I typed most of this out during study hall at school, and I'm only on for a second to post it.
Mear
My head pounded with the steady beat of a heart as I slowly came to. What had happened? I couldn’t…. remember…. Suddenly the roar of thoughts hit my head. Lux and I had been attacked, and then what? Where was I? What was going on? I shoved my eyelids open, yet it was as though they were still closed. I saw nothing. All was solid black. Suddenly, a pain ran through my, and I found that I was in a lying position. My shoulder throbbed, and yet I could not feel my fingers. Trying to move them, I found that I couldn’t move at all for that matter. My heart jumped. Reason broke free and left my mind to the full consciousness of shear panic. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. To fight. To do something other than just stay in this half nothingness that was before me. And yet I couldn’t.
“Hello….” A high pitched voice mused happily as one would have used to greet a guest. “I’m surprised you’re alive…” I felt my heart jump again as I tried to see through the jet black darkness around me. Yet there was nothing to see. All was darkness. I still couldn’t move. Couldn’t…. move….. “Oh don’t even try,” the voice shrilly laughed stringing a chill of ice down my spine.
Suddenly, a showed creature not human, pokemon, nor Gijinka for that matter had pressed its face up towards me. My stomach was in knots, and my heart beat was still wild in my chest. The steady pounding like nails rapping on a desk.
“You’re so boring!” the high pitched voice complained. “I’ll just go play with your friends then!”
Suddenly the image of the spirit chasing others in the house forced a yell out of my throat. This was followed by another shrill laugh of pleasure. Whatever it was had gotten exactly what it wanted from me in this respect, a response. Suddenly, a face was right in front of me, and I saw the visage of a young girl smiling at me with a grin that would break glass.
“Bye bye,” she smiled waving a hand and slowly disappearing.
Suddenly the space around me seemed to turn to liquid. I tried a swimming motion through the dark space, but it seemed to swirl in its own dark aura and fall into a drowning sucking motion. I was drowning! Even against the pain inside I fought to stay above the dark surface and yet…. Panic increased as the thoughts that this would be the end of me became full realizations. I forced myself to try and swim harder, and yet the torrent was that of an icy sea, and I was losing the fight. Splashing in water that had now formed to take my life, I fought and gasped for breath. Yet, in the end, there was a part of me that knew I was not going to win this.
It is said that when someone approaches death, their life flashes before their eyes, and yet that was not the case for me. Instead as I felt my body failing to beat back the water that continued to sink me farther and farther down into the nothingness to which I knew not effect lay below, images of things I had yet to leave on paper flashed through my thoughts as though I were using sketch. Gijinka that I had met were becoming two dimensional in my mind, and in that strange moment, I was already thinking about how I was going to draw them. Half of me demanded to know why these thoughts were forming, and the other half just laughed back knowing that there was no real answer except for the drive that all smeargle had in the end.
In that second, I felt my entire being relax, and suddenly everything was washed away.
~*~
I was nothing, and yet in that second that I found that I was still intact was the most disturbing point in my life. There were fingers rapping on my shoulder, and my eyes only managed to open in question as to who was trying to wake me. The fuzzy outline of a figure was just barely visible to me, and yet my mouth was already moving the name of who I knew it was.
"S... Shup-ple..." I said feeling a dryness in my own voice. At a later time, I would rethink this moment and find it slightly ironic that I had drowned and yet was feeling dry at that point. Shupple put on finger on my mouth, and I fell silent once more. I started to feel a wave of weariness run over me as one who had just succeeded in something great did. However, I had yet to come to any understanding of what I had done to remain living.
"Oh, no you don't," a voice I too well knew at this point said. Keeping my eyes half open was a strenuous task in itself, and yet I was trying. “You don't get to take him. He's being dragged into hell," the girl laughed, and in that moment, I relived the entire drowning experience feeling my heart suddenly quicken with tension. Suddenly, a fire exploded around Shupple, and she used it to beat back the ghost. The girl seemed to fade off at that point, and I found my own mind slipping from my grasp as well. In that second, I felt myself leave again.
