Chapter Eight-Revelations
Long white halls, going on forever, never ceasing…pokemon trapped, pokemon suffering, pokemon killed. Never pokemon escaped, though, never…
"Some simply do not wish to escape, Kojau." Dark eyes blinking slowly at her, wisdom there, but hopelessness as well. "Some are bound here."
She was not bound here, though, she would escape, would surprise them all, she would…but then there were the halls again, the places, all twisted into one, couldn't escape, pain, light, burning, gone forever only to return like a bird coming back to its nest, only different, changed, not…
"Kojau! Kojau, please get up…please…"
That voice…so like she felt, so like she had been, tight with worry, not understanding…but she was in darkness, unreachable. Floating…or perhaps she was falling? Ah, well, falling was good as long as she wasn't hitting anything. She hadn't known she had such depth to her mind, so much space to fall through. But perhaps this wasn't her mind at all. Perhaps this was another mind. The Above knew it felt alien enough…
"Kojau! No, get up, you can't die, you…"
Kiete. His voice was fading away as she drifted further from it, toward that surreal place in her mind, that place outlined in soft moonglow…it had been her escape, she knew that, when she had nowhere else to go. But even that was changing, fading away. And she had to change with it in order to retain the little sense of self she had left…
And suddenly, she was back. She had been here all along physically, but she was only now back in a real sense. The void had vanished, and the tingle running from her head to her spine was stable once more, flowing calmly as if it had never…what had it done, anyway?
"Kojau!" Kiete stepped on her ear. The brief pain associated with that helped to snap her back to reality fully, and she sat up in such a swift motion that her head collided painfully with Kiete's jaw and sent him stumbling backward with a short cry of surprise.
Kojau found herself staring at a void of white as she opened her eyes. Feeling oddly detached, she blinked calmly until it gradually faded as the afterimage of looking at something bright for too long did. Eventually her vision returned to normal, the glare evaporating to be replaced by the cool of the evening. The moonlight seemed awfully dull compared to the place she had reached in her mind seconds ago...
"Ow." Kiete stood a ways behind her, flexing his jaw gingerly, fur bristled up a bit.
"Sorry." Kojau's voice came out hoarse, and she wondered if she had hurt him badly. She certainly hoped not. She did not want to be responsible for hurting others…but when had she ever hurt anyone? The vague echo of her blurry dreaming was fading away, and she was left grasping vainly after it, though she wasn't as frustrated as she usually was at these times. She was getting used to her limitations.
"It's Ok. You've got a hard head. Firra always said I had the hardest head in the world, but now I'm not so sure." He laughed weakly, though he still looked awfully shaky. Kojau didn't think she had ever seen him like this, and it disturbed her.
"You…what did…I mean…" The mightyena got stumblingly to her paws, staggering a bit. She finally found her tongue, barely managing to voice her question. "What happened?" She found herself sitting down in a motion less than graceful, feeling like a pokemon who had just been born and was trying to figure out how to walk for the first time. Very disconcerting.
The little umbreon moved cautiously toward her, then sat down slowly in front of her, rings glowing softly, sharp golden eyes looking a bit duller than Kojau remembered. "You just…you were watching the TV with me. I wanted you to, I though it would cheer you up a bit and be a fun thing to do. I didn't think it would have the sort of effect on you it did…" He looked down at his front paws for a moment, ears drooping, and let his gaze remain there as he continued. "Then, you just sort of seemed to go insane…you looked in pain. You fell on the ground and convulsed…it looked like you were going to die…" He paused, taking a moment to collect himself.
Kojau was feeling sharper and sharper as he went on. The fuzziness that had been there before cleared from her head somewhat, but with it came a feeling…a feeling that she really ought to be remembering something, something important, some feeling she had gotten right before falling into darkness.
"Anyway." Kiete stared up again, sounding a bit more sure of himself than he had been the last time. "Anyway, you were almost gone when I jumped on you and something seemed to flash in my head and then you calmed down and I've been trying to wake you up since then." He paused for a moment. "You haven't been out long, you know. Felt like an eternity to me, though. I was really worried about you. It…it would have been my fault if you would have died."
Kojau pulled herself forcefully out of her thoughts, looking down at Kiete. "Oh, it wouldn't have been your fault," she said hurriedly, pleased to hear that her voice wasn't quite so scratchy sounding anymore. "Things…things tend to happen, especially around me…" She trailed off. "At least, I think it's me. I don't think I'm exactly normal."
