A Maiden's Voyage

Chapter 16: Burial

When the war first broke out, there was not much violence at first. Everyone was told to stay inside of their homes, with each side's security force awaiting an attack from the other side. It was a stalemate from the start and should've been quickly resolved. The Galactics were not absolved for starting the first rocket attacks. They were held up in Eterna when it was the Society who first drew blood in Hearthome. They managed to destroy many residential buildings and viciously killed innocent people, but did we all know? Of course, not. At this time there was much confusion among the subjects living under Society Crown. The Society operatives capitalized off of this discord and fueled hatred for any and all residents outside our borders. That's when it became total war. That is when conquering a city meant murdering all of its military personnel. That is when the pokemon were converted into weapons of mass destruction, dismantling fundamental infrastructure and economy, not to mention illegal trading and selling of stolen pokemon. The Society depicts itself as a kingdom with its king sitting atop his ironclad throne, isolated from the entirety of his reign. He leaves his peasants to live in fear and darkness, literally because the power was shut down in order to hide buildings from incoming missile attacks. He breathed words of false uncertainty to his followers, fooling them into serenity. He indirectly plants a seed of deception into each of his subjects, until their hearts burst with disillusionment; mine was almost ripped out. The human heart has no space for change when blood flows ferociously through veins of deceived warriors to their misled brains. The King would make promises for enlightened subjects, forcing them back into darkness and deeper down the line of fantasy. Money, land, protection. But the King doesn't understand that some people see through such deceptive ways. He knows that something out there know of his sin. They exist in the bushes outside his house, they are in the very ground he walks, the very air he breathes. He ponders for a minute. What is the answer to shrouding a world in darkness, when anything beyond is relentless light? How do you protect your people, but relish in your own luxury? You cannot. This is not a King, but an infection. The King decides to have people in the light destroyed so that their demise spreads his darkness. He orders for more security on the perimeter of his kingdom and to have anyone that's not within those assigned limits, annihilated quite literally. Such is the King of the Society. One can only hope that such a force doesn't exist in the world. But how can you know if you are covered in a darkness, away from the truth? How can you trust someone with your own eyes, when those eyes are not seeing the truth?

Froslass shook me awake, my vision, black, everything was nothing and nothing was everything. I rustled in the dirt, shaking decrepit bones, accomplishing little with my still badly broken arm. Froslass made sure to tug on that mangled arm and the initial pain sparked me to jump out of the ground with a sudden wince and I stood up in a world beneath the ground.

"Okay, so we're stuck in a subterranean mine and you think there's gonna be medical attention down here? We need to get back up." I looked at the darkness where I expected a floating frozen body to be.

"I can barely see, but it should be enough to guide us through this town undetected." A soft voice mumbled back to me, only a few feet away, but gradually getting quieter, farther with every word. I followed the direction of the voice and it alerted me of the wall of a house we had previously visited. I shut my eyes and concentrated on caressing my mangled limb and making sure I didn't hit anything or make any sudden noises. I am dirty. I am bruised and about ready to bury myself in the ground again, but the driving force to return to Rotom kept me going. I couldn't bare to think about leaving him alone in this vile world. Our unity cannot be broken even if we're worlds apart.

"There has to be an elevator to the surface." I whispered to the frozen pokemon.

"Yes ma'm, we just gotta find it in the dark." Froslass remarked. She paused. Then flew back to me. "Wait, I hear someone talking."

I froze where I stood, tuning in to hear the faint voices of people far away. I couldn't maintain any conversation but I could hear the voice of a man. Froslass floated away to inspect the scene, then floated back to tug on my dirtied shirt, pulling me in the direction of the voices. A small light source illuminated a part of the cave and I could begin to see the dirt mounds and shacks in front of me.

"A bonfire?" Froslass whispered in the darkness. She pulled on my shirt and we began a sloppy run through the town. She pulled me away from fences and told me where I could run around so I didn't have to climb over anything, in consideration to my arm. I weaved through backyards and poorly paved roads, peered through broken glass into dark houses and hid behind toppled fences when a voice chimed in again. We reached the brightest part of the town, which was behind a ramshackle establishment and we crept underneath the faces of the townsfolk while elusively crouching behind a fence that separated the two of us from everyone else. I stuck my head slowly up over a fence surrounding this shack of a house and peered over it. There was a fire roaring brightly with several people sitting around it, badly clothed and dirty. They were all sitting quietly until the familiar male voice started up again.

"D' you hear? Them Sioties are fortifyin up Oreburgh. " A jagged voice resonated through my ears and through the rest of the dark town.

