The sun crept over the horizon as we ventured through the forest, the snow packed hard beneath our feet. Flapping my wings probably burned more energy than walking, so for the time being I traveled on foot, only taking flight whenever a beast needed to be distracted. The air was as numbing as ever, and our constant motion only did so much to alleviate it.
We were on our way to the Phantom's Lair, a place of dread for the deserters. Apparently this lair was our last hope for survival, as it offered sustenance in a time when all else had been depleted. The question was, why was it dreaded?
I had asked this question yesterday, but nobody wanted to talk about it and instead opted to go right to sleep. Evidently it was a touchy subject for them. In spite of this, the male yellow had promised to explain everything in the morning, and now that the morning had come…
"So, about this Phantom's Lair," I said to him.
The male yellow sighed. "Alright… In case it wasn't obvious, today's not gonna be a fun day."
"You mean like every day in this forest? Or are we speaking relatively here?"
He narrowed his eyes. "This isn't the time for jokes, Pink. I guarantee you that by the time this is over, everything else will feel like heaven in comparison."
I furrowed my brows, feeling both apprehension and disbelief. "So what are we dealing with then? What is this Phantom?"
"It's a giant flyer that lives in a cave. It loves darkness, so it only leaves its lair at night. But it doesn't sleep throughout the day like a Demon does, so you never know when it might be awake. One moment you may think you're alone, but then the next thing you know, there's a bright light."
"Light?"
"When it spots its prey, it gives off a mesmerizing glow before going in for the kill."
I raised my brow. "So this Phantom loves darkness, but it also makes light…?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds dumb. But don't take this beast lightly. It can capture its prey at a distance, so once it has its sights on you, it's almost impossible to escape."
"Noted. But I don't see how that's any worse than, say, the Leviathan, or the warmongers. Those were pretty damn harrowing, so what makes the Phantom so bad in comparison?"
"It's not just the Phantom. It's the situation in general. The Lair can be…" He sighed again, more loudly and irritably than before. "Look, you'll find out soon enough. Just try to enjoy these moments of peace while you still can."
I shrugged. "Have it your way."
We pressed on, and as we did, the forest became less and less familiar. The makeup of the trees gradually changed, and every rock, bush, and other landmark was utterly new to me. Eventually the frightful Lair came into sight, but by then, the sun was almost halfway across the sky. This was partly because we had to dodge Sparkers and other enemies along the way, but even without interruptions, the Lair itself was quite a distance from our nest. My stomach rumbled from the trek, and everyone else's probably did, too.
The mouth of the cave loomed overhead, rising high enough to accommodate a beast as large as the Leviathan. The closer we came, the more I could feel a subtle current of warm air, as if the cavern itself were breathing.
"Now remember everyone," said the blue. "Don't make a peep while we're in there. This'll be our home for the remainder of the season, and it ain't gonna be cozy."
"Home? What do you mean home?" asked the red.
"He means we'll be spending our nights here as well," said the male yellow. "This place is pretty far from the nest, so going back and forth every day would be impractical."
"Makes sense," I said, rubbing my stomach. "Can we expect any creatures aside from the obvious?"
"Nope. Nothing's mad enough to go in there but us," said the female yellow.
"If we can't talk in there, then how're we supposed to communicate?" asked the red.
"Through gestures," said the blue. "Our objective from this point is fairly straightforward, so there shouldn't be any need for words. But if you absolutely have to say something, just point at the exit and we'll take it outside."
"And how will we sleep, exactly?" I asked. "I thought there was a terrifying monster in there?"
"Our sleeping spot is underneath a cluster of mushrooms. I'll show you where they are as soon as we go in. Any more questions?"
"Just one," said the red. "What will we be eating? I know there's food in there, but what is it?"
"Pods. Courtesy of the Phantom itself."
"…Huh?" we said in unison.
"Every snowfall, the Phantom lays dozens of egg-like structures. We call them pods. They're gross looking, but they provide a bountiful yolk."
"Yolk? Will these things hatch?" asked the red.
"Eventually, yes. But that doesn't happen until the snowmelt sets in. By then, we'll be ready to leave."
I rubbed my face and groaned. "Great, another mother. Precisely what I needed."
"Isn't an Onion kind of like a mother, though?" asked the white.
"…This conversation is over."
"Alright, enough dillydallying," said the male yellow. "The more we dawdle, the more we starve."
The blue nodded. "He's right. It's time to get on with it." He turned towards the cave, but then said one last thing. "Remember: If you see any strange lights, run back to the cluster immediately. Don't wait for a signal."
