Dark, cold, dank.

These are all words that describe – both literally and metaphorically – where I am right now. As I sat there, curled up, staring at my brother's grave, the Ghost Pokemon around me shuffled. My own Pokemon, Dusknoir and Gengar, stood in front of me, staring at me blankly. From the corner of my eye, at the stairs to the second-highest floor of Pokemon Tower, was a Yamask.

Blaze…

He had died just one week ago.

I recalled what had happened over the past three years…

Blaze and I had just started volunteering at Pokemon House. Mr. Fuji, a nice young man who cared a lot about Pokemon, had remodelled his house to look after abandoned Pokemon. Mr. Fuji liked us, and let us feed all the Pokemon whenever he was away. He often visited Pokemon Tower, and mourned the death of his Pokemon.

Two years after we started volunteering, when Blaze turned 18, he decided to become a Pokemon trainer. He set out to defeat all eight Kanto gym leaders, and collect their gym badges. Then he would enter the Pokemon League at Indigo Plateau, in hopes of becoming the Kanto Champion. When he reached Cinnabar Island, though, just one week ago, he was mysteriously killed in Pokemon Mansion.

No one knew what happened, he was just gone.

His Cleffable, who had died alongside him, was reincarnated in Pokemon Tower as a Gengar. Unfortunately, no such think had happened to Blaze…

I sat there, sobbing. I had done the same thing for the last week. All I did was sob. I never left the tower, into the fresh air of Lavender Town; I just stayed at the top of the Tower.

Every so often a citizen would come up to visit their Pokemon, in which case I would hide behind a grave until they left.

I had even figured out how to communicate with the Pokemon in the Tower. I had little friends. There was my own Pokemon, of course. But then there was Marowak, who had recently become pregnant. She had recently lost her own mother, to Duskull.

Duskull was the Grim Reaper of Pokemon. He would descend upon a Pokemon that was weak beyond healing, and take its soul, keeping it trapped inside the tower. Over my week, I had developed a –excuse the pun – grim relationship with him.

There were also groups of Drifloon and Phantump that would occasionally come up to the top floor. The only Pokemon that I had seen in the tower but not come to the top was the Yamask, who would always stop of the last step…

Another day passed, and the cold air grew even colder. The entire day, I lay there staring at Blaze's grave. The next day, the same thing. Then the next day. And the next. And the next. It went on for this for a long time.

Finally, three weeks after Blaze's death, Mr. Fuji came to visit his Pokemon. I hid behind Blaze's grave, and waited for him. He sat next to Cubone's grave – Mr. Fuji's Cubone was the pregnant Marowak's sibling – and talked to it. Marowak sat next to him, also talking to Cubone.

As I watched, I thought about the last three years working with Mr. Fuji, how he had cared for the abandoned Pokemon, fed them, given them shelter. He was a truly good man.

When Mr. Fuji was finished, he stood and began to walk to the stairs. He stopped just as he was about to put his foot onto the top step, and looked over at Blaze's grave. "Dusk?" I tried ducking, but it was no good. Mr. Fuji approached, standing over me as I sat there, curled up. "Dusk?" He said again. "What are you doing in here? Your mother has been looking all over for you."

"I… I….."

"Oh, my. You look terrible. Here, let me help you up." He held out a hand. I shook my head, and he lowered his hand. "Are you just going to stay up here and be depressed forever? Or are you going to come downstairs and get on with your own life?" I stayed silent, and he turned to leave. He slowly descended to the lower floor, looking back every few seconds to see if I had changed my mind. When I stayed put, he sighed and walked down.

For the next couple of days, I sat in the tower next to the grave. After the encounter with Mr Fuji, I didn't even bother hiding from other visitors. Duskull visited every once and a while, and it always hit it off with Dusknoir.

The next time Mr Fuji visited, he ignored me, assuming I had the same attitude as the last time. However, his message from last time had finally started to have an effect on me. When he began walking to the stairs after talking to Marowak, I stood for the first time in nearly five weeks and stumbled over to him. "M-Mr Fuji…" The effects of my almost five week hide away began to take its toll. I collapsed, the hunger and dehydration finally kicking in.

I woke in Pokemon House, next to a small habitat for a Nidoran. Mr Fuji noticed that I was awake and came over. "Ah, Dusk. You're finally awake. I was beginning to worry."

"H-how long was I out?"

"Oh, just a few hours. Come, you need to get something to eat, badly." He took me over to his kitchen, where he had prepared a meal for me with Apricorns. "Eat up. You really need it." I hesitantly sat at his dining room table and ate. The Apricorns were bitter, but I was starving, so I didn't care. The feeling of a full stomach was one of the most satisfying feelings o had ever felt.

I ended the meal with a burp, which I did not excuse. I just felt tired. Oh, so tired. Even though I had just woken up from a three hour sleep, I was still very tired from my five weeks without sleep. "I- I need to get some sleep, Mr Fuji…"

"Well, you get home and get to bed, then. I hope you feel better tomorrow." I waved to Mr Fuji and the other volunteers and headed on home. I hadn't seen the outside in a while, and it was surprisingly different. The sun was normally covered by a thick layer of clouds, but never raining. However, today, the weather was completely clear, and the sun shone hard and hot on my face. My confinement had had an impact on my skin, and I was afraid too much direct sunlight would almost kill me, so I jogged home – the most I could do considering how tired I was.

When I got home, my mum was waiting for me at the door. When she saw me, she wrapped me in a gigantic bear hug, and sent me straight to bed.

That night, I had a horrible nightmare. A dark, mysterious creature, hiding in the shadows was standing behind Blaze. We were in Pokemon Mansion on Cinnabar Island. I tried calling to him, but my voice was completely silent. Blaze, not noticing the creature behind him, challenged a wild growlithe to a battle, releasing his Cleffable from its Apricorn-Ball. The creature darted forward, crashing into Blaze and Cleffable, sending my screams into distorted cries of anger and pain. The two lay there on the floor, the mysterious creature now gone, escaped through a hole in the ceiling. I turned to run, but another dark creature was behind me. It levitated with its pitch black body, the white cloud like head separated from the torso only by a layer of red. A Pokemon I had only seen in books – Darkrai. Everything turned dark.