~*~
Returning fully to the world of the living sucked. There plain and simple. Forgive the vulgarity of the term, but at that point in time and concluding thereafter, that was the term I would use. As I slowly found myself laying on a couch, the pain that had seethed through me previously had returned with much vengeance as it had carried beforehand. However, in that moment, I moved all thoughts aside except for those that contained my memories of what had exactly happened to me. They were only coming back in pieces, and this I found extremely annoying to say the least.
"What... h-happened? I... I remembering b-being dragged into some sort of darkness... And you fighting..." I said aloud starting to also find myself looking around. Shupple was sitting on the couch as well and giving me a rather peculiar look as one often gives a pained memory.
"Yeah..." Shupple answered. After a moment, my eyes came into full focus, and I realized that despite her voice, Shupple was not the same as before. At first, I believed this person before me to be some new trick of the ghost, and yet why then would she have gone to all the trouble of ‘rescuing’ me? No… this was Shupple.
"What... Did you... evolve?" I asked finally allowing reason into the equation that was obviously lacking it to begin with. Shupple just stared for a moment and then nodded. "What... was that move you did?" I asked after a moment remembering the attack that Shupple had used. It was a strange notion that came to mind.
"Shadow Flame," Shupple said quietly after another moment. I gave a half nod.
"Shadow Flame, huh? I.. guess I'll have to mimic that sometime later," I found myself half laughing for reasons that were not clear in my own mind. The subconscious is one to its own, I shall give it that. Shupple returned my half laugh with one of her own, however, she suddenly seemed to suffer from it.
"Shupple? ... Are you okay?" I asked realizing that Shupple had sustained some sort of trauma from the experience. Shupple nodded a moment, and I found myself half nodding as well unsure of what else to say.
"Yeah... I'm okay..." Shupple answered.
Suddenly, an image came straight into my mind and caused me to tense all over. It was not one of the things I had seen, and yet it was familiar to say the least. Shupple seemed to tense up as I slowly forced myself up.
“Do you really think you should be doing that?” she asked. However, I just returned her look with a stern gaze of my own.
“I’m fine,” I answered after a moment. “However, I doubt others are… and….”
“And what?” Shupple asked.
I found my hand already starting to trace what I was seeing in my mind in the air. The picture was as though I had seen it neither with my own eyes nor through a picture or other carbon copy means.
“And that ghost left something behind in my mind….” I answered turning sharply to Shupple. “I need a pen or something to draw with… right now….”
Shupple seemed to turn a shade of shock. However, I didn’t have the time, I was already forcing myself to stand and then started walking up towards my room.
“Mear wait!” Shupple said. “It’s not safe to go alone… I’m coming with you.”
I turned on my heel and surveyed Shupple for a full second before I found my voice again.
“Alright,” I answered surprised at myself for not putting a protest on the matter. “Let’s go.”
We both headed up the stairs, but the stairs themselves seemed to shriek at our footing and twisted and turned as if to shake us off. I seized the side railing, but was suddenly thrown off the side. Shupple let out a scream, and as suddenly as I hit the floor, Shupple fell straight on top of me.
“Come on…” I said standing back up. “We have to try and get upstairs…..”
We both began to ascend the stairs once more, yet once again, the stairs themselves seemed to come sharply alive and sway to an unheard music. Suddenly, my eyes turned back, and I saw that Shupple was falling backwards once more. My hand reached out sharply, and I seized her by the arm. The stairs seemed to lean forwards, and I was forced to cling to the railing to keep from falling back as well. Shupple gave me a horrified look that I could only convey back with another.
“Shupple don’t look down....” I ordered. However, just as I said it, Shupple started to turn her head as if to look down into the darkness just below us. My hand tightened on the railing, and yet my other hand was beginning to slip.
I could hear Shupple’s loud breathing as she looked back up at me with a pained look. Forcing herself to take hold of my arm with both hands as I held on with one, Shupple seemed to only continue to breath harder.
