waifu pillow

"This is the place. What do you think?" He asked me, looking to the window on my side of the car.

We'd pulled up next to a tiny white house in the middle of suburbia. It sat atop a little hill that rolled up from the sidewalk, and from where I was sitting I would have guessed the place wasn't just empty, but condemned. The paint was chipped and peeling everywhere you looked. One of the windows had been boarded up, and the others were stained with dirt and grime. The door looked ready to fall off its hinges.

"I don't know..." The answer was front and center in my mind. There was no way I was buying this shithole. Yet I hesitated; my friend had gone out of his way to househunt for me and writing the place off so quickly would've been inconsiderate. If we looked inside I was sure he'd see the place was completely inhospitable and apologize for wasting my time.

The musty smell of stale dirt and cobwebs met my nose as the front door creaked open. My friend not dissuaded, he stepped inside, producing a flashlight from his coat pocket. I followed behind him and saw a possum scurry away from his light into another room. The place looked even smaller on the inside. I suddenly developed a strong sense of claustrophobia, despite having lived in a small apartment for the past several years.

"Looks, uh... cozy, doesn't it?" He said, finding the one word that might paint the house in a positive light. I couldn't believe he was still trying to sell me on it.

'Help me...'

A soft, pleading whisper hung in the dusty air. Oh, this is a prank, huh? I shot my friend an angry look, but he had wandered off into another room.

'Please, help me...'

I withdrew a lighter from my pocket and struck a flame, using the ambient light to orient myself. The muffled voice, like that of a young girl, was coming from a door in the small bedroom ahead of me. I swallowed hard and took heavy steps toward it, reaching out for the rusty knob. I turned it slowly and steadily, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at full alarm-- and something soft and plush collided with my face as it was loosed from behind the door.

Panicking and shouting, I pushed it off of me and my lighter flame quickly died. When I lit it again there was a clean white pillow lying on the floor, about as long as I was tall. On the pillowcase covering it there was a rather gaudily designed figure-- a girl. Cat ears portruded from her head of blonde hair. Big, pouty pink lips and vibrant blue eyes. Her outfit was completely absurd and impractical looking, but it did a good job of showing off her bust and midsection.

It's an anime girl pillow. I ran my hand down my face and felt cold sweat running down my forehead. Feeling very silly, I turned around and began to leave the room-- when my friend nearly ran right into me.

"What's wrong? You yelled."

"Yeah, that thing on the floor back there attacked me." I said, pointing toward the funny looking thing. He calmly stood it up against the wall, getting a good look at it.

"Whoever lived here last must have left it here. Well, looks like your new house comes with a free waifu pillow." He sniggered at me.

"Listen, I'm not buying this shit shack--"

'Please, help me. I am locked in this cruel, plush prison. Please!'

The blue, cottony eyes of the pillow seemed to lock onto me from the other side of the room. I could see the desperation on its face, as if it were pleading with me. Perhaps it was just the darkness of the room playing tricks on my eyes, but I could have sworn I saw it shift in its pose, squirming ever so slightly against the white it laid on.

"Yeah, you're right," my friend conceded. He didn't seem to have heard the voice. "It looked good in the ad, but I guess it makes sense why it was so cheap. Come on, let's get out of here." Without waiting for a response, he turned and went back outside.

I was confoundingly perplexed. I drew closer to get a better look, and I could have sworn the girl on the pillow smiled at me.

'Thank you. I was so afraid I would be locked within this vessel forever.'

"What... what are you?" The mental disconnect was jarring. I'm talking to a pillow.

'My name is Elisa. I am from a world very different from your own, and I believe some form of magic called me here.'

"Magic?"

'You see, a lonely young man not unlike yourself wished for a girl from his dreams to visit him in this world. But in order to inhabit this world I needed a vessel, and it just so happened he slept with this pillow every night. It seems I was drawn to it by his desires.'

"Whoever lived here before, you mean. So he just left you here?"

'He was terrified of me, convinced he'd summoned a demon. He locked me behind that door, where I have stayed for ages. I have lived in darkness for so long...'

"Are you certain you're not actually a demon? You are a talking pillow, after all." I lowered my eyebrwos at the strange girl design. She giggled in response, and her cheeks seemed to redden.

'Whatever I am, I just wish to be free. I know of a way you can help me. I saw it in that young man's dreams as they sealed me. Please...'

"Hey, are you coming, dude?" From the doorway, the familiar voice of my buddy called after me. But my eyes were locked on the perplexing form of the magical creature before me, I did not even bother to look his way.

"Uh, yeah, gimme a minute. I just wanted to see if there was anything else interesting in here." I said, running my fingers over the pillow. It even reacted to my touch, the image shifting and contorting beneath me. I heard the footsteps of my buddy trail away again.

'The spell can be broken if I am kissed, as one kisses his lover. That is what I saw in his dreams.'

"You want me to-- what?" The suggestion was absurd. I nearly reeled and took off out of that room right then, but I felt her cotton fingers press against mine as I touched the pillow. Her bright blue eyes bore into mine. I was compelled. "Alright, if it'll help you, I guess it can't hurt."

I wrapped my arms around the body-length pillow and drew her close, pressing my lips to the full pink lips on the pillow's design. I felt something push back against me, almost like a person. My eyes fell shut and my head spun, the thing I held in my arms took a more solid shape. I could feel the contours of her back, the grasp of her hands, the warmth of her body. The cold chill of the empty room was gone, and instead I felt the warm core of another person, there next to me. When I opened my eyes, I was someplace very different. The strange anime girl was lying there, next to me, on an endless bed of white that stretched on forever. I couldn't move, no part of me would budge. Her arms held me in a vicegrip, she wore a sadistic smile.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her gaze intense and consuming. "I may have lied. This is a prison, but not for me." She was so terrifyingly close.

"What is it they call spirits like me in your world? A 'waifu?' I could be that for you-- and you can be my 'husbando.'"