Adam's journey to become the best had taken him to Lavender Town, a rather infamous part of Kanto. There were all sorts of stories out there about how it was haunted by ghosts, how it caused children to kill themselves, or how the buildings were poorly constructed.
He wasn't worried about any of that, though. His best friend, a Pikachu, was by his side. Since starting his quest, they'd both been through a lot of hardships, and they'd always came out on top.
He told Pikachu "Okay, don't be scared here. Okay? We'll get through here, just like we always do!" and petted it.
Pikachu responded by shouting "Pika!", which it also always did.
Adam was still thinking about one of the acts he saw back in Saffron City. He wasn't even sure what the heck they would call something like that.
Adam read a sign saying "Now entering Lavender Town" and walked past it. They entered the town, and were surprised by how populated it was. From the outset, one wouldn't expect Lavender Town to have its rather dire reputation. A woman who looked to be in her forties came up to them and started speaking in an extremely cheery voice. "Hello! Welcome to Lavender Town!"
Adam said "Hello!" back. "Hey, I have heard crazy stuff about this place. Are there really ghosts in here?"
The woman said "Oh, no, no. Those rumours are all ridiculous! Our town is pure and wholesome." and stared at Adam.
Pikachu let out another "Pika!" and the woman's tone became more downbeat and droll. "Do you want to stay here for the night? We would love it if we could have you. my name is jessica by the way"
Adam was overjoyed to hear this. "Really? You'd love to have me over?"
Jessica said "Over. Yes. You are on the quest to be the best, after all, and we don't get too many of those kinds of kids around these parts."
Adam was upset by what she said. "Hey, I'm not a kid! I'm eleven! Almost twelve!" Adam was worried that he scared her off and quickly followed up by saying "But, I'd love to stay.", trying to keep his cool but clearly enthusiastic.
Pikachu nodded at Jessica, and Jessica said "Haha. That is great! Come, I'll go and take you to your hotel room."
Adam was delighted. "Hotel room! I've never been in a hotel!" Jessica grabbed onto his hand tightly and took him through the town.
For such a small town, Lavender Town was crawling with people of diverse genders and ethnicities. They all seemed to be on the young side, though. He figured it was probably the legend around the town that attracted them.
Otherwise, it was most of what he'd come to expect in any given town: A Pokémart, a Pokémon Center, and a decent amount of housing. However, there were also two giant buildings that almost resembled skyscrapers. He asked "Hey, what are those big buildings?"
"They're the Pokémon Cemetery and your hotel!" The former is what grabbed Adam's interest. "...Pokémon Cemetery? Is that where all the ghosts are from?"
Jessica's voice became somewhat angry and snarling. "No, that's not where the ghosts are from, because there are no ghosts, remember when I said that?" She then tightened her grip, to the point where she was outright crushing his hand. Adam took this as coded language that meant Jessica had a "crush" on him. He was kind of an idiot.
He was dragged into the hotel, and was rather underwhelmed by the lobby. The hotel gave off the kind of vibe one would expect to be used by criminal groups that stole Pokémon. The paint was peeling off the walls, rust was setting in around the metal pillars, the desks seemed to be about ready to collapse, and he did not want to find out what the horrible stench was coming from.
What gave him comfort, though, was the amount of people that were there. If he'd been by himself in this shady hotel, he probably would have bailed. But the crowds and crowds of diverse humans and Pokémon that were there made him much more confident. If they had trust in this place, why shouldn't he?
He went up to the front desk. There wasn't much of a queue, probably owing to the fact that there didn't seem to be anybody at the reception.
"Hello, reception?" he shouted, his voice only barely audible over the noise of the crowds. A child who looked to be younger than Adam ran in. "Sorry, sorry! What is it you need, sir?"
Adam was glad that the hotel was giving employment opportunities to young children. When they left home, they weren't given much to do, and a lot of them ended up being killed as a result. Politicians were protesting the requirement of children having to be sent out at a young age, but it was a law being kept out of a sense of tradition.
Adam said "Hey, uh, somebody named Jessica invited me here?" Jessica shouted "Yes, I did invite him here!" from the hotel entrance.
The kid working at the hotel said "Oh, that's, uh, g-great!" and seemed to be physically exhausted when doing so. "You know, a kid your age is so cute, pure, and wholesome! You're not corrupted by sin like adults!"