With that, he led us inside. Snow gave way to soil as we crossed through the entrance, and as we ventured deeper, the sunlight dropped while the temperature rose. Soon, everything was nearly pitch black, with the only source of light being the occasional glowshroom. All was quiet.
None of the deserters dared to activate their glow, and the red and I instinctively followed their example. Because of this, everyone appeared as a silhouette, and while I could still distinguish them by their physical traits, it made them seem almost ghostly. Within a minute or so, the blue brought us to a clump of non-luminescent mushrooms that were packed against a wall. Apparently this was the sleeping spot he had referred to. All in all, it looked fairly secure; the mushrooms were low enough to provide a tight shelter, and their caps were crowded enough to hide us from airborne eyes.
Having shown us this, the blue was ready to get down to business. He pointed at an object that, conveniently enough, was right across from us. We walked over to it, and the closer we got, the more certain I was that it was one of the so-called pods.
Even in the darkness, my eyes were repulsed by the sheer hideousness before me. This "pod" was nothing like an egg; if anything, it was more like a beast. Its skin was leathery, it had revolting sacs on every side of its body, and it was crowned with a sinister mouth-like growth. Were we going to eat it, or was it going to eat us?
The blue spread his arms: a clear signal to stay back. He then stepped up to the pod and struck it. Then he did it again. And again. The pace of his blows was slow, and since he was the only one attacking, the process was lengthy and tedious. But it was all for the sake of making as small a ruckus as possible, and since he had given us a demonstration, he would hopefully let the red do it next time.
When the pod finally ruptured and spilled some yolk, we wasted no time slurping it up. It was… not bad. Not as good as nectar or yolk from actual eggs, but satisfactory nonetheless. Once we had gotten our fill, the blue led us back to the mushroom cluster. We had to crawl to get underneath it, and once we were safely hidden away, we settled down and idled by. It seemed that our first day in the Phantom's Lair had been a success. I felt the sudden urge to comment on this, but since the interior of the cave was warm, and because we had already hidden ourselves, it just didn't seem worthwhile to go back outside. With no words to be said, and my needs having been met, I closed my eyes and wondered why everyone made this out to be so horrible.
The cave's mouth wasn't visible from beneath the cluster, so I didn't realize that a day had passed until the white roused me for another feeding. Whether the deserters had a better sense of time than I did, or were simply following their stomachs, I couldn't say. But I personally wasn't sure what time of day it was. Early morning? Late morning? High noon? Perhaps even afternoon? Surely I'd be hungrier if that were the case, but maybe the pods were just more satiating than most foods? Within the depths of the cave, I could determine almost nothing aside from "it's day" or "it's night," and that bothered me. I didn't know why. It just did.
After I got up, we found another pod, and this time the red destroyed it. We fed again, and we retreated again. Then we repeated the process the next day. And the next day. And the next day.
After the fourth or fifth day, I stopped bothering to count. It just made me more bitter that I didn't have the sun, and I wasn't entirely confident that my count was accurate anyway. Time was steadily becoming lost to me, so for all I knew, we could've killed one pod in the morning and another in the late noon. That wasn't how it normally worked with nectar-like foods, but again, how was I to know?
Despite these agitations, I dared not exit the cavern. I longed to feel sunlight on my body—even if it was cold outside—but I knew that any unnecessary activity could have dire consequences. All I could do was suck it up, hope to adapt, and get through it. The season will end soon enough, I thought. It can't last forever.
Pod after pod fell before us, and each time we devoured one, we had to venture deeper into the cave to find the next. This meant that each consecutive meal brought us farther away from our hiding place, and thus put us in more danger. However, despite the fact that we had cleared a sizable part of the cavern, I still had not seen nor heard the Phantom. If I hadn't been told that the pods were her doing, I might have assumed that she was gone altogether.
Such an assumption would've killed me. One day or another, we had just set out for another pod when someone tapped my shoulder. It was the female yellow, and both she and the male were pointing back at the cluster. We had to take cover.
We all retreated to the safety of the mushrooms, and as we did, I heard a sickly croaking. Initially I thought the yellows had sensed the Phantom, but this noise sounded like it was coming from a creature far smaller than what was described. It also came from the same direction as the cave's entrance; a clear sign that the beast was an outsider.
Even though the mushrooms blocked my view, it slowly dawned to me that our interloper was a Demon Harbinger. Its footsteps sounded all too familiar, and between its wretched raspings, I could sometimes hear a more typical grunt or sigh. The Harbinger was clearly not in good shape, possibly because it was starving, or possibly because it was sick from the cold. Regardless of the reason, there was nothing for us to do but lay still and listen.
