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The last of Vlad's family, his mother, had died when he was seventeen, leaving him completely on his own when he went off to college. After the proto-portal accident, even his friends, Jack and Maddie, abandoned him. They left him to die, slowly, in agony, and unbearably alone, of horrible ecto-acne that slowly transformed his body, infected his blood, corrupted his soul, over the course of four years.
It was during those four years that he discovered ghostly purring, discovered that it meant only pain, the worst kind of suffering imaginable. It was supposed to self-soothe, to encourage healing, he determined. It wasn't a sound ghosts made when they were happy. And the unhappy life that followed his transformation did little to debase that notion.
He tried not to think about it much, but he did wonder, as he attempted to create a clone of another half-ghost like him, if he was bringing them into the world only to force them through the same suffering he experienced. Vlad shook his head and squared his shoulders. The anguish had come, not in simply being a half-ghost, but in dying slowly to become one.
A long beep sounded, and he hit the release button on the cloning chamber, now that the process was complete. This was his eleventh attempt. Attempts one through eight had dissolved into ectoplasm immediately upon release from their cloning chambers. Attempt nine had survived, but only the skeleton. Everything else had melted right off, and Vlad had immediately thrown a sheet over the thing to avoid having to look at it's grotesque, black bones. The sheet remained, and the only surviving clone thus far was in the observation room for study.
Attempt ten had survived longer than the first eight, but had been malformed and dissolved into ectoplasm after stubbing its toe. Hopefully, attempt eleven would fare better.
Vlad sighed with disappointment when the mist from the chamber dispersed and the eleventh clone was visible. Another for the observation room, he supposed. He'd tried adding some stable human DNA to the mix, taken from Maddie, as well as experimenting with the force-growth process. It looked stable enough, but this one was too human and not human enough, with Maddie's auburn hair and glowing green eyes, and looked about seven years old when it should have looked fourteen.
"Can you switch between forms?" Vlad asked the clone.
"I dunno," the child clone said. It squeezed its eyes shut, clenched its small fists, and tried to shift forms. Nothing happened. "Guess not. Who're you? Who'm I? What is this place?"
"I am Vlad Masters," Vlad introduced. "This is my lab, and you are a clone I created."
"A clone?" Its wide, round eyes blinked owlishly at him. "Is that my name?"
"You don't have a name."
"Why?"
"Because I can't be bothered to name every clone that steps out of that chamber."
"Why?"
"Because there's a fairly high chance you'll destabilize anyway, and you're an imperfect copy, and I don't want to get attached."
"Why?"
"Because I've experienced far too much disappointment already."
"Why?"
"Well to start with, the woman I love married a man I despise and the only other person in the world who's like me hates my guts."
"Why?"
"I may have tried to kidnap him once or twice, and kill his father... perhaps his hatred isn't so unwarranted, but it still hurts."
"Why?"
"Because—oh, wait, I see what you're doing!" Vlad exclaimed. He growled and scooped the clone up by the back of its jumpsuit and cradled it in his arms as he carried it off. "I'm taking you to the observation room." The clone giggled, and then Vlad stilled in horror as he heard a sound he hoped never to hear again. It was purring, a low rumbling in its core.
Panicked, Vlad changed direction, laying the clone on the examination table and grabbing a stethoscope.
"Whatcha doin'?" asked the clone.
"Quiet now," Vlad demanded, placing the stethoscope against the clone's chest. The purring had quieted, which was good. There was no heartbeat, unexpected, but not out of the realm of possibility. The child was part ghost after all, even if it was a little more human than it was supposed to be. Its core thrummed, strong and steady, so it should be able to fulfill the missing heart's functions just as well. "Breathe deeply." The clone complied. Its lungs seemed to be in excellent condition, so it wasn't that. "Are you in pain?"
"No."
Vlad sighed in relief, and without even thinking, he hugged the clone gently, stroking its auburn hair. He'd been so afraid that he'd inflicted the worst pain of his life on a creature that hadn't asked to be created in the first place. Thank the Ancients he hadn't. Or so he thought. Then he heard it again. That deep rumbling that filled Vlad with dread. Whatever the clone said, there was clearly something wrong.
Vlad pulled back and continued his examination. "Let me take your blood pressure. Look into this light. Turn your head and cough. Does it hurt when I do this?" The clone giggled. That horrible purring grew louder.
"Tickles!"
So far, Vlad had found nothing wrong. The bones were all properly aligned, the organs the child had functioned properly. He was breathing, eating, drinking, and sleeping just fine. Every time Vlad started to consider giving up, the purring grew stronger, and he redoubled his efforts. He had to find what was causing this child's suffering and fix it.
"Can I be named Vlad two?"
"No," Vlad refused. He was taking a blood sample to run some more tests. His working theory was that the lack of heart was causing the boy distress, even though his core, small though it was, should have been able to effectively take its place. "It would be confusing if we were both named Vlad."
"No, you're Vlad, and I'm Vlad two!" The boy corrected. "Like the number two. It's a totally different name."
"When a child is named after their parent, they are a junior, not a two," Vlad told him, focused on the task at hand.
"Can I be named Junior, then?" asked the boy.
