《The House That Breathed》


 Oneshot?

    ~~~


    Once there was a boy that lived with his family. He was an awkward boy that never seemed to see relationships the same as everyone else. But that was fine, because he had his family and he loved them.


    Yet, as the boy grew up, he was never able to keep friends. For what those friends did became just too troublesome for him to deal with. By the time the boy was a man, he had just his family and some co-workers as his entire world of relationships.


    Sadly, even that eventually changed. His parents passed away from old age, and he was left with the house he spent most of his life in.


    The house felt empty and lonely, so the man decided to change that. Not with people, for the man still didn¡¯t know how to deal with relationships, but by making human sized dolls, stuffies to be exact, and placing them around the house in chairs and such so he would have company wherever he was.


    Yet still, the house became crowded, but there was no change. The big stuffies were objects, they felt lifeless. Which gave the man an idea. In each room near a stuffy, he placed a small machine into the walls. The entire purpose of this machine was to replicate the sound of breathing. In every room of the house he could hear calm breathing near the stuffy there.


    *Haaa*


    *phuuu*


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    *haaaa*


    *phuuu*


    Finally, The man thought, I won¡¯t feel alone in this house anymore.


    And he was satisfied. The small machines broke sometimes, the breathing noise getting slower and slower, until it sounded as if the stuffy had breathed its last. When that happened he would take the small machine out and fix it before putting it back.


    However, he would also thank the human-sized stuffy, hold a small funeral for it, and then either put it into storage or donate it.


    This process continued until the man started to get old. By this time, he realized something had changed. The stuffies around the house hadn¡¯t changed in years. He pondered this one day, until the answer came to him. The small machines hadn¡¯t broken down in that long! Even now, he could hear breathing from the area of the stuffies. He carefully examined the wall where he had put one of the small machines in. Putting his ear up against it he listened.


    *Haaa*


    *phuuu*


    *haaaaaa*


    *phuuuuu*


    Curious, he pulled out the little machine he had made and fixed so many times over the years, wondering how it suddenly hadn¡¯t broken again in so long.


    Except, it WAS broken. The machine he took out of the was lay still, silent and unmoving in his wrinkled old hands.


    *Haaaaa*


    *phuuuu*


    *haaaa*


    *phuuu*


    It seemed that the house had begun to breathe.


    ~~~


    I like to imagine that if it was expanded on from here it would either turn into a ¡°the house is alive ¡± horror story where the man then dies and new people keep trying to live in the now living house, or a softer magical ¡°the man¡¯s care throughout the years had brought the house and the stuffies to life and they cared for him until his final breath.¡±


    Mention which one you''d like to read in the comments if you''re interested. I''m not averse to coming back to this.

 CH 1- And So We Begin Again, For Those That Weve Lost

    ~~~


    The revelation came as quite the suprise, yet the man was old by this point. He had long ago accepted that what would be would simply be. He still made sure to fix the little breathing device before putting it back into the wall cubby.


    "Old habits truly do die hard." He chuckled to himself.


    He hadn''t turned the machine back on yet however, he had a funeral to attend first, and a new freind to make.


    This stuffy had been one of the longer lasting ones, a simplistic ragdoll with a goofy grin, wearing old patchy jeans and a worn gray t-shirt that the old man had found in his attic when he''d last cleaned it. The tshirt had words that read: Stop Staring Dude! on it. He chuckled everytime he read it.


    With a sigh he placed his hand on the old stuffy''s hand nub and quitely said, "Thank you for the company friend."


    He then gingerly picked the stuffy as large as him up and took it to the attic, the place was both packed with stuffies, and neatly organized by type. He had started by making only simple human shapped dolls and stuffies, but over time as his skills got better, he had started to experiment. Animals, objects with silly faces stitched on, there was even a section with humaniods and the like, a snake stuffy with human-ish arms made of fabric that felt similar to smooth scales, a little dog person with its fabric tongue constantly sticking out of its mouth, (he had accidently made the toungue a bit too big), and his crowning achievement and biggest time sink of all of them: a giant dragon stuffy with scales made up of countless buttons stitched on near seemlessly, blunt claws made of a soft wood he had gotten custom ordered, stuffed with the softest fluff he could buy, it even had full on animatronic eyes that could look around! (Not that it could see with them.) That dragon had taken multiple years to make, scrounging up the hoard''s worth of money neccessary for its material and the many hours and days of single-minded focus needed to single handedly craft such a behemoth!


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    He named it Quill. It had been his friend for an entire decade before the little machine nearby finally stopped breathing. That loss... had been hard for him. Moving Quill into the attic had felt like losing a son. But in his mind, these stuffies lived only as long as the machine nearby still ''breathed'', and leaving Quill''s ''corpse'' there would have just been even more painful for him.


    He patted the buttoned surface with his old, wrinkly hands as he passed by.


    Placing his newly lost friend delicately among the other ragdolls, the old man realized that even here, he could hear the gentle breathing now.


    *Haaaa*


    *Phuuu*


    *haaaa*


    *phewww*


    It made him think of a grim reaper, gently tending to a graveyard.


    Before exitting the attic he bowed low to the room and said.


    "Thank you all again, for staying with this lonley old man. May you rest peacefully with the memories of our time together."


    The old man simply couldn''t help but say that everytime before he left, a single grateful tear running down his cheek as he resolutely climbed back down the ladder.


    Going into his workroom, he looked through the many racks of fabrics and linens, grabbing the material he felt was right, he cut the fabric and took it back to his living room, sitting on the couch between a human sized teddy bear he called Mrs. Fluff and a smaller child sized rabbit stuffy named Mr. Fluff, (yes, they were married), he turned on the TV and got to work crafting their new friend. Focusing on his stitchwork as the news prattled on about "Mana" and "People all over the world awakening" or some such.


    "I think you''ll be a bat." He mumbled happily to the cloth, "Its been awhile since I''ve crafted wings."


    ~~~