In the silent hallway, our footsteps were like secrets being whispered back and forth, and I was terrified someone—or worse, something—would hear us. I imagined the floor and walls shaking with each step we took, rumbling the tables and knocking the picture frames off their stands, but the thick plush carpet absorbed everything but the occasional stray squeak from our slightly still-wet shoes. After a while of Hector supporting me, my leg started to feel a little better, and I was able to limp on my own. Since we weren't being attacked by a science experiment from Hell, I thought it'd be fine. Hector was walking slightly ahead of me, looking back every few minutes like he was afraid something would nab me from behind and make off with me without a sound. We decided to hold hands.
As we ventured down the hall, we tried opening each door as we passed them, but none of them opened. In fact, some of them weren't even real doors—just doors and frames affixed to the wall. There was something else suspicious about those ones, but I didn't have the energy to think on it further.
"We're still in the lower level of the mansion, huh?" Hector asked aloud after we encountered yet another fake door.
"What?"
"Remember we walked down those stairs that led to the aquarium? We haven't found any stairs leading back up yet."
"Oh, I guess you're right. What made you mention it?"
"I was just thinking it's a little odd we haven't encountered anyone else yet. I mean, there were hundreds of people in here at the start. Although, the door did lock behind us…"
"Maybe that's lucky for us. We may not have to fight anyone else," I said and knocked on a table as we walked by—just for good measure.
"It could have just been that Robbie was a bad person. I don't necessarily think it means we'll need to fight anyone else." I shook my head.
"But if we're supposed to be finding Poké Balls to catch Pokémon, survive, and get out, and there are limited balls, then don't you think that means people will be fighting to get the most balls and the strongest Pokémon?" Hector didn't say anything but squeezed my hand a little tighter.
"…I don't really wanna think about what other Pokémon are in here. And anyway, I don't think we'll find a way out of here by sticking around in the basement, if you can even call it that." Eventually, we arrived at a turn in the hall. Hector gestured for me to wait while he checked around the corner. He braced his back against the wall and peeked cautiously. Nothing seemed too alarming, based on his muted reaction, but when he returned to me, he didn't seem optimistic.
"What is it? A zoo this time?" I asked, cracking an ironic half a smile.
"I…don't think so, no. Did you bring any other clothes with you?" My half-smile collapsed.
"Just my hat… Oh, wait! I did buy that t-shirt from the one gift shop." I knelt down and rummaged through my bag to pull out the shirt. I almost accidentally pulled out the hidden Poké Ball I'd found in the foyer and made sure it remained tucked away in my bag underneath my other souvenirs. Not intentionally trying to hide anything from Hector, I figured it'd be easier if he didn't know about it yet.
Still sopping wet, I wrung out as much water from the shirt as I could and then flapped it around to air it out. The shirt became wrinkly, but it was thin enough that it was practically dry after a few minutes of waving it around and twisting out the remaining water. I did the same with my jacket, although it was much easier to dry because of the water-resistant material and lack of a lining. Didn't think it'd offer much protection against whatever Hector had seen, though.
"Looks pretty dry now. You should put the shirt on underneath your jacket. And is your hair completely dry yet? The hat may not be much, but you might as well put that on, too."
"Hector, you're scaring me. What did you see?" I asked as I squeezed my hair to make sure it was dry. My hair only went down past my ears and barely touched my shoulders, but I suddenly wished I'd cut it short like Hector's. Or would it have been better to have longer hair for what was ahead? I pulled the t-shirt over my head, slid my jacket back on, then plopped on my hat. I decided to pull my jacket zipper up all the way, as well. Hector put his hat on and was about to pull his torn hoodie around himself when he noticed my legs. Then he held out the hoodie to me.
"Maybe you could tie this around your waist, so it'll at least partially cover your legs… Or you could stick your legs through the sleeves—"
"I'm not wearing this thing like pants," I said flatly. "It'll give me a saggy crotch like it's full of shit, and what if we need to run? Well, I guess I'd have to limp quickly anyway." Politely, I pushed it back toward him as I started to laugh. "Besides, you're wearing less clothes than me right now—my legs will be fine." Hector didn't laugh, but he did suppress a smile. I figured some levity every now and then would help us keep going. He quickly put on the hoodie and then picked up his backpack. In that moment, he seemed bolder than I remembered him from our time together. Part of me wanted to stay in the hallway and hold onto him until someone else came to rescue us. I knew that was silly, though, especially since no one on the outside had any reason to believe that a bunch of tourists who spent a fuck-ton of money to go to that island would need any help.
"How about your shoes? And your socks?" I squelched around in my shoes and couldn't even tell if my socks were wet. I sat down and pulled my shoes off, wincing again when I bent my right knee. The shoes were only slightly wet. I had to peel my socks off my feet, though, and while they weren't dripping wet, they were damp enough that they might freeze in cold enough temperatures.
"Shit." I did my best to wring out the water but only got a few drops from each. "Think that's good enough?"
"I'm not sure… Would wearing slightly wet socks be better than wearing no socks in slightly wet shoes?" He shrugged. "Will it even really matter?"
"What about your shoes?" Hector wiggled his feet out in front of him, flexing his toes.
"They feel dry to me, but that's not much help since I decided to wear sandals."
"Maybe we're both fucked then." I was still debating on if wearing the socks would be more dangerous than not, especially since I still didn't know what was ahead.
"Not if we move quickly and get out of there. Just try to dry your socks as much as you can. I know it's inconclusive if we actually have a time limit on getting out of this place, but I think the faster we move through the mansion, the better." Furiously, I continued to wring the socks and rubbed them together. After a few minutes of that, they felt dry enough to wear again as they were made out of thin fabric. My shoes were another issue, though.
"Since I'm doing all these ridiculous things to make sure nothing is wet, can you just tell me what you saw?" Hector cleared his throat and looked away as I unsuccessfully tried to twist water out of my canvas sneakers.
"There's a glass door around the corner. On the other side…" He paused for a moment. "It looked like someone froze to death."
"Oh my god…" I dropped the shoes and sat still, processing what he said. My spine tingled and sent shivers quaking all the way to my fingertips. I felt cold already.
"The door will probably lock behind us once we enter, so we've got to be prepared to keep moving forward."
"Could we block it with something?" I asked and looked around. I grabbed a few picture frames off the nearest table. Looking at them, the faces of Sabrina and her family appeared to have been rubbed into blank white ovals, but there was a very faint outline of eerie smiles left behind. I tried to forget I looked closely enough to notice. "The frames seem sturdy enough. Think they'll hold? In case we need to make a quick escape or something."
"Yeah, good idea," Hector said and took the pictures.
"Also, don't look at the pictures. They're…weird. Also, can you help me with these?" I handed him a shoe, which he seemed to have no idea what to do with, as I roughly rubbed the top part of the shoe against the carpet to create friction. I was careful not to rub too hard because there were small holes in various places, but then the rubbing didn't seem very effective anyway.
"I'm not sure this is working," Hector said after a couple minutes of copying me and rubbing the shoe on the carpet.
"Fuck, I don't know. Let me feel." I squeezed both sneakers and heard a faint but surely existent squish sound. "I think that's good enough. I mean, like you said—if we get in and get out quickly, it won't matter that much, right?"
"I hope so… I mean, yes. We'll figure it out. Are you ready then?" With my socks and shoes back on, I felt a little more optimistic because I couldn't really tell that the shoes were still a little wet. On my feet, the rubber soles were still making squishing sounds, but I felt they were probably thick enough that it wouldn't affect me too much. I removed my hat quickly to pull my hood over my head, replaced my hat, and cupped my hands around my mouth to blow hot air. Then I rubbed them together vigorously while jogging in place. Then I patted my pocket to make sure my Pokémon were accounted for. Hector checked his Poké Ball, as well.
"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. The cold air should help my swelling go down, at any rate," I joked. Hector nodded with a forced smile, and we proceeded. On the other side of the glass, it looked like a man had tried to break through. One hand was pressed against the glass while the other was raised in a fist slightly above his head. A tired and fearful look was forever chiseled on his face. His eyes weren't shut all the way, either. I tried not to look, but the image of his face would be difficult to forget.
