Imprisoned

The first thing Zephyr noticed was that there was nothing to notice, just a great black void. He was standing in the middle of an endless expanse of darkness in which there seemed to be absolutely nothing. He pivoted slowly on the spot, trying to find something, anything at all.

And he did. Suddenly, he noticed a small white…something way off in the distance. He began to walk towards it slowly, and as he drew closer, it began to take more and more focus. Finally, when he was about ten feet away, he suddenly able to make it out, and he gasped. It was Rain.

She was just standing there, completely immobile and seemingly unaware of anything. Immediately Zephyr began to run towards her, but suddenly his body seemed to be getting heavier. And was it just him, or did it seem like the air was getting thicker, resisting him? Sooner it felt as though he was trying to run underwater with thirty-pound weights strapped to his legs. He kept trying to move forward, but it only continued to get more difficult, and as he watched, her body began to become clearer, transparent. She was fading away.

"Rain! No!" he shouted, struggling harder against the nothing that was holding him back. He was almost there. He reached out his arm, his fingers an inch from her hand…and suddenly, a thick black tentacle lashed up from the ground and snared his arm. He tried desperately to break free, tried to reach out to her as she continued to slowly vanish, but the like tendril held his arm in a grip of iron.

Suddenly, a new tentacle lashed up and snared his neck. His other hand flew to it, trying to rip it off but it was completely useless. More Tentacles were reaching up and snaring various parts of his body, binding him and pulling him down. The ground beneath him was no longer solid, but gooey and viscous, like tar. The tentacles were slowly pulling him down into this goo, and he could feel it swallowing up his legs even as he continued to thrash.

"Rain!" he called again, but she did not respond. The slime was up to his chest now and still rising. He tried to pull his leg were, but it was like wading through tar. The shadow was up to his neck. He opened his mouth to call Rain again, but instead he spluttered helplessly as the goo passed over his lips and into his mouth. It was covering his face now, seeping into his mouth and nose. He couldn't breath, and no matter how much he struggled the goo continued to slowly swallow him up. The last thing he saw before the tar covered his face completely was Rain's body, as transparent as glass and he knew that he had lost her again.

-(000)-

A thousand miles away, Rain jerked awake with a gasp of horror. She could still see the haunting image of Zephyr lying immobile and lifeless on some bed of leaves. 'Calm down,' she ordered herself. After all, it was only a dream, right? Zephyr had to be alive still. She was his mate; she would know if he were dead, right?

Finally, when her breathing seemed to return to manageable levels, she took the time to look around and get her bearings. She was lying against the wall of a fairly large crater surrounded by frail looking trees. No vegetation grew within the pit, and instead rocks of various sizes were strewn about it. The most noticeable feature of this area, though, was a large circle of water in roughly the center of the area. The puddle (or was it a lake? Rain couldn't tell) was a pale shade of blue, and though it was clean it hardly looked inviting to either enter or drink from.

"Well, well, so you're awake at last," called a voice that Rain had already learned to despise with everything she had. As she looked up, an icy glare in her eyes, Darkrai extricated himself from the ring of trees and descended slowly to rest hovering just above the surface of the water. He waved his hands around to encompass the area. "What do you think?" he asked. "Quaint, no?"

"Where am I Darkrai?" she spat, her tone thick with venom. Darkrai waggled a finger at her in the universal gesture of "naughty, naughty. Mustn't do that."

"Now, now," he said in a mock reproving tone. "Is that any way to treat your gracious host?" Rain leered at him.

"I would think so," she returned, if your gracious host also happens to be your kidnapper." Darkrai may a slight "tut tut" noise.

"My, you are a feisty one," he said. "I'm afraid that I'll have to work that out of you. Anyway, to answer your rather rudely put question, we are currently at my humble abode of Newmoon Island. It's quite lovely, isn't it?"

"What do you want with me?" she snapped, causing Darkrai to chuckle amusedly.

"Well, I suppose I could tell you," he replied, "but it's just so much more fun to keep you in the dark. I'm afraid you won't know what I have in mind for you until it's much too late."

"Well, whatever you're planning, it won't matter," she said. "Zephyr's going to come for me, and he'll rip you to shreds when he does." At this, Darkrai laughed out loud.

"Oh, come now," he said, barely suppressing his mirth. "You can't be serious. That little prick? He's dead. I killed him myself. I'm just sorry you weren't awake to see it. Your endless despair would be oh so delicious." This last word he said with relish, as though he were actually contemplating a scrumptious delicacy.

"You're wrong I know he's still alive. He'll come for me," she said, suddenly hoping that Darkrai wouldn't realize that she was saying this not only to convince him, but herself as well. The image from her nightmares had suddenly thrust itself upon her.

"Well, even if he is, there's no way he'll be able to take you away," Darkrai said, sounding completely unconcerned. "In the first place, we're on an island in the middle of the ocean at least 150 miles from the nearest major landmass. How is he supposed to get here, exactly? Secondly, even if he does somehow find a way to reach us, I'll just tear him apart as soon as he arrives. Even if you weren't awake to see it, you must have realized that the fact that you're here means that I've already defeated him once. How hard will it be to do it again?""

But Rain would not give in to despair. She had every confidence in her mate, and there was no doubt in her mind that he would come for her. If he was still alive. 'No!' she told herself firmly. 'Do not think like that. He is alive!'

"Now, eat those berries next to you," Darkrai suddenly said, turning to look away. "You're no good to me dead." Begrudgingly, Rain looked to her left to see a small pile of Sitrus berries and suddenly realized that she was indeed very hungry. Loath though she was to accept anything from this monster she knew she had to eat, so she plucked a few of them off the pile and shoved them into her mouth, trying hard not to enjoy the wonderfully sweet flavor.

"It's a pity, though," Darkrai said, and Rain looked to see that he was staring at the sky with his back still turned. Rain took the chance to quickly glance around the crater. Aha, now that might do the trick. "The eve of the new moon was last night," Darkrai went on, still not looking at her. "I'm afraid we'll have to wait out the month until the next one appears. Just one more month, and then you'll be mine forever."

Rain was now on her feet with one hand stretched in front of her, fingers glowing blue. "I'd sooner kiss a Slugma," she said before a small rock came hurtling from the side of the pit and slammed into the back of Darkrai's head. The sudden impact startled him so much that he fell out of the air and landed face down in the puddle, which was deep enough to half submerge him. He burst out of the water with a great splash, swearing an oath that would have made a sailor blush with embarrassment. He quickly spun around the see a small pile of berries lying all by its lonesome at the edge of the pit.

"You little bitch," he snarled to himself before floating into the air and into the trees. "You are going to be a handful," he called loudly, making sure she could hear him. "However, it doesn't matter what you do because you can't escape me. We're on an island, remember? There's no way you can Teleport far enough away to reach any kind of landmass. And don't get your hopes up about hitching a ride with a Water type, either. They're all too scared of me to come within four miles of this place. Face it: you're stuck here."

'Maybe I am,' Rain thought as she watched him float past the spot where she was hiding in the foliage. 'Maybe I can't get away.'

At that moment, a small pebble bumped into the side of Darkrai's head. He turned quickly and began to hover slowly toward the spot where it had flown from. So intent was he on the hunt that he didn't notice the branch that was being held back by a blue aura until it suddenly swung forward and smashed him in the face, hard. He went sailing backward and with an oof slammed into the trunk of another tree.

'But I can make your life a living hell as long as I'm here,' Rain concluded before Teleporting to the other side of the island. 'Zephyr, please be all right, and please hurry. I only have a month.'

-(000)-

More cliffhangers!