It was a warm summer night that blanketed the region of Unova, warm and muggy, the humidity in the air hanging in the air like an invisible fog, and in the woodlands bordering the road designated as Route 16, it clung to the foliage of the trees and the grass below as a fine layer of dew.
Even at this late hour, the woods hummed with the sounds of life, as various nocturnal Pokémon went about their own daily routine of survival. Regardless of time, the hard and often vicious struggle for life in the wild would always be present.
In the branches of one of the trees near the wood's edge, one such struggle was about to reach its climax. Resting upon one of the tree's sturdy limbs, the shadowed form of a Noctowl scanned the grounds below it, its eyes, perfectly adapted for seeing at night, searching for anything that could be constituted as potential prey movement, while its ears stood attuned for any telltale rustling sounds from the grasses. It had been situated here for a little over an hour, but the Noctowl had no intention of moving to a different spot. He was a patient hunter, and well-experienced in the art of hunting, due to his many years of life. And although he had reached an age that would be considered old by his species' standards, the Noctowl showed little sign of it affecting him, at least when it came to hunting. He was still as deadly a hunter now as he had been a decade previously. He knew that this was an area that his favored types of prey were abundant; all he needed to do was stay alert, and be patient.
And as his ears picked up the telltale sound of rustling grass off to his left, he knew, with a sharp feeling of certainty, that his patience would soon be rewarded. Swiveling his head quickly in the direction the sound had come, the Noctowl focused his senses to their utmost, waiting for the slightest tell to reveal where his prey was.
And after a brief handful of seconds, he got it. The very tips of one segment of grass trembled, just the slightest bit, but it was all the Owl Pokémon needed. In the space of just over three seconds, the Noctowl judged the distance to the prey, the time it would take to reach that spot at his fastest silent gliding speed, and the approximate spot he estimated his prey to have moved to in that period of time, and with those calculations set in his mind, he began his attack run.
Silently spreading his wings to their full length, the elderly Noctowl leapt from the branch with nary a sound, and, with his wings firmly set in a gliding position, he swooped, like a silent specter of death, to the spot he had set as his target, and as he neared it, he angled his wings and body forward to slow his momentum as he brought his sharp talons forward and blindly stabbed them into the grass. He was rewarded with a harsh, startled squeak as his left talon came into contact with something distinctly solid, and immediately, he closed it like a vice-grip over the creature, whose cry of surprise quickly morphed into one of pain and fear as the Noctowl quickly pushed off the ground using his free talon, flapping back into the air while carrying its unfortunate quarry in its left talon.
Ignoring his prey's squeaks of terror, the Noctowl winged his way back to his original perch. Settling upon it, he turned his attention to his catch.
The creature, a Ratatta, was vainly squirming underneath his talon, its face one of abject terror as it stared up at the predator's face, fearful tears running down its cheeks.
"P-please," it stammered, "d-d-don't…"
The words had no effect on the Noctowl, however, for he had long since inured himself to the pleas of his prey.
"May you find peace in Giratina's embrace," he intoned, and with a quick, almost surgical motion, he bent down and used his hooked beak to sever the Ratatta's spinal cord at the neck. The Mouse Pokémon died instantly, its struggles ceasing immediately.
Closing his eyes, the Noctowl then offered up a quick, silent prayer of thanks to the Great Creator, Arceus, for his successful hunt, as his father had instructed him to always do after his first kill many years ago, in addition to the intonation to Giratina before making the kill proper, to wish his prey's soul a safe journey to the afterlife.
Finishing his prayer, the Noctowl then began to lower his head towards the Ratatta's, but before he could open his beak, something strange occurred that drew his attention away from his meal.
From the Noctowl's right side, a pair of very bright lights suddenly came into view, cutting through the darkness like a beacon, causing the Owl Pokémon to squawk and squeeze his sensitive eyes shut against the light. When he had sensed the light had passed, the Noctowl opened his eyes again, blinking them rapidly a few times to chase the dancing purple and blue spots from them. Once they were clear, the Noctowl looked in the direction the lights had gone. Down the road, he could spot the thing to which the lights were apparently attached to as it roared down the road, its rear end illuminated by two smaller, dimmer red lights on opposite sides of each other.
