Chapter 3
White Maze
The hall she had just entered could just as well have been the set for a polar wasteland. Perhaps you would have to imagine the snow, but the scarily clean white walls would do the trick quite fine. All this plain white, our Pokemon couldn't understand how human nests could look like this. It looked so artificial, so devoid of colour, no nature, nothing. She had trailed past human settlements before and even though she didn't like all the unnatural things they exposed, they at least had some… how do you call it? Atmosphere, a sense of warmth and vague happiness, but this place, this place felt just like a graveyard, lifeless and threatening of what might happen if you would make a mistake.
She shivered, partly due to the low temperature in her surroundings and partly because of the eerie feeling she had. Slowly she padded along, her soft, dulled footsteps the only sound in the hallway. It was so silent, even if she had a higher sense of hearing than humans; she was still unable to catch the faintest trace of noise. Which made her wonder more. Why aren't there humans around? Their nests are usually bustling with all different sorts.
She stopped to sniff the air, her nostrils filling with the overly fresh scent of an artificial cleaner. She coughed softly, largely disliking the scent. Quickly she continued walking down what seemed an endless passage for one so small. She quickened her pace, but still careful not to run, something stopped her from running, fear perhaps, of tripping or emitting too much sound and in the end, being caught. For some reason she had the nagging feeling that this time they wouldn't let her off this easily.
While walking down the passage, she didn't pay too much attention to the occasional doors that rose besides her, they didn't feel very important to her. It was not till the end of the hallway that she started to notice them, the reason for her sudden observation being the faint voices that were coming from the distance.
At this point she had already reached the end of the hall and was forced to decide to take one of two paths. Slowly the voices were growing louder and she could hear the laughing and clicking of a pen as things were jotted down. Her body tensioned and quickly she turned a sharp right, running away from the voices, starting to sprint as she heard their footsteps coming around the corner.
Blindly she dashed around a couple of corners, losing track of how far she must've run. At least she had lost the voices, but the building started feeling more like a maze every second and at this rate, she couldn't keep running every single time a person would come. She would be tired in no time. Slowly she turned her head to the door she was leaning against, her ear pressed loosely up against the wood.
No sound, she could rest in there, for a while, until she would think of something. Luckily for her, the door was creaked open a slight bit and after a bit of adjusting the gasp, she had no problem slipping through the opening. It was dark inside, not a lot of light, but from what she could recognise was a couple of brooms, mops, a varia of other cleaning supplies and a set of vials and other liquids she didn't even attempt to guess the nature of.
A sigh of relief escaped from her, though her Pokemon nature would let the purpose of the cabinet slip by to her, she did have a feeling that no one would come in here, who would be able to live or work in such a small space anyway? Moving over to a set of mops, she settled down, nestling her body into the cloth and looking at the split where a line of light shone past the door, she had to think, think of a way to get out of here.
