Mukai was used to moving.

Moving was when you lived in one place for a while but then one day you put all of your stuff in boxes and took them to another place. Then you opened the boxes in the new place and moved your stuff around. That was why they called it moving. Mukai was in a new place with Shibata and Mama, she had some of her stuff in boxes, and she was moving her things around. She was used to moving by now.

She just wondered when the others were going to show up and move their stuff around.

"You go here…or maybe there." Said Mukai as she pointed to her Elsa doll. Well, they were all named Elsa of course since they all were Elsas, but this one was especially Elsa. It had her blue dress on and it didn't have any makeup and no one had given her a haircut yet. So she went under the tree with the good princesses. The bad princesses went next to the rock, Mukai would punish them later for being bad, but right now she didn't want to deal with anything bad.

There was enough bad stuff going on inside the big house, anyway.

"….didn't think they'd ever leave…"

"….home now, for now…."

Mama and Shibata were talking. That was better than when they yelled. Back when they lived in the little house Mama and Shibata had yelled at each other all the time. It was the kind of thing that made Mukai feel like her stomach was being twisted up in knots like the big pretzels they had at Disneyland, the ones that looked like Mickey's head and when you ate them you could imagine that you were eating him….Disneyland was fun, she'd have to tell Sho to take her when he showed up.

Which should have been soon.

Because she was getting bored! She kicked the bad dolls, they hit the rock and went in all directions. She was still bored but now she had to fix this. She didn't think that fixing things was a good way to fix being bored. It was like the time Shimazaki tried to fix the waffle maker by putting more waffle goo in it until it couldn't close…the waffles hadn't even been very good that day. Maybe when Shibata and Mama were done with their quiet sad talking he could make them waffles.

She was getting tired of rice.

All it had been since they got here was rice and vegetables! She didn't know where all the food had gone but it had better have shown up soon! Mama had said that this was all that their was, that the people who lived her before hadn't left much, and that she didn't know if or when they were coming back. That was dumb. There shouldn't have been any people in her house besides the ones she knew. She didn't want to meet any new people, she knew about new people, they wore red pajamas everywhere and acted weird. She just wanted to be around the people she knew.

They had better have been on their way.

"No, you go back to your spot!" said Mukai as she tossed the bad dolls back to their spot by the big rock. Mama said that when she had been little this had been her favorite place in the world, that she used to go by the big rock and think, which seemed kind of dumb to Mukai. Why did a person have to go to a place to think? Your brain was in your head and it made your thoughts so wherever you went your brain would go too. Unless it was like in that scary movie Sho liked where they switched the people's brains…but that had been a movie and movies weren't real…well some were real but those were called documentaries. Caterpillars had told her that.

He would have liked it here.

There were lots of places to hide. Mama had said that Mukai was only allowed to play here, that this place was big and it would have been easy to get lost, that she could have wandered away and nobody would have ever found her again. That seemed like the kind of thing that Caterpillars would have liked. He liked being away from everyone all the time even though friends had to be together all the time. That was one of the biggest rules of friendship! She knew a lot about friendship, she had lots of friends. She was friends with Mama and Shibata and Sho and Shigeko and Minegishi and Shimazaki and Hatori and Serizawa and Caterpillars and all of the ham-hams too. She knew the most about friendship out of everyone in the whole world!

So she knew that her friends would be back soon!

"….can't believe this….so empty…."

Mukai turned to the big house and stuck her tongue out. If Mama didn't want the house to be empty then she could have called everyone on her phone and told them to move it. That was what Mukai would have done if she'd still had her phone. Mama had took it away before they left. She said that they were taking a screen break, so no phones or TV or anything fun. Hatori would have hated that. Serizawa too. Maybe that was why they were taking so long to show up. She couldn't be mad at them about that, this place was boring. Mama said that it hadn't changed at all since she had been little like Mukai. That made sense, then, why it was so boring.

Things were boring in the past.

In the past they didn't have phones or TV or fun or even color. This place had been built after color had been invented, which was good, but before everything else. So all she had were the toys that she'd managed to fix into her suitcase and some of Mamas toys, too, when she'd been little. These were old toys, boring ones, and there weren't even any dolls that she knew. She liked the ones from Shigeko better. She knew all of these princesses. She knew Elsa and Anna and Ariel and Belle and Jasmine and Tiana but she didn't know who any of Mama's princesses were. They were in festival clothes and they had lots of makeup on and their hair was up and not long and cut-able.

