The woman's eyes snapped open suddenly. The darkness of the master bedroom was cut by the glow of her iPad, upon which she had been writing before nodding off. Next to her was her husband, snoring loudly as he slept on, and she sighed before elbowing him roughly to force him to roll over. He snorted, but unconsciously obliged, starting a new and softer cycle of snores. Rolling her eyes, she double checked to make sure her work was saved before turning the device off, slipping the heavy item into a nook between the bed and the wall. Her characters were safely on the road, about to meet one another for the first time, but if she was nodding off in the middle of typing, then it would have to keep until tomorrow. Hopefully she would have the energy to continue after work, but it was a bit of a rare thing.
A whisper floated through the air and she cocked her head towards the door. A naturally light sleeper, this hint of something out of the ordinary was what had awoken her, not her husband's raspy snores or the bright light shining from her newest writing project. Carefully she clambered over the sleeping male, his side the only one she could reach the floor from as hers was flush against the wall, and she grabbed a pole from the ground as she quietly padded towards the door. The pole was from a broken floor lamp they had yet to throw away, but even if it wasn't much it would still be enough to defend herself with.
Just in case.
Past the bathroom into the living room, and the carpet was lit up by the pale moonlight slipping around the slats of the deck blinds. She and her husband were the only ones in the apartment tonight, her brother in law away at drill for the Guard that week, and sharp eyes took in the ghostly shapes of the furniture, lamp remains held in hand like a quarter staff.
But nothing else was there. And the whispers had stopped.
She was starting to feel a little silly standing there in a grumpy cat shirt and her underwear, threatening the dust bunnies with a metal rod. It slowly lowered at her side, and she giggled nervously to herself as she tried to calm down. "Joseph must have left a game on somewhere," she murmured not an unreasonable assumption as her husband had done this before.
"Mwahahaheheheheheee, wanna play a game?"
Those words brought her to attention all at once, the lamp snapping back up in her hands as she pivoted sharply on her heel to face the intruder in her home. In front of her were the two tall bookshelves, both stacked completely full with her various collected series. Well over four hundred manga as well as art books and reference books and novels she had yet to replace on her kindle. Her husband hated her collection, but she had sworn years ago to never sell the manga, or God forbid throw them away. She already knew which ones she would first share with her children when they were eventually old enough, years down the line.
No one was next to the books, and her brows came together after a second. "What in the world?"
"Nice going Bakura, she heard you."
"Hmph, and who was talking before? Oh yes, it was you, Veggie."
"Prince! Vegeta! Peasant!"
"Gentle sirs, I do believe she knows now."
Her books, they were talking. Nothing moved, but the Yugioh from one of her friends was ranting at the DragonballZ story, and if that hadn't been the Xxxholic story the sensual female voice had come from, she'd eat the lamp. "You're, alive?" She managed to croak out, poking the Y section gingerly.
"All stories are alive," and this gentle young male was coming from her old dog eared Gundam Wing books this time, even as Bakura growled at her to stop hitting his spine. "You've never opened us and thought us to be more real than the real world before?"
"But all stories end, even the ones we want to go on forever," the young woman whispered, groping for one of the chairs she knew was behind her. The apartment was small, the living room, kitchen, and eating area all right on top of one another, and the bookcases were nestled in the one nook they could find for them.
"But the uh, nice thing about uh, books, is that all you uh, need to do is open us up from the uh, beginning to start again," someone offered, and she suspected it was her old copy of Jurassic Park this time.
"But you haven't opened us in a long time," another male chided, a dark voice coming out of the large collection of Vampire Game novels.
Xxxholic again. "Humans leave an imprint of their souls on what they touch or love."
"And you have always loved us!" sang out multiple voices, coming from Hirano and Watsuki and Toriyama and Himaruya and birds and dinosaurs and so many voices that she was tempted to shush them in fear of them awakening her husband.
"And we love you too, 'tebayo!" This was the start of another round of cheers, especially from the oldest books on the shelves. Outside of a sullen 'not me,' coming from what she highly suspected was her Hellsing series.
