Chapter Text
Here's how you build a ghost story:
Take a location. Choose a place.
Then someone has to die.
Who were they? It matters. Every ghost has a secret. Every ghost had a life.
How did they die? Was it fast? Was it slow? Was it peaceful? Were they alone? All of these can change a person. Change a ghost. You can become someone new in life. You can become someone new in death. Who is the ghost in your story? What have they become?
Take a place. Add a ghost. Add their secrets. Gain a haunting.
Now comes you.
It's you who writes the ghost story. You have to decide to tell it--a ghost story built from your experience as the living with the dead. Sometimes the telling will be simple: a scary ghost, a danger, an escape, a lesson. Sometimes you'll find it's impossible to tell, because the more you know a ghost, the more you find yourself experiencing a story--a regular story, a people story, a heart and soul and brain and bone and human story. The ghost part is often just secondary.
A ghost is a person, at the end of the day. They want something--absolution, closure, friendship, completion, comfort, an answer. They'll do anything they can to get it, assuming they know what it is. Will you let them? Will you help them?
What is the difference between ghosts and us? Aren't we all just people looking for something? For someone? For peace?
The ghost, their story--are you willing to jump into it? Are you willing to be part of it? Or will you run away in fear? Me, I'll always jump in. Every time. No one deserves to be alone. I want to help, no matter what it takes.
A ghost is a ghost is a person is a friend. We're all just people looking for what we don't have. Maybe someday we'll all find what we're looking for. Until then...all I can do is try.
- Tim Drake, age 13, Notes from Gotham Hauntings, Notebook #3