The glass was divided into three panels, separated by steel bars. On the center panel, there was a green button on a steel plate in the middle of the glass. I figured that pushing it would open the door. Just by looking, I couldn't tell how it would open, but I had a sinking feeling that a few picture frames wouldn't be able to keep the door ajar.
"Looks like it's another straight shot, so let's go as fast as we can and focus on finding a way out of this part, okay?" Hector said. He took some steadying breaths. The hallway on the other side was all gray and metallic, and puffs of white smoke poured down from the ceiling. I guessed it was the frigid air pouring in to keep everything nice and sub-zero.
"We should try to look for any random Poké Balls, too. Just in case."
"Sure, but don't risk hurting yourself if you see one. There could be traps set up to keep people in there until they freeze to death." Without looking, I could see the frozen man's face in my head, imagining him saying,
"Yeah, look what happened to me…"
"Maybe let's just run right through then." We both tried to warm up our bodies by jogging. My gaze kept drifting back to the frozen man staring out at us until I had to turn my back. Then a thought struck me, and I stopped jogging. "Actually, maybe we should just turn around. We could go back through the fucking aquarium part and make our way back upstairs and find a different way through. This just seems like too much now." Hector stopped jogging, as well.
"Well, we actually can't go back. A metal grate shut off passage to the aquarium while you were asleep."
"Did you check to see if it could be opened again?"
"N-No, I didn't think there'd be any point. I heard it close, and I couldn't just leave you asleep in the hallway by yourself to check, could I?"
"…I guess not…, but I wish you'd told me. We could've looked to be sure, but I guess it doesn't matter. I guess we really have no choice but to go forward then," I said and sighed. Fear was mounting in my chest, and as hard as I tried to keep my heart rate even, it wasn't working. I figured maybe it would help me warmer, though—at least at the start.
"I'm sorry…," Hector mumbled and looked down, maybe searching for something else to say.
"Fuck it, never mind. Let's just do this." Hector nodded and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly before we walked up to the glass.
"Here we go," Hector whispered and then pushed the green button. The glass panel seemed to be sucked up into the ceiling, and a blast of cold air enveloped us immediately. We both ran in quickly, and Hector dropped the frames on the ground to try and jam the door. When the glass slid back down, though, it slammed into the frames with such force that it snapped them in half and locked into place anyway. As we suspected, there was no button on that side of the glass.
Feeling like we'd just stepped into the Antarctic, it was even colder than I imagined. It was also difficult to see and hear because of the white fog blasting into the hallway from above with an almost deafening whooshing sound. In between each vent was a dim white light that mostly got overpowered by the fog surrounding it, so the hallway was dark. Hector grabbed my handed and pulled me along, waving an arm out in front of him to prevent us from crashing into anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the frozen man move but didn't turn around to confirm. I let Hector guide me as I looked around frantically for anything we could've used or other possible options of escape. The hallway was simply gray and featureless, other than the vents in the ceiling dumping arctic breath on us.
As we ran, our shoes felt sticky on the ground and made ripping noises with every step. The frosty air made my legs start to feel numb, which helped me move a little faster because the pain started to subside, but I was worried what would happen if they were exposed for too long.
When we rounded the first corner, we encountered more bodies in another similarly sized hall. They appeared to be some of the other guests as they were dressed for warm weather, and some of them were wearing Pokémon clothing. Weaving around them, I noticed there was a split in the path up ahead. When we reached the intersection, the path going to the right led to a dead end. A crowd of more frozen people were huddled around something, though. Straight ahead would take us through a doorway and probably another intersection.
"Hector, I think they were looking at something!" I shouted over the blasting vents and pointed down the right path.
"They were probably just huddling together to keep warm. It doesn't matter! That's a dead end so we should keep going!" He tugged on my arm, but I tugged back.
"No, look; they're reaching for something. I've got a feeling about this. Just let me check it out real quick—it'll be fine!" I yelled and tore away from him. He shouted after me but ended up following. As I suspected, four guests had crowded around a Poké Ball that was frozen to the ground. It appeared to be encased in a block of ice flush with the back wall, and the guests had, obviously, failed to break it out. There was another guest who appeared to have given up on getting the ball out and was leaned against the wall slightly apart from the group. The person's eyes were closed, but their mouth was gaping open. It could have been my imagination, but I thought I saw a small puff of mist expel from their mouth.
"See? It's a trap! There's no way to get that ball, and these people all died trying to break it out! We have to keep moving!" But a part of me wouldn't let us leave behind a perfectly good resource. What if we encountered another dangerous Pokémon that could help us if we caught it? I quickly looked around, feeling like my eyes had adjusted pretty well to the low lights. An odd sense of victory overcame me when I noticed an object hidden in the shadows in the corner. Had the person who was leaning against the wall shifted a few more inches to their left, they would've bumped into it. I picked up a small metal mallet with a wooden handle and metal head and showed it to Hector.
"I can use this!"
"But they're hands are blocking it—you won't be able to strike it at a good angle without hitting one of them! This is a waste of time! We have to leave it behind!" Hector implored, but the prospect of obtaining another ball was like a ghost that possessed me. I had to have it. Finding the mallet was a sign that it was meant to be mine.
Without thinking, I crouched down and swung the mallet down on the ice block. Some of the frozen guests had their hands and fingers on the block, but I couldn't be concerned about that anymore. I pounded them away, chipping them off like popsicle pieces off the stick. The fingers had completely frozen through, and no blood leaked out. The inside cores were red and white, reminding me of parasitic crab legs skittering away as they bounced on the ground after being smashed off their hosts' bodies. I was sure Hector was staring on in abject horror, but he didn't try to stop me, which was basically an encouragement to continue.
I whacked at the cube, and each collision seemed to warm my body. I no longer felt cold anywhere in my body. In fact, it was kind of fun—like playing a whack-a-mole game at a carnival. A stray thought that the park could add a Drilbur bopping game randomly floated through my head. I continued smashing at the cube as hard as I could, almost falling over a few times and needing to lean on the frozen bodies to avoiding having my legs make contact with the ground. I imagined the skin ripping off my shins or my hands from sticking to the frozen metal ground if I accidentally fell forward.
Eventually, the ice cube cracked, and I tore away at the pieces. The Poké Ball was freezing to the touch, as to be expected, but it was mine. As soon as it was in my hands, Hector dragged me up and pulled me along again. We went right and found ourselves at another intersection. We decided to go right again because the hallway seemed slightly shorter. We passed a door, but Hector plowed right through.
"We won't stop again!" he shouted, sounding almost angry. Reflecting on what I'd done as we ran, I wondered if he was disgusted by me. I wasn't even sure what had come over me, but the new Poké Ball in my pocket was proof it had happened. As soon as my own shame started to settle in, I felt the coldness creep back through my body, piercing me to my bones. Running as fast as we were through those hallways didn't seem to be generating enough heat, and we soon discovered that the hallways seemed endless.
Every turn we took produced more branching paths. We came across more frozen bodies every few turns, but some people were lying down. Like they hadn't even tried to look for a way out. And there were odd strands of something sprinkled around some of the bodies. I didn't look close enough to find out, but they reminded me of frozen blades of grass.
All the bodies we saw were fully encased in ice, and throughout the halls, we also saw half-built walls of ice. I wondered how the bodies could've been so enveloped when Hector suddenly jerked my arm, pulling me to the left. A spray of water erupted from the ceiling onto an uneven block of ice. The nozzle in the ceiling seemed stationary, but since our attention had been directed upward, we saw there more nozzles. And they were moving.
Hector didn't say anything and just kept taking seemingly random turns as we avoided any areas where the nozzles were active. One blast of water would have surely killed us. We had to be careful not to slip on any ice, either, which slowed our movements. Eventually, we found a door in the maze at the end of a long hallway, which Hector took as a sign of salvation, and headed for it. He wrapped his hand in his hoodie and twisted the doorknob. It took a few tries, but something cracked and allowed the door to open. We barreled inside and slammed the door behind us.
We found ourselves in a small room that looked like a study, and fortunately, it was not nearly as cold in there. Still, we were doing our best to warm up by rubbing our arms and legs and huddling together on the ground because we were too weak to stand any longer. Looking around, one wall was comprised entirely of shelves lined with books. There was a large oak desk in the middle of the room with a small lit lamp on it that provided the dim glow in the room and a leather office chair behind the desk. The floor was carpeted but also had a giant ornate rug spread over it that covered most of the ground. A large mural of an arctic scene hung on the wall across the bookshelves, depicting a ring of Glalies dancing around a frightened Snorunt. Flurries of snow obscured part of the scene. There were no windows or other features in the room.
Once I warmed up enough, I massaged my knee for a bit and discovered that the swelling had disappeared and the pain was mostly gone. Probably because I could still feel the coldness in my bones and muscles. The freezing temperatures must have numbed the wound into oblivion for the time being, but I still planned to be careful with running around. Eventually, I got up and searched the room. Beginning with the bookshelves, I tore books down and let them tumble to the floor.
"What are you doing?" Hector asked. I sensed judgment in his voice.
"Looking for anything that might be hidden. Or maybe one of these books is a secret switch for a passageway out of here." When I fully emptied one bookshelf, I moved on to the next. Hector eventually joined me and started on the opposite end until we met in the middle. We found nothing. Even the books themselves were blank inside. I wondered if it would be possible to make a fire with them, except that I didn't know how to start a fire without a match or lighter.
"Let's try the desk," Hector said, and we began to examine the contents on top. There was a large writing pad, a quill pen and ink pot, a letter opener, and the lamp. Hector picked up the letter opener and attempted to open one of the side drawers. It was locked, so he jammed the letter opener in the lock and tried to twist it. I pulled open the main drawer and discovered a bunch of papers with meaningless gibberish typed on them. I sorted through them until I came across a sheet with a familiar logo on it.
"Hector, look at this. Where have I seen this before? Do you know it?" I said and showed him the paper with an insignia of a DNA helix with wings watermarked on a letter addressed to INVESTORS. He squinted to his eyes to see what I was pointing in the low light. Eventually, he grabbed the paper and examined it more closely. "That symbol," I clarified. "Where's it from?" His eyes widened in surprise.
"It…It's from Imogen. That's the company I work at." I absentmindedly scratched at my face, like there was a connection to be made that I wasn't going to get.
"Why…," I murmured as I tried to form my question. "What connection could there possibly be with this freakshow island and your workplace?" Hector looked at me with shock, and I realized my question probably sounded a bit like an accusation.
"Well, I don't know! This doesn't make any sense to me, either!" I reached for his arm and apologized.
"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to put you on the defensive." He tensed when I touched him but then relaxed. He shook his head.
"…Me, too. I didn't mean to shout like that. This whole thing is honestly a nightmare, and when I think it can't get any worse or more confusing, we find shit like this." We then decided to quickly read through the letter. As expected, it was just word salad and made no sense, except for the last line, which read, "It will be my pleasure to introduce to you the next phase of the visionary future for all of us." There was no signature.
"Maybe we should hang onto it. Like as evidence or something."
"What would it prove exactly? None of it really says anything."
"We found it here, so that proves there's a connection!"
"Yeah, to us. If we make it out of here and try to claim Imogen and The League are connected in this, they'll just say we're lying. We can't actually prove this was ever here." Hector always was the logical one. I would get carried away by tirades of fancy and conspiracy, and he loved to just bring me back down to Earth. Defeated but not wanting to admit he was right, I hurriedly rummaged through the rest of the papers but found nothing.
"Okay, maybe you're right, but I still think we should hang onto it. It could be a piece of a bigger puzzle…or something." Hector shrugged as if to say suit yourself and handed me the paper, which I promptly shoved into my bag. We continued searching through the rest of the desk but found nothing else useful.
"Now all these drawers are locked for some reason, though…"
"Hey," I said so that Hector looked back up at me. "I'm sorry about what happened back there. I…honestly don't know why I got so crazed about the Poké Ball. It was like…all those people had died trying to get it, but somehow, I knew I could do it. That I'd be the one to break it out. And maybe it was just my reaction to seeing more dead bodies, or-or it was the cold getting to me. Even from getting attacked by Robbie—I don't know." Hector was nodding along as I spoke, but a part of me felt like all he was hearing were excuses. "I'm not trying to justify my behav—what I did to those people's bodies, but… I guess I'm saying it won't happen again. You can trust me on that." Hector nodded once more before pulling me in silently for a hug.
"I'm sorry, too. I believe you," he murmured and hugged me a little more tightly. My eyes started to water, but I didn't cry. "We have to stick together, or we won't make it through this. There's no telling how this'll affect us when we get out, so I can believe there are things you can't understand about how it's already affecting you." We stood there holding each other for a couple more minutes in silence before letting go.
"I think you should take this then," I said and handed him the spare Poké Ball from my pocket. "When we find the next Pokémon, you can catch it, and we'll both have two. Our chances of surviving are getting better, so we just have to play it smart moving forward." Hector hesitated before accepting the item. I imagined memories of me smashing those cold dead fingers to pieces flashing through his mind.
"I will, thanks," he said and slid it into his back pocket. …Shall we try to get these other drawers open then?" For the next 10 minutes, we both assaulted the desk, doing anything we could think of the get the drawers open. Nothing worked.
"Ya know, maybe there's a key hidden somewhere in here?" I mused aloud and plopped down in the leather chair.
"…Actually, that gives me an idea," Hector whispered and opened the large drawer again. He tapped loudly on different parts of the interior until he seemed to find something. "Aha! There's a false bottom. It's just like the dresser drawer where I found my first ball," Hector announced as he removed a board from the drawer and produced a small key. He slid it into the top drawer and twisted. Excited to see what was inside, I stood up and waited beside him as he opened it. It was empty. I sighed in defeat and fell back in the chair while Hector tried the other drawers. The second one was also empty.
"Another trap meant to bore us to death?"
"Now, wait a minute…," Hector murmured and felt around in the first drawer. Still nothing. He did the same in the second drawer and found something stuck to the bottom of the top drawer. It appeared to be a switch of some sort. The red button on it stared at us tauntingly. "Should I…?"
"Oh, why the hell not?" I spat and clicked the button before Hector could react. One of the bookshelves started receding into the wall and then slid out of view, revealing another chamber. Hector had instinctively ducked at the loud grating noise, but when we realized we probably weren't in danger, he gave me a don't do that again look. Without saying a word, we went to examine the opening. Cautiously peaking around the corner, we discovered a small room with a machine in it.
The machine occupied most of the space and looked old; it was covered in dust and cobwebs. I blew aggressively on the glass cover to get a better look at it, sending a cloud of swirling particles into the air. Hector and I both coughed as we swatted the cloud away.
"Whoops, sorry," I mumbled and laughed. Hector wiped the rest of the dust off the machine and then wiped his hand on his pants. There was a snowflake symbol painted on the glass and a panel next to the glass that flipped open, uncovering a black button and a white button.
"Let me press the buttons this time," Hector said and pressed the black button. The glass cover of the machine opened and revealed a small hollow chamber. He then pressed the white button and another small compartment opened up underneath the section the glass had been covering. Nothing else happened.
"We probably have to put something inside for it to work."
"Looks like it. Guess we should leave it alone for now." Going back to the other room, we resumed our investigation of the desk. "Now let's see about this last one…," Hector mumbled. When he pulled it open, he recoiled in disgust and quickly backed away from the desk. A pungent odor hit me almost immediately, and I covered my face with my arm. I went to see what was in the bottom drawer, and it appeared to be a wrinkly severed head wrapped in an odd yellow shroud. Its eyes were closed, but its mouth was gaping open, like the one body we'd seen in the hall. Something glinted in its mouth, and I braced myself as I carefully fished it out. "What are you doing?!" Hector exclaimed. I held up a blue key and kicked the drawer shut with my good leg.
"Not a waste of time after all. Looks important," I said, my nose still covered. I dropped the key on the desk and vigorously wiped my hands on the rug to rub off any germs I might have touched. Hector grabbed a book off the ground and started fanning the air around us. Eventually, the cloying smell of decay dissipated.
"I think that was supposed to be a Snorunt," Hector said quietly while he examined the key carefully.