So boring, just like everything else around here.

"Ok, you have to stay here now. You're my dolls and I'm the Mukai and you have to do what I say or else." Said Mukai as she took her good dolls and tried to make them stand up against the tree. She was the boss around here and what she said had to happen. Like when Mama told her to do stuff she had to do it even though she didn't want to. Like move right when cool stuff was happening, or move without everyone else, or give up her phone, or not be able to watch TV, or stay here in the big empty house with nothing to do! They hadn't even taken a plane here, just a train, and not a fun one either.

There had been too many people.

She didn't know where everyone was going but it must have been more interesting than this place. There had been more people at that train station than she had ever seen before in her life, and she was counting all the times she went to Disney, too. She had never been around so many people and they had been so big, like she had been stuck in a train full of Shibata's, only none of those people were as fun or nice. Everyone had been kind of scared, actually, and sad.

Maybe they thought that it had been the train to Busan?

She tried to make her dolls stand. They fell down, kind of like the zombies in train to Busan, those guys had been really bad at standing up. Good at running, though, even though Sho said that zombies wouldn't have been fast because dead people's bodies didn't work as good as alive people's bodies. She didn't know for sure, she had never seen a dead person before in real life, but she trusted Sho. He knew a lot of things…she hoped that he was alright. Maybe it had been a train to Busan after all…maybe everyone had been running and there were zombies everywhere and that was why they were all alone in this big house….

Oh no!

"Zombies! Hurry, Zombies!" shouted Mukai as she kicked her dolls out of the way. Zombies….zombies were terrible! She knew all about them, she had seen them in lots of movies, they ate people! If there were zombies coming then they needed to hide better than this! What had Mama been thinking bringing them to a place like this?! The walls weren't even that high and they didn't have any guns or Sho to protect them! He knew best about things like this after all.

So it looked like it was all up to her.

"Mama! Run! There's Zombies!" shouted Mukai as she ran into the big house. Mama and Shibata were in the kitchen….she could smell rice again. Rice and vegetables…yuck! She stuck out her tongue. If Mama made that one more time she was going to leave her to the zombies…no she wasn't! That would have been awful!

She needed her Mama!

"Mama!" shouted Mukai as she threw herself into Mama's lap. Something warm hit her head…oh. Mama had been drinking tea. Now she had tea on her…well she wasn't taking a bath if that was what Mama had planned next! She was going back outside and taking her chances with the zombies!

"Mukai! What happened? Did someone see you?" asked Mama as she picked her up. Mukai herd the sound of clothes ripping…she looked up. Shibata was ripping his shirt again. She didn't know why he didn't just buy bigger shirts if he knew he was going to keep on growing like that. Grownups were so weird sometimes, it was a good thing that they had someone like her to keep them safe.

"I don't sense anyone." Said Shibata as he stood up and started looking around.

"Me neither, but we can't be too careful." Said Mama

"I mean I would be able to sense anyone that he'd send after us." Said Shibata

"The Awakened don't really have auras though, nothing much anyway…" said Mama. Mukai could feel her arms growing. At least she wasn't ripping her shirt, no, she was wearing a shirt without sleeves. She would have to put a coat on, the zombies would get her otherwise. But Mukai didn't know why she expected Mama to be smart, she thought that there were Awakened after them after all, not zombies. Zombies were much worse.

"Mama, no, you're wrong. It's not the Awakened, it's the zombies!" said Mukai. Mama gave Shibata a look, he gave her one right back, and Mukai gave them both her meanest look. Didn't they know that this was serious?!

"What do you mean, Mukai?" asked Mama. Mukai poked her in the brain.

"Do you have brain worms or something?" asked Mukai. Mama frowned. Shibata smiled.

"I know that Sho says that sometimes but that doesn't mean you get to repeat it…even if some people are encouraging you." said Mama, though she was looking at Shibata instead of Mukai, which wasn't nice at all. You were supposed to look at someone when you were talking to them.

"What? I didn't say anything." Said Shibata

"You're ten seconds away from laughing. Don't. I don't want her to pick that up from him." said Mama

"It's not that it's funny, it's just that it's cute. I mean she's cute and it used to be so cute when Sho said that….God, he was such a cute little guy." Said Shibata

"Sho's not cute, he's a boy! Now listen to me!" shouted Mukai, making her colors show and banging her hand on the table. They weren't going to listen to her, though, because she was just Mukai. She wasn't the boss. They weren't her dolls. People weren't dolls, they could do whatever they wanted, and that was why dolls were better.

