Time to explain the rest of this strange hell world! What else will Blake and Sylvia discover about this dimension? Will the Valdette explain things to add some clarification? Hopefully, this chapter should do a good job of explaining the nature of this place, and answer any remaining questions you might have!
Also, thank you to everyone who read my story "The Heir to the Dragon". I would appreciate if you continue to read and support it in the future! You can get there through my profile!
The votes for the Elimination Round have begun to pick up, that's pretty good! Hope we can start getting them to role in! I've been very surprised by the results of this poll so far, some people are leading that I never would have expected, and some people are trailing behind who I thought would be frontrunners. Just goes to show how much things have changed since last year!
Nominated: Alcea, Ayame, Carrie, Caelia, Cynthia, Dakota, Darla, Elaina, Elizabeth, Julia, Kate, Kitty, Lila, Maddi, Marion, Nikita, Olivia, Sango, Sylvia
KedharS: Not exactly.
Aquahaze675: We'll have to find out.
Rowlets and Oshawotts: Evidently not.
JoshGamerV: Those are a lot of good theories, it seems like you've thought about this a lot. Yeah, definitely interesting to read! I wonder what you think of the explanation provided… how much did you get right? You'll have to find out.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 642
Blake stared at the Valdette hopefully. This wasn't something that he couldn't let slide so easily. "Wait, what do you mean by that? Why does the fact that Sylvia can read the tablet mean that she might be able to get through the Forest of Darkness?"
The Valdette looked troubled. She sighed, shaking her head. "…No. I was just thinking of something else. It would be easier, perhaps even a certainty, if she had come before the Traveler arrived, before the Darkness, but now…"
The Valdette glanced back at the forest, standing ominously like the countless hands of skeletons reaching out towards the sky.
"Now it may not be so simple."
"Wait, wait, you said 'before the Darkness' just now, didn't you?" Sylvia demanded, narrowing her eyes in contemplation. "And you also said 'before the Traveler arrived' too, didn't you? Does that mean that things didn't always used to be this way?"
"Yes, that is correct," the Valdette said, nodding. "You see in spite of its name, the Darkness did not begin in the Forest of Darkness. It was brought here."
"'Brought here?' What does that mean?" Sylvia asked suspiciously.
"While we do not do such things, we are aware that humans count the passage of time," the Valdette explained. "But such things are impossible here. I cannot tell you when the Traveler came to us, or the Darkness. But I do know this. Before the Traveler, the Forest of Darkness was a forest. It still called to us as it does now. Those who entered it would never return. That has not changed. We lost many to the forest. And then, from the forest, someone came back. A Valdette we did not know. Filled with such strange emotions, such strange words. More words than we ever learned. She told us of other worlds, and most importantly, of the Darkness."
Sylvia considered this. So the Traveler was the one who had informed them of the Darkness? And more significantly, while the Traveler was Valdette, she had come from another world… and the Darkness? Had the Darkness come from another world?
"Did the Traveler… bring the Darkness here with her?" Sylvia asked. The Valdette winced, and then reluctantly nodded her head.
"That is what she said, yes," the Valdette confirmed.
Valaya gasped in shock. "I never heard about that!"
"We tell the Valetty when they Feed," the Valdette calmly replied. "When they become Valdette. Valetty are not mature enough to understand."
Valaya pouted. Blake wasn't entirely sure if she was actually that mature.
"So the Traveler brought the Darkness… what happened then?" Sylvia asked.
"She told us that the Forest of Darkness was now prison to the Darkness," the Valdette replied. "That any who set foot inside would fall into Sleep, never to return. But, if left alone, it would never be able to come past the trees. As we already knew not to enter the forest, we accepted this readily. You can then assume what happened. The Traveler lived in our village, but she would continue to travel, wandering the desert. For what purpose we could not know. But she would return to us, before departing."
"And you don't really know how long ago this was, or how long the distance is between her visits, since time is so wonky here," Sylvia understood. "This Traveler certainly raises a lot of questions. It's a pity she's not here right now, I would love to ask her things."
"…Bad idea," Valaya said, glancing sheepishly at Sylvia.
"The Traveler despises humans," the Valdette coldly declared.
The confirmed a suspicion of Sylvia's. If the Traveler had been to their world, or any world with humans, as an empathy it would not take much to begin to despise the human race.
Blake was less of a misanthrope than Sylvia, so he felt compelled to ask why.
"She does not say," the Valdette replied, her tone making it clear the conversation was over. "Not even to us. We merely feel her loathing."
Blake swallowed. Oh, yeah, he was already getting bad vibes. It was a good thing the Traveler wasn't here. They needed to get gone before she came back.
"But I note you still didn't answer Blake's question," Sylvia prodded, staring suspiciously at the pair of Valdette. "I thought, at first, that the Darkness was just another part of this trap set up by this horrible place. But it sounds to me like whatever it is, it's just another prisoner. So tell me, ignoring the Darkness, what made you think that me not reading the tablet meant that I would be able to go into the forest and come back out? Or, let me rephrase the question to be more on-point. What was keeping people from coming out of that forest before the Darkness came?"
"Our mural spoke of a Cursed Spring," the Valdette said. That was in line with what Sylvia figured. And if she had to guess, the water in that spring wasn't the normal "fresh from Mt. Silver" flavor. In fact, Sylvia would bet even money that the water itself wasn't only keeping people trapped there, but it was also of what was drawing people towards the forest.
"I remember," Blake nodded. "The mural said that we had to bring the water from the spring and drink it in that circle of light, and that's how we get back."
"Yes. But it isn't that easy," the Valdette said, shaking her head. "The mural states that those who sin will be drawn to the spring in the forest, and find themselves unable to leave without purifying themselves. The water of the spring will keep them there until they are able to purge their sin and return with the water."
"That's what I thought," Sylvia said, nodding. "So it's a trap."
"What is a trap?" The Valdette asked, confused.
"This whole place," Syvlia scowled, throwing out her hands and spinning through this sand. "This world draws people in, and then traps them there. They're drawn to a spring in the forest, but before they get there, they see a mural, which tells them, assuming they can read it, that the only way to get out is by drinking the spring water in the forest. But when they get to the forest, they find that they can't leave and return to the spring."
"That's insidious," Blake said, shaking his head in shock. "It's unbelievably wicked, but what's the point? Who would create something like this place? For what purpose?"
"Why does anyone create a prison?" Sylvia sniffed, rolling her eyes. She glanced at the two Valdette, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. "To trap people they don't want around. And these two… not just them, but the Valetty and the Valdette in general, I wonder…"
"What, you think they're prisoners?" Blake asked. "I mean, I suppose that's a logical conclusion, but why would they be prisoners? What have they done?"
Sylvia glanced at Blake, a coy smile crossing her face. "…Very good question, my dear Blake," she nodded, pacing through the sand. "But I would wager that they aren't prisoners, no… perhaps they could even be considered part of the system."
"Part of the system?" Blake asked, surprised. "Wait, you mean that whoever set up this prison dimension, they put the Valetty and the Valdette there… to what? For what reason? I'm not really getting it."
"They can translate the mural," Sylvia explained. "But we're getting off-track. Whether it's coincidence or providence, you raised a very, very good question. Why would they be prisoners? Why would anyone be prisoners? Blake, do you remember our little sharing session in the desert, where we discussed the similarities and differences between the two of us, to try and determine why you had been able to read the tablet and I hadn't?"
"Yeah," Blake said, nodding.
"Since whoever can read the tablet is one of the people 'chosen' by the tablet, they're the sinners that this prison was designed to trap, and only by purifying themselves of their sin are they able to leave this permanent prison. What do you think, Blake?"
The way she phrased it, it all made sense to Blake.
"So this place isn't hell, it's more like purgatory," Blake reasoned. "We're here to purify ourselves of our sins, or whatever the tablet says are our sins, and then if we can do that, then we'll be able to escape back to our world."
"Precisely," Sylvia said, glancing at Valaya and the other Valdette. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "And I think I know just what that sin is."
The Valdette nodded. "Hunger."
Blake blinked. That hadn't been what he'd been expecting. Then again, this place was the Realm of the Ravenous. Actually, thinking back on what Sylvia had told him about the words written on the tablet, it was starting to make sense. They were sealed in this world, because… because Blake was hungry? But that didn't make any sense.
"But I'm not hungry," Blake protested. "According to you, I haven't been hungry for over two years, so why was I brought here?"
Sylvia took another step closer to the Valdette, staring her in her golden eyes.
"I think I know the answer to that," Sylvia murmured. "There have been several inconsistencies in my theory of how this reality works ever since we came to this village and met the Valetty and the Valdette. No, ever since that worm thing attacked us in the desert I should have been able to put the pieces together!"
Sylvia yelled, smacking her palm against her forehead. "God! I can't believe I was that fucking stupid to not put it together, what is the matter with me?!"
Blake didn't think "stupid" was a word that had any business being associated with Sylvia Driscoll, but he kept his mouth shut.
"It's like you were saying before," Sylvia said. "You and me, Blake, we didn't feel hungry. Or thirsty. Or lustful. All these things are things people hunger for. Things they desire. You Valdette, you feed on emotions, isn't that right? That's why you bite people, to absorb their emotions, even though you could feed on anything. When Blake and I thought you were going to eat us, you questioned why you would want to do that. Because you don't."
"Yes," the Valdette said, nodding. "It's exactly as you suspect. We do not hunger for anything but emotions. That is the nature of this world."
"This isn't a dimension where there's no hunger," Sylvia explained to Blake. "Our bodies are kept in perpetual existence, no wounds will last and kill us, we can't get tired, it's a world without time. We probably don't even need to breathe. I assumed that was the same reason why we weren't feeling hungry, but now I know that's not the case. Imagine, Blake, a world where you were hungry, always hungry, but could never die of starvation?"
Blake didn't want to think about that. Thinking about a world like that made him feel sick to his stomach.
"Your assessment of reality is sound," the Valdette said, nodding.
Sylvia flashed Blake a smirk. "You hear that, Blake? 'My assessment of reality is sound'. Dommy-Mommy, I have a Mechadoll friend I think you would just love to meet."
The Valdette blinked in confusion.
"So then why aren't we hungry?" Blake asked. "And why are they hungry?"
"Because emotions are what we hunger for most," the Valdette simply stated. Blake wasn't sure what that meant.
"Yeah, he's a little slower than me," Sylvia said, jerking her thumb at Blake. "Can you explain it to him? He hasn't figured it out yet."
"This world is built to imprison those who hunger is so overwhelming it has consumed them completely," the Valdette explained, turning to Blake. "From what the Traveler tells us, what the Guardians tell us, what our mural tells us, on other worlds, people feel hungers of countless sorts. The only ones who can read the tablet… those chosen to be sealed in here… are those who have become so desperately hungry that they are deemed sinners. A grave, overpowering hunger. They will be sealed in this world until they are able to purify themselves and overpower their hunger, and then they will be granted their freedom."
"But that makes no sense," Blake protested. "I'm not hungry! I mean, not any more than normal people. If Sango was the one who was taken here instead of me, that would make sense, but why was I brought here?!"
"Hunger comes in all forms, Blake," Sylvia said quietly. The Valdette nodded in agreement.
"The other human is correct. It is not necessarily a hunger for food that consumes you," she explained. "Any hunger that you have that is so powerful it overpowers everything else about you, to the point where it risks consuming you completely."
"And that's why I couldn't read it," Sylvia said, nodding slowly. "Because I'm the opposite. I don't allow my hunger to control me. There's nothing I want. Even a pursuit of excitement, what one might think was a hunger for stimulation… that isn't all that I am, in the end. Nor does it control me. I use that desire to guide the decisions I want to make, not the decisions that I feel compelled to make." She smirked. "Imagine, the reason I wasn't chosen was because I don't want anything badly enough."
Blake didn't understand. "There's… there's nothing like that," he protested, shaking his head. "I'm normal, I'm not consumed by my hunger."
"Isn't there?" Sylvia asked pointedly. Everything made sense now. And she knew what it was that Blake hungered for, even if he hadn't realized it himself.
"It is easy to determine," the Valdette said, shaking her head. "All those who live in this world, their other hungers are suppressed. Except for that which they desire most of all. That one, overpowering hunger." She gestured to herself and then to Valaya. "For the Valetty and Valdette, it is our hunger for the emotions of others. We feel it all the time, overpowering us. For one who hungered for food, they would find themselves perpetually starving, wandering in search of sustenance. There is something that you desire, is there not? What is it?"
Blake shook his head. He couldn't think of anything.
"Oh! I know!" Valaya said. "Can I tell him?"
Sylvia had a better idea of what to do. She was getting really tired of that dumb look on Blake's face, and was ready to make him realize the obvious.
"Are you so much of a fool?" Sylvia scowled. She stomped through the sand and grabbed him by the sides of his head. "You know what it is, you idiot! You're just not thinking deeply enough about what hunger means to you!"
"That's… I don't-!" Blake was fumbling for words, but Sylvia was having none of it.
"What is it that occupies all of your absent thoughts while you're here, Blake? What is the one thing you hunger for more than anything else, hmm?" Sylvia asked, narrowing her eyes. "Love. Friendship. The acceptance of others. That's what you hunger for so desperately, and you are reeking of it! These feelings of yours, that longing to go home, your desperate hunger for Ayame Toujou and your sister, Cynthia and Sango and aaaaall your cute little friends, that is the reason you got sucked up into that tablet, Blake, that's why we're here."
Blake couldn't believe it.
"That's insane. Do you mean to tell me that anyone who has friends is at risk of getting drawn into this place?" Blake demanded. Sylvia snickered, and shook her head. She ran her fingers down the side of Blake's face.
"No, no, my, no, weren't you listening? Overpowering hunger, Blake, so strong that it consumes everything, so strong that it threatens to become all that you are, the love others. You yearn for it so desperately that it seems the tablet has decided it's crossed the line." Sylvia suppressed a smirk, pushing off of Blake's head and flinging her arms back as she stepped away from him. "It's rather amusing, don't you think? You're sooooo desperate for those friends of yours, and that yearning to return home, to see them again, that's the very thing that's trapped you here."
"Well I'm glad you find it so amusing," Blake snarled. He didn't like the way Sylvia was talking, it sounded like she was blaming him for caring for his friends.
But… he couldn't deny that she was right. His love of his friends, his sister, his love for Aya, they had only grown since he came here.
And most terrifyingly, he knew that it spoke to a primal feeling deep down inside, from when he was young, and alone. Friends had always been something that he wanted more than anything else. And to think that because of that, he was trapped in this horrible place…
Then does that mean that I won't be able to go back home until I purify my love for my friends? Blake realized in horror. That… no, he could never do that.
"I know what you're thinking right now," Sylvia mused, stroking her chin. "You're worried that you won't be able to get back home, isn't that right? Not without purifying yourself of your love for your friends, well, you don't need to worry about that!"
She smirked, and patted him on the shoulder.
"After all, now you have me, a girl who won't be tempted by the water of that Cursed Spring, who can go there and get some without having to worry about a thing," Sylvia assured him. But Blake wasn't assured.
"What?! Sylvia, that's crazy, didn't you hear what the Valdette said? Even if you won't succumb to the water, you'll still be put to sleep," Blake said. "No, there's gotta be another method."
Sylvia's smirk widened. She shrugged off her backpack and set it down into the sand, digging through it. Finding what she was looking for, she stood upright and showed Blake a glistening piece of foil wrapping a very familiar pill.
It was the other pill from the packet, Sylvia's bizarre sleeping drug.
"Uh… are you sure that's the best thing to take?" Blake asked, not sure what exactly Sylvia was going to do with that. "That's your sleep drug, right? Well, we're trying to keep you awake, not put you to sleep even faster."
"What is that?" The Valdette asked, curiosity blossoming across her mature face, Valaya looking at the pill with the same curiosity.
"Consider it my secret weapon," Sylvia said simply. "Taking this pill will put you in a deep sleep… under normal conditions, anyway. Don't you remember what happened to you, Blake? Because I do. And I wouldn't call that anything close to sleep."
Blake remembered having a very vivid and messed-up dream. What on earth was she talking about?
"You weren't conscious, so you wouldn't know," Sylvia explained. "But rather than sleeping, it was almost like you were completely lost in your own thoughts, wandering around in a trance. I had to push you into the sand to keep you from walking off."
Blake blinked. Seriously?
"So personally, I want to see if it'll work for me. It's supposed to induce a relaxing, dreamy trance, but this world doesn't let us sleep. But something here is compelling sleep somehow. I wonder… with this pill added to the mix, putting me into a trance, what would happen?"
She flashed Blake a smile. "I'm just dying to find out."
Blake didn't think this was a very good idea. But on the other hand… he didn't have any better ideas, either.
"Trust me," Sylvia whispered.
Blake trusted her. At this point, he didn't have a choice.
Well now, this is certainly going to be interesting. While Blake waits in the village, Sylvia will head into the forest and confront the Darkness! What will she encounter in there, I wonder? Also, now that we know what the conditions for reading the tablet are... let's go back and see just who was able to read it, and ask ourselves what they "hungered" for.