I apologize for the huge time in between each chapter, I have a good amount of college work, and many times already have my hands full with my ADHD riddled brain.
But not to worry, I have also been taking this time to further flesh out my ideas.
I am no professional writer, after all, and this is the first time I'm attempting to write something this size.
You might have noticed that some of the chapters may get periodically edited.
Usually this is because I either have to change some of the story so that it makes more sense, or I make a spelling error or two, and only see it after the chapter goes up, which is just as painful for me as it might be for you.
There are going to be some new additions to each chapter onwards, however.
I'm gonna try to expand upon anything new you may come across, whether that be through the descriptions of certain objects, entities, or locations. The information might start out as a trickle, but trust me, by the end of the road, I'll make sure that you're all well acquainted with all the terms I'm throwing around, to the point where you could make an hour long video explaining the lore.
I'm gonna leave it at that, I might've already spoiled too much.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Guiding Light
Dreaming a Limited Catharsis
Act 2, Verse 1: A Special Kind of Hell
8 Years Ago…
New York
"All rise."
"Department 15 of the New York Criminal Court is now in session. Judge Markus now Presiding, please be seated."
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Calling the case of Alice Eisenburg versus Rebecca Millian. Are both sides ready?"
"Ready for Alice, Your Honor."
"Ready for the defense, Your Honor."
"Will the clerk please swear in the jury?"
"Will the jury please stand and raise your right hand?"
"Do each of you swear that you will fairly try the case before this court, and that you will return a true verdict according to the evidence and the instructions of the court, so help you, God? Please say "I do"."
"You may be seated."
"Your Honor and ladies and gentlemen of the jury: the defendant has been charged with the crime of not only Defamation towards Nicholas Eisenburg, but has also been charged with the involuntary manslaughter of Nicholas Eisenburg due to allegations of being indirectly responsible for him commiting suicide. The evidence will include the accounts of 3 separate witnesses. The evidence I present will prove to you that the defendant is guilty as charged."
"Your Honor and ladies and gentlemen of the jury: under the law my client is presumed innocent until proven guilty. During this trial, you will hear no real evidence against my client. You will come to know the truth: that Rebecca has been unfairly accused by Alice, with Nicholas' suicide being mere coincidental at best. Therefore my client is not guilty."
"The Prosecution is allowed to call forth its first witness."
"Thank you, your honor, I would like to call Geoff Reiner to the stand."
"Will the witness please stand to be sworn in by the bailiff?"
"Please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"Yes sir."
"Now, Mr. Reiner, is it true that during a school party on the night of August 27th, Rebecca was there with Nicky?
"Yes sir."
"Is it also true that Rebecca was not well liked at the time?"
"Yes sir."
"Would you say that Rebecca would be willing to do almost anything to become popular?"
"Well, I wouldn't say anything, but she does love popularity…"
"Now, Mr. Reiner, there have been allegations that Rebecca, in order to become more well liked, may have taken advantage of Nicky at the party in order to create a humiliating photo, which would lead to Nicholas falling into depression. Do you know if these rumors have any truth to them?"
"..."
"No more questions, your Honor."
"The Defense may now cross-examine the witness."
"Mr. Reiner, would you say that Rebecca is a good person?"
"Well, yes Ma'am. She's good at heart, regardless of how mean she can be sometimes."
"Did Rebecca love Nicholas?"
"Yes sir. She was one of the only people left that actually cared about Nicholas."
"No more questions, your Honor."
"You may step down, Mr. Reiner."
"Prosecution, you may call your second witness."
"Thanks, your Honor, I would like to call Alice Eisenburg to the stand."
"Will the witness please stand to be sworn in by the bailiff?"
"Please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"Yes sir."
"Now, Mrs. Eisenburg, would you say that Nicholas was in love with Rebecca?"
"Yes sir."
"Do you believe that Rebecca felt the same way?"
"No. I feel she was just using him."
"Explain."
"She just wanted to use him to get up in the world. She didn't see him as a person, just a stepping stone."
"No more questions, your Honor."
"The Defense may now cross-examine the witness."
"Mrs. Eisenberg, is it true that your relationship with your son was strained at the time?"
"..."
"Please answer the question, Mrs. Eisenberg."
"Objection, your Honor, this does not pertain to the case!"
"I'll allow it."
