Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. I do not own "The Shining," either. Stephen Kind does. Sorry for making a mockery of the greatest book ever written, and the greatest mini-series ever filmed. You rule, Steven Weber!
So there is no confusion, all the characters are the same age and appear as they do in the TV Series.
Summary: The second night in the Fireside's Warmth Hotel does not prove to be a pleasant one for Ash, Misty, and Brock.
Midnight! Pokéball Go!
by Spruceton Spook
Part 6:
Things That Go Bump in the Night
As the clock downstairs struck midnight, Ash's eyes flew open. For some strange reason he could not sleep. He tried to relax and concentrate on nothing, but despite his sleepiness, he could not drift off into dreamland. He was comfortable and all, and he had Pikachu snoring away peacefully beside him. Ash sat up in bed, and Pikachu slowly opened one eye.
"Pika pi?" Pikachu asked, looking sleepily at Ash.
Ash smiled. "I'm okay, Pikachu. I can't sleep, that's all."
"Kachu, pika pikachu," Pikachu said silently, closing his eyes once again. In no time he was asleep again. Ash could not blame him. He couldn't understand why he couldn't sleep, though. He was not frightened at all about being alone on the second floor in a secluded area of the hotel, but he felt weird. Closing his eyes, he laid his head back down on the pillow, and thought about the fun he had had playing croquet with Misty that afternoon. Maybe that would let his mind rest.
Misty had not attempted to fall asleep just yet. She had been sitting up in bed quietly reading a novel that she had stored in her bag since day one. She never got a chance to read it when she was on the road. It was hard to see the pages by the fire, and when they had occasionally spent the night in a Pokémon Center, she had been too tired to even think of it. Togepi slept deeply in her arms, and when she looked at her nightstand clock to notice it was midnight, she decide to turn in. She didn't want to sleep too much into the morning, and maybe missing out of one of Brock's delicious breakfasts. She closed the book and carefully lifted Togepi onto the opposite side of the bed. Pulling the covers over her, she shut the light off and closed her eyes.
She did not have her eyes closed for half a minute before they flew open again to the sound of a voice. As silent and muffled as it was, Misty heard it perfectly. She sat up in bed and switched on the light immediately. All fell silent for about a moment before she heard it start up again. Her heart was pounded slightly. She could not make out what the voice was saying, but she could tell that that was what it was. Someone was talking, very quietly and very calmly. It would say a few muffled words, pause, then start up again.
Ash. That's all she could think off. Sweating incredibly, she sighed out of annoyance.
"Ash Ketchum!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Stop trying to scare me! It's not funny!"
She listened, waiting to hear him either apology or burst out laughing. She wouldn't have been surprised if Brock joined in along with him laughing too. But instead, there was complete silence again.
"Jerk," Misty muttered, assuming Ash had run away from the room about to howl with laughter. She shut off her light again, and fell suddenly into a deep sleep.
Misty didn't know how long she slept. It seemed like almost a minute, but when the sound of squeaky wheels floated past her door and her eyelids flew open in panic, she discovered that she had in fact slept for two hours.
"What the hell?" she said in a garbled tone, although she was fully wide-awake. She sat up in bed, and listened carefully. There was absolute quiet yet again. Misty was confused. She could have sworn that she had heard a cart of some sort going by her room. After breathing deeply and in silence for about five minutes, Misty concluded that she must have been dreaming.
She glanced over at Togepi. Her waking up did not wake him up. She exhaled loudly, and ruffled her sheets. She slid down deep into them, feeling the warm spots where her legs had been. The night alone was not doing good things for her, that was for sure. Her heart finally calmed down, but her head was beginning to ache a bit. Nothing a good night's sleep wouldn't cure. But then she heard it again.
It was clearly the sound of a cart rolling down the hallway. It was low at first, and by the time it sped past her door noisily, she had shot out of bed. Anger and terror rose up in her simultaneously.
"Ash, I swear to God! I'm going to kill you!" she screamed as loud as she could. "This isn't funny! It's two am!"
Despite her courage, or so it seemed (if it were Ash it wouldn't have amounted to anything), tears began to well up in her eyes. Her easygoing heartbeat was now disrupted again, and she wrapped her arms around her. The cold air had hit her warm body with tremendous force. She figured that the thermostat must have gone down during the night. Misty couldn't imagine it being so cold in her magnificently heated room.
