*grins sheepishly* Ok… Don't ask why I keep having strange dreams, alright? Anyone who's been reading my Quest for Hope story knows what I'm referring to… "Expect the unexpected" is following me everywhere, even in life… but this section of the story is based off another dream I had, before I even finished chapter 5… just enjoy, and review afterwards, please?
Ash stared out the window, straining his eyes to see the Lake of Rage through the storm. From the bed to his right, he could faintly hear Brock's snoring over the sound of the pouring rain.
"Well, I guess I'm going to sleep now," ChikoRita said softly from the bed to Ash's far left.
"Goodnight," Misty responded from the bed between him and ChikoRita. They had all (minus ChikoRita) finally decided on this setup to minimize the number of ways ChikoRita could get over to Ash's bed without alerting anyone.
Ash flopped backwards onto the bed, "Goodnight, guys…" He heard Misty quietly singing a little song, who's tune he found quite familiar by now… "Goodnight Mist," he whispered too quietly for anyone to hear him. "See you in a few minutes…" he smiled, then drifted off into his own dream world.
Human? I Wish… NOT!!
#9*Day7/8-1: You Came and Made Everything Alright
"Ash… have I ever told you how much I love you?"
"Only about a dozen times this hour, Mist, but you know I love hearing it almost as much as I love you…" he grinned.
"Good, because I do so very much… I really do love you," she smiled, staring him eye to eye.
He stood there for a moment, feeling her warm breath wash over his face, before whispering once more, "And I love you…." As he did so, he could feel her lips gently press to his own, melting everything else in the world away… It was just him, her, and…
**********
*OOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo*
Some type of very loud alarm. Ash shot awake, as did everyone else the split second before. He growled as he looked over at the alarm clock… "It's only 7:45… I thought we set the wake up call for 8:30…"
"Ash, you might wanna take a look at this then," Brock yelled over the noise of the siren. Everyone came running over to the window…
"It was the flood alarm! We gotta get upstairs – now!" Misty panicked at the sight of the rapidly rising water. It was barely raining any longer, but…
"The dam broke! The rain last night was just too much… there was only minor flooding earlier, but the dam just broke! The entire town will be flooded within a few minutes," Nurse Joy explained as she hurried them and some others upstairs.
"So will we be safe up here?" one of the other guests asked.
"We should be… They said flood waters could reach up to 12 feet though, so this level might get partially flooded as well…"
"Ashy… I'm scared…" ChikoRita huddled up beside him, on a table that the four and Pikachu had decided to sit on.
Ash looked at her and was about to push her away, thinking that this was just another excuse for her to get close to him, but what he saw in her eyes was not her normal, overly happy look… It was one of genuine fear. He bit his lip, then said quietly, "It'll be alright… We'll all survive, I know it… we always have before…"
**meanwhile**
What's going on in that town down there… Celebi, being a grass type, was quite enjoying the light rain, but suddenly it had spotted what appeared to be a very large extension of the lake… covering the town… Oh my! I better go down there and make sure that no one gets hurt… It thought, realizing that the cause of the flooding was the broken dam on the lake… It looked as if the sudden large amount of water had shocked many of the Magikarp in the Lake of Rage into evolving… And though there was only about a dozen of them, and plenty of space, the Gyrados had in effect panicked and knocked down the dam…
Celebi created a shield around itself so it would not be seen… it peered in through some of the windows below the water level, and found that there was no one trapped there… As it passed by some of the higher windows, it spotted several familiar faces… Hey… It's that Chikorita and the group she was with… it glanced back at the rising waters… I hope… Nah… It continued scanning the windows, when suddenly something caught it's attention in one of the lower rooms… Something crying quietly, standing on a dresser, and halfway out of a backpack… It's the Togepi that belongs to that girl named Misty… It recalled seeing her with the Togepi when it had first granted the wish… It also knew that while a Togepi, curled up inside it's shell, can survive for a good amount of time underwater, that good amount of time was just in relation to most humans, and it couldn't survive for more than 10 or 15 minutes… I can't let anything die in this… Even if it was essentially a natural flood, nothing should die like this… particularly not a baby… It concentrated it's psychic powers for a moment, and used them to alert Misty of Togepi's location…
**********
"Oh my… Guys, where's Togepi?!" Misty jumped up in panic. "Oh no! I left him in my backpack… He was still asleep when we rushed upstairs here…"
"What?!" the rest of the group asked in shock. Misty never forgot Togepi… but it was understandable, the urgency of the rising flood water had confused everyone.
"I'm gonna go back down and get him," Misty sprinted back towards the stairs.
Brock cut her off, "Misty, there's already a few inches of water up here… there won't be any place to breath at all down there… You could die!"
"Togepi will if I don't do something… And Togepi is like my child to me… I can't let anything happen to it, so it's a risk I'm going to take," she shoved past Brock and made her way down the stairs, into the water.
