Ghost Thread

Title:
“Ghost Thread - Postman of Acheron” (ゴーストスレッド　－三途の川の郵便屋－)

Alternative Title:
“A Man, a Plan, a Canal - Panama”

Jakob Knaves was horrified when a letter showed up one day at his house with no return address - the contents being a curse from an unknown sender. According to the letter, there was only one way for the recipient to protect himself and his household from the fate described within: to make 15 copies of the document and distribute them to 15 people within the time allotted.

Jakob knew what he had to do, and wasted no time. He transcribed the 15 copies to parchment by hand and set out that very night to spare his younger siblings the misfortunes that might visit them. One by one, he nailed the cursed parchments to the sides of his neighbors’ houses by lantern-light. As he was nailing the 13th copy to the side of one particular house, its occupant emerged from the door.

“Hey! What are you doing there?”

Jakob was quick to apologize. “I’m sorry, sir; I know your probably sleeping-”

And this was his mistake, for he did not know that this man was a Grammar Nazi (whose ears can hear even the differences in spelling of heterographs), and this misuse of the word “your” would be his last. Before Jakob could finish, the Nazi procured a firearm and punctuated him in the head, dropping him to the ground. His assailant then dragged his body into the nearby canal and let him loose into the currents.

This canal also happened to be where old content from a series of tubes known as the Internet is dumped out. Jakob’s body was covered in all sorts of junk, from tinypics to midi files of TV shows from the 80’s. But most importantly, he was tangled up in old forum threads - one of which was necro’d just as he was passing from the canal into the River Styx.

Jakob was brought back to life, but only part-way. He is now stuck in a limbo, confined to hopping between necro threads lest he fall back into death. His only goal now is to find a thread that connects back to the Grammar Nazi who killed him, and to follow it to his house and finish posting that poster that he left half-nailed.

Perhaps then he can at least save his family from seven years of bad luck in romance.
(SPOILER: Nope! He is too late.)
</story>


Sorry guys, it’s been a while since I wrote something like this, hasn’t it? Anyhow, I hope you like it!

This one was drawn entirely in SAI, though I did all the sketchwork in Flash. I still feel like my painting is very rough, but I also feel like I’m gradually getting there. But every time I see part of it looking splotchy and uneven, I’m reminded of my work from like 8 years ago (which is about the time I was still experimenting with raster painting) and I facepalm. And then I go “ouch!” because I am holding a stylus in my hand.

IT IS GOOD TO WEAR GLASSES, MY FRIENDS.

Made in PaintTool SAI