Kiete gave her a questioning look, seeming unable to comprehend just what she was trying to say. "You aren't normal?" He blinked those luminous golden eyes back at her. They were beginning to regain some of their spark, and glowed like jewels in his face. "What do you mean? I don't understand."
But Kojau wasn't listening to him anymore. She was staring off into the night around both of them, an odd, worried expression on her face. The neighborhood was as it had been when she had seen it last. The TV in the house wasn't on anymore, which probably meant the man had gone off to bed. No cars were coming along the road. Nothing seemed amiss. It was all quiet and peaceful…
"Kojau?" Kiete was beginning to feel a bit nervous as he caught some of the unease the mightyena was projecting. He moved a closer to her, sitting down beside her, feeling a bit safer as he did so. "What's wrong?" He shuddered as she said nothing, look of worry deepening.
"I think we ought to be heading back now, Kiete…" Kojau's voice was low and soft as she spoke at last, as if trying not to be overheard. The night around them was calm and quiet, yes…but it was a little too quiet, a little too calm...like the calm right before a storm.
Heading back?" Kiete got to his paws as she rose to hers, looking at her in askance. "I would think you would want to stay here for a bit, to get your strength back." The umbreon peered up and down the neighborhood in an almost unconscious action. His sharp senses were picking up a very odd feeling, but he couldn't quite pinpoint it.
Kojau nodded. "Yes. The night is too still. There's something odd in the air, and the regular night creatures here are sensing it and refraining from making any noises…" She trailed off as an indescribable feeling began to reach her, subtle and with an edge of danger. Eyes glazing over, she tried to focus on it, but found herself grasping at straws as it slipped away and was gone, leaving her feeling as if there was something very, very strange going on.
A breeze gusted gently in from the sea. An empty plastic bag blew across the deserted street with a rustling noise that seemed out of place. Kojau imagined some great beast breathing.
The mightyena ignored Kiete's odd looks as she peered about herself, sensing something in the air that lingered like static. Though the atmosphere was eerie and there was a somewhat dangerous feel about them, she was dead calm, almost feeling detached. Whatever happened, happened. It didn't really matter what happened to her…it had never mattered.
The quiet seemed to grow deeper as Kojau let her attention drift inward. There was something going on, something that involved her somehow, and she had a feeling that some part of her knew what it was, or at least what to do about it. It was imperative that she find out.
Kiete was beginning to wonder if that last incident had done something to his friend's head. She had a look on her face that seemed to signify that she wasn't quite there, that her mind was far from her body. He stared at her for a moment, then decided not to say anything and moved back to watch, rings flickering with uneasiness.
Kojau shifted through the limited memories she had in her mind, pulling her attention totally inward, a skill she had always had...or at least, she couldn't remember not having. She felt like crying in dismay and hopeless anger as she found nothing substantial. This was something very important that she had to find, and she knew she could find it in her mind, but it was so frustrating…
Then, she found herself quite suddenly in that odd part of her mind, that cool place of the never ending moon and the white sands that seemed the only vestige of her lost past. Her sanctuary. Perhaps she would be able to find answers here.
The feeling of something coming was thick in the air, and the night seemed to grow quieter and quieter, like a void. Kiete was feeling very frightened by now, and Kojau wasn't being at all reassuring. On the contrary, she looked frighteningly like a zombie. Her eyes were shut all the way now, and her head hung limp, her breathing so shallow that it was almost impossible to distinguish. It was as if she was only a husk with no spirit, and she could have been a lifelike puppet or stuffed animal.
The mightyena was completely in her own mind now, her trance so deep that nothing short of some sort of natural disaster would awaken her. She stood in a place where time seemed to stand still, a place of white marble pillars and long, standing pools of water spreading in their hollows. The moon, so much brighter than before, shone down on her luminously, and the stars were unblemished by a thing.
Kojau's imaginary paws left prints on the pale sands of the white desert that faded as she made them. The mightyena glimmered with an odd ethereal light, eyes shining with a soft ivory colored glow. She had hoped to find answers in this place that was here and not here at the same time…but there was no sign of life, so sign that anything would help her.