“M… Mear… don’t let go… please….” Shupple begged, and I found myself looking passed her and seeing that there was no longer a first story that we could fall back on. It was as if the house had morphed all its own and had formed a dark void to which I could not see the bottom.
Suddenly, like the chorus of the damned, a laughing rung out into the air and through my nervous system. That girl from before… was laughing yet again! I felt the hair on my scalp start to twitch, and my hands struggled to keep hold of Shupple.
“Mear! Don’t let go! Please! Please!” Shupple said convening her own sudden fear that only reverberated inside of me.
My chest hurt with the weight, and my shoulder continued to twitch with the strain of holding myself now half vertical in the air as well as holding onto Shupple’s wrist. Shupple and I both looked at each other, and yet neither of us could say anything for fear of breaking the air. Yet the laughter continued, and suddenly, from the dark pit that I saw below us, a hand seemed to reach up.
“Shupple… do not look down… Listen to me… whatever you do… do not look down…” I said as my eyes continued to stare at the hand as it reached closer and closer towards Shupple’s foot. I felt my heart beat faster, and yet there was nothing to be done. Shupple looked at me and seemed to stare straight into my eyes for a half second before she started to drop her gaze.
“Shupple… I said no… don’t… look….. down….” I said trying to catch my breath. Exhaustion was starting to run straight through me, and yet I seized for life trying to keep hold. Shupple continued to let her eyes drop until she finally saw the hand reaching up for her.
A scream rang out into the darkness.
~*~
“M… Mear….” Shupple breathed, and I found my eyes open sharply. I was lying on my back on the bottommost step of the stairs. Shupple was laying next to me but had already started to force her way up.
“It was… an illusion….” I breathed in suddenly realizing and coming to the conclusion, and yet the experience had instilled in me a feeling that I could not shake.
“Y….ya….” Shupple breathed out, and I could feel a harsh note of fear in her own voice although she tried to hide it well enough. “I… I…” However, Shupple broke off and said no more on the moment.
I forced myself to stand and then took the side raining of the stairs. Feeling myself suddenly out of breath, I shook for a moment before forcing myself to cling a step. My heart screamed ragged protest at this act for my mind had already concocted that what we had previously experience was about to come alive once more. Yet nothing happened as I stepped up and then took another step. Looking back at Shupple, I nodded sharply. She nodded back as well, and we both began ascending the stairs once more.
The sound of feet echoing up the stairs hit my ear drums as though they were far away. We made it up the stairs and down the hallway back to my room. The door was closed, and yet as I seized the handle, the door flew open with no protest. I looked sharply at Shupple for a moment who took a breath in.
“Let’s just get in and then out…” I said after a moment. “I just need my sketchbook and a pencil or pen….”
“Right,” Shupple answered.
With that, we both moved into the room. My eyes moved sharply over all of the objects, and I felt myself tense as my eyes caught sight of the blood that stained the floor and my bed. Shupple seized my sketchbook almost immediately, and with another sharp motion, I seized a pen. We both exchanged a sharp glace before we turned and headed out of the room. However, just as we were about to make it out the door, a laugh hit my ears.
Lee
I stood for a solid moment as Sable and Kat darted out of the room. Just what was going on? However, it only took a few seconds for me to recuperate, and I started out of the room sharply after both of them.
"Where are you going?!" I asked sharply.
"Get your sorry ass out of here unless you have foresight or a similar move!" Kat yelled back at me sharply. I felt a sharp sting of pride run through me, and in that half second, I stopped running. Breathing in, I found myself tense. I needed to relax before my own pride became the best of me. However, in that half second, I found peace returned to me. I had learned Calm Mind. Good. Very good. However, in that moment, the lights were starting to flicker on and off with tension in them. I was about to start running again when something seized me by the leg. I turned my eyes sharply to the ground and found that a shadow was holding my ankle tightly
“Karate Chop” I breathed suddenly raising my arm and then bringing it straight down onto the hand that suddenly let go and flinched violently twisting this way and that and suddenly fading into the floor. However, just as I was about to relax, the shadow returned, and suddenly the shadow creature split into two and then three and four and five. I felt myself tense, as I backed up getting ready to use Low Kick if necessary.