Adam, confused, said "You look younger than me!"
The kid quickly deflected, saying "Yes! Like that cu-girl, girl, that has cooties!"
Adam ignored his concerns and high fived him, saying "You're dang right she has cooties!" before quickly adding "Sorry for the language."
The kid said "Your room is 2853. Funny coincidence. Jessica has your room key." Adam looked over at Jessica, who was dangling the keys. "I'll take you up."
Jessica led Adam into the elevator, Pikachu following. The elevator had options for 70 floors. "They're working on more constructing more floors. They're desperately needed."
She pushed the button for Floor 34. Adam was scared riding the elevator, as it shook around, made a loud noise, and felt like it was about to collapse. It didn't. The door opened, and Adam looked around the corridor. It was mouldy, and the stench here was even stronger, almost putting Adam to the point of vomiting.
He and Pikachu were taken down a corridor that Adam felt went on forever. Jessica took him down to room 2853, and handed him the keys. "Can I move to a different room? The number scares me."
Jessica said "No." in a dry tone and walked off.
Adam opened the door, which used a physical lock, and he and Pikachu walked into the room. The room was a mess. Cobwebs were all around it, dust covered everything, ants were crawling in the corners and on the beds, and the kettle had a suspicious strand of hair on it.
"Pikachu, I'm not gonna lie, this hotel seems kind of wack so far."
Pikachu said "Pika!" and Adam responded with "Oh, please, people totally still call things wack."
There were two beds. He sat down on one of them, and it was very uncomfortable. This did not surprise him, at this point. There was a bathroom in the hotel, as well, which almost was surprising.
Figuring that after his busy day, he could probably use it, he went to the toilet to do his business.
He heard voices as he entered, but dismissed them. Nobody wanted to look at that part of his body. The very idea seemed ridiculous, in fact. He lifted the toilet lid, and started peeing. Nobody was watching him, not at all. He should just keep doing what he's doing.
He washed his hands and left the bathroom. "I gotta level with you, Pikachu. I think we should just leave. This hotel is kinda weird."
Pikachu said "Pika!" in a cheerful tone in an attempt to keep him in the hotel. He needed to stay in the hotel.
"Ah, Pikachu, you're right. I'm not gonna die here, anyway, and I do need to be polite to Jessica. She did let me in here for free, after all."
There was a knock on the door. Adam went up to answer it. It was Jessica, with another kid in her hand. The kid was black and was twitching all over, clearly distraught about something.
Jessica said "Listen, I'm sorry to bother you, but we overbooked and this kid doesn't have anywhere to stay in this hotel. Do you mind letting him sleep in your room?"
Adam said "Sure, I don't see a problem with that. There's another bed in this room, anyway." He wasn't entirely sure why, come to think of it. The kid walked in, and Pikachu nodded at Jessica before she closed the door.
Adam greeted him. "Hey, kid, what's your name?"
The kid said "He...Hector. Hector. Say, fellow cute, little child, why don't we go to sleep."
Although Adam's first thought was that it was way too early to go to bed, he suddenly realised that he was very tired. He figured that all that happened in the past hour or so made him exhausted. "Fine." It was a bonus if it made Hector feel more comfortable. Adam wasn't necessarily the most observant kid in the world, but even he could tell that he was clearly stressing out about something.
Adam went into his hotel bed and fell asleep near-instantly. Hector did not sleep, however, and instead stared at Adam as he did so, chuckling. Adam started dreaming.
I woke up in my bed, back at home. I figured that the past few weeks had just been a weird, long, intensely detailed dream. I went downstairs to greet my mom. She was sitting at the living room desk, looking contemplative of something.
"Honey, have you ever wondered where your father went?" I'd never really thought about it before.
"Why, where did he go?"
"Well, we were...playing...or, well...okay, we fucked. And he got me pregnant. And, well, he left." My mom put her head down on the table and started crying. "And I realised that I still loved him, and...didn't love you."
I fell through the floor, and was left in nothing but a pure black void. I felt numb of any sort of emotion. Deep down, I kind of always knew it.
I landed onto what was seemingly an invisible platform within the void. Shortly after I landed, a gun came down from up above. I started to consider it. I grabbed the gun. My hands started shaking. Nobody loved me. This was my only way out. We all die one day, I might as well get it over with. I pulled the gun up to my
Adam was woken up by a sound in the bathroom. He lay there, thinking about what he just dreamt. Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, he almost wanted to see how it would have played out. Given what he dreamt, he wasn't totally sure if there was given any reason not to.