At first the Harbinger walked right past us, but shortly after, it came to an abrupt stop. It then started sniffing loudly and heading in our direction. The predator had caught our scent, and my stem rose as the sniffing drew nearer and nearer. Any second now the Harbinger would realize our location, but would it be able to penetrate the mass of mushrooms?
I wouldn't have to find out. Before any trouble could start, a flapping noise sounded. It was soft at the beginning, but then it grew increasingly loud. The Harbinger shrieked in alarm as a magenta-colored radiance suddenly bled through the cluster. Then there was a noise like strong wind, and the Harbinger's screams briefly intensified before ceasing altogether. The light faded, and the beating wings departed, leaving a dead silence in their wake.
We didn't leave the cluster for a long time after that. Our stomachs roared with hunger, but they were muffled by terror.
Eventually we resumed our routine, but things weren't the same now. I had already been warned that the Phantom could strike at any given time, but only now was I fully processing the gravity of the matter. If it could dispose of a Harbinger so swiftly and mysteriously, then what chance did we stand? A second's worth? Fear and anxiety festered within me, even when I was in the safe zone, and I had great trouble sleeping as a result. Sometimes I thought I could hear the Phantom flying about, but it was always so faint that I genuinely couldn't tell if I was imagining it.
I was losing my mind, and I couldn't even speak of it.
Another pod hunt came. At this point we were deep in the cavern's bowels, and my comrades must've been every bit as maddened as I was if not more. But I couldn't see it on their faces. They were permanently cloaked in shadow, and at times, it almost felt like the darkness was eating us alive. A quick break beneath a glowshroom would've been enough to shatter this illusion, but we instinctively avoided them so we wouldn't make ourselves more visible than we already were. My stem hung limp, knowing that the solution was so near and yet so far.
Yet again we found a pod—one that was attached to a wall right above the ground. As always the red cracked it open, and we began to feed. However, we had only halfway finished when the yellows suddenly jerked up and stiffened their stems. Everyone copied the motion and turned to them, waiting for a signal.
None came. Instead, the yellows merely looked aimlessly about the cave. Obviously they had heard something, but it seemed like they weren't certain what it was, or where it had come from. The rest of us stood stock-still, unsure of what to do. I considered taking the initiative and leading everyone back to the cluster, but that might not have been the best idea. We didn't even know which direction the noise had come from; what if the Phantom or some other wayward creature was waiting to ambush us? Then again, we had no place else to hide, so did it really matter either way?
I lightly exhaled, having made up my mind. The risk was worth taking, and I couldn't just let this paralysis continue, especially now that I could see the panicked looks on their faces.
Wait… Why could I suddenly see their faces?!
I looked down and saw that the ground was tinted magenta. Shortly after, it faded back to darkness. Quaking in my skin, I forced myself to look up. Against the pitch black was a pair of giant staring eyes, shining like gold beacons.
I could do nothing but hold my gaze. Every impulse screamed for me to run, but my body would not respond. My blood went icier than snow, and my skin went numb with horror. The eyes remained motionless as well, transfixing me with their deep pupils.
And then it happened. The cave was pierced by a sound, a sound that I had not heard for a long time.
A voice.
"RUN!" the red exclaimed. I jumped at this, and at the same instant, a bright light flooded the cavern. Massive wings spread as the Phantom dislodged herself from the wall, her gruesome form illuminated by glowing filaments. A scream exploded from my mouth as I flew for the cluster, my heart racing like there was no tomorrow.
I did not know if the Phantom had given chase. I didn't even know if my friends were fleeing with me. In my mad flight, my mind could only process one thing: escape.
As soon as I reached the cluster, I dove underneath without bothering to land first. My stomach hurt as it dragged against the ground, but I was so consumed with shock that I barely noticed. A moment later, I found myself being pushed forward as the other pikmin came surging in, jostling about as they tried to find their places. Another moment and everyone was frozen.
Wingbeats echoed as the Phantom flapped about, sometimes towards us, sometimes away from us, sometimes in circles. We could do nothing but cower and wait, hoping that the beast would lose interest. But every time she seemed to be leaving, she always came right back. It was almost as if she were deliberately tormenting us.
After several false departures, the Phantom hovered directly above us. I didn't even dare to breathe. I was certain she would drop onto us any second, but she simply lingered, floating overhead like a sinister cloud.
After a torturous amount of time, the Phantom started to leave. Hearing this, a sigh of relief escaped my mouth. Two seconds later a claw ripped through the cluster.
We stumbled about in a frenzy as the mushrooms were torn apart by the Phantom's talons. In the chaos, I heard the blue shout, "Head for the exit!" Forcing my way out of the clutter and away from the Phantom, I flew towards the light, with the white sprinting ahead of me and the others trailing behind.