"Yeah, I figured it was meant to be something. No one just has a fucking head decaying in their desk drawer for no good reason…" Hector sighed and suggested I keep the key in my bag. I opened my bag and quickly swiped the key off the table into the open compartment and zipped up my bag.
"It's too big to fit in any of the doors we've seen so far, but it probably opens something in the mansion. Guess we'll have to be on the lookout."
For our last move in searching the room, we took the painting off the wall but found nothing there. I pawed at the wall and knocked in several places, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary.
"Does this mean it's time to go back out there?" Hector nodded reluctantly.
"How's your leg doing now?"
"Better, I think. From having been in the cold. Do you remember which direction we came from?"
"Not really, but I think I'll recognize some of the bodies we passed before and will know if we're backtracking. This place can't be that big—if anything, we can always come back here to recover if we keep finding dead ends. Eventually, we'll find a way out." Eventually. The word echoed in my mind like a chant, and the only thing that would make it stop would be to scream. I didn't want to further alarm Hector about the state of my mind, though.
"…All right then. Let's get it over with," I said and shook out my arms and good leg. Hector did some warm-up stretches and jumping jacks before we nodded at each other and opened the door.
As soon as we stepped back into the freezer, it felt like we'd never escaped the icy grasp at all. I already longed to go back to the room and curl up on the rug. Then the thought occurred to me that we hadn't checked if there was anything under the rug. I almost opened my mouth to suggest it to Hector, but something about the icy air convinced me we should keep going.
When we got to the end of the long corridor, Hector seemed to remember approaching it from the right, so we went left instead. Obviously, we encountered more featureless hallways, and after a few turns, I started feeling dizzy. The cold was also biting worse than it did on our initial plunge, and I was afraid I was going to pass out and need Hector to drag me along or carry me.
"Did we just pass through here?" Hector shouted over the whooshing of the vents. I obviously wasn't much help because I had been focusing on not losing consciousness the entire time. He turned frantically, taking a tentative step in one direction before retreating and taking another step in an opposite direction. We were squarely lost. He didn't seem to remember how to get back to the room either. "Fuck! We should've been marking the walls with something!" Hector continued to shout in frustration, and I felt my mind slipping. I imagined Hector noticing my body going limp and needing to catch me before I hit the ground. Then I saw a red floating light, but thinking I was already passed out, I reached for it. I was jolted awake when Hector pulled me away from the light. Focusing my vision, I realized the Duskull from earlier had re-materialized.
"I think it's…here to help us!" I managed to gasp. The Duskull floated in a circle above us before taking off down a corridor. Having no better leads, Hector agreed following it would be the best option. We stumbled after it as it led us down numerous hallways. In one corridor, there was a small pile of bodies off in a branching dead end and a gaping maw in the ceiling above it. It seemed like it might've been a trap hole from one of the upper levels. There weren't any other bodies after that.
I almost fell at one point because it was getting difficult to breath, and my eyes felt like they were freezing from being open, causing Hector to catch me and try to wake me up again. I was afraid the Duskull would abandon us because we couldn't keep up, but when I regained a second wind, it was floating patiently at the end of the hallway and didn't continue again until we caught up to it.
We staggered down one final long corridor before Duskull disappeared again. We'd reached another glass barrier, and on the other side was a white room. Hector hastily punched the green button, and we spilled through to the other side. Relief and non-freezing air washed over us when the glass slid shut behind us. We were panting to catch our breaths, but I was also trying to breathe as much as the (normal) room-temperature air as I could. Looking at Hector, the strands of hair peeking out from under his hat were frosted white. I touched my hair and felt solid ice.
After a while of recuperating and letting our body temperatures rise again, we helped each other up and looked around the room. The floors and ceiling seemed to be made out of a smooth tile, and the bright studio lights bounced joyously off the bright surfaces. It seemed oddly like some room in a modern art museum. There was nothing on the walls, and the only objects of interest were three glass display cases. More Pokémon seemed to be frozen in them. In the first one, there was an almost naked man with oddly gray skin and strange, fleshy projections radiating from the head in place of hair. He was only clad in black briefs and a large belt with a golden buckle. Obviously, it was Machoke. The body seemed especially sinewy, as if pumped full of steroids, and something seemed to be hanging onto its shoulders from behind. Maybe there was a Machop clinging to its back. I stepped around to the side and realized it was just another pair of arms protruding from the creature's back. At the base of the arms, they had somehow been fused to back to create the form of Machamp. The arms were sagging, though, so it didn't look quite right.
"Ugh, it's even worse somehow that they messed it up. Probably means they turned someone else into a Machamp," I groaned. It was disturbing how the creature seemed to be frozen in time, that the person it once was no longer existed. Maybe more disturbing was that I was able to identify all the Pokémon we'd seen so far. I didn't want to see what was in the rest of the cases, but a sick obsession with needing to know compelled me to look anyway.
The second case contained a human skull dyed red situated in the center of eight human arms that had also been dyed red. The hands had been cut off the arms and sharpened down to pointy stubs where the bone nibbled through muscle and skin. Large yellow boils sat atop the skull and on the underside of each arm.
"Octillery…," Hector muttered in disgust. Something about the last display struck a weird part of me. It was another woman, but, fortunately, she retained more of her humanity than most of the other Pokémon we'd seen. Her arms had been painted green, but the fingers of each hand seemed to be stuck together as if to form one unit. The green matched the dye of her hair and the inside of the white dress she was wearing. A slit going up the middle of the dress revealed her legs had been emaciated and painted white, and a red metal shard protruded from her chest and back. I immediately recognized the attempt as Gardevoir, but something about its familiarity bothered me deeply. When I studied her face, I couldn't help but scream out in horror. It was Belle from work. She'd been transformed into a Pokémon.
It felt like the room began to tremble, and I clung to Hector for support. I thought it'd just been my physical reaction to seeing Belle, but when Hector and I both toppled to the ground, I realized the room actually was shaking.
"What the fuck was that?" Hector murmured when everything became still again. My face was buried in Hector's chest, and I didn't want to look out into the room again. The image of Belle was forever burned into the backs of my eyelids. Hector gently rubbed my back, but I was still trembling. Eventually, I felt calm enough to face Belle again, and Hector helped me stand. I decided to take a picture of Belle as evidence for when we escaped.
"We need to show people what's happened here. We need proof, so they can't sweep it away or pretend it never happened. And…her family will be looking for her…," I murmured. I made sure to get a shot of her whole body and a couple close-ups of her face. Oddly, she seemed at peace, frozen in that glass case. Trying to push away every negative thought I'd ever had about her, I silently vowed I'd get justice. Hector took pictures of the other cases, and then we moved on. Even though our signal was being blocked, I sent the pictures to Laryn. If we somehow reached a spot where we got service back, even for a second, someone would know. Someone would have the evidence to do something. I was conflicted about Laryn seeing Belle like that with no explanation, but she would be smart enough to figure it out if something happened to us. Laryn was maybe our last and only hope.
The room led out into another hallway that veered left. The stark whiteness of the walls and floor, combined with the studio lights above, were so different than the rest of the mansion that I questioned if we had maybe stumbled into a different building. If I'd caught a glimpse of that moment in a future vision or something a year before, I was sure I wouldn't have thought our lives were in danger. For a moment, imagining Hector and I were just on a date somewhere gave me a slice of peace. Then we turned the bend.
A man was standing over a little girl. He had her boxed into a corner, shouting at her. The room was large and mostly empty, except for some random giant cubes protruding from the ground. They could have been sculptures, but they looked more like they were part of the floor. The lighting overhead was soft, but the whiteness of the room seemed to glow with brilliance.
"Hand it over, or I'll take it from you by force!" the man screamed. He was actually grabbing her by the hair and held a Poké Ball over his head threateningly, like he might bash the girl on the head with it, or worse, unleash what was inside. I guessed she couldn't have been older than nine or ten years old. The girl was struggling to free herself from the man's grasp, wincing from the pain as the man tugged her around by her hair. She was flailing wildly but then seemed to reach for something in her coat pocket. The man released her hair to snatch at her arm before she could reach into her pocket. She cried out as he swung her around and threw her on the ground behind him, brandishing his Poké Ball at her again. "Fine, we'll do it the hard way!" Without thinking, I rushed into the room to get the man's attention. Hector tried to stop me but couldn't catch me in time.