I am lost, she cried out, words stretching out into infinity and twisting away from her like a lazy breeze on a hot summer day. There is something I must remember that is crucial to the situation at hand, and I cannot. She let herself slump to the sands when nothing happened, calming herself as the innate rhythms of the earth spread through her. Her trance became complete as she stared up at the jewel that was the moon, so much closer than it had been in real life.
Kojau felt an odd feeling gradually spreading through her body as she lay there; a coolness that focused her and opened a channel through her that she hadn't known she lacked. It became more and more prominent as she focused, sense of self drifting away and leaving her open to even the slightest movement of a grain of sand, the smallest stir in the water.
We choose are fates… The whisper drifted in through her forehead, unspeakably ancient, though for some reason it did not surprise her. Her focus complete and unbreakable, Kojau yearned forward, stretching full length on the sands. The voice that was not a voice seemed to come from the earth and the endless night skies, and she could almost feel it vibrating through her body.
"Kojau…?" Kiete moved a bit closer to his friend. The umbreon looked about himself in fear. The night was dead calm, and the still air seemed like ice, ready to crack at any moment and engulf them both in chaos.
Some choices are important, and some trivial…Back in her mind, Kojau breathed deeply as the words filled her. It could have been herself who was thinking them for the way they appeared in her mind, and she could not pinpoint the source. She felt a great connection with the place around her as she listened, a safety she had felt so little of before… One thing leads to another…time goes on no matter what the world around it thinks. However, we have the power to influence it, and in choosing our fates we affect the fates of others and the world as a whole.
"Kojau!" Kiete was feeling panicky, fur bristling up. The silence was deafening, he thought, though that did not make much sense. "Kojau, we need to go…something comes!" He definitely did not want to stay now.
It is up to you what you choose to do with your life…only you can decide what will come of your actions… The words were fading away, and Kojau found herself coming out of that great harmony around her. Dismayed, she tried to grasp after it, but that only made the 'voice' blur ever more. However, if one is to see past the surface of things, see the deeper connections…then and only then can one realize that there are truly no limitations… The last whispers died away in Kojau's mind, and she found herself quite suddenly back in her body, back as if she had never left.
Kiete blinked, fur smoothing down again. The feeling of something coming that had been so thick in the air had passed right as Kojau opened her eyes. The night held no danger for them now, and the young umbreon felt hopelessly confused and frazzled.
Kojau looked dazed as the crickets began to chirp again and the night around them returned to normal. She blinked to herself, trying to grasp after the meaning of what had just happened and failing utterly. No limitations…no… She couldn't seem to understand the whole experience, and already the words she head heard in the white desert were fading from her memory as if they had never been there. The place in her mind she had been to was as familiar to her as an old friend, and yet she could not recall a time when she had actually gained knowledge from it…and she realized suddenly that she had no idea what it was at all. It certainly wasn't normal…but then, nothing was.
Pulling herself out of her thoughts, the mightyena took in her surroundings. The danger that had been present earlier had left, yes, but all was not well. There was something important…something she needed to do.
"Kojau?" Kiete's voice sounded strained. "Are you OK?"
The mightyena shook herself slightly and looked down at Kiete as if she had never seen him before. "I'm fine." Her voice was oddly strong sounding when she spoke at last, carrying a note of urgency to it that made Kiete look questioningly at her. The visit to that place in her mind had rejuvenated her if nothing else, and now she felt calm and collected, as if nothing could happen now that would bring her down. But there was still that odd feeling…
"There's something…something I need to do…" Kojau turned from the umbreon and padded a ways off down the sidewalk, tail so low it brushed the ground. She had a feeling what had just happened to her had some sort of deep, hidden meaning, but it was escaping her just now. There was something the voice in her head had been trying to tell her, she knew, to communicate to her, and it was important. Something hidden…something lurking beneath the calm surface of life that she could only guess at. And as the wind blew softly around her, caressing her body, Kojau closed her eyes and let her head empty of all thoughts, hoping answers and a direction to take would come to her.
"Let's go, Ko'." Kiete stood beside her, the tuft of fur on his head blowing over his yellow orbs in a comical motion. "Firra will be worried, and you look tired." He watched her for a moment, then brushed against her a bit as she failed to respond.
The mightyena's eyes opened slowly, a fervent light burning in them. Kiete stepped back a bit, faltering. He had never seen such a look in his friend's eyes.