At least if you were trying to save people from getting eaten, anyway, otherwise dolls didn't do much and just stared at you.

"Don't yell." Said Mama

"But you're not listening!" whined Mukai. Mama sighed and put her down on the floor.

"Alright, alright, I'm listening now. Can you please just tell us what happened?" asked Mama. Mukai smiled and nodded. Now that was better.

"There's zombies out there!" said Mukai

"I don't see anything." Said Shibata as he looked out the window. Mukai rolled her eyes.

"No, not out there. Out there in the train, the one to here! It was like in the train to Busan where everyone was upset. There's zombies coming and we're all going to get eaten. I can tell." Said Mukai. She nodded at the end, that way everyone would know that she was right, even though they didn't look like they knew that she was right. Grownups were so weird about things like this. They never knew what to worry about. They worried about dumb things like dinner and fighting but zombies weren't scary to them.

"Mukai….have you been watching movies with Sho again?" asked Shibata. Mukai shook her head.

"Sho's not here and there's no TV." Said Mukai

"But before, when you were back at the-" said Shibata. Mama held up her hand and shook her head.

"Mukai, I don't want you to think about things like that right now. Ok? Nothings going to get you, nobody is going to get you, I'd…I'd die first." Said Mama. Mukai sighed and patted her leg.

"You want to try and fight, Mama?" asked Mukai. Mama wiped her eyes and nodded.

"Yes…we will. We both will, for you." said Mama. She took Mukai's hand in hers. She pulled away, she knew what was coming now. Mama was going to make her eat gross food or take another cold bath or sweep the dust and dirt out of another old room. Well she wasn't dumb!

"Let go! I'm going outside! Zombies aren't as bad!" said Mukai as she ran back outside. She would rather have taken her chances with the zombies. There was no way she was doing any more chores or any other things that she didn't feel like doing! She ran outside without caring that she hadn't taken her shoes off even when she went inside. She ran back to her dolls and threw herself on the ground. They were still everywhere.

But at least they could listen to her.

"We're out here now and-and I don't care if zombies get you! Now go back to your spots!" said Mukai as she picked up some of her good Elsa's. There were too many dolls here, hers and Mama's, and she didn't want to do it all herself. She looked down. They all looked back up at her. Their eyes were weird and they didn't move, they didn't even breath, they just stared…

Bad friends.

Good friends were real and bad friends weren't real and these dolls…she didn't think that these dolls were being very good friends. She threw her Elsa, her colors showing as she did it. She didn't want them to be dead! Dead like dead zombies! She wanted….she wanted Shigeko to come and play with her! She could use her colors to make things move without touching them!

And Mukai…

She couldn't do anything. She was too little…and it wasn't fair! If everyone was going to be late, if nobody was going to be here, then she should have at least been able to play on her own! Her dolls still looked at her…they still watched her. They watched her and she watched them, her colors showing. None of her colors made it to them. Shigeko could do that, she could make her colors touch other things, make them move on their own…Mukai tried!

She tried!

And she tried! She watched one doll, the one that was staring at her the most, the Elsa with the best hair and dress. It stared at her! It had to do something, she was telling it to do something, but it just thought that it could stare at her! She wasn't going to just let it stare at her, no, because if she let it stare at her then-then that was how it was going to be!

Maybe even forever….

"Move! Move! Get up and movie!" shouted Mukai. She wished and begged and told until…until her doll stood up. It stood up and tried to walk…it took two steps before it fell down…but it had moved! So she could play with them! So she could…so…so maybe she wouldn't be as alone as it felt like she was right now…like it felt like she would be forever. Because if she was the only one who moved then….then it didn't matter where everyone else was, if they had been eaten by zombies on the train to Busan or not, because in the end she would always be alone…

She made another doll move.

So at least something was moving…so at least she had friends. Friends in this place she didn't want to be…this place that she had never wanted to move to. She at least had someone to play with until…until the other got here…because they were still coming, they had to be. It had never been just her and Mama and Shibata, that wasn't how it worked, they all had to be together because that was how friends worked. They were still coming. That was the truth, not a wish…the truth.

They were just still moving, that was all, they just hadn't finished moving yet.