Canalave was not like Jubilife.

Jubilife was neat and organized. Canalave was a loose, nearly haphazard collection of buildings bound to the canal and harbor splitting the city into two halves. I found the library on the western half.

The building was old, all refurbished, repainted wood, and split into two floors. The first floor was the same as any modern library, stocked with modern books and sporting a coffee shop in the back corner. I didn't spend much time there. I ordered coffee for myself and a biscuit for Missy, then skimmed through a Sinnoh travel guide. I'd had a general knowledge of the Sinnoh region's major cities, but I wrote down a few notes and places of interest. The second floor was the reason I was in Canalave in the first place. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with old books. Compilations of folklore and myths, old scientific journals, and chronicles of Sinnoh history. I found myself drawn to the mythology. A few stories in particular caught my attention:

The first was a description of three spirits who granted humans the virtues of Knowledge, Emotion, and Willpower before diving into three different lakes. I was somewhat familiar with this myth. Not far from Sandgem was Lake Verity, where people had reported seeing a shimmering mirage appear over the water at night.

The second, a collection of folktales about interactions between humans and Pokémon. One involved a man with a sword, who was confronted by a Pokémon when he used the sword to kill. The Pokémon, after showing the man the error of his ways, disappeared to an 'unseen place.' Another was a story of a time when humans and Pokémon ate at the same table or even married one another.

Finally, the story I found most intriguing. It began by describing the primitive universe as a swirling chaos, from which an egg tumbled. The egg hatched a being (referred to in the text as 'The Original One') who shaped the cosmos with its one thousand hands before falling into a deep slumber.

As I read, I noticed a handsome man pacing the floor of the library. He was rugged, with shaggy, burgundy hair and stubble. Dark circles ringed his eyes. He seemed out of place in a library. He was muscular, and wearing a white tank top and tan pants that were worn ragged at the cuffs.

I yawned as I closed my last book. Spending the day travelling and researching had done their damage on me. I realized I'd need somewhere to stay, unless I wanted to go all the way back to Sandgem.

The burgundy-haired man walked past me, fingers drumming anxiously on his leg. He walked past me and scanned the spines of the books on the mythology shelf with those tired eyes. I stood up to put my book back. He stood next to me, his eyes blank and gazing at nothing in particular as I placed the book where I'd found it. He wobbled on his feet, as if he were about to tip over.

"Excuse me," I said. "Are you okay?"

The man jumped and his bloodshot eyes widening. His eyelids drooped down again and he took in a deep breath and sighed, "Sorry. I'm fine. Just haven't been sleeping much. No one in my house has. We keep having nightmares. Well, the same nightmare, really..."

"Your family is having the same dream?" I asked. "Is it reoccurring?"

"It's the only thing I ever see when I close my eyes. Over and over again, something I can't see is watching me and it's slowly cornering me. I can't move. Can't do anything."

"It could be a Gastly eating your dreams. That's what it sounds like to me. Maybe a Haunter, even, if it's been this long."

"I know a thing or two about Dream Eaters," the man said. "And this ain't them." He cleared his throat. "Before this conversation goes any further, my name is Byron. I'm the Gym Leader here."

"Oh. I had no idea, sir. I didn't mean to come off as condescending—"

Byron held up a hand. "No need to throw around 'sirs' or anything like that. Just call me Byron."

"My bad. While we're at it, my name is Lucas. I'm Professor Rowan's assistant. If you've ever seen him on TV, I'm the person who's usually standing behind him and to the left."

"I knew I took you for some kind of scholarly type." He covered his mouth with his hand while he yawned.

"Well, I am in a library of my own volition…"

"Go easy on me, kid. I've been awake for forty-six hours. Anyway, back to what we were talking about. I'm not convinced this is any old Dream Eater. I think it's something a little more sinister. When I'm having the nightmare, I can't wake up from it. Normally I can just pinch myself and wake up in my bed. But the nightmares don't end until whatever's watching me decides they do."

"Hm," I said, touching a finger to my chin and looking up at the ceiling in contemplation. I nodded. "How about I try to find something on it? I research Pokémon for a living. Go home and try to unwind, and if I find anything, I'll come and tell you."

Byron smiled. Every muscle in his body (and there were many) relaxed. "Thanks, son. I'll be at the Canalave Gym if you want to find me."

"Which I can find at…?"

It took him a second to register my question, or maybe that I had even asked him a question in the first place. "Oh, yeah. I guess you're not from around here," he said, then wrote down the address and was gone.

The Canalave library was, unfortunately, mostly unhelpful. The few exorcism manuals only detailed basic methods and tricks for dispelling common ghosts—watch for the shadows moving along the floor and walls, intimidate them with a stronger Pokémon, hang a hexed tag on your doorknob—but nothing on more powerful or explicitly malevolent hauntings. The majority of Ghost Pokémon haunt humans because they're hungry, not because they want to terrorize them. While much of this information was new to me, it must not have been much use to Byron. I also decided that if he had been looking in the mythology section, of all places, he must have already read these books and found nothing. If I had looked here first, he must have as well. As I exited the library, I wracked my brain for resources I could utilize. Explanations I may have overlooked. I also considered that my eyelids were getting increasingly hard to keep open.