The noise from the bathroom intensified. It sounded like weeping. He also could smell the stench from earlier, and it was completely overwhelming. Pikachu shouted "Pika!" in a voice that tried to be cheerful, but almost came across as angry and commanding. Adam noticed that Hector was not lying in bed, and that, going from the buttprint on the sheets, sat there for hours rather than actually ever going to sleep.
He got up from bed, and walked up to the bathroom door. He shouted "Hello? Hello? You in there?" from the outside. The crying continued to intensify.
He opened the bathroom door, and suddenly realised where the smell was coming from.
Shit was smeared all over the walls, and Hector was in the bathtub, crying and mastrubating with his hands down his pants.
Hector kept mumbling "I'm sorry..." to himself, over and over. Adam was at a loss for how to respond to this.
"Well, what are you sorry for?"
Hector looked at Adam and said "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did, and what I'm about to do."
He pulled out a gun from his pocket and put it up to his head. His hands were shaking and twitching.
Adam tried to stop him, reaching his hand out toward the gun, but Hector pushed him back. Adam said "Please don't do this, Hector! Please! This is crazy!" while on the verge of tears.
Hector pulled the trigger.
His brains splattered onto the bathroom wall, and his body fell flat into the bathtub, the blood from his neck seeping down into the drain.
Adam bent down on his knees and broke down crying. There was a short moment where he didn't really have any thoughts at all. His brain was just a giant blank space. Adam had been through a lot with Pikachu, but it was all fairly light in comparison to this.
Adam leaned down on his knees and started crying. He wasn't really sure what to do at this point. He'd had some rough times in his life, certainly, but none of them quite compared to this. This was the first time he'd really been at a loss for what to do. Adam started to wonder if it was really worth going on, and if it wasn't worth just following in Hector's wake.
"Pika!"
"I think it might be better to keep this between us, Pikachu." Adam could barely muster up the mental energy to say much at all, his voice shaking and quivering.
He stared at Hector's corpse. It had started to attract Durants, who were chewing away at his skin. Adam ran out of the hotel room. Pikachu ran after him.
As Adam was running through the corridor, everyone else in the hotel floor came out of their rooms, and started following him. Adam had learned enough by this point to know that he shouldn't go and shake their hand. At first, they came up to him slowly, but as Adam started to pick up speed, so too did the people following him. Pikachu was trailing behind.
"Hey, uh, Pikachu? Could you hurry up?"
"Hey, Pikachu? Can you please hurry the fuck up?"
Adam eventually sighted the elevator. He ran up to it, and started mashing the button for it to open. As he was waiting, they were catching up to him. Eventually the door opened, and Adam ran inside.
However, Pikachu had still not caught up. Adam, although he considered leaving Pikachu behind, reluctantly held the "Door Open" button, as the guests were running up to him. "Pikachu! Come on, Pikachu! Fuck!" Pikachu eventually caught up with him. So did everybody else, however. Adam pressed the ground floor button and started mashing the door close button, which did nothing.
A woman entered the elevator. Adam shoved her out just as it closed. She started to scream "No, please! Please! I'm not one of these ghosts, I swear! Please, please open up the door!" as the elevator started to go down to the ground floor.
Pikachu said "Pika!" in an angry tone. Adam responded by saying "I don't trust her."
Adam said "Well, we know that the "kids killing themselves" part of the rumours are true, and from the sounds of it, there really are ghosts. What else, then?" The elevator promptly cut out.
"Shit!"
Adam started crying again. "Nobody loves me, and we're going to fucking die. So, of course the elevator cut out. Of course it did!"
The thoughts in his head started to come back again. Adam didn't have much willpower left in him, at this point, and almost surrendered to them.
They then both heard whispering. "Join us...join us..."
Adam started jumping up and down on the elevator. He was gonna die anyway, he might as well take the elevator down with him. Eventually, the cables broke loose and the elevator started falling down the shaft, of which they were thirty floors high. The scraping of the elevator against the wall was just about the most horrible noise he'd ever heard.
Adam closed his eyes and fully expected it to be the last time he'd do so. It only took a minute for the elevator to reach the bottom, but it felt like he was waiting for most of his life. Finally, there was a loud crash.