"Over here, freak!" I yelled and started waving my arms. My heart started pumping again as I mentally prepared for a fight. I didn't have a plan but figured Hector would back me up. As if on cue, he rushed to my side as the man turned to face us. A menacing grin was smeared across his face, peering out at us from behind the stringy curtain of greasy dark hair. Over-sized glasses partially smudged with blood half hid the crazed gleam in his eyes. The lights reflected off the glasses in a way that made him seem like a character in an anime, as well. He started laughing maniacally.
"More challengers appear, huh? This is becoming almost more than I bargained for!" the man shouted gleefully and pulled another Poké Ball from his back pocket. As soon as he fully turned to face us, the girl ran out of sight, probably into the next room as they had been standing by the exit. "Come out!" The man tossed both Poké Balls into the air, unleashing torrents of yellow-ish orange lightning. The lights eventually took form, and before us stood a figure wearing a fox mask, at first glance, while the other appeared to have a crocodile maw sewn to the back of its head.
The one that looked like a fox actually seemed to have a fox's head attached to a human body—its form was covered in a bloodied fur coat or dress of some sort, but its human hands protruded from the sleeves. Or maybe the fur was part of the body. In one of its hands was a long slender stick.
The crocodile creature was much shorter, like a child, dressed in a bright yellow suit of some kind, but the jaw was larger than the rest of its body. To my horror, the crocodile mouth appeared to be opening and closing on its own while the human head it was attached to was mangled beyond recognition. Somehow, I could tell it was smiling, though. Hector immediately summoned Milotic. It coiled in a pile on the floor in front of Hector, unleashing a ghastly scream as its body quivered in anticipation. Its pink hair swayed from side to side as it eagerly fanned itself with its vivid tail.
"Who are you calling?" Hector whispered to me. Based on type matchups, Dragonair probably had the best chance of surviving. I grabbed its Poké Ball from my pocket and held it out, calling out its name. What formed from the lightning, though, was not Dragonair. I'd accidentally grabbed Mr. Mime's ball. Even looking at the back of its head made me shiver as I recalled its sunken eyes and pale skin. I tried to call back into its ball, but the lights in the room started flashing before fading out briefly and then becoming red. The room appeared to be bathed in blood. Then a robotic voice called out,
"FOUR POKÉMON DETECTED. PARTICIPANTS LOCKED IN— FIGHT TO THE DEATH! BATTLE COMMENCE." The entrance and exit to the room became blocked by steel grates that fell from the ceiling. Their impact against the ground shook the room.
"Fuck," I muttered under my breath as I realized that was probably the sick fuck's intention behind the Indigo Room—make people fight each other with their fucked up lab experiments.
"Look at these delightful new Pokémon that will be mine after I kill you! This is getting better and better by the second! All right, my lovelies, don't hurt the Pokémon too much! I need to be able to put them back together after we kill these fools! Go!" the man cried.
"You take care of Mawile! I'll handle the Delphox!" Hector shouted. Delphox brandished its wand at us and unleashed a stream of fire, but thankfully, Milotic quickly extinguished it with a spray of water from its mouth. "Let's split up—it'll make us harder to fight!" Milotic slithered forward at amazing speeds at Hector's command, and he ran off without looking back. The man was visibly sweating, probably from being outnumbered, but still seemed excited. I clumsily jumped out of the way when Mawile jumped in the air with surprising agility and slammed its crocodile head where I had been standing. The crocodile eyes stared at me lazily as saliva dripped from its open jowls.
"Mr. Mime! Use Psychic!" I shouted before falling on my ass. Mr. Mime turned attentively and trembled as it raised its hands feebly into the air. Whether I was still afraid of it or not, it was my only hope at surviving this encounter. A bouquet of bright lights formed around Mawile, reminding me of when Mr. Mime had exploded the man at the start of the evening. I hoped for similar results against the Deceiver Pokémon but was shocked when it seemed to emerge from the attack mostly unharmed. I scrambled to my feet as Mawile jumped into the air again—that time, it was focused on Mr. Mime.
"Yes, use Crunch, Mawile! Go for a leg!" I was too stunned to call out a command as Mr. Mime's gaze followed Mawile. The opponent's jaw wrapped around Mr. Mime's left arm and tore it off cleanly, causing Mr. Mime to topple to the ground with a painful cry. "I said go for the leg, you idiot! Ugh, might as well finish it off—I have no use for another Psychic type. Well? What're you waiting for?! Finish it off! Then go for its pathetic trainer!" I had only moments to react as Mawile spat out Mr. Mime's arm and prepared for its killing blow.
"Reflect! Trap it in a box!" I screamed desperately, remembering its other attack everyone had witnessed in the dining room. Mr. Mime weakly raised its remaining arm and pressed its fingers together. Mawile tried to lunge forward but crashed into something invisible blocking its path. Then it tried to jump and crashed into another invisible panel above it. Eventually, it learned it was completely trapped. "Hector!" I cried across the room.
Milotic seemed to be toying with Delphox. The Fox Pokémon was wildly shooting plumes of fire, but Milotic was too fast. Any flames that would've touched Milotic were doused with a blast of water, as well. Hector looked back at me and saw that Mawile was trapped and commanded Milotic to move in between Delphox and Mawile. Delphox, eager to hit its target unleashed a burst of fire at Milotic, even though its trainer was frantically shouting for it to stop. Milotic slithered out of the way at the last moment before a surge of fire engulfed Mawile, causing it to howl in agony. Soon, its screams faded as its body become a chunk of burning meat.
"NO!" the man cried and collapsed to his knees. Milotic released a battle cry before blasting Delphox with a strong spray of water, causing it to be blown back into one of the boxy structures in the room. The water pressure from Milotic's attack was so strong that it blasted Delphox into pieces. Milotic fanned itself triumphantly, wriggling its sinewy body about in victory. The lights in the room remained red, even though the man's Pokémon had been defeated.
"Why are the lights still red? Why haven't the gates fallen?" I asked when I caught up to Hector.
"…You'll have to kill me if you want to keep going. Those are the rules," the man muttered. Though he had apparently resigned himself to be murdered by us, he seemed oddly content. "At least I got see my glorious beasts in action one last time! Good-b—" A swirl of colorful lights formed around the man and exploded, sending a deluge of blood and body parts raining down on us. Hector shielded me from most of the impact, but some blood inevitably spattered onto my face. I hurriedly wiped it off, screaming while I did it. Then I emptied my pockets, ripped my jacket off, and threw it on the ground. I lifted my Alcremie shirt so I could wipe my face and ended up tearing that off as well so I could scrub the rest of my body. Hector did something similar and peeled off clothing to be rid of the bloodied rags. The lights then faded from red and returned to the dim white, and the gates slowly fell back into the floor.
"VICTORS DETERMINED," the robotic voice announced as I stuffed Dragonair's ball into the front pocket of my bookbag.
Looking back, Mr. Mime had managed to stand back up again and was hunched forward, like it was a balloon about to fully deflate. I turned to face it, wondering if I could just let it die. It represented the nightmare we found ourselves in, and even though it protected me, I couldn't bring myself to regard it as my Pokémon.
"Hey, look," Hector said, pulling me out of my thoughts. He walked over to where the man had been standing and poked through the remains. It looked like only his upper half had been destroyed in the attack. The Poké Balls he'd been holding looked cracked in half, so Hector kicked those to the side. Sticking out of a pocket of the man's pants, though, was a bright pink bottle of some sort. Hector gingerly pulled it out with two fingers, careful not to get any more blood or guts on himself. He picked up his jacket on the ground and wiped the bottle clean.
"Is that…"
"A Hyper Potion. Think it works?" he said as he walked back to me. We both looked at it in his hands before he extended it to me.
"What?"
"Use it. We might have to fight again, and if it works, we can't afford to have anyone on the team weakened." Hesitant to grab it, I thought about letting Mr. Mime die again. I couldn't bear to look at it again but also knew our survival depended on having Pokémon. Seeing how easily the creatures could tear each other apart didn't exactly inspire confidence in placing all my hope for survival on Dragonair. Hector had been a more competent fighter than me, but I knew I couldn't let him protect us alone, either.