"They think someone be up to something." A female voice piped up. "Little do they know what's happenin right beneath their feet."

"There's a lot of tension around Eterna and Hearthome, Oreburgh's just tryna survive the fallout." The raspy male voice scruffed back. "The spacemen know what to do."

"Maybe it's time you were all placed on the frontlines, mm?" A charming, alluring voice loomed from outside of the bonfire. I couldn't see the colors, but I did see the faint outline of a Galactic suit, which meant these meetings seated Galactic moderators. I looked over at Froslass indicating that no help could be gathered from these townsfolk as they worshipped these Grunts like gods.

"Maybe I should." The scruffy voice receded softly. "How many years has it been since I've seen the star shining brightly on this world? My children were born into a world without the sun, they deserve to know what the overworld smells like, what plants are, what snow is."

I saw the moderator nodding in the back of the crowd in front of the fire. He was with a group of other grunts, and stood directly behind a shack with his back to it. They watched all the people in the crowd attentively, and I was suddenly pulled on by Froslass.

"That is quite impossible." The head Grunt retorted.

"I'll do anything." Said the raspy man.

"I will hear nothing more of the matter. Your fate is with the mines. The southern mines to be precise" The Grunt held up a rifle, signalling other Grunts to show their weapons. The cave dwelling people were herded like sheep to a side of the fence, away from the impending death that the Grunts carried.

"I don't wish to use these, so don't make me, mm?" The Galactic Grunt huffed.

"Those Galactics have guns, we need to get out of here." She whispered below the crusty wooden fence. "Did you hear that? About the mine? That might be our ticket out of here."

"But where is it?" I asked her.

"Did you hear what he said before, about the Southern Mines? Maybe we should check there." Froslass began floating away, amid all the people just a fence behind us in the fire. I followed her ghostly body until I stepped on something wooden and kneeled down into the dirt, hitting my knees and almost making a loud yelping sound.

"Oh shit." Froslass said. "Are you okay?" I saw her look behind me, and made sure nobody had discovered us.

"I-I'm okay, I shivered painfully. The fast movement was intolerable to my broken arm and it sent violent pains up my entire body. With my free arm I placed my injured arm carefully on my knee and felt around the ground for the object. My hands soon found a wooden item and when I moved my hands down the cylindrical shaft, my fingers were embraced by a cool metallic surface.

"I think this might be a pickaxe?" I whispered to Froslass and heard the inaudible dialogue of the bonfire behind me.

"Can you pick it up?" She asked in the darkness.

"Um, I think."

"Good, we might have to use it." She turned around, started floating to the street in front of the dark shack. Have to use it echoed in my head. I didn't think it would have to come to that. My fingers felt around the sharp edge of the pickaxe and I grasped the wooden bar that held the tool. Still crouching, I stuck the wooden tool in my shorts, tucked my shirt underneath the metal and grabbed my broken arm with my good arm, cradling it like a precious, pale child. I stood up weakly and frantically followed Froslass.

We turned a corner around the house and scuttled into piercing darkness. The brief illumination of the bonfire began dying down the further we traveled, until we were shrouded in darkness again.

"Hey, this way." Froslass's voice guided me and I avoided running into a wall. The pickaxe bore down on me with some weight and it was harder to move around with it dangling on my side, occasionally scratching at my leg.

FLASH.

The entire cave became illuminated in bright stadium lights. My eyes were forced shut by the surprising illumination and I felt around for a wall that wasn't there to regain my composure. I cracked open my eyes a little and noticed I was right in the middle of a street. Some people were starting to walk out of their houses in tattered clothes, holding backpacks, bags, satchels, pickaxes, some were smoking, some were talking to their friends as they walked in my direction. I was frozen with fear as they approached me and I just stared at them with half-shut eyes. I felt the tears start streaming on my face and I hobbled over the side of a house and knelt down, but nobody came to my aid. I looked up and people were just walking past me in the supremely lit cave. I saw some people look over at me, but I pretended to be tying my shoes, all while ignoring the stinging pain of my arm. Then tears of pain started streaming from my face, but before I could even get up, someone pulled me off the ground and before I could even see who it was, I was astounded by their boisterous voice and unreasonably angry demeanor.

"Get your ass into that mine and start digging ya lazy slut!" A looming voice taunted me and my vision zeroed in on the smug face of a Galactic Grunt who already started walking away from me, down the street to what looked like another cavern. My arm was stinging and I just stood there crying, in the middle of a city where I wasn't welcome.

