Game of Threads

First he was worried if leaving the house was the right decision but with each step he was more sure that it was the only way to become normal again. He hoped so. Nash sighed when he looked around. The walk through the dark to this house was more uncomfortable than he thought. The feeling of his stuffed legs was so unfamiliar so he had more than one time problems controlling his steps. Having no joints and bones was such a strange feeling and it took some time to learn how to walk without losing single threads. Each stone next to him looked so huge although he knew that it was not the stone with a new size, it was him. He would be afraid if he would have a heart inside this strange body, but even this one was missing! He really hoped that this nightmare would end soon. Not hearing his own heart was super strange! 

A quick look to his left and right, and he knew that they should hurry. With quick and partial stiff steps, he entered the room through a hole in the wall. The house already looked creepy from the outside with its cold grey walls and dark windows but the inside was even more terrifying than he expected: it was filled with sewing material, a table and a sewing machine was even visible in the partial dark room. A red warm light illuminate parts of the room around the machine. With the first look the room seemed to be a normal working area for a sewer, you could even hear the sewing machine. But with the second look he recognized that there was no one inside who would use the machine. But still the sound of it filled to air, how was it possible? Yes, the room seemed to be safe, but it didn’t feel like that. Something was wrong here. Nash bristled in anger. This was way too much for him. First waking up as plush and everything is that huge, being alone in this strange world, without his friends… And now this! Magic everywhere, this was the only explanation for him. How could it get even more worse than now? He wanted his friends around… Okay, he met Astrea, but it was not the same. She was…stressful sometimes because he didn’t understand her way of thinking… How could a small Kami like her be so brave without thinking about the consequences? He wished Yuyu was here. Okay, he would not be that helpful than Astrea, sure, but it was something different to fight this situation with a normal friend than fighting it with the best buddy ever…A move in the distance interrupted his depressive thoughts. It was just a silhouette he could see and it confused him more than the whole situation until now: It was not a body, it was more a shape of something. It was glowing and transparent. It reminded Nash of a Kamishiba but of a ghost at the same time too. Was this possible? And the creature was wearing something around, seemed to try to escape from something but nothing was there…The sound of a gasp next to him showed him, that Astrea entered the room too. In distance he could even spot some other familiar faces, but he got the feeling that speaking to them and being then a bigger group than before, would not be the best idea. Bigger group would mean to be easier to find. So they both had t fight this together, again. Hopefully escaping from this situation would be as simple as escaping from their last prison.

“W-What are they?” Astrea whispered, coming nearer to him but still watching the creatures in the distance. The air was filled by the sound of the sewing machine and some kin of whispers, sounding like whining. “Are they ghosts?”

“Seems to me like that.” Nash looked worried to the sewing machine. “Who is controlling this? I cannot see anybody around it and it is still moving..”

Astrea didn’t listen. “Oh, how cool! Can we catch one of them and keep it?”

“W-what?” Nash was confused and worried at the same time. How could someone want to have on of these ghost-Kamis?

“Look at them! They’re glowing.” Her eyes seemed to be sparkling. Excitement underlined each of her words. “And they can fly too! And look at them, they’re so cute!”

“They’re ghosts!”

“Does this mean, we cannot keep them? We could build something ghost-safe thing so they cannot escape! Something like a huge cage we can enter, so we can feed them…. What do ghosts eat?”

”Souls” Nash grumbled, a little bit angry because he was ignored.

“Ehhh, maybe we can get them becoming vegans.”

“V-Vegans????”

”Or do you want to feed baby Kamishibas? Because adults are difficult to catch…”

“I-I don’t want to catch either of them!”

“So vegans.” No words against it accepted. It was set in stone, Nash could see it in Astreas eyes. She wanted to get one of the ghosts, no matter what he was thinking. He sighed and she accepted this as “yes, let’s go.”

“Let’s catch one!” She laughed and jumped forward into the darkness of the room. The furniture was partial just a silhouette in the dark, sometimes lightened up for a short time by the ghosts.

