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Every ghost had an origin story, the tale of how they came to be. For most, they were created from a dying body, driven to existence through a deep sense of purpose. Perhaps a dying wish they never got to fulfill, or an especially traumatic death that resulted in an overexertion of brain matter in the last moments. For most, this was their origin story.
For other ghosts, they were created in the Zone. Most of that group were born from the procreation of two other ectoplasmic creatures. Not all ghosts had the capabilities of reproduction, but some of the more sentient, more powerful ghosts could find a way if they so pleased.
But for a small group, they were born from the Zone itself. From the deepest, most ancient parts of this vast expanse of ectoplasmic energy. There were only a few ghosts who developed this way, but those few possessed powers that other ghosts could only dream of.
They were called eldritch ghosts.
“So what about you?” Phantom asked. He had taken a liking to a particular stuffed armchair in Clockwork’s haunt, lounging with his back to one arm and his legs dangling over the other. He asked the question lazily, his eyes more focused on the ice shapes he was creating in his palm than on Clockwork himself. “How were you made?”
Clockwork shifted to his adult form. “I know you’re not a full fledged ghost, but even you should know the taboos of our culture.”
Phantom dissipated the ice crystals. “Oh come on, Clocky! You know how I got here.”
“I know how everyone got here. I am the master of—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Phantom shook his hand nonchalantly to the side. “Master of time, god of all past, present, and future, observer of all timelines and potential outcomes. I know, but even you have an origin story.”
“Not everyone has an exciting tale of origin, ghost child.”
“But you still came from somewhere.”
Clockwork turned his attention back to a portal he was watching. It was of a young ghost child learning to ride a bike for the first time. Clockwork had seen this before, and he would see it again in the future.
He sighed, shifting into his child form and wiping the portal to show a new landscape. It was dark, black. He waved his arm, zooming in further on the scene until a bright green orb of swirling ectoplasm came into view.
“Come, child.”
“Huh?” Phantom rose from the couch. “Oh, what’s that? Is that the zone?”
“Correct.”
Phantom peered closer to the scene until he was hovering just mere inches away from it. “I don’t get it. Where are all the doors?”
“There are no doors in this realm of the Ghost Zone. No portals to other lands, other timelines, or other worlds.”
“Oh. So then why are you showing me this?”
Clockwork pointed his metal staff towards the glowing green mass. “Do you see that?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s the epicenter of the Zone. We all exist around it in an ever growing mass of ectoplasm and space. Everything in this plane originated from that core.”
“Wait, the Zone has a core? Like ghosts do?”
Clockwork nodded, his purple hood bobbing at the movement. “That is correct.”
“Does that mean…” Phantom’s face scrunched up. “Does that mean the Zone is a ghost?”
“Not exactly. The Zone is not sentient, it is merely an expanse of space that emits ectoplasmic energy, the thing that creates and sustains us. Without this core, the ectoplasm in the Zone would be unable to sustain itself, and the Zone as we know it would cease to exist, along with all of us.”
Phantom’s eyes shifted warily back to the screen. “That’s sort of dangerous, isn’t it?”
“How so?”
“If the core is so important for us to stay alive, then why is it so...I don’t know, exposed? Couldn’t some insane ghost just go destroy it?”
“No,” Clockwork said. “That’s the biggest mystery of the Zone’s core. Anyone who’s ever tried to get near the core has never made it back in one piece. The core is so powerful that it incinerates any ghost who attempts to get close. Hence why there are no doors around it either.”
“What if someone just like accidentally stumbles across it? Like what if one day I’m flying, minding my own business, and I get too close to this core?”
“That wouldn’t happen. Ghosts can feel it.” He shifted to his elder form and waved his hand once more at the portal, zooming in even closer to the core until the duo could see all the individual swirling speckles of ectoplasm pulsating around the core.
Phantom was silent for a moment, staring up at the bright green core with childlike wonder. “It looks sort of like a sun.”
“It is like the sun. If we fly too close, we can feel it. But it’s not hot in the way a human sun is. It won’t burn or melt you if you get too close.”
“Then what happens?”
Clockwork took a deep breath, closing his eyes. It had been so long, an eternity even, but even he could never forget the way the Zone’s core felt. How it affected his core, how it directed the ambient ectoplasm around him, guiding him away from the ancient depths of the Zone.
Most ghosts would never get that lucky. Other ghosts would cease to exist.
But not him.
“A ghost who gets too close would feel an intense amount of pressure. At first, it’s just a slight warning, but the closer the ghost gets, the more they would feel as if gravity itself is imploding around them. But if they get close enough, the core’s radiant ectoplasm would begin to interact with the ghost’s own core, and they’ll be driven insane by the Zone’s sheer power. The ghost’s core would become parasitic, and would force the ghost’s body forward until the Zone’s core can reach them. At that point, they’d simply dissolve.”
Danny shuttered. “Seems like a bad way to go.”
“It is.”
“So…” Danny started, his tone shifting into one of cautious curiosity. “Not that this isn’t cool and all, ‘cause it is, but why are you telling me all this?”
Clockwork shifted back into his childlike form. “You wanted to know my origin story, did you not?”
“Well, yeah. But I don’t see how the Zone’s core has anything to do with you specifically. Other than, you know, us being a ghost and needing the Zone’s core to exist and all that.”
Clockwork held his gloved hand up to eye level, watching as the miniature clocks adorning his wrists ticked away at their various times. “Every couple thousand years, the Zone’s core has too much radiant ectoplasm it needs to dispel. A human star does this much more often in the form of solar flares. But the Zone’s core is made of ectoplasm, and so it dispels its energy in the form of a new ghost.”
“So...you mean...you were born from the Zone’s core?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“And you’re still here?” Danny jumped up, swirling around Clockwork in alarm. “How? How did it not drive you insane and make you explode?”
Clockwork chuckled. “Child, I am the Zone’s child. Why would it kill its own creation so soon?”
“But you said the Zone wasn’t sentient.”
“That I did.” Clockwork hummed, shifting back into his adult form. He waved his staff once more at the portal, transforming the scene to a ghost wandering beyond where doors existed. If anything was amiss, the ghost paid no mind, traversing deeper into the empty landscape.
In a few hours, the ghost would be no more.
“I’m sure if I tried to go near it now, I would end up like this poor soul. But upon my creation, the core was expending excess energy. It wouldn’t have wanted to take back the energy it just spent so much effort getting rid of.”
Phantom eyed the portal, looking ill.
"Remember, child." Clockwork swung his staff, morphing the scene back into the child riding a bike. “The Zone is full of mysteries. Ones that I myself do not even fully understand.”