"Miss, you can't go down there!" Nurse Joy yelled after her, but Misty mearly sneered at her, took a deep breath, and dove under the surface of the icy water.
All was silent for a few moments. "Ashy… will she be ok?" ChikoRita asked shakily, not letting go of his arm, on which she had a surprisingly light hold.
"Hey… th-this is Misty we're talking about here, r-right? Sh-she'll make it… I know that she… she will…" he responded, struggling to hold back tears. He honestly believed she'd make it, but the idea that she even might not was enough to drive him insane… Suddenly he pulled his arm away from ChikoRita, threw off his hat and jacket, and started walking towards the staircase.
"Ash, what the heck do you think you're doing?!" Brock confronted him.
"Ashy, please don't go… what if you drown?" ChikoRita whined at the same time, reaching for his hand again.
Ash sighed, "I'm sorry guys… but I have to go… she might need my help, and she's always helped me in the past, whenever I've been in trouble… and now it's my turn. Besides… Togepi's a bit like my child to me, too," he grinned at his friends. "Totodile, let's go... oh great… I left my pokéballs in my backpack… Oh well, I'm going in anyway. Wish me luck," he took a deep breath and dove into the water.
"Ashy, wait!!!"
"Are those two friends of yours?" Nurse Joy asked Brock.
"Unfortunately. Oye, some vacation this has been…"
*********
I wish there was something I could do to help them… Celebi stared through one of the windows of the center, which was now halfway underwater. But somehow… I don't think I should… As it watched, Misty swam in, looking all over… she spotted Togepi, but the headed for the closet and opened the door. A small amount of air escaped, which Misty seemed quite happy about… Celebi realized why when she put her face almost to the ceiling in the closet, enabling her to breath in the small pocket of air that the lowered door-jam had trapped. Maybe their more complex minds are useful for something, after all…
Meanwhile, Ash was having trouble remembering which room they had been staying in, and had thus found and used three other air pockets. Finally he spotted an open door, and headed in through it. Sure enough, in the middle of the room was Misty, who had retrieved her backpack, with Togepi inside, but was now looking rather lost. Though she had gotten more air from the closet, it had been stale by that point in time, and she now was low on oxygen… Ash couldn't figure this out, but fortunately, he at least realized that she needed air -- now! He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room, towards the one across the hall…
What is he doing here…? He's going to get himself killed, he isn't as used to being underwater for a long time as I am… she wondered as she was guided towards a separate bedroom in the room… Here the whole room practically had about eight inches of air left in it… They both gladly took large breaths of the air, keeping their faces only fractions of an inch above the water… "Ash, why the heck did you follow me?! You could have died!"
"So could've you! You think I'm gonna let that happen to my best human friend? No way. And can we continue this discussion later? My understanding is that the water is still rising upstairs!"
"Alright… Let's go then," she took a deep breath once more and plunged her head back into the water, Ash quickly following suite… as they swam back into the hallway, the previously slight current was now fairly strong. Misty glanced behind them and saw the front door open, allowing water to come flooding through the hall, and escaping through a broken window in the room next to the one they had exited. She paused and held out her hand towards Ash, then motioned to it. After a brief second, he caught on and grabbed it, so that they wouldn't be separated in the swifter waters… They went as fast as they could, battling their way past several smaller eddies as well… As they headed up the stairs, they suddenly realized that the water was to the point of filling all but about a foot and a half of that level as well… the flooding had clearly reached well over 15 feet… All the others had already gotten onto the roof…
Suddenly Misty felt the weight get heavy on her hand… she thought that Ash might have gotten his foot caught in something as she looked towards him, but instead, she saw… Him unconscious and sinking rapidly to the floor, suspended only by her hand. Horror struck her as she noticed bubbles rising from him, and she panicked and pulled him as quickly as she could up to the surface…
"Ash?! Ash, you hear me?! ASH, DON'T DIE ON ME!!!" she screamed, shaking him gently to attempt to wake him up as she struggled to keep herself on the surface of the still-rising water. She put her hand above his mouth. Nothing. He wasn't breathing. "No! Oh my God… Ash!!!" Years of her life around water came flooding back to her… and all the rescue breathing and CPR too… "Hang on, Ash…" she whispered, pressing her mouth over his and gently breathing into him, repeating it like in the training she had been given. The water continued to rise…
Now there was hardly enough room to keep her head above the water… it was over, she knew it. Everyone else had escaped to the roof earlier, but the rushing water had broken the glass on the windows, making an escape impossible. "Oh, God, Ash… I never wanted to loose you… And I never even got to tell you…" she cried, turning him fully upright and hugging him to herself… "That I love you. I love you Ash, and I always will," she whispered, kissing his cheek as the water slipped over their heads.
I will put the next chapter out in exactly 14 days, less for every review I receive. Aren't I cruel? *laughs evilly*… cake. Yes, cake… O_O' um… Review, please. And CCRya@aol.com.