alive, phantom, and a dead man

Mediums and dead kids

Like every Saturday Karl sat behind the counter finishing the old vintage watch he had been working on,  he leaned back listening to the footsteps upstairs, it where Molly and Alice playing around, probably learning Alice's rats new tricks or throwing around Molly's dismembered head... yeah that was an image Karl will never forget, it's peculiar but he just let the ghost girl be, they where only kids when they died, they have matured in some ways but they still are and will always be children. He felt sorry for Daniel, he never got to be a real teenager, his parents died and he was stabbed to death at only 16 years old, but life... or better death goes on, and what happened happened. As Karl put the watch in the locked glass display shelf behind him he could hear the bell above the doo make a soft tune, he turned around and smiled "Oh hi Phil" he greeted, Karl knew him, but not enough to call him a friend, he knew his name and the fact he was a medium also he knew him and his wife had a witchcraft shop down the street and that was all.

"Hey mate," He said smiling softly "hello," Karl said giggling, greeting him once more, "Can I help you?" Karl asked walking from behind his counter, Phil nodded and pulled out a book and two compasses, "I bought these from a woman because she complained about spiritual activity surrounding these items, there pretty old and about to fall apart so can you restore them?" Karl nodded "Yeah sure, why not?" Karl said taking the items and with the uther most care he put them on his register, "You can come to pick them up after 2 weeks, the shop's not open on Sundays yadiyadiyada, I think you know it by now" Karl laughed softly and then said "I could maybe try and get a reading on these... beings" Karl already knew who they where he could see them standing in the corner of his eye looking around the store, "also Karl- a man calling himself a 'paranormal scientist' passed by my house and bought a book on demon summoning, telling me that 'he needed to have the dead's powers' just kinda fucking creepy you know-" Karl nodded and walked from the back of his counter "it is- I probably know someone that can help but that won't be a matter of today..." Phil nodded said goodbye to the entities in the store and went on his way back.

Karl had other work to do but the first thing he did was grab the book, He held it close and jumped softly, he fucking loved restorating books, he untied the very worn down leather strap and inspected the very water damaged pages, he was looking for a date or a name but nothing, the only thing he found of worth was the title page, "Boo's memory book, do not read" was inked down onto the page, he turned the pages looking at the smudged writing, most of it was blurred by water damage, he could see dirt and other debree covering the pages, he started out by searching for a scalpel and something to heat up the old ass glue with, Karl could see the ghosts stare at him as he loosened the pages from the old leather, trying to not tear the paper he with the uther most care he removed the glue from the pages, then he went on to clean the leather, he had to turn away for a second, don't get Karl wrong he loved restorating things, but the smell of acetone was something he just hated, that's why when he painted his nails he just kinda let it wear of or just painted over it, just to not smell the fucking smell of acetone.

The problem being was that acetone was like the king of cleaning stuff, dirt or debris just use acetone, paint with toxic chemicals? Just use acetone, Karl put down the leather-bound and stopped for a second the horrid sharp smell stuck in his system, he walked right past the group of three ghosts and smiled softly "so-... world war 1?" Karl asked trying to ignore the smell in his nose the teens looked at him shocked, one had big explosion scars on the left side of his face, the other's face was damaged by frostbite, his nose black and lips blue, then there was another, very almost abnormally tall and he looked like a casual case of drowning, with his wet-looking hair and dark blue lips he stood there baffled looking at Karl.

"Who are you?" The drowning victim asked looking very confused Karl smiled looked at him and then said: "my name's Karl" he said and then asked "And your name is... Boo?" Karl said looking at him with a look of inquiry, the ghost smiled softly and shook his head "I at least don't think so- I don't remember my actual name but... call me Ranboo" Karl smiled and nodded, then looked beside him to the other teens "and your names are-?" He asked looking at them, they stopped arguing and turned to Karl, "Big man Tommy Innit" the blonde one said before earning a push from the shortest of brunettes "I'm Tubbo by the way".

Karl nodded, "I'm guessing world war 1?" Karl asked as the three teens went quiet, Tubbo nodded slowly "A defect defense grenade exploded in my trench," Tubbo said as Tommy sighed, "They thought I was dead and my battalion left me to freeze" then last was Ranboo, "I was taken by Germans and I drowned during the interrogation" Karl looked at him, he knew the method of interrogation, your head is placed in a vat of water and slowly water starts running in if you answer you get out lucky with a bullet through the head. If you didn't... you were left to drown, "Gods- no wonder you guys look all" Karl didn't know how to continue his sentence so he just stopped right there  "we look fucking awesome" the blonde kid said as Karl just looked at them "uh-huh anyways do you know the mechanism behind those compasses?" 

The three teens looked at each other hoping one of them knew "Noo-but they are supposed to twisty pointy-pointy to each other so-" Tubbo said shrugging, Karl thought for a second, wondering how he was going to get that to work, well someone managed to do it before him... how hard could it be?

"WHAT THE HONK IS THIS?! WHICH JELLY BEAN BRAIN HAVING BABOON MADE THIS STUFF UP?!" Karl said as he looked at the mechanisms inside the compass "KARL IT'S 3 AM SHUT UP!" He looked up and sighed then back down to the broken insides of the compass, Karl knew this could've been pulled off so much easier, he looked at the gears and just decided to scrap them all, they were all worn down and most of the gears came out lead positive anyway, Karl licked his lips, the thing about dying with chapped lips is the fact that... they will stay chapped for eternity. Karl opened his counter and sifted through all the random shit that had somehow gotten in there, he pulled out a cluster of metal objects and tried to free the magnets that were somewhere in the maze of metal scraps, he finally pulled the very small but powerful magnets from the metal heep, Karl didn't know how much time he spend on getting those compasses to work but he was slowly going insane.

He finally got those godforsaken magnets in place, he put the new glass over the compasses and and then with the help of some basic ghost magic he pulled out the air, as he did so the magnetic pointers turned slowly towards each other, Karl stood up kicking over his chair as he did so and jumped around his store "NAIL ME TO A CROSS AND CALL ME JESUS!" He said as he looked at the compasses, he had restorated paintings that took up his entire basement wall but these compasses where just the devil on earth, oh well it was over now.

{So- funfact about me- I collect 'haunted' objects, when it comes to the existence of ghosts I am kind of in between. If someone proves that ghosts are real I won't be shocked you know, and I do try to be respectful when 'communicating' with them. anyways try and not argue in the comments as much. Respect eachother's opinions I want my books to be a safe space for everyone, also for the people that have different opinions on things}