I dragged my feet along the path, following a group of adults as we all converged on the looming cave. When I stopped crying I clutched my arm in the most comfortable position possible and started thinking. Thinking, tremendously. They don't suspect me whatsoever, maybe it's the pickaxe at my side, maybe it's my tattered and ripped clothing. I actually blend in with these people. Wait where's Froslass? I haven't seen her since the lights came on. She was nowhere in sight. Looking up didn't do any good as the bright lights shone down on me from above, masking everything above the lights in an unseeable darkness. That must be why nobody could see the icy slide I had descended on. But Froslass was nowhere to be found, as far as I could tell. I continued following the people through the entire street as more of them joined us from their shacks, holding things and wandering aimlessly like I was. Once we were close enough I could see inside; Galactic Grunts ushered people into different chambers of the cave, where they began mining rocks. When it was my turn to be herded like cattle destined for the slaughterhouse, I walked all the way down to a chamber extending from the main cave entrance. I was alone in this chamber and I guess they expected me to dig crap out of the walls? I couldn't move my arm since the pain was too immense for any sort of movement, I kept walking down this chamber, hoping for some sort of exit out of this cave, out of this entire nightmare and I would just wake up in my comfortable bed at home with Rotom and maybe my dad would be there, too. Mom was there and we were all together and nothing was there to frighten me or hurt my family. There was no Society, no Galactic Empire, no Bridge, just the Ketchum household and then I saw the cliff. Then I started to hear the shouting. And then I was pulled back onto ground by a man.

"Oh my god, you better watch where you're going ma'm." The man said to my frozen, ghostly face. I stood before a cliff falling into the deep abyss, clutching my arm, frozen with fear. Death was staring up at me from the reaches of this cave and yet I had mocked it by living. Something is keeping me alive. For now, it was this docile man.

"Are you alright?" He asked me.

"I'm fine." I blurted out, blinked and started walking away. He jogged up to me.

"You sure don't look alright, your arm looks pretty beaten up. Did you fight someone?" I felt his piercing eyes on me.

"I'm okay, it's just sore." I said, avoiding his gaze.

"You better hope so, you don't wanna end up like everyone else who can't work the mines." I stopped. Then he stopped and I looked up at him. Torches on the sides of the cave, gently illuminated the face of a man a little older than I was. He looked like he was in his late twenties, early-to-mid thirties and his eyes breathed vitality out of those brown irises.

"Remind me, what happens when someone can't work the mines?" I looked at him with a touch of anguish in my voice.

"Well, from what I hear they ship you up top and fry your skin till you a pile of dust. Those bastards." He smirked then started walking away. "It's probably best you don't dig in this here chamber, this is a dumping cave, ya know for the dead."

The dead… I looked back into the darkened cave and wondered how many bodies existed there and how fortunate I was for this man.

"How'd you end up almost falling over the edge anyway miss?" He started up the conversation.

"I was deep in thought." I responded.

"Hm? What were you thinking about? If you don't mind me asking."

"My family."

There was a pause.

"Hm, you must be one of those orphaned kids, I'm really sorry, ma'm but you look pretty old so uh, I think ya can live on ya own." The man replied. I looked at him incredulously but the back of his head bore no expression as he walked and I followed behind him. I guessed the expression on his face was blank just like the rest of these people's faces. When we reached the main chamber again he directed me to a mining district and we went our separate ways.

I looked at the exit of the cave leading back to the mysterious city and I saw people putting precious stones into ragged wooden carts, some people were pushing these carts out of the caves. I immediately went for a cart, when I heard a loud clanking and some screaming. I walked up to the cart and looked back into the chambers to find out the reason for the screaming. A woman was being pulled out of the chamber by two Galactic Grunts and rushed out of the cave. She was screaming and struggling to escape their grips and I saw a trail of blood coming out of her that made it look like a murder was taking place but nobody was doing anything to stop it. I heard the whispers of two other women who pondered the cause of the incident. From what I could hear I heard the words "accident" and "peace be with her." I knew I couldn't push the cart with my mangled arm, so I pushed the cart using the side of my waist. It was surprisingly hard. I used my good arm to fetch the pickaxe at my waist and I threw it on top of the stones, making a clunking sound.

Slowly I struggled to move the cart at all as I followed a group of people with carts through the maze of streets. I looked around for Froslass and I remembered the house where we slept at from before. It was just down the street, with a badly broken fence and I just had to look for where the icy slide ended. Well it melted. So that wasn't an option. And from I could see above the stadium lights, was just emptiness.