I sighed before grabbing the bottle and marching back toward Mr. Mime. The dark fluid leaking from its torn socket surprised me, but I was glad it didn't seem to be blood. Or maybe it was blood but altered in some way. Bottle in hand, I was about to just spray its gaping wound but wondered if the potion could actually reattach its arm.
"Hector, could you…," I said and gestured at Mr. Mime's arm lying on the ground. Hector wordlessly retrieved it. The arm appeared only slightly damaged from Mawile's bite.
"Do you want me to just…?" he asked, seeming more afraid of the arm in his hands than the actual Pokémon as I indicated for him to press the arm back against the socket. The arm made a squishing sound when it touched the wound, which I did my best to ignore, before spraying the bottle all over the arm and the shoulder. Miraculously, the contents of the bottle seemed to be some sort of sticky substance that coated the arm and the wound. When Hector let go of the arm, it remained fixed to the creature's body. Moments later, it started moving again. Mr. Mime lifted its newly reattached arm to examine it then seemed to regard us. Its expression didn't change, but I somehow sensed gratitude from it.
"Okay, back in the ball," I said and held up Mr. Mime's Poké Ball. The light emerged from the button of the ball and sucked the creature back inside. Hector also called back Milotic.
"Good job—we survived," Hector said softly and pulled me in for a hug. I held him tightly, but no wave of emotions rocked my body that time.
"Hector, how is any of this possible? Mr. Mime using Psychic? And Reflect? I can understand—sort of—Milotic spitting water from its mouth, like maybe it has a sack in its body that stores water. But an attack using the mind? Invisible barriers? Even Delphox made all the fire appear out of thin air! What did these people fucking do to make this possible?! Or are we just losing our fucking minds?!" I broke from the hug to pace around the room, making sure to avoid the remains of the Pokémon and the man.
"I'm trying to figure it out, too. It freaks me out, but maybe this is all just in our heads."
"So we are going crazy then?"
"Well, more like maybe some of the food we ate had hallucinogens or something. Or we were hypnotized during the fireworks show and they're just making us believe we're seeing all this stuff when people are actually dying by normal means." I scrunched my face in disbelief, but it obviously wasn't more ludicrous than the magic of Pokémon being real. "Either way, we'll be in serious danger until we get out of here. And to do that, we clearly need Pokémon."
"You're right…," I murmured. I bit my lip trying to think of how someone could create the illusion of those different attacks until Hector pushed some hair out of my face.
"We're going to make it through this, and then we'll never have to think about it again, okay? …Well, maybe after a ton of therapy, and then we won't have to think about it."
"Yeah, sure," I sighed. I held Hector's hand for a few seconds before gasping and realizing we still had to find the girl. "Oh my god, Hector! The girl!" We grabbed our backpacks off the ground and ran out of the room. The path took us down another nondescript hallway before we reached a new glass gate. It appeared to be another section of the freezer. "Fuck! She had to have gone in there! And we dumped the rest of our clothes back there, which I am not putting back on." Hector exhaled impatiently and tried to look through the glass.
"Okay, this time, we are running through as fast as we can and not stopping for anything but the girl—got it? And if we don't find her, we can't stop to look. We have to focus on ourselves right now." He'd grabbed my shoulders and looked me directly in the eyes, making sure I understood every word he said. I reluctantly nodded because I knew he was right, but if we couldn't save the girl, I would feel terrible. "Do you hear me?" I nodded vigorously.
"Yes, yes. I know. No stopping this time."
"Okay, good," he murmured, not sounding entirely convinced either of us would even make it all the way through. We tried to warm up our bodies by jogging in place and doing some stretches. The memory of the cold against my skin felt like a knife slicing through my head. Then Hector put his hand on the green button. "Ready?" I rolled my neck and then nodded. As soon as the door opened, we rushed inside, immediately enveloped by the frigid air.
Thankfully, it didn't feel as cold as the other area, we didn't encounter any frozen bodies, and there were no twisting pathways. Just one narrow path. We ran as fast as we could, holding onto each other arm-in-arm. Some parts of the ground were covered in ice, and we slid over those patches but, thankfully, never fell. From what I could see, there were no nozzles spraying water anywhere, though. We continued until we reached a part of the path that widened, but our path was blocked.
A small and furry dog-like animal with long, pointed ears was snarling at a blonde woman in a red dress. Then I noticed the woman's head appeared very wide and round. The dog noticed Hector and me and barked at us, causing the woman to turn and regard us, as well, revealing a creature that wasn't a woman at all. Its face reminded me of a pillowcase stuffed too full and looked like a lumpy giant purplish-blue bruise, dotted with wide-open white eyes and round, swollen red lips. Its short arms were outstretched as if preparing to give someone a hug. It screamed when the Eevee tried to escape, causing Eevee to freeze up again in fear. The Jynx's hair stood out, pointy and jagged like shocked tentacles or jagged spears, while it screamed. The tendrils of hair then relaxed when the screaming stopped, at if the creature could independently move each strand. I couldn't tell if it had ever been human, like maybe it was something else made to look like a person.
"Hector, use that Poké Ball I gave you to catch it! Then we can save the Eevee and leave!" I shouted over the whooshing of the air vents. Hector pulled the item from his back pocket and launched it at Jynx. When it bounced off its body, I expected the light pouring from the ball to pull in the Human Shape Pokémon. Instead, something came out. A figure clad in a white kimono with a red sash around the waist formed from the lightning and seemed to balance its weight on its tiptoes. It appeared to be a woman with pale skin and dark hair pulled back into a bun. Her eyes were closed, as if asleep, and she seemed peaceful despite her animated body. Blue horns protruded from the skull, and the creature appeared to be frozen as its ice-crystal-covered skin glistened in the pale light.
"There was a Froslass inside?" Hector gasped. The Jynx seemed surprised but was about to act. "Shadow Ball!" Hector shouted immediately, and Froslass disgorged a shadowy blob from its stomach. The attack disintegrated Jynx, allowing the Eevee to run away. Hector quickly picked up Froslass' Poké Ball and called it back before we rushed after the Eevee.
As we ran farther up the path, there were a few branching hallways, but we didn't take any turns. Then, the temperature started to rise the farther we went until we reached another glass door. The girl from before was standing on the other side, arms crossed and tapping her foot. Eevee was on its hind legs pawing at the glass. Thankfully, it allowed me to pick it up as Hector hit the button to open the door. We stepped through.
"Took you long enough," the girl said, smiling with satisfaction. Without hesitation, Hector began introducing us, but I finished.
"…and this is Hector. What's your name?" I asked.
"I'm Noanne. Nice to meet ya, I guess." She pulled a piece of gum out of her long purple coat and popped it into her mouth. "I'd offer you some, but that was my last piece." Short dark braids on one side of her head hung down into her face as she stared at us, amused but unimpressed. The other half of her head was buzzed short, giving her an aura of edginess for someone who only stood as tall as my chest. And I was already only as tall as Hector's chin. She chewed her gum quickly and blew a bubble until it popped, then sucked the gum back into her mouth. Her lips and eyelids were a subtle pink, but they seemed brighter against her dark complexion. The fur collar of her coat designed to look like a Liepard was matted down but appeared warm. Underneath her coat was also a black zip-up jacket and dark pants and boots. She no doubt fared better than we had in the freezer.
"How did you get down here by yourself?" Hector asked. Noanne scrunched her face to one side, as if deciding how she wanted to respond.
"Well, I came here with my two older sisters, but they're obviously not here right now. Or did you mean how I got here as in here?" I nodded. "I just followed one of the paths into this forest area. Clearly got lost when I stumbled through a glass door I couldn't go back through, and so I've been wandering around trying to find a way out."
"Oh," I said, not sure how to verify if what she said was true or not. "Well, what happened to your sisters? Are they hurt? Or…?" I was afraid to finish my question.
"Dead? I mean, probably. They're not very smart. Anyway, the last time I saw either one of them was in the dining hall, so they might not have made it out."
"So you saw the Mr. Mime?" I asked.