"...Yes Sir."
"No more questions, your Honor."
"Mrs. Eisenberg, you may step down."
"The Prosecution may now call forward their third witness."
"Thank you, your Honor. We would like to call Shane Whitley to the stand."
""Please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"Y-yes sir."
"Tell me, Mr. Whitley, is it true that you and Nicholas were best friends before Nicholas started dating Rebecca?"
"Yes sir, Nicky and I didn't have any other friends. We weren't well liked, mostly because we liked Pokemon, which the rest of the school saw as childish."
"I see. Is it true then, that after Rebecca and Nicholas started dating, Nicholas started to talk to you less?"
"Yeah, he said that I was getting in the way of his relationship. He was a completely different person."
"After the party, how did Nicholas refer to Rebecca?"
"He said he hated her, and that he felt completely betrayed."
"No more questions, your Honor."
"The Defense may now cross-examine the witness."
"Mr. Whitley, you said that you and Nicholas had fallen out after he had begun dating Rebecca?"
"C-correct, sir."
"When did you last talk with Nicholas?"
"On his birthday, sir."
"Really? The phone records state that you had left his call to voicemail on that day, which just so happens to be the day he committed suicide. Do you have anything to say about that?"
"I….. I.. Ah- I-"
"Your honor, this is ridiculous, Mr. Whitley is clearly unwilling to answer, and may I remind you that Mr. Whitley is diagnosed wi-"
"ORDER, ORDER. Prosecutor Derrick, that's enough out of you. Defendant Derrick, please do not pressure further."
"That is all, your Honor."
"Will the jury foreperson please stand? Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?"
"Yes, your Honor."
"On the account of defamation, we find the defendant not guilty."
"On the account of involuntary manslaughter, we also find the defendant not guilty."
"Hey, Rebecca, congrats! A pretty face like you shouldn't be rotting in jail!"
As Rebecca started walking out of the courtroom, she looked to her side to see Geoff walking towards her with a beaming smile. Rebecca responded with a false smile, trying to look as nice as possible. "Yeah… I shouldn't be rotting in jail."
Geoff, always the ladies man, failed to pick up on Rebecca's false enthusiasm, and simply slung his arm around her shoulder. "I mean, who cares about that dweeb? All he would've done is drag you down for the rest of your life. I mean, he was 16 and still liked something as childish as Pokemon? What a loser!"
As Geoff continued to guffaw, he failed to notice Rebecca's currently pale knuckles slightly starting to shake.
Ten Days Later…
Rebecca stood in her room, looking at her mirror as she tried to apply her makeup. But no matter how much she tried to steady her hand, her hand wouldn't stop shaking.
Slowly, she moved the lipstick across her lips, until her mind suddenly interrupted her.
"All he would've done is drag you down for the rest of your life."
"What a loser!"
"Not guilty."
"Guilty."
"Guilty!"
GUILTY
As Rebecca gasped and snapped back to reality, she groaned as she looked at the lipstick that had slipped across her cheek, which made her look like she had the grin of Chesire Cat. As she stared into the mirror, she mournfully looked towards the left edge of her desk, where she'd put her phone.
It would be so easy. Just three numbers, and she'd stop feeling like the scum of the Earth. They'd arrest her, she'd spend her time, and…
But what if the judge wasn't lenient? What if she spent the rest of her life rotting in prison? And even if she wasn't given a life sentence, her whole life would be over anyway; she wouldn't be able to go to college with something like 'responsible for manslaughter' on her record, and she wouldn't be able to get a degree or any high paying jobs either. Best case scenario, she'd have to spend the rest of her days working minimum wage either bagging groceries or listening to people complaining to her about how their burger didn't have any pickles.
She pushed the thought out of her mind, instead trying to focus on the exams she had coming up.
3 months later…
"Mom, I'm gonna go out for a bit, I need to gas up my car."
"Alright, Rebecca, remember your Curfew!"
"I will, Mom!"
She wasn't completely lying. Her car had been running low on gas. But she wasn't just going out to refuel her car. She had to get something off her chest, and thankfully, the local Roman Catholic Church had a solution. She wasn't Christian or in the mood for praying; if God was real, she was definitely going straight to the boiler room in Hell for everything she'd done. But what the church did have was a Confessional Booth. She'd learnt about it while she'd been searching up a way to get her guilt off her chest, apparently they had been much more popular in the middle ages. Nowadays, with so many allegations about what might be going on in some of them, the booths had long since gone out of style, so her nearby church still having one all these years later may have been some sign from whatever deity was up there.
