When I open my eyes, it's still dark.
Good, I think. More sleep for me. My mind feels foggy and unclear, but I justify it with the fact that I've just woken up in the middle of the night from a deep sleep. A sharp pain shoots suddenly through my neck, and I reach my hand up to rub at the sore spot it leaves.
That's when I notice the ropes. My arm doesn't respond, even though I grit my teeth and strain against the course fibers.
Claustrophobia suddenly sets in. I become painfully aware that there is cloth wrapped tightly around my entire body, and a piece of tape placed firmly over my mouth.
I try to scream- a muffled moan is what I produce instead.
BUMP. I roll slightly onto my side after contacting with something. I must be in a vehicle of some kind. Yes, now I'm remembering. The pokemon with the dark eyes, the two men with the darker look on their faces.
Of course, nobody in Pyrite noticed (or the people who did notice pretended not to notice) when they dragged me from the square into a dank alley, the taller of the two keeping a firm hand planted over my mouth, wrapping his other arm loosely albeit threateningly around my neck.
They smelled of smoke and sweat. The other man grinned as he pulled a dirty syringe from a case in his breast pocket. The terror in my belly grew tenfold.
"Eh, are you sure that's enough to keep 'er out the whole time?" The one holding me captive asked. I capitalized on his distraction and aimed a sloppy kick behind me. It made contact with only air, but he still tightened his arm around my neck uncomfortably.
"Never mind, never mind," he grunted, his breathe hot on my cheek. "Just stick 'er before she hits something important."
The man with the syringe chuckled as he grabbed my arm and shoved the needle into the crook of my elbow. A sharp shock of pain coursed through me, followed by a cold numbing feeling.
"No…" I tried to cry through the man's sweaty fingers, but already I could feel the muscles in my face giving way to whatever was crawling through my veins.
Keep your eyes open, Rui. Just… keep… k-keep… them…
Darkness.
Yelling… people are yelling now. I shake myself from my thoughts and strain my ears to make out the words. There's three… no, four voices. I distinguish the rough, gritty voice of one of my captors, the tall one. The other voices are too muffled for my ears to pick out individual words.
Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of pokeballs releasing.
BANG. BANG. BANG. Three times, loud and sharp like gunshots in quick succession. Screaming and panicked footsteps cracking against stone follow.
A surge of strength brought on by sheer terror allows me to tear free of the ropes binding my wrists, leaving them stinging but movable. I find the mouth of the burlap sack covering me and tear at it until my fingernails start to bleed. Finally it loosens, and I cast it off of me.
I immediately wish I hadn't.
A man with sandy blonde hair lies in a pool of dark blood. Maybe it's my "sense", the thing that the men were so keen on capturing me for, or maybe it's the way that his limbs are bent underneath him, but regardless I can tell that there is no life left in his body.
No, this isn't how it's supposed to happen. That man… I know that man. He's supposed to save me! He's not supposed to be lying crumpled and alone on the ground and oh Arceus there is so much blood and…
"She's up." A gruff voice pulls my attention away from the gore. My captors are making their way back to the truck that I realize I am sitting in. Their faces are splattered with blood. The short one grins menacingly as he reaches again for the small metal case in his breast pocket.
A scream bubbles to my lips, and despite the tape it tears out of my throat and rings in my ears.
I awake.
The door to my right slams open; a tall figure looms in the doorway.
"Wes," I sigh almost inaudibly, relieved.
"Are you okay? I heard a scream…" He trails off. Through the darkness, I can see the faintest tinge of concern coloring his usually stoic face. He's still dressed, leading me to believe that he's been participating in the preliminary criminal interviews (even though I advised him not to).
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry," I murmur, avoiding his pidgeot-like gaze. I realize that I've tangled myself into the sheets of the bed Duking insisted I claim for the night while he, Wes, and the other law enforcement discuss their next steps. The tightness of the fabric around my legs reminds me of… of…
"It was just a bad dream." I rub at my eyes. Images flash behind them, of a ruthless smile, a dirty needle, a broken figure lying in a sea of red…
Wes nods, despite being obviously unconvinced. I know he feels uncomfortable. Even though he secretly possesses one of the tenderest dispositions known to man, emotions have never really been his forte.
"It's cold up here," he says, gesturing to the sheets. He must think I wrapped them so tightly around myself because of the temperature. I shrug.
"It's not unbearable."
Wes reaches behind his long coat and retrieves a pokeball, which he activates to release a small, pale lavender figure.
"Solareon." He addresses her like he would a human. "Stay with Rui, please."
The espeon bounds gracefully onto the bed and curls into a ball next to me. Her body is pleasantly warm against my leg, and her navy eyes begin to droop shut almost immediately.
Wes leaves wordlessly, closing the door behind him without a sound, and I groan before letting my head hit the pillow with a resounding thwump.
One would venture to guess that after more than a year of travelling together I would have him figured out, and yet there are still times that he feels like a complete stranger. Of course, I picked up on some of the more finite details of his personality, like how he calculates words in his mind before he says them, or how he loves children (which I find both hysterically ironic and also a tad endearing), or the way his forehead creases whenever he's deep in thought.
But all the little things aside, I still don't know where he's from, or what he was doing before joining Cipher. Hell, I don't even know whether Wes is short for Wesley or Weston… or if Wes is even his real name in the first place.
"Mrrrr…" Solareon exhales softly in her sleep. I reach down to pat her soft head, scratching behind her ears like I know she likes. She doesn't open her eyes, but the tips of her tails twitch ever so slightly. The last few days had been hard on all of us, but none more so than her. Especially since…
Well, that was another thing on the long list of shit that I didn't particularly want to think about at the moment. Among it were things like where I may have left my favorite pink boots (in the Under, probably, which translated roughly to they're gone forever) and what I'm going to do tomorrow after I wake up. We hadn't exactly talked about a plan moving forward, and fear of the unknown gripped my stomach.
Things will look better in the morning, I think to myself, mentally batting away the unwelcome thoughts. I roll over and pull the blankets close to my body. I can faintly hear voices talking in hushed tones from behind the door and down the hall, but I am too tired and anxious to even think about listening in.
Eventually, Solareon's slow, even breathing lulls me into an uneasy sleep, putting my racing mind to rest, even if only for a few short moments.