"Duh, we were all in there, weren't we?" I nodded my head slowly, thinking yeah, that was a dumb question and then looked at Hector to continue the conversation. I had no idea how to talk to kids.
"N-Noanne, how old are you?" Hector said when he realized what I was signaling with my eyes. She squinted her eyes at us and then let out a derisive chuckle.
"13. So, are you two, like, special? Or have you never talked to a teenager before?" She continued cracking her gum obnoxiously and started tapping her foot again.
"Uh, no, it's not that. I guess we're just surprised you made it this far by yourself. We're not trying to be…weird." Noanne laughed again.
"Can't blame you, I guess. I wouldn't believe me, either, but it's true. I even got these two without anyone's help," she said and pulled out two Poké Balls.
"So why was that guy attacking you earlier?" I thought to ask. Noanne sighed loudly but smiled. She returned the balls to her pockets and then produced a green object. It appeared to be a container of some sort with a greenish substance inside. A yellow lightning symbol was painted onto the case.
"A Thunder Stone?" Hector gasped and leaned forward to get a closer look. Noanne nodded and giggled.
"And somehow, you managed to find an Eevee, too! I'll let you have it as thanks for kicking that guy's ass. I probably could've taken him, but it's better that you came along since he caught me by surprise." Noanne dropped the object into my hand. The substance inside sloshed around a bit. Eevee seemed to notice it and fixated on it. I further examined the stone, but there didn't seem to be a way to open it or anything. I picked up Eevee and touched the stone to its body, but nothing happened.
"Not sure how to use it, but I guess we can figure it out later," I said and handed it to Hector to slide into my backpack.
"So, I guess you should stick with us for now. If that's okay with you," Hector said. Noanne winked at him.
"'Course. I'm good at finding stuff, so I'm sure I'll be useful. If anything, I'm doing you a favor by agreeing to come along." She laughed to herself and started walking down the hall. Apparently, it was time to go.
Eevee jumped out of my arms but walked at my side, looking up now and again with a panting smile. I wondered if it wasn't actually just some kind of normal dog. Luckily, it seemed to like me, so if I found any other Poké Balls, I could save it to catch something else.
The hallway seemed to meander until we reached a turn that stopped at another door. There was nothing special about it, and Hector was just able to open it. On the other side was another hallway, but it was decorated with the familiar tables and picture frames from the other parts of the mansion. Closing the door behind us, I heard a light click but didn't care enough to investigate it. I figured it was the door locking so we couldn't turn back.
"So, how do you two know each other?" Noanne asked, running out in front of us so she could walk backwards and chat. She was chewing her gum more sluggishly, probably because it'd already lost all its flavor. "Were you part of other groups that got slaughtered and then had to band together to survive?" Her eyes seemed to light as she made up her story about us. Hector laughed uncomfortably.
"No. We knew each other before coming here."
"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed. "So, you ran into each other here or came together?"
"We planned it," I said. She nodded her head knowingly. I had a strong feeling she was going to ask if we were dating.
"That's boring, but okay," she sighed dejectedly. I wasn't sure why that was a disappointing answer. "My sisters didn't want to bring me, but my mom made them. They'd planned to come with their boyfriends instead, but I didn't want to be stuck with my mom all weekend, so I casually mentioned how much I would love to see The League. Worked like a charm."
"You don't get along with your mom?" Hector asked.
"Oh, no. She's fine. She's a therapist and loves to ask me all these questions about how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking about. It's bearable when there's three of us, but one-on-one, it might as well be considered torture. And according to my mom, I'm so much more 'aware' at my age than my sisters ever were so she worries about me more, I guess. Thinks I need to be introduced to the realities of the world at a more gradual pace—her words, not mine. Well…, it might just be me now after all."
"I'm sure your sisters are fine. They're probably looking for you," I said. Noanne forced a smile and then turned her back on us.
"…You're just saying that, but, like I said, they probably didn't make it." We continued in silence until we reached a set of steps leading up to the next level. It opened out into a large chamber, similar to the one we'd escaped from next to the dining room. The walls were covered with pictures of the Regi legendaries, standing in front of modern-day buildings like hospitals and train stations. Oddly, they didn't seem out of place. Along the walls were long tables covered in white cloths. There were water dispensers and plain sugar cookies sitting out, and the three of us rushed over to inspect them. The food appeared to be untouched, but Hector sampled one before giving us the all-clear. We instantly devoured everything on the tray. Next to the water dispenser was a stack of plastic cups. Again, Hector sampled it first, and then we each filled up a cup and greedily gulped it down until it was all gone. I saved a cookie for Eevee and a bit of water, which it consumed happily.
"Damn, I didn't realize how hungry and thirsty I was until seeing all that food laid out," I said. We'd sauntered over to a ring of couches in the center of the room and collapsed onto them. It would've been nice to just knock out, but I imagined another trainer coming upon on us and murdering us without so much as a conversation. I bolted right up and looked around the rest of the room. A large door loomed ahead of us, across from where we'd come up the stairs. It was the only other way out of the room. Otherwise, there was nothing else of note. Eevee was resting on my lap, so I looked over at the others—Hector's eyes were closed, and he was rubbing his temples. Noanne was face down on the couch, probably unconscious. "Should we let her sleep for a little bit?" Hector opened his eyes and looked over at her.
"I'm not asleep!" she called. Then she rolled over and had a Poké Ball in her hand. "I was digging around in the cushions and found this! See? Told ya I was good at this!" Hector and I laughed. "One of you can have it—other people will target you first if you have more Pokémon than me." She beamed with the innocence of a child and the devilishness of a seedy lawyer. I was truly confounded by her.
"Thanks…," Hector said and reached over to grab the ball. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
"Take it. Eevee is technically my third and apparently doesn't need a ball to obey me. Actually, I'm really thinking it's just someone's dog that got lost in here," I said and started petting Eevee. I might have believed myself had it not been for the iconic white collar of fur and the long rabbit-like ears of the creature. It stared into my eyes attentively and tried to lick my face. "Actually, maybe check to see if it has a Pokémon in it already. Hector sighed before getting back on his feet. He pressed the button, causing the ball to open. Nothing came out. Then he closed the ball, put it into his bag, and adjusted his watch on his wrist.
"It's just past midnight."
"Why does that matter?" Noanne asked as she hopped off the couch.
"Do you remember what time the park is supposed to close? I feel like someone said it was 1AM—maybe 2—but it could be that everything will lock down after that so we might not be able to get out of the park, even if we get to the Indigo Room." Noanne considered this.
"I think the creepy voice on the announcement would've said something about that if the time was something to worry about," she reasoned. "But I guess I'd rather get out of here sooner than later." She headed toward the door, and we followed.
"Doesn't seem to be anything special about it," Hector mumbled as he examined the door. He twisted the knob and pushed the door open. We peeked into the other room before stepping inside. When nothing popped out at us, we stepped through the doorway. I half expected the door to shut behind us on its own, but when it didn't, I decided to close it anyway in case there was something hiding in the other room waiting to ambush us.
On the other end of the room was a large purple gate. It was made of some kind of shiny metal and seemed out of place in the room, as though someone had made the room the way it was and replaced one wall with the gate at the last moment. As we approached it, I saw three key holes inside three painted circles—two red and one blue. Lines from the circles connected in the center of the gate where a purple button was affixed. To our left and right were separate paths.
"Uh oh—we need keys?" Noanne gasped. We stepped up to the gate to get a closer look. It was sturdy and cool to the touch. I pressed the button, but nothing happened.
"Hey! Don't…touch that," Hector called out after I'd already pushed the button.
"Sorry, I couldn't help it."
"You probably have to put all the keys in and then push the button," Noanne said.
"This gate, though… I think it leads to the real Indigo Room. This must be the way out!" I shouted excitedly. Hector smiled but seemed to be trying to hide his optimism.
"We won't know for sure until we find those keys. I guess it is a good thing we brought you along," Hector said to Noanne. She laughed nervously and took a step back.
"What? How am I supposed to search this whole place for three tiny keys?" she said and waved her hands defensively.
"Wait, look at these keyholes, though—they're pretty big. …Oh! Actually," I whispered and knelt down to open my backpack. Eevee was panting excitedly as it tried to jump into my bag. I pulled out the blue metal key we'd found in the freezer office.