"Idiot," she said to herself. Although she realized it couldn't be anything else other than Ash or perhaps Brock, she still felt a mysterious nervousness building up within her. "Probably wheeling around in the halls with a stupid laundry cart. Well, the jokes on him--he lost the bet anyway. Nice try to cover it up, buddy-boy."
She laughed restlessly, and when she heard nothing else going on, she decided to return to her bed. Togepi was still in a deep sleep. The commotion hadn't woken him. Thank God for small favors.
Back in her bed again and the light that was killing her eyes moments ago now off, she promised herself that she would finally rest this time. The idiot Ash probably came to his senses by now, and went back to his room. She couldn't wait to wring his neck the next morning.
Misty lay peacefully, listening to her soft breathing. Albeit she was no doubt tired, concentrating on her breathing always helped her calm down and drift off into slumber. It was almost like meditating. Pretty soon, that's all she did hear, and it comforted her. In and out, in and out. Shortly, she was in that wonderful state between sleep and consciousness, and her whole body melted into the bed....
"Misty."
She rolled around, still half asleep. "Hmmmm? What?"
"Misty.....Misty."
"Hmmmm," Misty continued, until fear grabbed her instantly. Her heart made a twisting leap inside her body. She clutched her pillow in fright and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Misty......Misty.....Misty....."
The whispers were so faint, yet so real.
"Oh, my God, help me..." Misty thought, her heart pounding like a steel drum. "Oh, God, what's happening?!"
This was certainly not Ash this time. Or Brock. But she was not alone in this room. She felt a definite presence within the room, the kind of feeling you get when you know someone's leaning over you, watching you with a sly grin. She refused to open her eyes because she did not want to see anything.
"I must be dreaming," she thought, along with perhaps thousands of other thoughts running through her mind at once.
The whispers were still just that, whispers. But they had grown louder. They were multiple, and if Misty didn't know it, she could have assured that there were tens of numbers of people in the room, in all corners, in all nooks and crannies and in every crack in every wall, under her bed, on the ceiling, right behind her bedstand. And they all wanted her attention. They all were trying to coax her on, to open her eyes....just for a second.... come on, Misty, don't you want to see us?
"Misty......Misty........Misty.........Misty......"
They continued and drudged on and on, some of the whispers overlapping onto one another. Misty couldn't breath or move. She was frozen in fear, a terrible panic that had paralyzed her body.
How she managed to jump up and switch on her light in two rapid clicks was beyond her. But it worked. As though whoever or whatever it was beckoning to her were hit by gunshot, the whispers ceased, leaving only a frightened young girl and her baby egg Pokémon in the haunting silence of the night.
Her body finally returned to her, tears began to spill out of her eyes. She grasped Togepi, which awakened him immediately, and she began to sob. She rocked back and forth, holding the crying Pokémon in her arms.
"Oh, quiet Togepi. Shhhhh...." she said, trying to soothe him as best she could. She knew she hadn't been dreaming. She couldn't have. It was too real, too vivid. She was awake, there was no doubt about that. But she couldn't have heard what she did, could she?
Misty sat up for about three hours after that, never turning out the light beside her bed, her trusty weapon. Togepi finally feel asleep again, but Misty held on tightly to him, and kept her wits about her. Finally, towards the break of dawn, her eyes shut and she slept till morning.
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At about the same time Misty had heard the ghostly laundry cart shoot past her room, Ash finally fell asleep. He had lain awake in bed since he had tucked himself in at ten o'clock, thinking about so many things. He twisted and turned many times, had got up once to use the bathroom, and even drank a glass of cold milk from Mr. Vrenden's private refrigerator. He didn't care that the milk had expired three days before. It felt good, coated his stomach, and relaxed him.
He had been dying to go to Misty or Brock's room to crash for the night. He had to finally admit to himself that he did not like this idea of sleeping alone. He was never this alone at night. He liked to know that someone was sleeping no further than one room away from him, and he had never in his life experienced otherwise. Ash had not even slept alone once since he began his Pokémon journey, but now he wish he had. It might have prepared him for this night.
As much as he wanted it, he never left his room. He wanted to prove to Misty and Brock that he could make it. That he wasn't a baby. Misty especially, for she would find some way of holding it against him for the rest of his life. Using it at the most inappropriate times to humiliate him. Well, it wasn't going to happen. Not on his life.
Ash didn't know the time that he actually fell asleep or was even beginning to. He felt sleep overpowering him, and he let it take over his body. Pikachu had been asleep ever since his head hit his pillow. Ash envied him. He was so tired that he couldn't tolerate it. And even after he finally slept, his restlessness didn't end.
