Having decided to walk into the gathering of ghosts, Thomas and Clara carefully stepped out of the forest. The moment they did so, a ghost left the sky and came flying at them at high speed.

“What happene- oh,“ Gasped a ghost-woman, the first to notice and approach them. She appeared to be in her forties, and was clad in a colourful summer dress.

As she flew towards them in a casual non-aerodynamic position, she had her hand on her cheek, and her expression was one of worry. “Is everything alright?”

Faced with a sight as strange as a glowing semi-transparent ghost talking to him, Thomas momentarily froze, but was quick to regain his composure.

“Uh… Yes”

“Oh, what a relief! For a moment, I was so worried! I thought Beatrix had gotten hurt and John was carrying her on his back…” Continued the ghost-woman.

Thomas stared at her, befuddled, words barely coming out of his mouth. Clara, on the other hand, still had a functioning brain, so she noticed that taking into account how the ghost had thought they were “John” or “Beatrix”, there was a high chance that those two were actual living human people. She opened her mouth to ask about it, but was interrupted by another ghost before she could do so.

“Ya think that John could carry that Beatrix?” Another ghost interjected as he heartily laughed. His clothes were rags filled with colourful patches, and his hair was both spiky and curly “That girl is as strong as a mule, but probably as heavy as a mule too!”

The ghost-woman slowly turned her head to look at him, gawking.

“...Uh, yeah. Let’s keep the fact that I said that between us, aight?” He backtracked, rubbing the back of his head “Don’t wanne get on her bad side, ya know… The pain’d probs be abs(unbearable)”

As he finished saying this, Thomas started violently nodding.

“Yes! I completely understand!” Thomas exclaimed “Getting someone you care about suddenly go all cold on you is the worst feeling…”

“...What?” Asked the man-ghost, as everyone present just stared at him confused, including Clara.

Even after having caused every single entity present to be confused, Thomas just kept solemnly nodding until he realised that he was being stared at.

“What?” He asked.

Again, a momentary silence followed. This time, Clara was the one who decided to talk first.

“Anyway, who is this Beatrix and John? We don’t know them…”

The lady-ghost was the one to answer.

“Oh, you haven’t met them? Since you’re alive too, I just assumed you had… We only met them a few hours ago too. Are the two of you not from this village?”

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“Village…? You mean these ruins…?” Asked Thomas a little surprised, staring at the “village” through the ghost’s translucent body.

“Ruins? Heh, I can see where you’re coming from, but while it’s a little desolate, there are people living here… All the things you can see from here are completely abandoned. However, if you go more or less in that direction,” she pointed with her near-transparent finger “You’ll be able to find the house where John and Beatrix live. You can still see some ruined houses around those parts, but it’s worlds apart from this”

“What happened to this part of the village for it to have become like this? And are there more villagers aside from them?” Asked Clara

“I’d love to answer, but I don’t know… Again, we’ve only just arrived here, so the houses were already like this when we first saw them” The ghost answered “Robald, did you see any other villagers?”

“Meh, not that I remember but I ain’t been paying much attention to that kinda stuff” The man-ghost shrugged.

“Maybe you’ll get more luck if you ask other ghosts, but since you’re here, you might as well ask the villagers directly right?” The lady-ghost smiled “They live in a red house that looks just like a barn. It looks quite different from the houses surrounding it, so you’ll know it right away when you see it”

“Alright, we’ll visit them” Answered Clara, returning the smile and adjusting her position on Thomas’ back.

“The two of ’em villagers seem like the nicest fellas in the word, so no doubt you’ll get along right away” The man-ghost reassured “‘Till next time!”

“I pray everything goes well” The woman ghost smiled.

“Thank you very much for your help. Bye!” Clara finished with a smile on her face.

Then, as Thomas started moving towards the village the four of them enthusiastically waved at each other until they were already a relatively large distance apart.

Surrounded by far more ghosts than they could count on all sides, Thomas reached the abandoned road that led the village intently staring straight up at the ghosts in the sky, with such focus that he would have passed straight through it and gone in the wrong direction if Clara hadn’t called for his attention.

One couldn't blame him though. Above them was a spectacle almost akin to a fireworks display of blue lights moving, dancing and laughing managed to get him to be both completely awestruck and at the same time somewhat scared. Every few seconds a group of ghosts who were flying closer to the ground would pass by dangerously close to them, and of those, some would even stop and address them.

“John?!- Oh, not John. Another human! Are you from this village too?”

“No, just visiting” Answered Clara with a courteous smile.

“I see. Well, have a blessed night!”

“Likewise”

Though they had been scared at first, as far as they had seen, there hadn’t been even a single ghost who wasn’t overwhelmingly nice to them.

Most of the ones who passed by them didn’t address them, but they’d still usually smile, wave, or give them a thumbs up. Their excitement was oftentimes contagious; and they were all so nice that it felt impossible not to reciprocate, so the two of them would usually wave back.

Still, the two humans were still almost completely a mystery. The man-ghost they’d talked with first had told them that they “seemed” like “the nicest people in the word”, but, it wasn’t as though they could actually take that sentence at face value, especially when it felt like the ghost had only met them briefly to actually get, if at all.

And then there was the detail that the ghosts had only just gotten to the village too. The time frame was very short, so there was a high chance that this strange phenomena had something to do with them teleporting to the plain…

But in the end, it doesn't really matter. The only thing they can do is wait until they meet the two villagers.

“Beatrix” and “John”... It could be that they were just normal villagers caught up in a weird situation caused by their teleportation, but with enough luck, Clara hoped, they’d have at least a few answers to this strange ever-stretching puzzle that was their time-loop.