Chapter Three
Nightmares
All was quiet in the waiting room of the hospital. Misty had been taken away on a theatre trolley, accompanied by a doctor and a nurse. Ash and Brock had been told to wait until the check-up was done, and there was any news to give. They had long wait.
"Do you think it had anything to do with her being so tired?" asked Ash.
"Definitely. She's always had lots of energy, and she never seems to get sick. Now, all of a sudden, she gets really tired, and then collapses. There has to be a connection," replied Brock, his brow furrowed in thought. The two stayed mostly silent after that. There really wasn't anything to talk about. They were both too upset and worried about Misty to feel like conversation. All Ash could think about was how he'd felt when he'd noticed her absence. All he could see was her pale, expressionless face. Silence filled the room, pressing against his ears until he just couldn't stand it any longer.
He sat up on the bench, and turned to Brock. Before he even opened his mouth, he realised there was no point in starting a conversation: Brock was asleep. Ash sighed miserably. At least the faint sound of his sigh made the silence a little less awful. He stared out of the window, listening as the rain started up again. The wind threw the rain at the full-length windows, ending the silence with its gentle pattering sound. The pattering soon grew to beating, then pounding, as the storm swung into full force. Unlike the earlier storm, all was dark: the flash of lightning was gone, along with the rumbling thunder. The outside was cloaked in shadow. Ash couldn't even see the shop across the street in the darkness. He squinted, trying to at least make out its outline. That was when he saw the stranger.
A small, slender person, watching him. It stood, a dark and faint silhouette, in the empty road. Ash ran quickly to the door, staring through the glass, and pushed it open. Before he had time to get outside, the person ran, a shadow melting away into the night. Ash didn't try to give chase. Who ever it was didn't want to be seen. Or known. And he had no idea if they were even there to see him. He found himself stepping out into the darkness anyway.
Ash didn't want to go back to the bleak, silent waiting room. He didn't want to wait there, with that feeling of dread gnawing him away from the inside. There was something else, something more. It wasn't just Misty feeling sick. There was another problem, but it was more than a problem. It was a darkness, looming over everything that had happened in the last couple of days. It wasn't easy to forget the weird dreams he'd been having. Every night for the past week. Dreams of strange places, and strange people, and a shadow…
Ash couldn't go back to that waiting room. He couldn't stand it any more. He couldn't stand the bare, pale yellow walls, or the white ceiling, or the endless waiting, waiting, for someone to tell you what was happening, or the knowing that Misty was really sick, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
"Misty! What's happening to you? What's behind all of this? Why doesn't it make sense?" he cried out at the darkness. "Who's doing this?" he asked. There was no answer. The rain had already soaked him, and he shut his eyes against the drops that hit him, as he tilted his face to the heavy, threatening clouds overhead. He hoped that if he shut his eyes tight enough, all the bad feelings might go away.
"Ash! Ash, what are you doing? Come in quick! You're getting soaked!" yelled Brock, above the noise of the rain. Ash turned his head slowly to his friend, who stood in the doorway of the hospital. The look in Ash's eyes was out of focus and dull with hopelessness.
"Come on!" cried Brock again, running over and tugging at his friend's arm, gradually pulling him back inside the hospital. "The nurse has news on Misty!" Ash finally seemed to get a little closer to reality, focusing piercingly on Brock's face. His large dark eyes demanded knowledge.
The nurse approached quietly. "Misty's fine now. She's woken up, and looks okay. But she's still very weak. She fainted from sheer lack of energy. It's very strange indeed. Did she say anything about being tired, or anything like that, before she fainted?"
"Yeah, she was complaining about being really tired, and not having enough energy to eat," said Ash, slowly.
"When did she start saying that? Was she acting strange before she said any of those things?" asked the nurse in a gentle voice.
"Well, she normally shouts when Brock… she normally shouts at Brock a lot. And she talks a lot. But she barely even said a word today-"
"Today?" cried the nurse, cutting off Ash's sentence.
"Yeah, this morning," Brock agreed.
"This has all happened in one day?" She was clearly very surprised and worried.
"Yes," Brock repeated.
"This is more serious than I thought," muttered the nurse with a frown, studying at the clipboard in her hand.
"Why? How does the fact that it happened in one day make such a big difference?" demanded Ash.
"Normally, something like this is caused by lack of food, or over-exercising. Those things take a long time to have this serious an effect," said the nurse, in a voice that asked if that could be what had happened to Misty.
"Well, she was eating fine yesterday, and we've been doing a lot of walking, but nothing too hard for me or Ash to do with any trouble," Brock offered.
"Well, I'll have to run some tests, to try to figure out exactly what has happened here. Misty will be here for tonight, at least."
"Can we see her?" asked Ash.
"She's very tired. I don't know if she's up to seeing any visitors yet," reasoned the nurse.
"We're not visitors. We're her best friends. I have to see her," Ash insisted. "We don't have to talk to her, just see her."
"Well…" The young woman was still undecided.
"Please," pleaded Ash. There was an uncertain pause.
"OK. You are her best friends. And she has been asking to see you."
"Great! Where is she?" Ash asked, getting a little excited.
"Calm down! Too much excitement won't help. I'll take you," she added, in a friendlier tone, as she led the way along the cool, empty corridors.
"Ash? Brock!" cried Misty weakly, as her friends entered the room, Brock closing the door quietly behind him.
"It's okay, we're here now," said Ash, walking over and sitting on the edge of the bed.
"I remember the nurse telling me that you wouldn't be allowed to come…" wondered Misty, in a whispering voice.
"We'd never let you lie here all alone," said Brock. Misty smiled a little.
"So what is it? What's happening to me?" she asked.
"We don't know. The nurse said she was going to run some tests on you to find out. I'm sure it's nothing serious," added Ash quickly, seeing the look of fear cross his friend's pale face.
"You'll be up and about in no time, and yelling at Ash more than ever before!" encouraged Brock with a smile.
"And smacking Brock over the head when he acts dumb," chuckled Ash, with a mischievous grin. Misty laughed, but her laughter ended in a cough, and a long-drawn breath. Her two friends looked at her quickly, their concern showing plainly in their faces.
Misty waved them away with a hand, whilst covering her mouth with the other. "It's okay…I'm okay," she whispered.
The nurse suddenly reappeared in the doorway, hands on hips. "I think it's time you left. Making her laugh is making her cough. She doesn't need that right now," she commanded, in a stern voice that allowed no opposition.
Brock moved to the door, smiling warmly at Misty as he left, just behind the nurse. Ash got up from his perch on the edge of the bed, and took a step to the corridor.
"Ash," cried Misty in a hoarse whisper. He turned back and was standing by her in an instant.
"Ash. You saved me."
"So did Brock," he protested.
"You'll look after me, won't you? There's something else. Something awful. What's happening, Ash? Why is this happening?" she asked, in a scared voice.
Ash started, eyes wide. She had echoed almost exactly the words he'd cried out in the rain outside, just a little while ago. "You…You can feel it, too? I thought I was just…worrying too much. I don't know what's happening. But I'll find out. Whatever is doing this, I'll stop it. I promise," he said, with an earnest voice, placing a hand lightly on the frightened girl's shoulder. She looked into his eyes with an expression that forced him to look at the ground, with a red face.
"Come see me tomorrow," pleaded Misty. "I don't want to be alone. I'm so scared, Ash," she whimpered, shivering with the cold feeling inside her. Ash squeezed her shoulder gently, a comforting touch that made Misty look up at her friend in surprise. He met her gaze for a moment, before leaving the room hastily. Misty sighed as she heard his footsteps die away, letting out the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding.
Ash walked slowly along the rocky cliff-edge. The waves crashed violently against the foot of the sheer drop, angrily beating over and over. The boy was lost in thought. Disturbed, worried thoughts. Around him, scenery lay in secrecy. Everything was shrouded in a mist, it's opaline tendrils curling and reaching across the ground like fingers. Then a dark person appeared through the fog. Man or woman, boy or girl, he couldn't tell. It didn't speak. It didn't move. Suddenly a deathly coldness touched Ash. It wasn't any kind of breeze, it wasn't rain. It was simply a coldness, a terrible, sharp coldness. Ash froze, too terrified to even shiver with the cutting ache of that cold. The figure stood, watching him, an icy, intense gaze fixed on Ash's face.
"Who are you?" yelled Ash, over the howling wind that suddenly rose, whipping his jacket around his body, and stinging his pale cheeks. The person didn't reply. But it responded. It grew. It grew taller and taller, bigger and bigger, until it was a giant. Black, threatening clouds billowed and swelled up behind the giant, flashing with lightning, rumbling with great rolls of thunder.
"WHO ARE YOU?" Ash shouted again, terrified and furious at the same time. Suddenly an image flickered into his mind. A huge laboratory, filled with racks of test tubes and experiments. All the glass glinted in the light of the candles that stood in huge numbers around the work-tops, though, somehow, there were still shadows reaching from every corner, every direction. A person leant over a desk at the other end of the room. It sat still, cloaked in darkness. Yet the darkness was not thrown on the figure. It came from it, and Ash felt that darkness to be something in itself, a separate being of it's own. But Ash didn't have time to think about that. He didn't have time to search for any meaning behind the feelings that grew inside at what he saw. The image flashed in and out of Ash's brain in a split second. Then another image appeared. A girl ran along a cliff edge, her long black hair streaming out behind her in the raging wind. She ran with one hand clutched on her heart, one stretched out in front, as if reaching for something. Her face was filled with fear and sadness, as her bright blue eyes were filled with tears. Her emotion transferred directly to Ash, filling him until he was overwhelmed with the hopelessness and heartache of the girl. She staggered in her struggling strides, but ran on all the same, her gaze fixed desperately on some point far off in the distance. Her lips parted to let out a silent cry, neither sound nor echo piercing the silence of Ash's vision. The image flicked away again. Yet another appeared. Misty sat in a boat, tossed on violent waves, menacing and foam-capped. She clung desperately to the sides of the little boat, and tears streamed down her face. But she was not alone. A shadowy figure was in the boat with her. They were not far from the shore, but the ferocious waves pulled them further and further away with terrifying speed. Suddenly a huge wave hit into the boat, and Ash saw the expression on Misty's face as the force took it's toll, despite her frantic movements to get a better hold on the side of the little vessel. What happened next struck fear into Ash's heart as nothing else ever had.
That image was not completely silent. Not completely. Ash heard Misty's scream.
"Misty!" he cried out desperately. But something tugged at him from another place. His focus on the boat and the waves wavered, fuzzed…
"Ash! Ash! Wake up!" A voice finally broke clearly into the terror of Ash's nightmare. The vision fled as his eyes flicked open, and he sat up, breathing quickly. His eyes darted around the familiar waiting room of the hospital, and relief flooded him. The nurse peered into his face anxiously.
"Are you okay?" she asked. Ash nodded shortly.
"Something awful has happened!" cried the nurse, a frightening expression in her eyes. Ash's relief left him as suddenly as it had come, disappearing at the nurse's anxiety.
"What? What's happened?" demanded Ash, grabbing the woman's wrist, infected by her urgency.
"It's Misty. She's…She's…"
"WHAT?"
The nurse finally stammered it out. "Misty's gone."