The Noctowl continued to watch as the object got smaller in the distance until it disappeared around the bend. Having been around a long time, the Noctowl recalled that he'd seen those strange beasts before. They were something that humans used to get around, although their name remained a mystery to him. They were rare things, though; most humans he'd seen traveling down the road either walked or rode upon those equally-strange two-wheeled contraptions. Regardless, the sudden appearance of the human transport had decidedly irritated him; it was clear he wouldn't forget about this event any time soon.
"Blasted humans and their contraptions! Damn near blinded me, and in the middle of my dinner, too!" he grumbled irately. Ruffling his feathers in an attempt to ease his displeasure, the Noctowl then went back to eating his meal, albeit with a decidedly more unceremonious air than before.
The path was narrow and dirt-lined, and extremely difficult to spot in the dark. Indeed, the car's driver had only just managed to spot it as he drove by it, forcing him to make a u-turn and double back.
Now, the car turned onto the path proper, casting it in the stark brightness of the vehicle's headlights, something else came into view. On one side of the path, an old, faded, wooden sign stood erect, like a silent, inanimate sentinel in the dark. The vehicle came to a stop for an instant as the driver glanced at the sign and the words written upon them before pressing his foot to the gas once again, accelerating past the sign and down the rarely-traveled road.
As the car traced its way down the winding dirt path, the darkness around it seemed to grow even deeper as the trees on either side of the path grew larger in size in addition to becoming spaced much closer together. Their branches started to loom over the pathway like long, dark fingers, blocking what little natural light the full moon above offered. The driver's vision was strictly limited to what the vehicle's headlights illuminated; anything outside their light was encased in total darkness.
The path went along, unchanging, for about three miles. It was at that mark that the driver became aware of something appearing out of the dark a ways in front of the vehicle. Depressing the brake, the driver gradually brought the car to a stop a few feet in front of the obstruction.
It was another sign, although this time, it was situated in the middle of a long, thick stretch of steel railing that extended from one side of the path all the way to the other. The sign rose above the railing, fastened to a large, rectangular stake of wood. On the other side of the railing, the dirt path abruptly terminated, replaced by a dark carpet of grass.
As the driver read the words on the sign from inside the car, he casually reached into the front pocket of his pants and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and some matches. Tapping one out on the wheel, he removed the cigarette from the pack and placed it between his lips, before opening the match holder, breaking one off, and dragging it along the flint strip, igniting it. Bringing the flame up to the cigarette perched in his mouth, he held it against the end for a few seconds before bringing it away and waving it out. He then proceeded to take a long drag, the cherry glow of the cigarette end dimly illuminating the lower portions of his face for a brief moment before they were cast in shadow again. Holding the smoke in for a couple seconds, the driver then removed the cigarette from his mouth between two fingers before exhaling a large cloud of smoke into the car interior. After letting a few moments to pass to allow the nicotine to settle his nerves somewhat, the man then returned the cigarette to his lips before reaching over and turning off the ignition, cutting off the noise of the engine, which was replaced by dead silence. Only the sound of the man's breathing provided any noise at all.
Opting to leave the keys in the ignition and the headlights on, the man then opened the driver side door and stepped out. Immediately the warm, muggy air hit him, making the outside seem like an oven after so much time being adjusted to the air-conditioned coolness of the car. The 'key still in ignition' warning chimed out into the still night: Ding…ding…ding… before abruptly cutting off as the man shut the door behind him.
Wasting no time, the man walked around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. Looking down into it, the man took another short drag on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke into the night air. He then reached into the trunk with both hands and grabbed something before lifting it out of the trunk, grunting with effort as he did so, before dumping the shadowed mass onto the dirt of the pathway.
Turning back to the trunk, the man then reached in and removed two other objects from it before reaching up and closing the trunk. Once again, the man turned around and proceeded to kneel down beside the large object he had removed first. Taking one of the other two items in hand, the man flipped a switch on its handle, causing a wide beam of light to emerge from its end. He set the flashlight down on the ground at one end of the object; a pair of jean-covered legs were revealed in its light.