She pulled her car up to the tiny church; she had already passed it on the way to the gas station, but her car needed to be refueled first. Thankfully, though, she'd made it just in time. She had arrived about 3 minutes before the booth officially opened, and in her eyes, she either did this now, or she might as well forever hold her peace. Once she graduated in two days and had to move to the on-campus apartment at Cornell University, she'd most likely never find this kind of opportunity again.
Granted, there was no need for her to rush, as she was the only person here at the time, besides the car that was most likely the pastor's anyway. As she left her car and walked across the sidewalk, she felt this oppressive weight on herself. Despite how small the church was, she felt it was almost looming over her as she walked towards the entrance, the windows more like dozens of eyes, each one peering into her soul and judging every blemish it was coated in.
She steadied her breathing as she walked towards the booth located near the entrance to the chapel, where behind those velvet curtains laid the stage where she could say her soliloquy, hopefully without any judgment.
She stepped into the right side of the booth, the purple cushion currently unoccupied. As she sat down and tried to get comfy, she nearly had a heart attack when the voice of a very old man suddenly spoke through the grate connecting her booth to the one next door.
"Welcome, lost lamb of God. Tell me, child, what brings you here?"
For a second, Rebecca felt something stuck in her throat, before she forced herself to speak up.
"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned."
"Confess to me, child, what weighs on your soul."
"I… hurt someone. And not in a physical way, I-I hurt them mentally, and they never really recovered from it."
"What has become of them?"
"...They… aren't with us anymore."
"I see… Do you feel any guilt, little lamb?"
"Yes. I don't know how to forgive myself. I don't know if I can forgive myself."
"Your sin is indeed a mortal one, one that weighs heavy on your soul. However, the fact that you feel guilt means that you understand that what you have done is wrong. You may not be able to forgive yourself, but perhaps God can find a way to forgive you. Pray to him for forgiveness, and the weight will be released."
"Thank you, father."
"You are welcome, my child. All of God's children are worthy of his forgiveness."
" Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen."
'All of God's children are worthy of forgiveness,' Rebecca thought as she left the church, her steps no lighter than when she walked in, and the church still staring straight into her soul.
'So why don't I feel like I'm worthy?'
4 Years Later…
Rebecca couldn't believe it.
She had just been ready to go to sleep at 10:30 PM after she'd been studying for her psychology finals when her mom had sent her a news article. Her heart had dropped as she read it:
Police Search for Missing Driver Continues
By Ophelia Porter
SYRACUSE, NY. A desperate search to find a young man who seemingly disappeared from a major car accident continues into its third day. Two nights ago, authorities arrived on the scene of a car crash near the employee parking lot for Upstate Medical Center. One of the drivers, 35-year-old Angeline Marquez, was found lying against her vehicle's airbag, which safely deployed. Authorities rushed her to the emergency department at Upstate, where she was found to have broken ribs, a concussion, and a BAC of 0.15, almost two times the legal limit. She is facing criminal charges for driving while intoxicated and possible vehicular manslaughter, pending the results of the police's ongoing investigation.
The missing driver in question has been identified by the plates on his totaled vehicle as 19-year-old Shane Whitley of Old Geddes.
Her mind reeled backward, all of her misdeeds coming back to haunt her. Ever since the trial, she'd cut off all contact with Shane. She knew that it was an incredibly cruel thing to do, and denied Shane any form of closure, but she couldn't bring herself to look him in the eyes or even talk to him, not after how much she had hurt him. She'd basically gotten away with killing his only friend, so whenever she had thought about him, it just made her feel even worse. She'd been trying to forget about the incident for years, it was something she was ashamed of.
And now Shane was gone, most likely dead at this point. It made her sick to her stomach, to the point where Rebecca was worried she'd puke. She burst out of her covers and dashed to the toilet, her insides feeling like they were being torn inside out. As she kneeled in the toilet and began dry-heaving, she started to choke on her own tears.
Why had she let things get this bad?
She had caused Nicholas to commit suicide, and now Shane's blood was on her hands as well.