"Fine, whatever!" Vlad snapped, taking the vials of ectoplasm-tainted blood to the next room to perform tests on. It was only as he placed a vial in the centrifuge that he realized what he'd done. "Oh kettle corn!" he shouted. "Now I've gone and done it! How could I let that brat have a name?" He threw an empty beaker at the wall in frustration and it shattered, but calmed down quickly after that.
It was too late now. He'd gone and gotten attached. He was already doing everything he could to spare Junior from the agony he himself had gone through. The only difference was that it felt more personal now. He had to take care of the boy. He couldn't let Junior dissolve like the others had, and definitely not while he was in pain. The others hadn't felt a thing, but Junior... he was purring.
Vlad got back to work.
Still, he found nothing. But Junior's hands got sticky like clay that hadn't fully dried. He left traces of green ooze, like a snail trail on the examination table. His hair started to float around his head, getting misty around the edges. He continued to purr. Not constantly, but as soon as he saw Vlad the purring started up again.
Clones twelve and thirteen had both dissolved within hours of their creation. Vlad didn't care about them. The cloning programs continued in the background. He'd make changes to the programs, initiate the process, wait until the clone was done. When it failed, he would rinse and repeat. He was more concerned with figuring out what was wrong with Junior.
He seemed like a perfectly cheerful kid. He laughed, smiled, played the 'why' game, and made up jokes. He even got up and danced around when he needed a break from sitting on the examination table.
"Hey, Daddy, what do you call a vampire without teeth?" Junior asked while Vlad was reviewing his notes.
"What?" Vlad asked absently.
Junior curled his lips over his teeth and said, "A wampiwa!" Vlad snorted, and shook his head and the boy cheered victoriously.
His body had been becoming slowly more spectral. Blood tests showed the ectoplasm concentration in his blood was steadily increasing. When Vlad stroked his hair now, his hand went right through the ends. His pale skin had become mildly bioluminescent, though it was only visible when the lights went out.
It seemed a core with no heartbeat meant that his ghostly qualities were consuming his humanity. If Vlad couldn't stop the process, or at least slow it down to a rate that would allow Junior to safely transition into becoming a full ghost, he would surely destabilize and dissolve, just like the others. Vlad's heart ached thinking about how much pain the boy must be in.
"What do you call a goose with no teeth?" Junior asked, and Vlad smiled a bittersweet smile at him. Despite the jokes, he could hear the boy's loud purring several feet away.
"What do you call a goose with no teeth?"
"A goose!" Junior said, grinning brightly. "Gooses don't have teeth!"
"The plural is geese, and they do have teeth, actually," Vlad corrected. "In fact, geese have teeth on their tongues."
"Really?" Vlad nodded. "Cool!"
"Are you in pain, Junior?" Vlad asked the same question every day, often several times.
"Nope!" Junior always denied that he was. He was brave, but Vlad knew better.
Clone fourteen dissolved within minutes, an issue with the force growth process, corrected. Clone fifteen survived, but was malformed and overgrown. It was taken to the observation room. The cloning parameters were adjusted again. Clone sixteen was malformed in a similar but less exaggerated manner, but lasted only twelve hours before dissolving in the observation room. Junior's skin had taken on a deathly pallor. He purred loudly when Vlad entered the examination room.
"Are you in pain, Junior?"
"No, Daddy," the boy said, but his smile wasn't as bright as usual. "Do you wanna play a game?"
"Sure, Junior," Vlad agreed. "We can play while I run today's test. What game?"
"I'm gonna pick something in the room, and you can ask ten questions to figure out what it is!"
"Isn't this game supposed to be twenty questions?" Vlad asked.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"The game is twenty questions. One person picks an object or creature, and the others get twenty questions to figure out what it is. My friends and I played it in college."
"How could you played it in college when I just made it up?" Junior asked, cocking his head.
"Oh, I see." Of course Junior didn't know anything he hadn't learned inside this lab. Similar as the game may have been to twenty questions, he had come up with it on his own. "You invented it independently, but another game already exists which is very similar."
"Well, we're gonna play my version!" Junior insisted. "So you only get ten questions."
"Very well. Is it bigger than a bread box?"
"What's a bread box?"
"It's a box for holding bread." Vlad held out his hands toward Junior, indicating the general size of a bread box. "About this big."
"Oh. Then no, it's not bigger."
"Is it animal, mineral, or vegetable?"
"Uh... mineral I think," Junior said, frowning in thought. "What are beakers made of?"
"Glass."
"Is that a mineral?"
"Yes."
"Then it's a mineral."
"Is it a beaker?" Vlad asked, Junior gasped, his eyes widening in amazement.
"Yeah, it is!" he said. "Wow, you guessed that so quickly! You're really good at this game!"
"It's a gift," Vlad said lightly. He flicked the light off to see the progression of Junior's glow. It had grown increasingly brighter, just since the previous day. It seemed Vlad's, or rather Junior's, deadline was closer than he'd thought.
"It's your turn now! You pick something in the room, and I have to guess it in ten questions!"
"Alright," Vlad flicked the lights back on and looked around, but his eyes landed back on Junior, and he couldn't think of anything else. "Go ahead."