Unable to help herself, the woman grinned weakly as she stood back up, gently running her fingertips over the spines of her oldest and dearest friends, paying special attention to the recalcitrant Hellsing. She'd always had a thing for vampires, the stronger the better, and the crazies under her fingertips were a personal favorite.
"God, I love you all too," she finally whispered, going from Absolute Boyfriend all the way down to Yuu Yuu Hakusho, and she could almost feel the love radiating from their crinkled spines. Never the most social of people, her books had been the closest things to true friends for years, something she could rely on, lean on, be reassured that they wouldn't turn on her for some socially awkward slight. And she had made sure to take good care of them, even as she dragged them from Virginia to college in North Carolina, and then to Germany for two years right after her marriage and graduation, and then finally back to Virginia again. "And I'm sorry I haven't read any of you guys in so long, but that's part of real life. I don't always have the time to read anymore, or draw, or write, or do anything fun," she swore, too tired to cry. "Hell, the only time I get to read is on my twenty minute breaks."
"We know, your Kindle adores you too!" Tsubasa sang.
A slow blink. The young woman turned slowly to her work bag, hand slipping into one of the pockets. The Kindle in question was a plain PaperWhite type, well loved and only a touch beaten up after a few years of hard use. With shaking hands, she flicked it on.
"Finally! We can only talk when this thing is on!" a male voice rang out, part British, part American, and fully Pissed Off.
"We could live without hearing from you, demon," growled a second voice, low and thick as if coming from a cement mixer. The pair had to be from Good Omens and her Star Wars series. A hollow series of roaring in the background could have come from any of her various dinosaur stories, or the Alta series, or even McCaffrey's Dragonriders.
The young woman shook her head unconsciously, having trouble believing everything she had heard tonight. She turned to the bookcase again, holding up the Kindle. "I thought there were no gods for Electrical things?" she offered to Xxxholic, an eyebrow raised. At this point she was half sure she was dreaming.
"But you still love those stories," Yuuko chimed gently. "And you are misquoting my dear, I happen to know that line was from one of the Ghibli movies."
"Yeah, the bath house gods," she agreed hollowly, sitting back down heavily. "feel like I've been spirited away tonight," she muttered, leaning against the bookshelves, blue eyes starting to droop, the Kindle resting in her lap. A purring rumbled from the tablet, the Sia-meezers of a compilation of short stories soothing her closer to sleep. A soft song started to weave through the air from the Princess Ai series, a handful of the other more musically inclined stories humming or singing along.
"Sleep my dear, and tomorrow will dawn anew," hummed a young male, a voice that whispered of dreams, as long as you followed the rules. Petshop of Horrors maybe?
"You guys, you make me wanna be a writer," she murmured, leaning heavily against the Fairy's Landing books, not quite hearing the quiet mutterings in Korean accented English. "Already, self published on Amazon once, wanna try again," she whispered, the long work day catching up to her now that the adrenaline had worn off. "Hard part not writing, hard part, findin' energy…"
"Sleep, all will be better in the morning," RG Veda whispered, and her dreams were filled with story lines and ink drawings, and the rich music that you only hear right before you wake up…
"Sweetheart, have you been out here all night?"
As stated before, the young woman was a light sleeper, and the voice and the hand on her shoulder jolted her into sleep fuzzied awareness. "Joseph, what're you…"
She had to stop as her eyes came back to full focus. Her husband had stored extra printer paper on part of a bookshelf, and she was surrounded by multiple sheets. All of them were covered in various, things. Possible story lines, areas of Japan her characters were planning to explore, pencil and marker drawings of her characters themselves, from her stately ninja to the awkward noblewoman in men's clothing to the laughing eyes of the monk. Numb fingers picked up one of the drawings. It was a perfect replica of her vision for the cover, her main female with bow in hand and fox spirit at her side, all done in the stark simple lines of an ink painting.
Joseph grinned at her, peeking at the drawings scattered around her like a small flock. "Did you get hit by inspiration last night or something?" he asked.
Blue eyes were drawn to the books, the Kindle falling out of her lap as she moved. They were quiet now, but she could almost hear muffled giggles in her ears. "Or something indeed," she breathed.
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