And for what? A one way relationship with that self-centered jerk Geoff? Hell, now that she thought about it, the only reason she'd even put up with that asshole for this long was because she couldn't afford her dorming without asking him for money, despite the fact she worked a part time job at Subway.
She felt like shit.
She WAS shit.
She couldn't take it anymore. She needed to finally come clean.
She grabbed her phone and pulled up Snapchat. Scrolling through her contacts, she finally found Samantha.
"Rebecca, WTH are you texting me at 10 at night"
"I can't take it anymore, I have to tell someone"
"Wat"
"Remember Nicky? He was my old BF that hung himself"
"Yah, and?"
"I caused that, I really did defame him"
"But the court records said you were innocent"
"I'm not"
"I can't take it anymore, ive been lying for too long, I have to come clean"
"And what caused this kind of breakdown"
"Take a look"
"Link: Police Search for Missing Driver Continues"
"O shit, rlly"
"Damn, poor dude"
"Okay, fine, let's talk"
46 minutes of Texting Later...
"We'll go to the police station tomorrow so you can confess to the sheriff"
"Then you can finally get some closure and stop waking me up in the middle of the night."
"Ok"
"Thanks, Sam"
"Tommorow it'll all be over"
"And I can finally start letting go"
"Goodnight, Becca."
"Things will be better tomorrow"
"Trust me"
Rebecca slowly put down her phone, having been laying next to the toilet the entire time. She breathed slowly as she felt her intestines finally start to uncoil. Pushing herself to her feet, she walked over to the sink to start brushing her now puke stained mouth.
Things would finally start getting better. She was tired of lying, tired of running away from the consequences. Tomorrow, she'd finally face justice, no matter how much it would hurt.
Rebecca laid in bed that night sleeping like a baby, blissfully ignorant of the Hell on Earth tomorrow would be…
2 months later…
Aeon Town
Rebecca stared at her claws while laying on her bed, she still remembered the last day she'd been on Earth, the last day she still had opposable thumbs and hair.
She had been prepared to confess, to finally stop lying.
Apparently, she hadn't been quick enough, and now everyone she'd cared about had paid for her hesitation.
She still remembered the agony she was feeling as she was pulled apart by those golden hands, how she could feel all of her bones being reorganized over what had felt like decades.
How even her soul had been torn apart.
Things were blurry after that, with only mere ideas of what the hell she had experienced.
The insides of a monster…
A deafening heartbeat…
Her screaming being merely one in a chorus of billions…
Four different colored beings facing off against some glowing sphere…
Besides that, she honestly didn't know much else. She had a good idea what those visions meant, Shane had told her about the fight he and his friends had had with Nicky, or 'Void Necrozma', whatever that meant.
Waking up had been even worse. God, she still remembered that smell, even a rotting corpse would have smelled better. But at the time, she had been more focused on panicking about what the fuck just happened, what on Earth she had become, and where the hell she was. She had believed it was a nightmare at that point, maybe she'd tripped and hit her head, maybe all the stress of finally preparing to confess had made her faint and start hallucinating.
A punch to the gut had shut up any hopes she had that she was only dreaming nearly instantaneously. Looking back, she had deserved it at the time, insulting Shane right in front of Tessa's face. She was already confused, and at that moment, she wasn't in the mood for what she had thought was another apparition her own mind had created to try and guilt her. So she had tried to do a sarcastic snap-back, which only ended up snapping her back to the reality of her situation, that this was her new reality.
Her anguish afterwards, though? Now that was totally justified. To put it bluntly, Shane hadn't had much left to lose when he came to this world; his relationship with his parents was strained, his life was shit(In no small part to her), and he had no friends left. She, on the other hand, still had plenty of reasons left to live back on Earth: a loving family, many close friends, an upcoming Christmas party with her Grandma, a comfortable life. All of that had been chucked out the window and straight into an incinerator in mere moments.
Her family? Probably all dead.
Her friends? Also probably all dead.
The Christmas party? That had been roasted alongside the open fireball that once went under the moniker 'Earth'.
As Rebecca stared at the ceiling, she heard a knock at the door.
"What?"
"Hey Rebecca, it's me, Shane. Gallian called off your training with Celeste training today so he could go to his inauguration as the Recon Squad's new Admin. He invited everyone here, but he won't-"
"I'm not going."
"Ooookay, then… you have fun… staring at the ceiling, I guess."
As she heard Shane leave, she suddenly was knocked out of her stupor by an unsettling thought,
"Am I really going to spend the rest of my life being miserable?"
The Next Day…
"What did you say?" asked Mina, as she stared at Rebecca.
"I wanted to know if you have a spare sewing kit I could use, you know, needles, fabric, the works."
"Ooooh, yeah. I definitely have one of those!" exclaimed Mina, "But why do you want one of those, you don't need a disguise like me…"
"It's… a personal project of mine…"
Present Day
As Rebecca opened her eyes, she reached for her radio, only to find a distinctly empty space.
She promptly came to the horrifying realization that her bed wasn't underneath her, either.
Nor her room.
Nor reality.
Rebecca tried to open her mouth. However, instead of air, she suddenly felt liquid rush into it; she managed to get out a choking cough before forcing it back closed. Her lungs suddenly started burning as she felt the liquid start seeping inside. Her mind screamed for air as she began flailing in an attempt to right herself or find any form of footing.
As she held her breath, she desperately tried to search for a surface to swim towards, but as far as she could see, there was only darkness in every direction. The lack of any form of landmarks or points of reference made it almost impossible to tell which way was up and which way was down.
It didn't stay that way for long.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she suddenly could see something moving around her. It moved unlike anything she had ever seen; it neither swam nor floated, instead it moved as if it was a part of the liquid itself. And as it moved around her, Rebecca was overwhelmed with a sense of minuteness and unimportance, for it was seemingly impossibly large, taking up her entire field of view no matter where she turned towards.
Rebecca tried to figure out what this thing was, but her mind kept coming up blank. It was almost shapeless, seeming to have an almost insurmountable amount of vague shapes that mired its vast form, none of them distinct enough for her to recognize anything more than where its head might be, or where its limbs were. It looked like some form of… Frog?
As it drew closer, she was momentarily blinded as a light abruptly shined on her, the spotlight on its body opening and closing. An eye, a ginormous one at that, one that the seas on Earth would have been dwarfed by.
The shock of it made her instinctively gasp, which only worsened her desperate attempts to not drown, the liquid surrounding her once again beginning to choke her.
Rebecca gasped for air, the liquid starting to strangle out of her the precious air that she needed to survive, she suddenly felt a thought pierce her desperation and invade her head, the voice alien to her mind:
They may have found you innocent there,
But you cannot ever hide your sins here.
To lie to the Heavens is indeed a vile sin,
Such horrid illusions must always wear thin.
To kill with the rope and toss innocence away,
An unforgivable crime, without any sway.
To lust after others, to cast aside lives,
Did cut into your soul like razor sharp knives.
Your fate was decided the moment you lied,
And now you will wish you had just simply died.
The Golden Devourer may have twisted your form,
But you escaped your punishment, returning to norm.
Sparing the rod, does spoil the maid,
And now the piper must finally be paid.
You're a liar, a killer, a devil, a whore,
I condemn you to hell, to drown forevermore!
As she stared at the eye in fear, she suddenly saw a portal open below her. Her eyes went wide with fear and recognition as she saw spectral tendrils reach out from the portal before they quickly grasped her arms and legs to hold her tight. Rebecca desperately tried to fight them off; she remembered the day she had lost it all on Earth, and she was desperate not to lose everything again. She blindly flailed as more and more tendrils burst from the portal, some of them carrying tools and various objects. She felt two of the tentacles wrap around the back of her head with razor sharp claws, before her entire being was flooded with pain as they began pulling, it was like her skull was being torn apart. She could feel sharp objects being jammed into her chest, the points and edges sinking deep and impaling through skin, flesh, and bone alike. Claws scratched and tore at her skin like rabid piranhas, pinching and pulling her body like it was polymer clay.
As she opened her mouth in an attempt to scream, her chest was suddenly torn open, with the arms quickly rushing into her insides. Her scream was cut off dead before its arrival as she went limp, the trauma forcefully knocking her unconscious like the possums of Earth. The arms started grabbing at her jaw and eyes, their claws wandering across her head as they sculpted her anew.
As her mind drifted into nothingness and her began body sinking into the portal, the last thought that was burnt into her mind was that accursed eye peering into her soul…
End Scene