We had only made it halfway there before a roar bellowed, followed by a rush of air from above. The Phantom ignited herself with gold-and-violet luminescence, revealing that she had blocked our path.
"Go back! Go back!" the male yellow exclaimed.
We spun around and fled back into the cave's depths, but what we would do next I had no idea. The cluster was worthless now, so that left us with no choice but to keep running until… who knew?
"Quick! Someone tell me how it feeds!" I barked.
"It uses wind to suck things into its mouth! Like a Gale Spitter, but in reverse!" the male yellow replied. "Any ideas on how to work with that?!"
"Not without a bomb-rock, no!"
We raced deeper and deeper into the cavern, passing multiple pods as we went. I didn't know whether the Phantom was pursuing us, but I was soon to discover that it hardly mattered. At the end of a straight passage, we found ourselves in a vast chamber littered with pods and a handful of glowshrooms. There were no places to hide, and there were no exits aside from the way we came in.
We had reached a dead end—in more ways than one.
"What do we do now?" I asked.
"Yellows? Can either of you hear it?" asked the blue.
"I can," said the male. "It's taking its time, but it won't be very long before it arrives. You think we can work out a plan before then?"
"What if we huddled next to a pod?" asked the white. "Surely it wouldn't suck up its own spawn?"
"That won't work," said the female yellow. "The pods are firmly stuck to the ground, and the Phantom probably knows that. We'd be inhaled in an instant."
"What if we fed it a glowshroom?" asked the red.
We all stared in confusion. "For what reason?" asked the blue.
"Because it might be poisonous?"
"Red, I don't think this is a good time for experiments," said the female yellow.
"Do we have a choice? I mean, what else is there to try?"
When he said this, I looked around the chamber. Aside from a few rocks, there was absolutely nothing to be seen aside from pods and glowshrooms. We couldn't run, we couldn't hide, and we couldn't use the pods, so that left us with only one option. "He's right. We don't have a better alternative," I said.
"Well, whatever we're going to do, we need to do it now. It's almost here," said the male yellow.
The blue nodded. "Alright then. Let's get a glowshroom."
We made a break for the nearest glowshroom, and as we did, I heard the ominous flapping. At first the Phantom ambled through the passage—perhaps because she knew we had nowhere to go—but once she was inside the chamber, she suddenly and audibly gained on us. It was do or die time.
I grabbed a glowshroom by the stem and pulled upwards. At the same time, the other pikmin viciously attacked the base. With a jerk, it dislodged and was free of the ground. Rising slightly, I clutched the fluorescent fungus and prepared to toss it into the Phantom's mouth. My heart was already pounding, but it beat harder than ever when her silhouette loomed over me.
"Pink! Don't throw until its mouth is open!" the male yellow warned. Bracing myself, I clutched the glowshroom and waited for the precise moment. If I messed up the timing, I would die. If I didn't, I would probably still die.
My stomach lurched as the Phantom thrust forward, but she hadn't come at me. Instead, she had gone over me. Ascending towards the invisible ceiling, she began to fly in a wide circle around us. "What the hell is she doing?!"
"I don't know!" the male yellow exclaimed. "She might be onto us!"
I growled in visceral frustration. She was basically a Leviathan with wings. "Never mind the plan! Let's just get out of here before she decides to-!"
At that very instant, I noticed that my friends were reverting to shadows. I looked at the glowshroom and saw that its light was dimming fast; next thing I knew, it had gone out completely. For a moment there was darkness, but then everything went bright as the Phantom appeared before me and opened her maw.
"NO!"
I threw the mushroom just as a vortex appeared, but whatever happened next, I couldn't perceive. My whole world spun as I was thrown about by violent winds, so mercilessly that I couldn't even tell which way was up. A sharp pain shot through me as I collided with something that I was too dizzy to see, and then I fell. My body hardly registered the impact against the ground, and before everything went blank, I vaguely realized that I was moving. Not flying, not walking, just… moving.
Pink! Pink!
My eyes creaked open. Everything was an intense cyan, and it made me want to close them again.
Pink! Wake up!
"Ugh… Hmm?"
Gradually, my vision became clear. The obnoxious color was the light of a glowshroom—one that was still rooted—and the pikmin speaking was the white. "What happened? Where are we?"
"Oh, thank goodness you're alright," she said, putting her hand on my chest. "You passed out for a bit. And we're still in the Phantom's Lair."
I groaned and rubbed my temples. "Phantom's Lair… W-wait! The Phantom!" I jolted to my feet as my mind flushed with memory. "Where is she?!"