"Is it bigger than this?" Junior held out his arms as wide as they could go.
"Yes." Vlad grabbed his stethoscope and put it against Junior's back to listen to his lungs. "Quiet now, breathe deep." Under the purring and the pulsing of his core, Vlad could hear Junior's breathing hitch in a way it hadn't before. That wasn't good. His stethoscope came away with a green residue on it. "Alright, what's your next question?"
"Is it more soft or more hard?"
"More soft," Vlad answered.
"Is it the cushion on the exam table?"
"No."
"Is it... your lab coat?"
"No."
"What color is it?"
"Lots of different colors."
"Is it the quilt in the cupboard?"
"No."
"Is it your chemistry lab coat? The one with all the funky stains on it?" Vlad laughed once.
"No."
"Hmm..." Junior looked stumped. "Is it... alive?"
"Sort of," Vlad looked at the results from the tests he'd run the day before and frowned. "For now."
"Is it you?"
"No, and that makes nine," Vlad said. "Think carefully, Junior. You only have one question left."
"Is it me?"
"Yes, it is," Vlad confirmed. "Now, tell me the truth, Junior. Are you in pain?" This time, Junior didn't answer aloud, just shook his head.
"It's my turn to pick!" he said next, and looked around the room. "Okay, I got it! You can ask your questions now."
The seventeenth clone was discolored, and dissolved after twenty-four hours. A glitch in the force growth process resulted in eighteen being approximately six inches tall, but it survived, mostly. Observation indicated that none of the other surviving clones had anything approaching Junior's mental capacity, likely the lack of stable DNA.
Vlad altered the cloning parameters, this time combining Daniel's DNA sample with some of his own. The 'Y' chromosome was damaged, so the clone turned out female, but she was more stable and more cognizant than the others, and quickly dubbed herself Danielle, after her primary DNA donor. Closer. Much closer. But still a failure.
Junior was growing less and less stable with each passing hour.
Vlad had tried everything he could, but it hadn't been enough. Nothing had worked. Junior started to lose his motor functions. His sense of smell went next.
"I'm scared," he admitted to Vlad when his vision started to fade and he was groping around in the dark for his father. Vlad walked over to him, hugged him very, very gently. Even the slightest pressure caused Junior to liquefy, but he couldn't let the boy be alone.
"Are you in pain?" Vlad asked.
"Yes," said the boy. Tears welled up in his brightly glowing eyes and streamed down his cheeks. I wasn't before, but I am now. It hurts, and I'm scared."
"It's alright. I'm with you," Vlad said, though his own eyes were starting to sting and a lump formed in his throat. He stroked Junior's hair with a feather-light touch. "I'm sorry this is happening to you."
"I can't stop purring anymore," the boy choked out. "I did it on purpose before, but I can't stop anymore."
"Why would you do it on purpose?" Vlad asked, trying to keep his voice steady. Junior couldn't see his tears, couldn't see on his face how terrified he was. Junior could only hear and feel, and Vlad would be damned to the furthest corners of the Ghost Zone before he let his child know how terrified Vlad was in his final moments. He deserved comfort, not fear.
"Not the first time," Junior explained, his voice hitching as he cried into Vlad's chest, ectoplasmic tears no doubt staining Vlad's best lab coat. "I was just happy. It felt nice when you held me, and it just happened."
"You were happy?" Vlad asked, confused. "Ghosts purr when they're in pain. They purr to try to heal themselves, to self-soothe. Why would you purr when you were happy?"
"It just happened," Junior repeated. "And your reaction was so funny. Then, the more I purred, the more attention you gave me, so I kept purring. Then I started to feel weird, and I hurt, and the purring wouldn't stop anymore. I just wanted to spend time with you, Daddy." Vlad couldn't catch the tears before they dripped onto Junior's head and fizzled on his scalp as beads of ectoplasm welled up where they landed. Vlad winced at the sight and dried his eyes with his sleeve"Are you okay?"
"Am I okay?" Vlad asked. He forced himself to take a deep breath. "I'm fine, Junior. You're the one destabilizing."
"It's okay, Daddy. Don't cry," Junior comforted him, and wasn't that backwards. Vlad shouldn't be the one being comforted by his dying son. "I got to spend my whole life with you. And we... we had fun, didn't we?"
"Yes, Junior," Vlad agreed. His boy didn't need to know that Vlad had spent the duration of his life worrying about him, not now of all times. "We had great fun."
"Hey, Daddy?" Junior asked, and Vlad hummed in response. "Why do scientists wear practical shoes?"
"Ha," Vlad laughed once, weakly. "Why?"
"So they don't get Bunsens," Junior said, and giggled, just as weakly. "Get it? 'Cause it sounds like bunions?" Vlad allowed the boy a chuckle.
"Yes, I get it," he said, even as the boy's body continued to dissolve, he was still making jokes. "It's very funny."
"Daddy?" Junior called out, but whatever he was about to say, he never got the chance. He destabilized completely in Vlad's arms, and the man was kneeling of a puddle of ectoplasm that had once been his beloved son.
He cried out in anguish.
He wailed and wept.
A rumbling purr rose in his chest.