"It's time…" Her voice was soft, carrying an oddly wild edge to it that sent chills down the umbreon's spine. "Time I stopped wandering through life aimlessly and without purpose. For a purpose if now before me…" She trailed off. "And I must not loose sight of it."
Kojau turned her eyes to the night sky, a new resolution lighting up her face. She slowly began to walk out toward the road going through the neighborhood, paws leaving the sidewalk and taking her to the middle of it. The moonlight silhouetted her as she stared up at the luminous white sphere hanging in the sky. The tingle in her back seemed to fill her whole being suddenly, an odd emotion singing through her chest that brought tears to her eyes and made her feel as if anything was possible at the same time. She was aware of Kiete eyeing her from the sidewalk, worry in his eyes, and felt badly for putting him through this…but she knew what she had to do now, knew where she had to go. Run, she thought. Run like the wind. And that was just what she did.
"Kojau!" Kiete cried out in dismay as his friend suddenly took a deep breath and went tearing off into the night as if hellhounds were on her heels. Her paws barely touched the ground as she headed off down the street, cutting a corner at the end and disappearing. Her path took her toward the outskirts by the sea…the place where…
Kiete's mind screamed danger. He had been continuously told not to go in the direction his friend was heading in…there was danger there, danger down by the sea, for that was the place of the abandoned human project. His little cousin had gone there once, had managed to get in, and had never returned.
But he had to watch out for his friend, right? Friends were supposed to look out for each other, and Kojau didn't seem to be herself. On the contrary, she had been acting almost possessed, as though in the grip of madness.
He couldn't go with her to that place down by the sea, though! Even humans didn't go there anymore! If it had gone out of even their control, what would it do to pokemon? Swaying with indecision, Kiete wished desperately now that he had thought to ask Firra more about that place. He had a vague hope that perhaps Kojau wasn't really going there at all, but it was a very dim one, and he was somehow grimly certain that that was where she was headed.
Kiete was running out of time to decide. He realized vaguely that he was shaking, and had never felt smaller than he did now. It was a new feeling to him, this queasiness in the pit of his stomach, this indecision.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he mumbled to himself. "Oh, Above, what am I to do…? I don't want to get hurt, but if I don't go, Kojau might…" He trailed off, preferring not to imagine what might become of Kojau.
He would never be able to forgive himself if he let her get hurt, he thought. There really was no choice here, and somewhere in the back of his mind he already knew what he was going to do. His time for dallying was up.
Kiete's paws pounded along in Kojau's tracks as he sprang forward and down the road, keen senses serving him excellently as he followed the mightyena's trail. It wasn't hard, not really, for he found much to his dread that she was indeed heading toward the outskirts by the sea, away from the busy parts of the city and toward the alleys that would lead there.
And, as he thought on the danger he had sensed earlier, he realized that Kojau wasn't running away from it at all, but toward it…
Kojau's breath rattled in her chest as she ran lightly on, having already made it across several neighborhoods. She had absolutely no idea where she was going, she reflected, and she began to feel a little bad for taking off on Kiete like that. But this was important somehow, important in ways that she could feel in her soul.
The wolf like pokemon cut across a nearby yard and found herself in an alley, very narrow and choked by weeds. Slowing down somewhat, she pushed her way through it, feeling a bit squashed and claustrophobic as she made her way through. It was a relief when she finally reached the other side.
The place she came out in was a bit depressing and powerful feeling at the same time. The buildings were ramshackle and crumbling, and chunks of mortar littered the pavement. The pavement itself was broken in multiple places by weeds and the like. Kojau wondered why the place had been abandoned, for it had obviously been deserted for a long while.
But this was not the place she was heading to. The mightyena could feel it as she strode out into the deserted square in the middle of the deteriorating buildings, the only place relatively clear of rubble. With the moon shining down on it, it looked strangely like some sort of hallowed place of legend. Kojau felt oddly subdued as she stood there, trying to see a way to go on. Eventually, her eyes found an alley between two of the buildings in front of her.
The pokemon moved cautiously toward it, feeling as if she had stepped out of a safe place as she made her way from the center square. She paused and glanced behind herself, the fur prickling up on her back. It was an eerie feeling. She could go back now, or she could choose to go on and face whatever it was she felt she needed to. Turning, she continued on again.