Dreams plagued his mind the whole night. But the only one that he would remember come morning was quite a peculiar one. He did not know the meaning of it, and he believed that all dreams had meaning some way or another.
It was dark and overcast, and he was in the Fireside's Warmth Hotel. In the Presidential Suite. Ash had never seen the suite nor been in it, but he knew that that was where he was in the dream. The entire room was bright crimson red, and Ash was suddenly drawn to the window.
As he peered out the dirty windows, he found himself looking down on the roque court. He squinted with all his might. There was someone down there playing on his roque court. He leaned further against the window, trying desperately to make out who it was. The strange individual knocked the roque ball with all his strength, then froze, and looked up towards Ash. It was Gary. He glared at Ash, then smiled. The smile was not a pleasant one, though. It made Ash shrink back in fear. The dream ended suddenly there, and blended into another one, which was vague to Ash.
Two floors above him, Brock was having a night full of dreams as well. He had had no problem getting to bed that evening. Brock had done a lot of work that day, between cooking the meals and walking over two miles around the hotel. He was a very tired person, anyway. Sometimes being up all day doing nothing even tired him. But most of the time, on the road traveling from town to town, he had an excuse to be exhausted. Brock was lost in a different world now. When he slept, he always dreamt. They were always a mix of good dreams and nightmares, but his dreams at the hotel were somewhat in between.
Brock dreamt of walking through the long corridors of the hotel, but the halls were different then they were. The walls were a deep crimson red, the same color the wallpaper was in the Presidential Suite of Ash's dream. The carpet, which was really a dark green with white lining, was now blue and black, swirling around in zany circles. As he paced down the hallways, he realized he didn't know where he was going. He wasn't sure whether or not he was looking for the staircase or a particular room, but he kept walking anyway. Suddenly, the door a little ways down the hallway opened, and popped the face of his little 6-year-old sister, Suzy. She smiled joyfully at him and waved, and he smiled and waved back. Pretty soon, though, she pulled her head into the room and the door closed. Brock walked on. Before long, two doors opened, and two other of his siblings popped their heads out. They waved, laughed, then withdrew themselves back into the rooms. This continued throughout the dream, only now they were speaking to him.
"Come home, Brock!" they shouted, whether it were one of them or a bunch of them at once. "Come home! We miss you!"
Brock never replied to them, he only smiled. He wanted to talk to them, to tell them that he missed them too and that he loved them, and a couple times he even reached out to touch them. He never did, but came so close to them many times. Soon his smile faded, and he became frightened. Why couldn't he touch them or talk to them? It seemed as though they were slowly fading away from him, out of his reach. At first, their expressions displayed happiness and silliness, but now they were become faces of panic and fear, and Brock noticed it immediately. He wanted to know what was wrong so that he could help them.
Finally, it was just little Suzy again. Brock stopped this time. She was not popping her head out of a room this time, rather, she was standing at the end of the hallway near the Presidential Suite. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she held out her hand to Brock. Brock grabbed it instantly and held it tight. Looking down into the beautiful brown eyes of his little sister, she spoke to him gravely: "Brock, come home! You need to!"
At that she vanished, and Brock's dream ended. He shot up in bed. Glancing at the clock quickly, he discovered it was nine am. He rubbed his eyes, and lay back down in bed. Staring at the ceiling, he thought of the dream. He had never dreamt anything like that before.
"Maybe they really need me," Brock thought worriedly. Still pondering the thought, he got out of bed to see if Ash or Misty were awake.
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Ash, Misty, and Brock were not the only ones having a difficult night.
As James and Meowth slept bundled up in their heavy-duty sleeping bags, Jessie sat up clutching her sleeping bag around her. She was shivering uncontrollably. She could no longer feel the tip of her nose or ears, even though she had a shirt wrapped around her face. Jessie pushed her hands deeper into the warmest part of her sleeping bag--under her legs. She wished that she could have slept but the cold was too much for her.
Her eyes were glued to the hotel. It was magnificent against the bright, starlit sky. But sometime during the night, it became weird. Lights began to turn on and off in different rooms. On different floors and everything. And not in rooms right next to each other, but all over the places. Jessie stared at this in awe, all too curious.
"Their timers must be screwed up," Jessie laughed to herself, knowing that those little twerps couldn't be doing that. Unless they could race at the speed of light!
Finally, she snuggled up close to James. It wasn't much warmer, but she felt more protected. She closed her eyes, and finally slept.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .