Chapter 6 – Hope
Jen opened the door for Syr and Esaax upon their arrival. The arbok slithered into the house with all the liveliness of a zombie, practically carrying Esaax.
Syr placed the listless wobbuffet on the sofa and made his way into the kitchen, realizing a beat later that Jen had followed him. Without turning, he said, "I'm about to need you and your car again. Esaax is going right back to the Haven."
"Going back?" There was a constant clicking as Jen's tiny, gray feet hopped and skittered across the linoleum. He was apparently having a very hard time holding still.
Syr sighed heavily. "We've just experienced… something difficult. I'm worried that Esaax might not be well enough to handle it."
Syr told Jen about what had happened in the alley with Faurur. He also told him about the strange aura that had appeared around Esaax before they'd gone to see her.
"They must have made some kind of mistake at the Haven. I think he's still suffering from some kind of psychic disturbance," he said.
Jen remained silent for a few moments after Syr had finished speaking. "…I think I might have an idea," he then said.
The snorunt was still pacing, meanwhile. His eyelight was unsteady. Something was clearly gnawing at him. "Are you all right?" Syr asked.
Jen gave Syr a quick glance with preoccupied eyes and swallowed hard. "I'm fine," he answered. "I think I am, anyway."
"I hope you are; I'd hate for you to get sick, too." Something else Jen had said finally clicked. " You said you had an idea?"
"About Esaax? I was thinking it might be a good idea for him to come to Hope with me tonight. I mean, that place was originally established to help people handle loss," Jen said. "Maybe the Haven alone just isn't enough."
It made sense, Syr thought. At the very least, it seemed like it was worth a try. "I think you might be on to something," he said.
Jen nodded, insofar as he could. "Maybe you should go, too. I couldn't help noticing the tears…"
Syr hadn't noticed them. He quickly turned his head. "I'd… really rather not." He forced himself to meet Jen's gaze once more. "But don't worry. I think all I need is some quiet time alone to remember. Then I'll be fine."
"Okay. I'm going to try and talk to him, if that's all right."
"Of course it is. Go ahead."
Jen fetched the nomel cookies and a cup of water and carried them to the living room and the spiritless wobbuffet therein.
Esaax was still lying on the sofa. Mentally, he couldn't have been further away. He didn't seem to notice or care that his head and arms had come to dangle over the armrest, his face steadily turning a much deeper shade of blue.
Jen placed the cookies and water on the little coffee table in front of Esaax. Esaax paid no mind.
"I brought you some refreshments," the snorunt said, but he may as well have spoken to a big, blue brick. He frowned concernedly at the wobbuffet. "You probably shouldn't be hanging upside-down like that. You might get a head rush."
He tried pushing Esaax's head back up over the armrest, but it was too large and heavy for him to hoist up. So Jen decided to take a different approach. He hopped up onto the other end of the sofa and grabbed Esaax by the pods. With a tremendous effort, Jen managed to pull the wobbuffet back up into a more proper resting position.
Jen sat down on the armrest opposite Esaax, panting as he did so. Once he caught his breath, "I heard about what happened today," he said. "I'm really sorry. I wish there was more I could do, but…"
If Esaax was listening, if he was even hearing Jen's words, he gave no indication of it.
Jen's frown deepened, but he carried on regardless. "Anyway… I was wondering if you'd like to come to the Hope Institute with me later on. The people there are very knowledgeable about the kinds of things you've been through. If you want to talk about it with them, you can. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, too. I think even just being there might help. I know it's helped me. So… do you want to come along with me tonight?"
The snorunt might as well have said nothing at all. Esaax just continued his zombielike stare into nothingness with glazed eyes and sagging lips, completely unresponsive.
Jen sighed. How in the world can I get through to him? he wondered. He stared like a bird of prey at the untouched cup of water as he mulled over this problem. As he did, the liquid began a curious transformation. It shimmered and gave a slight quiver, and then with a tiny crack, it instantly froze solid. It then began sprouting up and out of the cup, spreading out into intricate, crystalline branches as it rose.
Strangely, this tree made of ice seemed to be just what it took to coax Esaax back into the present. The moment it caught his eye, he was enthralled by it; the shapes the enchanted ice was forming were soothing and mesmerizing in an odd way.
Esaax noticed the snorunt out of the corner of his eye. Is he doing this? he wondered. Wait… is he glowing? Esaax turned his sights fully toward Jen… but it seemed that there was no glow about him after all.
Huh. Must've imagined that, Esaax thought idly. Back to the tree… pretty… Still spellbound by the moving ice, "Where'd you say this was?" he asked in a voice that was devoid of inflection.
The wobbuffet's voice snapped Jen out of his own altered state. Only then did he notice the ice tree, and he gasped in shock as he realized what had been happening. I almost let it go that time… It was getting harder and harder for him to resist the urges of a body that desperately wanted to evolve.
"Oh, um, it's called the Hope Institute. It's just on the other side of town," he said. "Are you saying you want to go?"
Esaax was wearing a smile that looked both contented and intoxicated. "Yeah," he answered, "sure…"
"All right," Jen said. "I'll go tell my dad, then." He hopped off the sofa and left the room, leaving Esaax to stare at his accidental creation. Jen wasn't so fond of that tree, given what it signified, but at least some good seemed to be coming out of it. If anyone needed a nice distraction, it was certainly Esaax.
- o -
Mid-evening, Jen's convertible pulled up to the curb across the street from the sprawling, single-story structure that was the Hope Institute. It had no identifying characteristics other than a simple wooden sign on which the word "HOPE" was painted in black unown-characters. The sign was crudely lit from beneath with a single lightbulb.
As Jen led Esaax (who was once again independently mobile, albeit still seeming a bit distracted) through the entrance, a sceptile at the door stopped and bowed in front of them.
"Blessings," she said, her tone very warm and inviting.
"Blessings to you, too," Jen replied, bowing in turn.
"Is the wobbuffet new here?" the sceptile asked.
"Yes, ma'am. He'll be welcomed, right?"
"Of course." The sceptile turned to Esaax. "Blessings," she repeated, bowing to him and offering her clawed hands, which Esaax took as he returned what seemed to be the ritual greeting in this place.
"May your spirit be ever light," the sceptile said in farewell, as Jen and Esaax left her behind and headed indoors.
Esaax followed Jen into an assembly space of some sort: a large, well-lit room whose walls were plastered with posters bearing various uplifting slogans in unown-script. Looking around, he saw a diverse collection of pokémon species gathering in this place. A few of the attendees were milling about, while others were conversing with one another in small cliques. Most of them, however, were already forming a nice and orderly audience. Standing, sitting, coiled, grounded, or perched in semi-loose rows, they all had their eyes or equivalent sensory organs trained straight forward at a presently unoccupied, scarlet-curtained stage.
Clearly something was about to take place there, and so Esaax turned his attention forward, too. It wasn't long before the stage was no longer empty.
A hitmonlee stepped out from behind the curtain, carrying a microphone and a clipboard. He scanned the audience briefly, and for a moment he looked like he was ready to speak. But then he glanced at his clipboard and gave the mouthless equivalent of a frown.
The hitmonlee turned and shouted something to someone offstage, though Esaax was too far away to hear exactly what was said. At the hitmonlee's call, an especially large glalie drifted across the stage toward him.
"Hey, Jen," Esaax said, continuing to sound only partially present. "That glalie up there… is that someone you know?"
"No," Jen said, and he sounded distinctly uneasy. "No, I don't."
"You're sure you don't? Cause he's acting like he knows you. He's looking this way right now."
Indeed he was. He'd apparently become fixated on Jen and Esaax's general location.
"…Why is he staring at us like that?" Esaax asked, nervousness beginning to break through his previously dazed tone.
The glalie hesitantly broke eye contact with Esaax and Jen as he finished his conversation with the hitmonlee. Then he went right back to giving the two of them the laser-eye. With his stare unbreaking, the glalie descended from the stage and started making his way into the audience.
"Why is he coming this way?" Esaax asked in a small, slightly panicked voice.
Jen didn't answer. He only watched the glalie approach, standing stock still all the while.
The glalie came to a halt before the two of them. "Blessings," he said.
"Blessings," Esaax and Jen returned in unison. If Jen was still uneasy around the glalie, he did an admirable job concealing it.
The glalie's gaze shifted more toward Esaax. "Pardon me," he said, "but could you come with me, please?"
"…What for?" Esaax asked uneasily. He found himself starting to shiver and wished he could stop, but his steadily building unease wouldn't let him. He was beginning to realize in earnest that he didn't really have any idea what was going on here, and the current face of his uncertainty was just too large and too close for comfort.
"I'm sorry, but this is the youth assembly," the glalie answered. "You'll want our adult group."
Esaax took another look around and finally recognized that the audience was indeed comprised entirely of children and adolescents. He looked to Jen, but the snorunt made no move to contradict the glalie.
With a nod and a vaguely affirmative noise, Esaax agreed to follow the glalie to this "adult group". But just as they were about to leave, the glalie hesitated and turned back around. He was staring again, but only at Jen this time, and the glalie looked distinctly conflicted as he did so.
However, the action terminated without explanation, the same way it had begun. The glalie abandoned whatever that pause might have led to in something of a hurry, leaving Esaax scrambling to catch up.
Esaax followed behind the glalie through corridor after corridor. He might have been more fascinated by how swiftly such a creature was able to move in spite of having no legs and looking to be very heavy if it weren't for the fact that he was growing more confused and anxious by the second.
What is this place… and why did I come here? He honestly couldn't remember. His mind offered only blankness whenever he tried to present it with those questions.
He had other questions, too: Where are we going, exactly? How big is this place, anyway? The youth assembly looked like it was about to start when we left; wouldn't the adult meeting have started by now, too? Shouldn't we already be there?
Unless that's not really where we're going… That thought was truly unsettling. What if I really am in some kind of trouble… Oh crap, am I?
Esaax almost tried seeing if the glalie would shed some light on things, but he found that asking questions to his back wasn't much easier than asking them to his face. He couldn't just stay quiet, though; as it ever did, his nervousness forbade it. Esaax finally opted to start out with small talk, hoping it would help him to bring out the more important questions and their answers more easily.
"Excuse me, uh, sir?" Esaax began tentatively.
"Hm?"
"What's your name?" Esaax asked.
"Solonn," the glalie answered, "and you?"
"I'm Esaax."
"Ah, all right, then. Pleasure to meet you, Esaax," Solonn said.
The glalie's last few words didn't quite reach Esaax. Whatever the ice tree had done to the wobbuffet's mind was continuing to dissolve at an increasing rate, replaced just as quickly by a growing, unrelenting feeling that he'd forgotten something crucially important, the sort of thing that should be utterly impossible to forget.
"I'm afraid we're already a little late," Solonn then said, "but the good news is that I know a shortcut through the building that'll keep you from missing too much more of the assembly. We'll just go right around here, and—"
Solonn halted all of a sudden, neither executing his turn nor finishing his sentence. A pair of doors to his right had just slid open unexpectedly. A second later, there emerged the most peculiar creature…
