Puppet Love

A young man stood atop the roof of his home, looking around at the vast panorama of houses and fields. His golden brown hair blew softly in the cold breeze. The azure sky loomed around him, neither ominous nor welcoming. It did not acknowledge the boy at all. Yoshu's feet were at the edge of the roof, and with a sharp motion of the arm he threw his psychic journal recorder off of the roof. Yoshu watched its swift fall to the ground and its demise when it hit the hard ground below.

07/14/2020 - Part One

I can't stand them anymore. They're all lifeless. Why don't people realize that they're a bunch of zombies, barely under control? So what if they're not decaying? Just look at their faces! The cold, soulless gaze in their eyes. Their pale skin. Even the blood flowing through their body gives off a distant, lingering heat that rather chills me. Why doesn't anyone listen?

I am Yoshu. I've been called by a lot of different names before. Call me whatever you can remember me by. I'm not good with names. Unless you're cute.

"Hey, just what the hell are you looking at!?" yelled an old man. He had this freaky girl with him. I guess the old guy thought I was staring at the girl. She looked cute, but I knew instantly she was one of those freaks and then the lust went "poof."
"Sorry mister!" I sounded pathetic when I apologized.
"Yeah, you'd better be sorry for staring at my marionette like that, you dirty foreigner..." The old man walked away, dragging his freak-on-a-leash by the arm. She turned her head my way and grimaced at me. I thought she would kill me with her gaze, but then I remembered. She was under control, everything would be ok. Right?

I trudged along the streets and past the small buildings, into the fields. When I first came to Omiya, I soaked up all the Japanese letters foreign to my native language like a sponge. Now I am numb to the excitement that once filled my heart. The birds used to fly from all over the land of the rising sun and perch on the hanging telephone lines overhead. Now they're probably all dead. I looked across the plain. God, even the earth seems just like those damned dead freaks. Dull green grass stretched drearily on for miles. A solitary clump of evergreen trees stands defiantly in the far distance. As the wind dragged itself along in the heavy gray sky, an odorless, dead wind, I felt hunted. The ground moaned out to me, and begged for the natural cycle of life and death to return.

As I wandered into the clump of trees that once stood before me, I felt so hopeless, like an animal about to be eaten. I played out a horrible event in my mind. One decaying freak would rise from the ground and grab my leg. Others would surround me and try to gnaw away at me, trying to get at my brain. "Ugh!" I couldn't help but let that guttural sound out. I shivered at the cold wind and shoved my hands into my pockets. My shoulders were a bit hunched over as I drew my arms close together. My tan jacket wasn't as warm as I thought, but sometimes girls back at church touched the soft, smooth material, delighted at the feel. Hooray.

I swore in Japanese because I left my watch at home. The gray sky leered overhead. Through the black and dark gray splotches in the air, I could have sworn I saw the face of a demon about to materialize and bellow its sickening laughter. I shuddered at the thought. But lo! I remembered my Occult Impact theory: "If a supernatural negative force materializes against a host, then by law of equilibrium the host has access to the supernatural positive force to counteract it." That's why I'm not afraid of zombies, because if a zombie or any kind of unholy beast comes at me, I can defeat it. But Jesus, there are these freaks everywhere and yet I don't have any supernatural powers to defend myself. I sighed and continued through the thick forest of trees. The area was small, but the sky became progressively harder to see as I went to the center of the small circle of forest. I came upon the small clearing I was destined for, and peered into a small mound of dirt in the center. I tried not to look before I got up close, but I couldn't help it.

The mound was tampered with rather crudely, as if something had escaped from under the pile of dirt. Indeed, something had escaped from the overturned earth. Something that scared me to death. I had buried that "something" there because I couldn't bear it any longer.

Suddenly a thought hit me. I looked around nervously. I felt cold, very cold and pale. Now even the slightest noises in the silent forest became audible. My mind raced. 'God, she's probably here. She's not at home and she's not in town. She's here.' I heard the snapping of twigs a short distance away. A small creaking, one after another. Then, I saw a sphere protruding from a dark tree to my left. The head poked out from behind the tree and stared at me.