By the light of the flashlight, the man took the other object, a long coil of sturdy rope, in his hands and unspooled it before looping one end of it under and over the legs, encompassing both of them before tying a strong knot around them. Giving a few experimental tugs to make sure the knot wouldn't come loose, the man then grabbed the other end of the rope in one hand and the flashlight in the other before standing up. Throwing the rope over his shoulder, the man then walked back around on the driver's side of the car. The rope soon grew taut, giving some resistance at first, but a more concerted pulling effort allowed the man to continue along. Going wide around one end of the steel railing, the man trudged on into the wooded darkness beyond, holding his flashlight before him, his burden dragged along behind him.
The man peered over his shoulder every dozen meters or so, making sure that the headlights of his car remained in view. Sweat beaded down his forehead in considerable amounts, exacerbated by his physical labors, the high humidity, and a growing sense of nervousness and fearfulness, which only increased the farther he got from his car. The calls of various Bug Pokémon filled the air of the surrounding woods, but it wasn't the Bugs the man was worried about.
Finally, after a little under a hundred meters, the man's nervousness reached a breaking point. Roving his flashlight around, the man searched for a suitable spot to dispose of his burden, and eventually, he settled on one in the form of a large gathering of ferns situated around the base of two trees. With great haste, the man started to drag the body over to the chosen spot.
However, before he had gotten halfway there, a bloodchilling sound suddenly emerged from the depths of the forest that sent a thrill of terror through the man's being and caused the sweat covering his skin to turn cold. It sounded like the anguished scream of a woman, and it was tinged with a syllable the man could clearly discern and recognize. And it was close.
The man, now suitably panicked, redoubled his efforts to try and drag the body over to the ferns, but before he'd even moved a handful of steps, the terrifying cry sounded again from the forest. And now it sounded like it was even closer.
Giving a strangled cry of fear, the man immediately aborted his efforts and shucked the rope from his shoulder before throwing all caution to the wind as he sprinted headlong through the forest back towards his car, whose headlights he could still faintly see through the trees ahead.
He ran in a completely fear-fueled state, heedless of anything save the lights in the distance, as the beam of the flashlight in his hand bounced wildly in front of him. Once again, he heard the chilling cry emanate from behind him, although he didn't dare look back. All he concentrated on were the steadily growing lights of his car, and the pumping of his legs as he continued his dead sprint towards them.
As he neared the steel railing, he made to leap over it. However, in his haste, he mistimed the jump, causing the lower portion of his right leg to collide with the back edge of the railing, hard. With a cry, he tripped over the railing, falling chest-first into the dirt. The flashlight flew from his hand, skidding across the dirt of the path before coming to a rest several feet away. Pain rushed through his leg, which he realized, with a flash of panic, seemed to remain stuck to the railing. Looking back, he saw that the fabric of his jeans seemed to be caught on something on the rear side of the railing. The object he had caught himself on was one of the railing's rivets, which he had been unlucky enough to hit with his collision. The force he had hit the rivet had been so great as to allow the steel protuberance to puncture through the jean's fabric as well as the skin beneath, leaving a small, but deep oval-shaped wound that started to drip blood into the blue denim.
However, the man had no thought for any injuries he had suffered. He was more concerned with getting his pants off the railing. In his panicked state, the man didn't think of just lifting off of the rivet caught in his jeans. Instead, he simply tugged with all his might in the opposite direction, which resulted in the rivet tearing through the fabric and leaving a small, bloody strip of it behind as the man tore away, dangling from the railing.
Now free from the railing, the man proceeded to rush the remaining distance to the driver's door, flinging it open and jumping inside. Panting heavily, he reached back and shut the door before hastily grabbing the ignition key and turning it, bringing the engine to life before throwing the gear into reverse.
As the car began to hurriedly back up the way it had come, the car's headlights continued to illuminate the sign above the railing and the words upon it for a few more seconds before they were shrouded in darkness:
End of pathway – Now entering Lostlorn Forest
Warning: Due to the nature, abilities, and territoriality
of the species of Pokémon that reside in Lostlorn,
travelers are advised that they enter Lostlorn at their own risk.