Foreword

bMisty's Worst Nightmare/b

Misty woke with a start and a squeal. She was sweating, her eyes were wide, and she panted heavily. Typical of someone who just woke up from a nightmare. She looked around at the others, who were still sound asleep in their sleeping bags around the campfire.

iIt was just a dream.../i she thought, closing her eyes tightly, relieved. iGod, that was horrible./i

She, along with Ash and Brock, was camping in the middle of the forest in the Johto region, and couldn't find a Pokemon Center anywhere. So they had to set up a campfire in the middle of the forest. While they were doing that, as Misty was gathering the firewood, she saw a glimpse of some sort of bug pokemon. Naturally, she freaked out.

She bhated/b those pokemon! They were just so disgusting and icky! Well, other than Butterfree and cute ones like that, but still, she was repelled by them. And ever since they entered this forest, almost every pokemon they saw was one of those bug pokemon. Her mind was constantly thinking about them. That's probably why she had that nightmare.

She didn't even want to think about it. It might keep her up all night. She laid back down into her sleeping back, and tried to go back to sleep.

She laid there for several minutes, closing her eyes, but kept seeing that image; that last thing she saw before she woke up. Those glowing eyes...

There was a snap.

Opening her eyes, Misty found herself looking at the bushes near the edge of the clearing they were in. Sitting up, she saw some kind of pokemon moving in the bushes.

"W-what was that?" she whispered to herself. She was afraid to investigate. What if it was a bug pokemon?

She gulped, and stood up, getting out of her sleeping bag. Her curiousity couldn't allow her to resist anymore. She walked over to the bush, and parted its leaves with her hands, frightened as to what she might find.

Nothing was there. That was strange. She could have sworn she saw something.

There was a rustling sound in the bush up ahead of her. Still curious, she slowly walked over there. But like before, she saw nothing.

Maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her. After all, it was the middle of the night. There was more rustling further ahead. She sighed, and rubbed her eyes. She seemed to be seeing things clearly. She thought of going back to the camp, but for some mysterious reason, she seemed driven to investigate.

Several times she moved forward to find that pokemon, and each time, she found nothing but bushes. This was getting frusturating... She decided to head back to camp, and turned around.

But she didn't see the fire she had wandered so far from camp. She was lost in this forest full of -she shuddered- bug pokemon.

Just like in her dream...

Her body suddenly tensed up as she realized this. It was like some sort of horror story. She walked slowly through the forest, searching for a way out.

"Ash? Brock?" she called out every once in a while, just to see if they were nearby. But she got no response. After several minutes of walking, she was ready to give up. She was hopelessly lost. Aimlessly wandering through this forest would only make it worse. But she couldn't just stay there. She kept moving.

The night seemed to last forever in the forest. It seemed like hours since she had left the safety of camp, yet it was still dark.

The forest suddenly opened up into a clearing. The moonlight shone brightly on the area. Misty saw a couple large trees situated on the edges of the clearing, and inbetween them she could barely make out the reflection of light shining off a web. And within the web were clusters of cocoons. She could see some recognizable body parts of pokemon jutting out from some of them.

She shuddered in horror. The sight was all too recognizable. She had seen the same thing in her dream...

She quickly backed away, but bumped into something. With a scream, she turned, or rather jumped, around, and saw an Araidos standing in front of her. It must be its web. It looked at her with its eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight.

Frozen for a couple seconds at the sight of this large bug pokemon standing before her, she slowly started backing away.

"S-s-sorry to dis-disturb you..." she stuttered as she started to leave. Something else bumped into her head. Her eyes wide with fear, she turned around, and saw another Araidos hanging by a strand of silk. She jumped backwards, and just started walking away very quickly.

She tripped, and fell flat on her face. Groaning, she looked to see what she tripped over.

There was a strand of silk attached to her leg, which was attached to yet another Araidos who came out of the bushes.

She reached down, and started pulling at the silk, but it was tough. As she was busy doing that, the three Araidos moved closer to her.

She looked at them with obvious fear in her wide open eyes. Their seemingly glowing eyes came closer and closer as they surrounded her.

An ear-splitting shriek emitted from her mouth.

Pikachu's ears picked up that shriek. He slowly opened his eyes, and looked around the firepit. He saw Ash in his sleeping bag, who was right next to him, and Brock was right next to Ash. But when he looked over at Misty's sleeping bag, he saw it was empty.

"Pika?" he said questionably, tilting one of his ears sideways a bit. He got up from Ash's sleeping bag, and went to Misty's. He rubbed his head in confusion. Where did she go? He went back over to Ash, and started rocking him back and forth.

Ash opened his eyes and groaned. "What? What is it Pikachu?" Pikachu pointed at Misty's sleeping bag. Ash sat up immediately. "Hey! Where's Misty?"

Misty couldn't move her arms. She couldn't scream either. The Araidos that had surrounded her started wrapping her up in silk, mummifying her, which was rather easy because she hardly put up a fight, as she was frozen in absolute fear. She had started to scream again, but one had shot some silk at her mouth, keeping her from making a sound. She was helpless to resist as they dragged her towards the web and stuck her onto it. She struggled to escape, but the silk was incredibly strong and held her tight.

She stared in fear as an Araidos crawled towards her on the web, its fangs twitching. Her screams were muffled as it bit into her left leg, the paralyzing venom injected into her bloodstream. Almost immediately, she started to feel woozy. Everything seemed to spin around, and then it all faded to black. The last thing she saw before the darkness was the Araido's glowing eyes...