As they walked through the village at night, their surroundings were painted in the same navy blue as the one the ghosts constantly emanated, which gave the village a somewhat otherworldly atmosphere, and made the two of them feel a little alienated.
Ruins upon ruins of erstwhile beautiful houses, all of which had been seemingly left to their own fate an eternity ago, reclaimed by nature, in a picturesque mix of bright green and worn out white, bathed in a blue light.
A sight as beautiful as it was terrifying.
What had happened to the village, for it to have turned out so? It felt like they were walking through a place which used to be filled with so much life, yet had been abandoned in a matter of moments.
Inside the houses was broken furniture, toppled books, shattered glass, tarnished silverware, and a myriad of other items which surely let them get an idea, even if just superficially, of what type of people used to live there.
Clara shook her head, leaving the trance she’d found herself in. Not good, she had to concentrate on making sure Thomas got them to the two villagers they’d been spoken to about. She lightly touched Thomas on his shoulder, calling for his attention, and he instantly turned his head to listen to whatever she had to say, with a cheerful smile on his face.
“We need to start thinking…”
But she stopped mid sentence because Thomas hit a wooden post, which was so rotten that it instantly snapped in two, causing three quarters of its length to detach and fall on top of one of the ruined houses. To this, the two of them froze for a few moments.
“...You should probably look in front of you while you walk”
“You’re right…”
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“But in any case, we should probably start thinking about what we’ll do when we meet them. What questions we’ll ask, for instance. Should we ask them to take us in? What will we do if they try to chase us out? Or stuff like that”
“Well…” Started Thomas, in a rare display of actual forming thoughts “Isn’t it fine to just go along with it? I mean, even if we do think about ‘what we’ll do’ and our ‘plans for the future’, with the amount of information we have right now, I don’t think it’s worth mulling over ‘plans’ and stuff.
“For now I have you, and this mysterious village all around me; I don’t want to waste time thinking about the worst case scenario, nor do I want to preemptively form action paths when we have absolutely no idea what might happen. We’re in a village filled with freaking ghosts.
“For all I know that ‘Beatrix’ and that ‘John’ they talked about could be zombies or Frankeinstein and his bastard sister… Something like that. I have already spent too long thinking about theoretical ‘worst case scenarios’, ‘what if’s and whatnot, for me to want to conjecture plans for the future…”
Clara stood silent on his back, processing what he’d just said. In a way, it was correct; they didn’t have enough information to make any sort of conclusion about the two people they were hopefully about to meet. However, on the other hand, it was also dangerous to want to continue walking forwards without putting any thought into the consequences that your actions could entail.
Still, she knew that Thomas had passed by much harder times than she could even imagine, and so, she decided not to press on this issue, leaving the act of planning to herself only.
“Frankenstein and its bastard sister though…?” Her face had mischievous expression “I shudder to even think of where you might have taken that from”
“Hmmm? Well, since they were ghosts, frankenstein was the first thing that came to mind. The bastard sister part had to do with that ‘Beatrix’ which I assume is a girl…”
“Alright, alright, I see” Clara tittered “Now, onwards! Towards the red barn!”
“Aye aye”
Thomas felt Clara’s grip tighten on his shoulders, and realising what he’d just said, a single thought echoed throughout his mind…
“I really need to stop saying that”