Adam opened his eyes. He and Pikachu were caught under the rubble. Adam initially thought he'd died and been caught in a particularly dull afterlife before realising what happened.
He didn't think of himself as destined for much longer, though, given that he was currently buried underneath rubble and couldn't breathe. He'd already made peace with his death, at this point. Pikachu was almost certainly dead, anyway, and he didn't have much else going for him. Suffocating at the bottom of an elevator shaft was probably the best case scenario at this point.
Just as he'd resigned to his fate, though, he heard Pikachu's cry, which immediately gave him confidence. He wasn't entirely sure how both of them survived the crash, but he wasn't going to throw away the opportunity.
"Pikachu! Can you hear me?" Adam said, his voice straining from the lack of oxygen. Pikachu shouted back "Pika!", much to his joy.
"Alright, Pikachu! I need you to use Thundershock! Get the debris off both of us!"
Pikachu started trying to break free, screaming in an attempt to use Thundershock.
"Pika!"
"Pika-chu!"
"PIKA-CHU!"
"PIIIKKKAAA-CHUUU!"
Eventually, Pikachu successfully activated the move, and the electricity caused the debris to fly off of them. Adam was injured, bleeding, and coughing up blood, but he had lived. Pikachu had, as well, and he seemed to be no worse for the wear. Adam, crying tears of joy, grabbed Pikachu and hugged him.
"We did it! I can't believe we did it!" Pikachu shouted "Pika!", overjoyed. The celebrations were cancelled by an ominous moaning that sounded almost demonic.
"We should probably get out of here." said Adam, his voice the calmest it had been in a while. He saw the ladder that took them out of the elevator shaft and into the hotel lobby, and, although one of his legs was nearly broken, he managed to climb up it with Pikachu on his back.
The hotel lobby was completely empty, which Adam was merciful for. "I don't think I'll be officially checking out of here." he said, as he was running out of the hotel.
It was night-time in Lavender Town. Adam was totally sure of how long he was in the hotel, but it didn't seem to be any longer than half a day or so. He stopped to breathe.
"That hotel was fucked up, man." He started laughing out of a sense of relief. He tried not to think about the kid that blew his brains out. That wasn't him, and that was all that mattered. "I need to find the nearest hospital. Arceus has bailed me out once already, I don't think I want to tempt fate again."
"Yeah, you better not."
Adam looked around, trying to figure out where the voice came from. Eventually, after seeing how the town was completely empty, he realised there was only one place where it could have came from.
Pikachu.
He instinctively threw his hands up in the air, like he was being interrogated. He'd never heard Pikachu say anything other than "Pika!" before, with the occasional exception of adding "-chu!" on at the end.
Not only that, it wasn't in its usual squeaky voice. Instead, it was in a deep, intimidating voice.
Adam said "Hey, I didn't know you could talk!", not knowing what else to really say. He knew that it was vanishingly unlikely that this was going to end well, but still tried to hold onto hope that it would. He'd lost a lot of things, but he could not lose Pikachu.
Pikachu said "Yeah, I can. Because, well, I'm not really a Pikachu."
Adam then lost that hope, and started considering running away. "Well, what are you, then? Because you certainly look like a Pikachu, and I certainly knew you as one."
They said "You'll find out in about three...two...one." At that point, beams of light started to come out of its eyes and mouth, and the Pikachu body was reduced to a soulless husk. Adam's consideration of running away was upgraded to committing to it, as he didn't want to be part of whatever was about to happen.
Just as he started to do so, however, a Haunter ghost started chasing him. "It's 3am in Lavender Town, and we all come out to play!"
Adam's damaged leg eventually caused him to trip. Although he tried to get up, Haunter eventually caught up to him. "Please, Pikachu! Don't do this, whatever it is!"
Haunter said "Sorry, but I've put up with your shit for way too long to not get some kind of pay-off."
He then flew into Adam, taking control of his body. Adam didn't have any willpower left in him to fight it off, and as Haunter entered, he felt his soul catch fire. Haunter took control of his body, the twitching quickly stopping. Adam knew and could feel what was happening with his body, but he couldn't control it, merely witness it.
Haunter looked at his new body. It was so cute, pure, and wholesome. They could really get around in this.
Haunter walked back to the hotel, rubbing its hands together and laughing.