"Shit! I forgot we found that. See if the size is a match before putting it in the keyhole." The others crowded around me as I held up the key to the hole. It was a fit.
"Look at that—now you only have to search this whole place for two keys," Hector said playfully and patted Noanne on the shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah…," she mumbled and swatted his hand away. Suddenly, Eevee started growling, making all of us whirl around to see a woman with long brown hair, a white leather jacket, and dark jeans approach us from the path on the right. She flashed a devious grin before throwing out a Poké Ball, unleashing what looked like a shriveled skull with five blood red petals attached to it like a crown. Some sort of pit in the middle of the petals was pulsating, like a mouth ready to swallow something whole.
The lights flashed red and signaled the locking down of the room. The halls leading out of the large chamber became blocked off as metal grates crashed down with a loud clang. Hector shouted, looking up and pointing at a cage falling toward us. He pushed me back against the indigo wall, and Noanne jumped out of the way at the last moment before the cage trapped Hector and me inside. Noanne had jumped away to the other side. I screamed for Noanne to move as the Vileplume lobbed a ball of sludge at her. Noanne, heeding my warning, rolled to the side and deftly tossed out her first Pokémon.
"So ya wanna play dirty, huh?" I heard Noanne say under her breath as she landed in a crouching position. Hector and I looked at each other but didn't say anything, probably wondering the same thing—who was Noanne?
"TWO POKÉMON DETECTED. PARTICIPANTS LOCKED IN— FIGHT TO THE DEATH! BATTLE COMMENCE," the robotic voice from before boomed.
The light from Noanne's Poké Ball transformed into a tall triangular shape. From behind, it was difficult to tell much, but the Pokémon appeared to be wearing some sort of black dress that got wider toward the bottom. Its arms stuck out like broom handles painted black to match its dress, and on its head was a giant obnoxious bow of some sort. Whatever it had for hands seemed to be covered in white gloves. I stepped up to the bars to get a closer look and realized the bow was a hip bone that had been painted black. The creature seemed to sway from side to side, as if dancing along to imaginary music.
"Gothitelle, use Future Sight!" Noanne called. Gothitelle raised its stick-like arms and started shaking as a strange light surrounded it. The light then faded when its arms fell back to its sides.
"This battle will be over before your attack even happens, little girl! You should've let one of your friends handle this one—Vileplume, Petal Dance!" The creature wobbled around on the ground as its petals flapped, making a wet, slapping sound. From the pit atop its head, hundreds of red leaves shot out across the room. Whatever the leaves touched melted as if acid had been poured on it. Hector pulled me away from the bars and tried to cover me. Luckily, no leaves reached us and had only partially melted some of the bars on the cage. The damage was not significant enough to break free, though.
We looked out to see if Noanne was all right, and some of the leaves appeared frozen in the air around her and Gothitelle, who was glowing a dark purple.
"Amateur," Noanne scoffed as the leaves were hurled right back at the woman and Vileplume. Vileplume was disintegrated by the counterstrike, and the woman tried to avoid the attack, but was too slow to jump out of the way. Several of the leaves clung to her arms and legs and ate away at her flesh. She cried out in pain as she tossed out another Poké Ball.
"How did she do that?" I gasped in astonishment.
"Confusion, obviously," Noanne said and chuckled, slightly turning her head to look at me. She winked before turning her attention back on the new Pokémon in front of her, a sextet of rotting skulls partially covered in strange metal armor. Each member of Falinks seemed to follow the skull in front of it as they assembled into a line. Noanne stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. "This was too easy—did you even try?" Noanne called out at the woman.
"I'm not done with you yet, you little bi—" Suddenly, an explosion of light formed around Falinks, causing the cage to rattle fiercely. Hector moved to cover me again, and when the shaking stopped, we looked out to see that Falinks was gone. The woman had been blasted farther back in the room, and Noanne and Gothitelle slowly approached her.
As the woman struggled to recover from the attack, she frantically tried to scoot back as she waved a hand at Noanne.
"You won, you won! Y-You don't have to kill me! See?" the woman screeched and pulled out a knife. She slowly pulled the blade across her palm and held up her hand, as if trying to show it to someone.
"VICTOR DETERMINED." And with that, the metal bars all began to lift. We rushed to Noanne's side.
"Noanne, you did it. You can stop now," I said and grabbed her arm. She shook free of me, though.
"Please, don't kill me." The woman was practically sobbing. "Here—you can take this if you promise not to kill me. You'll probably need it to get through that door." She pulled a red key from pants pocket and gripped it in her bloody hand.
"Where did you get this?" I asked. Between sobs, she managed to squeak out her answer.
"That hallway I just came from. It leads to a forest area. I was traveling with a larger group, but they got taken out in a fight with some other trainers. We'd just found the key when we got ambushed. I only managed to escape because I led the attacking trainers through a part of the forest that had a bunch of traps. There were holes in the ground covered up with fake grass. They screamed when they fell, but it sounded like they didn't fall that far. I could still hear them shouting at me, but that stopped after a while." I looked at Hector. The people we'd seen in the freezer had come from the level above.
"How did you know cutting your hand would end the battle?" Hector demanded.
"There are cameras everywhere, but I don't think anyone's watching them from the other side. Maybe it's some computer program monitoring them. If they get a visual cue of blood after one team's Pokémon are all dead, the barriers are lifted. Please, just take the key, and you'll never see me again. Go on—take it!"
"Call your Pokémon back, Noanne. We're done here," Hector pleaded, turning his back on the woman and partially crouching to look Noanne in the eyes. Without warning, Noanne simply lifted her hand, and Gothitelle moved to gore the woman with the bones on its head. The woman made a squeaking sound and dropped the key before Gothitelle tossed her body to the side. Then Noanne called Gothitelle back.
"Noanne!" I screamed. "She was surrendering!"
"No, she wasn't. Look at her other hand—she switched to the grip of the knife and was about to throw it at Hector. Neither of you were paying attention 'cause you were yelling at me," Noanne said, turning to me and then Hector. The knife was positioned as Noanne said it was, but I wasn't quite convinced it meant the woman was going to attack us again. "And she rolled up and instantly attacked us without even trying to have a conversation! Do you really think a person like that would surrender so easily? Next, her story was so bogus! Her whole group died but she didn't? All the people attacking her fell down some hole? That's pretty convenient. And! And…that trick with the knife? She probably used it before to convince whoever she was fighting that she'd surrender and then turned around to kill them and steal their Pokémon—probably would've tried it again! Anyway, I just saved you from getting a knife lodged in your back, so you're welcome." Then she went to retrieve the key, wiping the blood dripping off it on the carpet before extending it to me. Wordlessly, I took the key and put it into my backpack. I could only look at Hector and shake my head. He seemed similarly stunned, but Noanne was already moving on. "Come on. If she came from over there," Noanne said, pointing to the path on the left, "this is the way to go." She pointed to the path on the right. Three paths, three keys. Hector fell to his knees and looked over at the woman's lifeless body and then around the room at the remains of her Pokémon splattered across the carpet and walls. Eevee whimpered and pawed at my leg, so I absentmindedly picked it up to try and calm it. Hector went to examine the dead body but didn't find anything. Then he picked up the knife and handed it to me.
"For protection. Just in case," he whispered. It was a knife from the dining hall.
"I don't…think I want it," I said, shaking my head.
"Come on—I'll feel better if you have it."
"Hurry-y-y u-u-up!" Noanne called in a sing-song-y voice from the other side of the room. She'd crossed her arms and was tapping her foot impatiently again.
"Fine, just toss it in my bag," I sighed.
"Are you sure you don't want it somewhere easier to—"
"Hector! Just…put it in my bag, please. It'll be fine." Hector silently opened my bag, dropped the knife inside, and closed it up again. Then he whispered to me,
"Watch out for Noanne. I thought she was just a little weird, but now I'm not so sure we can trust her." I didn't react, and then we started walking toward the other path. Eevee had stopped shaking in my arm, but a buzzing anxiety still rattled my chest. I had a sinking feeling that Noanne might kill one of us. Then I blacked out.