so to speak, during his creation? Perhaps some malefactor had occurred and resulted in the anomaly that was seven? It might sound cruel, but he was a mistake, a reject of life.

Maybe he was involved with the black arts when he died...? Perhaps he was a necromancer or something of the sort...? It could explain a few things about him. An accident during his creation seemed ludicrous, but that, too, was a possibility. However, both ideas only led her to another question: how did he come to be? How was he created? Was he even created, even real? Well yes, at least that much was true. But what about every other question she couldn't answer? As soon as she discovered one little, tiny, miniscule thing about seven, ten new questions popped up. Her mind was yelling at her to give it up because right now, she had nothing to explain him. All she could say about him was that he was different. She would have to make up anything beyond that if she were trying to tell someone about her recent "findings". The findings that weren't actually found at all!

As much as she wanted to grunt and repeatedly bang her head against her computer, which was still making no sense whatsoever, she refrained. Listening in on one of seven's secret self-conversations could be helpful...hopefully.

She pushed the lever upward and turned the intercom back on, very careful not to make a noise so it would sound like the intercom was still off.

He continued talking to himself, which meant he hadn't heard her.

"-en get what the point of this is. I mean, she says I'm different, but how am I supposed to know half the questions she asks me, you know? Of course you don't know. If I don't know, why should you? I mean, it's not like you're someone else. You never have been, it's just been me all along, so technically I control whatever you say. Watch... Banana. Pointer finger. Cereal. TV. You know what? TV actually sounds good right now. I wish I had a TV. You think they have Desiree in here? You think she'll hear my wish? Pfft. Yeah, fat chance of that. Just look around, these walls are soundproof! Eh...besides, maybe wishing on Desiree is a bad idea. You know how she is, always twisting the wishes she grants. I swear, she's like one of those genies in the movies! You know how they always make good wishes turn bad? Yeah, that's all her. And speaking of 'all', I wonder where Cujo is in all his doggie glory. I wouldn't mind getting slimed with dog saliva right now. Better than being trapped in here with no one to say hi to. At least Cujo would say my name in dog language. I wish she would say my name for once. It would be a nice change of pace. I mean, do you ever hear me spitting out 'human' or...I dunno, her age as a number or something? You never hear me degrading her, but she does it to me all the time! Why? What did I ever do? Fight off ghosts, protect the city? How is that wrong?!"

She sighed. He wasn't having a conversation after all. He was only babbling on, sometimes not making much sense and other times sounding crazy. But then...he was left alone for hours on end each day, only having a small opportunity to summon a conversation. That could be a reason why he he kept acting like it was normal. He was so comforted by the thought of having someone listen to him and talk to him that he took every chance he got. If he was an actual person, this would be breaking her heart, to see a child so neglected that he had resorted to driving himself insane by talking to no one except his own voice.

Seven might see himself as a person, but he wasn't. He was just a ghost. He was just one more unanswered question. Just one more among this dimensional plane. Just one more test subject, a thing lower than a lab rat or, as they had talked about it earlier, a guinea pig. Seven was not a person.