Team Harding: Day One

[sparednothing]

[By now you should have already woken up to your surroundings. Your camp is near a clifface, overlooking the sea. Nearby are long, metallic trailers, full of hi-tech tracking equipment and enough space to sleep four people. Each has a kitchen and a bathroom, too. In the distance, is the jungle, but it seems largely quiet today]

[[ooc: The camp | Pick a trailer | The stegosauruses | Sarah Harding | Day One OOC post | Plot Hub]]

Comments

[beastisbeauty]

Well that's just the way nature works. Everything, even humans, are part of the food chain. That's just life.

Green goo...ectoplasm?

[schrodingersghost]

You know what it is?

[beastisbeauty]

I've heard of it, sure. Supposedly mediums create it as a sort of drape--a means to give physical form to spirits so they can interact in the living world.

[schrodingersghost]

That's sort of it? But there's a little more to it than that. Its the energy ghosts are made out of, though it can also exist on its own.

[beastisbeauty]

Oh, I see. How do you study it?

[schrodingersghost]

Don't ask me, I just clean the lab and change the ecto-filter on the Fenton Ghost-Portal. Oh, and ignore Dad when he starts blathering about ghosts.

[beastisbeauty]

[Bruce shakes his head.]

Be glad your father shares things with you, even blather about ghosts. If you listened, you might find out something valuable.

[schrodingersghost]

Oh, I listen. I just filter out most of the stuff about fudge and his college days and all the exciting new ways he's invented to make ghosts miserable.

[beastisbeauty]

Why does he want to make ghosts miserable? Does he know you're a ghost?

[The question is very gentle.]

[schrodingersghost]

No way!

Mom and Dad are ghost hunters. They think all ghosts are evil putrid sacks of ectoplasm out to ruin human lives for the fun of it. And they spend all their time inventing new weapons to use against ghosts.

[beastisbeauty]

[Bruce frowns, his sympathy showing.]

I'm sorry. Why does he hate ghosts so much? Are their ghosts who harm humans?

[schrodingersghost]

Some ghosts, yeah. The ones who don't never come to the human world. But they thought all ghosts were evil a long time before they ever met any.

I don't really know why. Its what all scientists in my world think. Mom calls ghosts odd manifestations of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness. They think ghosts are just echoes or something. That we can't feel pain and that we don't have any emotions.

[beastisbeauty]

[Bruce sighs, shaking his head.]

I'm sorry to insult your parents, but that's bigotry...reducing the object of hate and comtempt to less than human status.

...

How do you trick them into believing your al...not a ghost?

[schrodingersghost]

Humans can't be ghosts. Humans can't have ghost powers. Mom laughs every time anyone even suggests it could be possible.

[Danny shrugs.]

No ones looking for something that isn't possible.

[He hesitates.]

I....

I know Mom and Dad mean well. And there are some ghosts who attack the human world. Actually a lot of them. The only ghosts who come to the human world are the ones who want something out of humans. And some of them are pretty nasty.

I just... They don't see any kind of difference. And I can't tell them anything when I'm a ghost, because they just assume that anything a ghost says is a lie or an attempt to manipulate them.

[beastisbeauty]

Maybe we use the word "ghost" differently. On my world, a ghost, commonly, is a word used to describe the spirit or shade of a human who has passed away.

There are ghost stories on my world of evil spirits trying to hurt humans...horror movies and stuff. I've always thought most ghost stories just sounded sad.

[schrodingersghost]

Its a little more complicated than that in my world. Humans are alive. Ghosts aren't. You could call them the living and the dead, but thats a little morbid for me.

Some ghosts were human once. But not all of them. I've met ghosts who were born ghosts. There are animal ghosts, and ghosts who represent things like time and nature. Basically, a ghost is anything made out of ectoplasm.

[Grumpily.] Well, you've never met Skulker or Ember.

[beastisbeauty]

[Bruce smiles sympathetically.] No, I don't know them. You're right, though; it does sound complicated. Your world is certainly different from mine. On my world, the scientists who study ghostly phenomenon are trying to prove whether or not ghosts even exist.

[schrodingersghost]

...Yeah, up until two years ago, thats what ghost scientists in my world did. Everyone thought my parents were loons.

[A beat.]

Everyone still thinks my parents are loons. But they're loons who were right.

[beastisbeauty]

What happened two years ago?