"I must have spent…" I shook my head lazily, "… two hours researching nightmares in there. Nothing." I supported myself by leaning my elbows on the video phone desk. The clock was pushing 12 AM, and the Pokémon Center was mostly deserted. The bright lights and the LCD screen I'd been staring at stung my eyes. I slurped some of my ice coffee through the straw, impatiently waiting for the caffeine rush. Missy was sleeping on the sofa beside me, her head nestled on one of the pillows.

On the video screen, Professor Rowan scratched his chin. Rowan was always up late, overworking and pacing the floor. I knew I could count on him being awake. "That's very strange. Ghost Pokémon don't often stalk humans at all. Let alone in their dreams."

"I know," I said. "I'm not sure what to do."

"I can ask the other professors what they know, but I can't guarantee it will be much. Or anything, for that matter."

"I would appreciate it, thanks."

"And you know, Byron and his family being unable to sleep does nothing to prevent you from going to bed."

"I'd love to," I replied, "but I want to help him. I want to at least give him some sign that I'm on the right path to figuring this thing out."

"Mhm. I see. Good luck, Lucas." The Professor hung up after that. In typical Rowan fashion, no goodbye. I'd wanted to tell him some other things about my experience so far, like the myths I'd read and the towns I'd planned on visiting next. Regardless, I shrugged it off and finished the granola bar that constituted my midnight snack, promising myself I'd eat a big breakfast in the morning. Although, at this rate, I wouldn't have been surprised if I woke up in the afternoon. After drinking the rest of my coffee, I woke Missy up and left the Pokémon Center.

The night was chilly and moonless. A flock of Wingull flew overhead as steam rose up from boats docked in the harbor. Even this late at night, when the streets were mostly vacant, the docks buzzed with sailors loading and unloading cargo. I drew stares from a few, either because of how hideously out of place I was, or because of the 83 pound Bug flying beside me. I avoided eye contact, but searched for sailors who weren't obviously in the middle of something. I reached the edge of the docks, where I found a cluster of men sitting on a concrete barrier overlooking the canal. They each had brown paper bags beside them, and were lost in their late night meals.

I approached the man furthest to the right. "Excuse me."

"Hm?" he asked from under a mouthful of sandwich. He swallowed and said, "Can I help you with something?"

"Um, yes, actually. I'm trying to help Byron with something." I stepped out of the way of a sailor carrying a wooden crate.

The sailor narrowed his eyes, his square jaw shifting. "Byron? Oh, Gym Leader Byron?"

"That's the one." I tried to make myself likeable to this man, but I felt every gesture and word of mine only further soured his impression of me. "Would you know anything about people being stalked by Pokémon in their dreams? Is that maybe something you've heard anything about?"

The sailor narrowed his eyes and looked back and forth and said, "Doesn't sound like anything I'd know about. Sorry."

"Wait a minute," said the sailor two men down from the one I was talking to. I looked in his direction to see him leaning forward. "People gettin' stalked by Pokémon in their sleep? I know a guy who might be able to point you in the right direction."

"You do?" I asked with more energy than I thought I had.

He set half of a submarine sandwich in his lap and turned, pointing a finger across the canal to a house at the opposite side's edge. "There's a fella named Eldritch, lives in that house over there. He just got off his shift. If you're quick, you can catch him before he goes to sleep. I remember him tellin' me somethin' about Pokémon nightmares at some point or another."

"Thanks a lot," I said. "Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

"Yeah, you can get that Bug away from us." I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not, but after thanking him again, I left for Eldritch's house.

Times like these, I wished Missy were strong enough to carry me. Eldritch living on the other side of the canal meant a twenty minute walk in a giant U, walking to the north end of the canal to get to cross the drawbridge, then walking all the way back down to his house. Canalave was not an easy city to navigate. The infrastructure layout plan had clearly been improvisation. Canalave was an older city, built in a time before anyone knew cities could become so large and complex. Many of the streets wound in unexpected directions. It was difficult to stay on major roads without accidentally taking detours onto dead end streets. If my destination hadn't been overlooking the canal, I might not have been able to find it.

The first floor lights were still on when I arrived at Eldritch's doorstep. I knocked on his door and waited under the yellow light emanating from the lamp above the door.

A burly man in an old t-shirt opened the door. He wasn't much taller than I was, but he still dwarfed me. "What do you want?" he asked, scratching drearily behind his ear.

"My name is Lucas. I'm Professor Rowan's assistant. I'm trying to help Byron's family, and I was told you might know something about Pokémon who trap people in nightmares."

Eldritch raised his eyebrows. "Gym Leader Byron?"

"Yes," I said, "Gym Leader Byron." I had always assumed everyone knew exactly who you were talking about when you said the name of a Leader, but I was clearly being proven wrong.

"Come in," he said, opening the door wider. "And try to be quiet. My son has school tomorrow."