The screaming came from way past me in some distant part of the city. I abandoned the cart and just took the pickaxe, making sure there was nobody around me. I ventured back to the house where I had previously slept behind, or at least I think this was the house. I looked around into the vacant backyards of houses near the one I was standing behind and I noticed two houses down a small hole, that was where I had slept. I ran to the mound and was immediately alerted by the bones. I had indeed slept on top of another person, but I didn't know who and I quite frankly didn't care at this point.

"Pst! Up here!" I heard a faint whisper. I straightened my head up and discovered Froslass clinging to the side of the wall near a collection of stadium lights, and she began descending down to me.

"I thought I'd lost you." I sighed a breath of relief.

"I know. But I knew staying with you was impossible as there are no signs of any pokemon here. And that made me uneasy, I don't want to find out what they would do to me if they knew I existed."

"I noticed that, too." I replied. "Maybe only the Galactics have them?"

"They have guns."

"I didn't see a lift in the mine, we are just going to have to keep searching this rotting cave." I stated. Then we both looked up as more screaming filled the cave.

"What the hell is that about?" She looked down at me.

"A woman was being pulled out of the cave. Why? I have no clue."

"We should go. C'mon." Froslass floated near the ground and looked into the street. After accepting that no people were in sight, we crossed multiple dirt yards away from the southern mines when we saw a cluster of people.

"It looks like some sort of gathering." Just as Froslass finished her thought, the same woman's screaming was heard, this time in smaller shrieks.

"Go, observe what is happening, I'll be right behind you, out of sight." She pushed my back so I would walk towards the scene.

I approached the congregation, searching for a place where I could peer into the center from. I eventually climbed atop of a hill with other people and they shuffled over to make room for me. To call what I saw disturbing is an understatement.

"You useless piece of shit!" A Galactic Grunt yelled into the face of a bleeding, defiled, nude woman in the center. In the middle of the townsfolk was a smaller ring of Galactics. They surrounded the naked woman whose face bled profusely and the shouting Grunt. She was bound by the hands to two posts coming out of the ground, her feet also tied. She shrieked in pure terror as the Grunts smoked blunts around her, while the angry, yelling Grunt stung her with a taser. Each time the voltage met her skin, it blistered, then popped, then she let out a blood-curdling moan and bled from the blister.

"What did she do?" I whispered into the mass of people around me.

Someone replied. "They found out she's pregnant." A random voice responded.

"P-please." The woman implored. This just antagonized the Grunt and he struck her harder and faster. She screamed, filling the entire cave with disturbing resonance.

"I'm sorry!" The woman stood, shivering, unclothed and bloodied in front of every person in this cave. Then, the Grunt put the taser back into his pocket and pulled out a handgun.

"No, no, no!" The woman fumbled in her restrained position, sobbing. A tear streaked down my own cheek. Relentlessly, the Grunt cocked the gun, pointed it at the belly of the nude woman and fired. She screamed, and continued to scream from pain followed by shock. Everyone just remained silent, until the Grunt shot her at point blank, in the head. Everyone calmly dispersed in all directions, which took about five minutes. Not a single word was exchanged between commoner and Galactic. The townspeople started heading back into caves and soon I could hear the clanking of metal against rock. After everyone had cleared and I was alone, I watched as Galactic Grunts unhooked the limbs and shoved the flesh into a beige body bag. They dropped it onto the ground when the murderer Grunt dismissed the onlooking Grunts. He looked around the entire field where people used to be until his eyes fell upon me. I froze. His gun mocked me from his hand, several feet away and he held it up at me.

"You, come here." He said to me. My frozen feet began to move, I held my mangled arm and shuffled across the dirt surface. As I walked I thought about the woman. She was pregnant. I didn't understand the gravity of her sin, but my eyes were focused on the gun. They were more focused on the trigger of the gun, which determined my life.

"Take this." He said pointing with his pistol. "To the Burner."

I just looked at the body and nodded my head in obedience. He looked at me dryly as I quivered. I never expected a human body to be so heavy.

"Weakling." He said, spitting on the ground.

"No, I-I'm alright." I said fearfully.

"I hate weaklings. Can't even give a dead body a proper burial." I looked and tugged at the body swallowing deeply. That's when I heard the same click of the cocked gun from before, in the ring of people where I had protection by population.

I looked around slowly to come face-to-face with the small barrel of the same gun that just murdered this innocent woman.

"Please." I whispered, softly.

"Fall."

Then a crack. And the world weeped.