"Hey, hey. Settle down. We're safe now." She motioned at the others, who were all gathered within the glowshroom's light. I could plainly see a lack of urgency in their faces, even though the Phantom was still afoot. "How is this safe? She could devour us right now if she wanted to."
"She could. But she won't," said the blue. "Thanks to you, we've discovered her weakness."
"Weakness?" I squinted with confusion. "Wait, what happened to me, exactly?"
"One thing at a time, Pink," said the male yellow. "For starters, you had a collision with the Phantom's mouth. It tried to inhale you, but ended up catching the glowshroom instead. Luckily for you, its jaws snapped shut right away."
A cold feeling sank in my gut. I couldn't believe the only reason I didn't die was that I threw the glowshroom ahead of me; if I had delayed for even a second, I would've been consumed along with it. "So what's her weakness?"
"I noticed that she didn't attack you until after your glowshroom died," said the blue. "They're obviously not really poisonous, so I figured it must've had something to do with their light. So we all took refuge under this one, and she hasn't made a move on us since."
I took back what I said earlier. The Phantom wasn't a winged Leviathan at all; no creature with such a pathetic, self-contradictory weakness deserved that comparison. "So what do we do now?"
"There are glowshrooms scattered all over this cave. If we're quick, we can get from one to the other before she has time to strike. Then we can get out of here once and for all."
"Whoa, whoa. Hold on," said the male yellow. "You want to leave? Isn't it a little early for that?"
I furrowed my brows in disbelief. "Do you want to stay?"
"Not especially. But I don't think the land is ready for us yet. Besides, we just figured out how to protect ourselves from her, so isn't this the perfect opportunity to raid more pods?"
"We don't have a choice. Staying here is too dangerous," said the blue. "She saw us killing one of her pods, so she's guaranteed to be on guard now. And since pods are always in dark places, she'd be bound to catch us in the open."
"Her wings will give her away!"
"She got the jump on us earlier, did she not? If it happened once, it'll happen again!"
The male yellow gave a sigh, one that was equal parts concession and frustration. "Alright, we'll do it your way. But you better have a plan for when we get out there."
"I don't. But I'll figure one out," said the blue. "Now everyone crowd together. I'll decide which glowshroom to run to, and when I say 'go', we all go at once."
The blue turned and used his stem to point out a glowshroom: one that was closer to the chamber's exit. "Go!"
We ran as a group to the fungus, and as we did, the Phantom adjusted her course to follow us. However, once we were inside the light again, she broke off and went back to circling. "Ha! This is so easy!" said the red.
"Please don't jinx it," said the female yellow.
One by one, the blue led us from glowshroom to glowshroom, with the unseen Phantom tailing us along the way. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was plotting something, but as we steadily made our way through the cave, she took no action aside from eerie hovering. Soon the light of the final exit came into view, and upon seeing it, I was filled with a feverish yearning. "This is it! We're almost out!"
I waited for the blue to give his command, but it didn't come. "Blue?"
He said nothing in response; only gazed ahead. Confused, I tapped him on the shoulder. "Blue! What's the matter?"
"Look around," he said. "We've run out of glowshrooms."
With wide eyes, I stared at the passage before me. There wasn't a single glowshroom in sight, and the stretch between us and the exit was a perilous one. Breathing heavily, I glanced up and saw the faint form of the Phantom. She beat her wings slowly and methodically, patiently awaiting our next move.
She didn't have to wait for long. Hovering off the ground, I looked to my comrades and said, "We're getting out of here now."
Without waiting for a response, I clutched the stem of the glowshroom and pulled up. The others caught on instantly and severed the base, allowing me to wield it. "Now!" I hollered.
I shot forward with my friends running right below me, careful to stay inside the glowshroom's radius. The Phantom flapped wildly above us, her wingbeats carrying more fervor than ever.
"Almost there!" the red exclaimed. The exit came ever closer, but as it did, the mushroom's glow began to wane. Now the light was dwindling rapidly, and suddenly the exit seemed impossibly far. "Come on! Just a bit longer!" I shouted.
We put on a burst of speed just as the glowshroom perished. Darkness took over, and a fearsome roar sounded.
Then came a flood of light.
I lay collapsed on the ground, heaving for breath. Through narrowed eyelids, I could see the sun beaming in the sky. The brightness stung and made my eyes water, and yet it was all I wanted to look at.
Sitting up, I glanced around and saw my friends. They were all laying about as I had been, some face-up, others face-down. Taking one long breath, I fell back down and closed my eyes as the sun bathed me in its radiance.