The next alley was even smaller than the one before, and it made Kojau feel uneasy. The buildings on either side of it looked unstable, and the slight breeze wafting through down it smelled odd. Kojau tried to see the end of it, but there was a heap of rubble blocking it that made that impossible.
Kojau wavered. There was danger here, an odd sort of danger. She sniffed. Two sorts of danger, actually. One related to the danger in the air she had felt earlier that had passed by while she was in trance. The other was…odd, to say the least.
It was a sort of peril Kojau had never sensed before, and she didn't know quite what to think of it. She could smell the sea beyond, and knew she must be very close to it. But there was a strange scent there, a scent that reeked of oil and machinery and pollution. Disgusting.
And there was something else there as well, something that she could only sense vaguely. A sort of demented presence, and she realized sharply that that was what had drawn her. It was an aura that was oddly like hers, though its overtones were of pain and fear and madness.
Well, she wasn't going to get anything done while standing here and trying to figure out the complex things she was sensing. Tensing up, she made her way into the alley, wincing and feeling a touch claustrophobic as her sides brushed against the walls. Bearing forward, she eventually found the rubble pile standing in front of her, obscuring her view of anything behind it.
Kojau peered up at it and decided that she could climb it. Backing up without hesitation, she leaped forward and caught the top of a boulder with her front paws, hoping against hope that it would bear her weight… It shifted a bit as she pulled herself up onto it, and Kojau gave an involuntary yelp of fear as it tumbled free of the rest of the boulders. She made a wild leap from it and barely managed to gain the next boulder, which gave an ominous creaking sound but did not move.
Panting in fear, Kojau tried to remind herself that the real danger lay ahead of her. She eventually managed to calm her shivering, deciding that perhaps she ought to take the time to figure out a clear path to the top. She eventually found one that looked reasonably stable after closely scrutinizing the rubble and set off again, albeit a bit more carefully this time.
Kojau managed to gain the top without further incident. Catching her breath, she looked out before her and lost it again.
A place stretched before her that was unlike any she had ever seen in her life. There was a huge, tall fence with barbed wire on the top that ringed the top ridges of a sort of one sided valley. The ground sloped down from the fence into a place that Kojau could only describe as disturbing.
It looked as though it may have been a factory once upon a time. Great buildings rose from infected earth that nothing would grow upon. The buildings themselves seemed menacing, rising like great steel beasts ready to spring upon something.
Kojau could just not comprehend how utterly dead it was, though. The ground was dull and bleached seeming, lifeless. It was like a graveyard, deserted.
And the smell…the smell was what really got to Kojau. It was a sharp, disgusting scent that made the mightyena want to barf until she got used to it. It stank of man-made disasters, of pollution and poison and things that had sank into the earth and putrefied it. Pools of lethal sludge and liquid that had refused to evaporate still stretched along parts of the ground.
The main building that stood in her line of sight had a huge hole blasted in the roof, and the darkened top floor was opened to the night sky. It looked forbidding and seemed to serve as a sign to anyone who came upon it: Go Back.
Beyond the place glittered the sea, its water casting a faint glow. Kojau found she was unable to take her characteristic comfort it this, however. She could only feel a vague sensation of danger and wrongness, as if there were even worse things out there than what she saw. Such a place wasn't meant to mar the earth. It was hell.
And Kojau had to go into it, she knew. She had to go there and find out whatever was exuding that odd aura that that reminded her so much of herself. She had to find answers.
The mightyena blinked as that familiar aura suddenly obtained the sour tinge of fear, of trying to escape something. The dangerous presence she had felt earlier made itself known in her consciousness. Both were down there somewhere.
Kojau felt the bite of fear and uncertainty in her stomach as she began to descend the rubble toward the fence to try to find a way inside. She knew vaguely that this was her last chance to go back, and she also knew that she wouldn't go back, couldn't go back, not now.
She also knew she was descending into a danger that she might not be able to get herself out of. But she had to continue on, for if she didn't see what it was that was down there that had called to her so strongly, she would never be able to face the world again…
(That was an oddly hard chapter to do. Had to go through it to change things a lot... Anyway, I'll be going on vacation sometime near the fourth of next month and will be relatively unable to access the computer until the month after that, so don't expect any updates. Thank you for the reviews!)