The shadows jumped, and with a sudden shift, I kicked them all back. However, I found that they were only managing to reform themselves. This was going to turn into a feudal repetition of fighting. I had to end it somehow, and in that moment, I found myself using Calm Mind. Instantly, my eyes shifted over towards the window. I was only on the second story, and I could easily use my legs to beat the fall. That would be my escape.
Taking a half step backwards and raising my left foot, I stood frozen for a full second waiting for the shadows to act before I reacted. The shadows, in their infancy of understanding, took to the offensive once again, and with a series of step kicks, I forced them back as well as myself in the opposite direction towards the window. The shadows didn’t seem to understand my plan until I was finally at the window, and with that, I jumped onto the sill. It was then that the shadows realized my adventure and made a break to try and halt my progress. However, by then, I was already winning. Taking a half swing kick backwards, I broke the glass that screamed out in utter pain for a sharp moment. My foot, numb from constant exposure to much worse than glass, recovered instantly, and with that, I threw myself out of the mansion.
Just as I had expected, the mansion was truly not hard to maneuver in that moment. However, just as I was about to catch myself on the side of the building, my eyes shot over, and I found that a girl with blue hair was plummeting to the ground. Willing myself to keep falling for a half second longer, I kicked off from the side of the building and used the force of the angle to jump forwards seizing the girl and then continuing the jump until both of us came into contact with a tree.
Exasperated, I felt my breath catch as my toes clung tightly to the branch. My right foot was bracing the loin of the tree while the other foot was standing firm on a branch. It was in this manner that I had managed to stop the impact of jumping straight into a tree, and I was now standing at an almost complete right angle to the tree. Letting out a half breath, I looked down to the Mudkip Gijinka staring at me half stunned as I still sufficed to hold her in a maiden fashion with her back in one of my arms and her legs sprawled across the other.
Seeming to come to a sudden realization, the Mudkip Gijinka seemed to filched, and with that, I slowly released her to stand on another branch not far off. Careful to stand back fully, we both exchanged half looks that one gives when both people have experienced the same thing but have two different opinions on the matter.
“Are you hurt?” I asked after a moment as the Mudkip, seeming to be unused to high places, had all but tied herself to the width of the tree. I felt my eye brow rise as I waited for any sign of communication on the manner, and yet she seemed completely complacent with the idea that silence was for the best. Finally, I let out a breath again and took a step on the branch towards which I had let her stand back on. “Would you like some help down then?” I asked carefully. The girl looked at me, to the ground, and then back at me.
“A-a-alright,” the girl finished after a moment, and with that, I slowly helped her descend back to the ground. Once on firm footing, we both seemed to be more content with ourselves. I, more or less out of comfort on being on grass once again instead of standing on the bark of a tree, crossed my arms quietly and surveyed the Mudkip Gijinka who seemed extremely pleased to be back on ground without any bodily injury.
Almost too suddenly for reason, the Mudkip turned back to me and gave a frightful look upon her face. It was in that instant that I understood we had both experienced the horror in the house each with different accounts but still falling under the same gross manner of events.
“H…Hon…” the Mudkip girl said looking at me suddenly in fear. “And that girl… Where is she?”
“What?” I asked unsure of how to answer if it was even a question that I could answer logically.
“We have to find everyone,” the Mudkip answered looking straight at me demanding that I understand in that half second. My eyes narrowed, and I nodded.
“Back inside then,” I said not bothering to ask any more questions. The Mudkip nodded and turned back inside the house. Just as we entered again, the girl looked back at me for a moment.
“Lee,” I conveyed finding a strange moment of courtesy pass between us. The Mudkip nodded at this gesture.
“Melody,” the Mudkip conveyed, and in that moment, we entered the mansion again.
________________________________________________________________
Gotta Go-
Mear
Lee
KC
