This is the final part. You'll see by the end that I plan on writing more from this same concept world. Let me know what you think, and thank you to those who make it through the whole thing.
Revelations of a dead man: There are ghosts and I am one of them. There are rules to being a ghost, and I broke one of them; never contact the living. My first breach of this rule led me to my son, and to our Ghost Guide, a towering ancient Viking ghost I dubbed "Blondy". My son is a ghost too, and we are a team.
Ghosts can be Explorers, Ghost Catchers, or Guides. Only Explorers who have lived 500 Earth-years can be Guides, and only then after serving on a Catcher Team for at least another hundred years. Catchers can trade places and be Explorers, but only if there is an Explorer willing to take his or her place on their designated Catcher Team. Guides run the show, and they travel distances through time and space to greet and guide the newly dead, and to direct Catchers and Explorers in their training and work.
Blondy gave us the choice of Catcher or Explorer. I wanted Explorer. Ghosts-gone-wild who are hurting the living and dead sounds like a terrifying way to spend your death. I told Blondy so, and my son just looked at me and said "No way." I thought he was agreeing with me, and wanted to sail around some new stars, maybe find bug-eyed aliens on strange planets. I asked Blondy if this was possible. He said yes, but nothing changed, because Blondy knew my son meant there was no way he would leave Earth.
My son wanted a real life on Earth, any way he could take it. He wasn't some bitter middle-aged man who wanted to hide behind nebulas, as far away from a mostly-wasted life as possible. He was just a bright-eyed ghost kid who wanted to see the wonders of the world - especially the animals and volcanoes. How could I say no?
We are Ghost Catcher team Four-Eighty-One. There are five hundred teams now, but considering the billions of dead, it is a rarity to be a Catcher Team. Most teams don't make it through their first few years, or even through training.