“W-wait for me! You cannot go alone!” Nash was shocked and ran after her. “You cannot just jump into darkness, you cannot know what is hiding behind it.”

“Yeah, but if you’re just waiting until it reveal itself, then you’ll die as plush. Because no creatures with a right mind would show itself to you if it want to eat you. So you would wait ages before the shadows without knowing what is behind it.” She laughed again and looked around a corner of a chair leg. “Seems safe for me. Nothing strange to be seen. Now let’s go catching a ghost!”

“Oh man, I really need vacations after this” Nash grumbled and ran after Astrea who already passed the chair and prowled to the creatures next to the texture rolls. It was kind of silly seeing a plush prowling, but both of them didn’t really accept until now that they’re no longer normal Kamishibas. Her fluffy plushy tail was pointing into the air while she was sneaking up to the ghosts. 

“And what do you want to do know?” Nash stopped some steps away and watched this progress. “Do you want to ask them if you can keep them and if they want to come with us?”

”No.”That was all she said, ready to get a ghost pet. And then she jumped. 

Nash was not the only one who was surprised by that. The one ghost she land on was even more than just surprised. It was overran. The other ghosts disappeared with a shocked sound. Just their glow in the distance revealed that they were still there, checking out what was going on. 

The quiet sound of a “pfff” was hearable, when Astrea landed on her new little pet. Without checking if the ghost was still alive, she said: “I’ll call him Glowy.”  

“Poor Glowy” Nash thought, looking at the ghost. “I think he’s k.o.” he said loud.

“Nye, he’s a ghost, he cannot get k.o. . He’s just tired because of flying around the whole day.”

“Seems k.o. to me.” Nash came  nearer and checked the creature. “H-hey, it has no legs!”

“No one is perfect.” Astra, not really listening, get up and cleared her plush body from the dust. 

“And what is the paper it is carrying?” Nash tipped the ghost with his plush paw and stopped. They were watched…. The other ghosts came nearer again. It seemed like Nash and Astrea didn’t look like danger for them. 

“You killed him!” One of the ghost said shocked.

”He’s a ghost, you cannot kill a ghost!” Astrea grumbled and tipped Brian. “See, he’s breathing.”

“……” The other ghost seemed to have a mental fight with Astreas logic. “W-we….. we are no ghost! We are Kamishibas, like you.” It stopped, checking Nash and Astrea out. “I hope so you are…”

“They’re some of the plushs!” Another ghost said and the other ones whispered. “He’s looking after them I’m sure. We should not be seen with them, we could get into trouble!”

“More trouble than you have already?” Astrea didn’t look like she was impressed by the glowing Kamis. Nash was. “Looks to me like you’re prisoners here. The machine is your master, right?” Okay, now it was again up to Nash to be impressed, this time about Astrea. He thought she didn’t really care about the situation in this room, but he was wrong. “You are prisoners like we were. But we escaped and are now free. Come with us and you’ll be free too. Sounds like an idea to me?”

“We cannot be free” one of the glowing Kamishibas cried. “We have to work forever because the machine will never let us go.”

“Then why don’t you try to escape? We got inside the room without problems, so you should not have problems to get out of this room too…”

“You don’t know what you’re talking!” The one ghost Nash already called “the chef of the ghosty group” in his mind, seemed to be angry. “We cannot escape! We’re always trying but we cannot! No matter how often we try to escape, the machine will get us. The papers are too easy to be seen. We cannot hide them with our bodys because we ‘re TRANSPARENT!”

“That paper?” Nash interrupted and hold the paper “Glowy” got before he met Astreas plush body. “What is it about?”

“It is our only way to escape.”

“Yeah, I got that, but…”

Now it was Astrea interrupting: “We should talk later, it seems like we should not be here the whole time. The machine sounds changed, maybe it saw us or it recognized that some of the ghosts are missing. We should later. We’ll try to find more papers, come to you and then we escape. Easy peasy.”

“……” The ghost didn’t look like they thought it was a good idea, but there was nothing other they could do. “Okay” their “leader” accepted. “The we’ll see us later. Come on guys, we have to work!”