"Minun!"

It was a while after that I heard the scream.

I recognized the voice immediately: Evie. I'd just started to raise myself from one of the chairs when she came, bounding through the door, and seized me tightly in her arms.

"Oh Minun! Where have you been? I've looked all around for you- I was so frantic- helped searched the fields, but you weren't there- so scared, you know? I- we noticed you were gone, and when we still hadn't found you by nightfall and- oh, you have no idea how terrified I was when I heard you'd gone to Boulder Mountain!" She gushed.

I merely nodded, my gaze wandering off aimlessly.

For a while Evie held me in her embrace, not saying a word. Then something seemed to come to her mind:

"Minun? Where's Plusle?" She asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Evie stared for a long moment. Suddenly, tears began to form in her calm blue eyes. "He's not-" she stuttered, but I merely nodded, confirming her worst thoughts, her worst nightmares. "Oh Minun...I'm so sorry...I-" She held me as she cried, streams flowing down her face, wrenched in an expression so grief-stricken I began to sob as well. It was unsettling; disturbing, even, to see cool, calm Evie so...so broken, so defeated.

There were voices nearby now. They were coming towards the door, and Evie stood up, wiping the tears from her face, trying to regain her composure.

Three Pokemon entered the house - a plusle, a pichu, and a fearow. I recognized the plusle and the pichu as Plusle's mother and father, and the old fearow, called Albert, was the village elder. Plusle's parents, who seemed equally shocked and worried, were the first to speak:

"Where is Plusle?"

Evie burst into tears again at the mention of his name. The father stepped forward, but Albert extended one of his elegant, long wings.

"So you've found little Minun," he murmured, his piercing grey eyes gentle and understanding. Evie nodded through her tears.

Albert waved aside the parents. "Perhaps it would do you some good to get some fresh air outside, if you please," he said. It wasn't a question, and reluctantly they made their way back out of the house. Albert took a second to make sure they weren't listening in from nearby, before turning to me.

"Minun, please tell me exactly what happened."

It was almost a command, though a gentle one, but I recoiled, not wanting to recount the events, not wanting to relive the horrors that had happened only yesterday, and were still raw and fresh in my mind.

"Don't worry, you're not in any trouble at all," Albert reassured me soothingly. "Take all the time you need."

It was a while before I said anything. At first all I could utter was choked sounds, but gradually my sobbing eased. My voice sounded disturbingly strange: dull, muted, and monotonous, lacking that fun sort of tone that Plusle always loved to comment about, but I forced myself to continue on. In bits and pieces, it all came out: Plusle asking me to take him to Boulder Mountain, the birthday party, the trail, and the long, tiresome climb that took us the whole afternoon.

Then came the part that I dreaded, that I feared. That I never wanted to recount, that I never wanted to relive again.

I spoke of the mysterious stone, and how Plusle seemed to be hypnotized by it. Albert seemed to nod knowingly, but didn't speak, so I went on. Through choked sobs - just thinking about it had sent grief welling up in me again - I explained as best as I could, with as many details I could manage without breaking down from the sheer, raw, painful memory.

I explained how Plusle had meant to charge himself for something ("A clever technique," Albert remarked. "He meant to blind the predator."), and how I'd replaced my Charge move with Thunderbolt to impress him for his birthday. I spoke with such bitterness that Albert raised a feathery wing to stop me.

"You can't change the past," he said soothingly. It was one of his favorite phrases that I often overheard him repeating to distraught Pokemon. "Don't feel hatred towards yourself. You had good intentions, I'm sure." He smiled slightly. "And besides, you made him happy, even if only for a moment, Minun, and you know how much Plusle loves to be happy."

I went on to describe what happened afterward. Plusle using all his stored up energy to blind the monster. Our desperate run. Plusle tripping. And, in that one moment, the one moment that mattered, I missed.

Evie burst into tears when I described Plusle's last moments. How, unable to move, he glanced off to his side, a look of chilling terror coming over his face. How, at the last moment, he chose to shove me away, saving me from the monster. How, in one vicious swipe, the monster knocked Plusle unconscious. How it'd smashed Plusle's body over and over; every roar, every glare, every bone-crushing slam full of white-hot anger that seemed to charge the air with pure hate until it almost crackled.

And how I knew at that moment that Plusle was dead.

Albert listened intently, showing little emotion. Although he tried to seem the calm, collected elder, once or twice I thought I saw a hint of tears in his eyes, as though even he couldn't bear to listen to Plusle's final moments. For a while, he didn't speak, as if he was quietly reflecting on some thought. Evie continued to sob silently, and briefly Albert raised his wing, as if to comfort her, but decided against it.

Eventually, Albert seemed to reach some sort of decision. "I shall go and fetch the parents," he said softly. He turned to leave, but then he paused, looking at me. "Minun, I want you to understand one thing," he said seriously. I nodded, although I doubted I could understand anything now. Nothing made sense anymore without Plusle.

"It was Plusle's decision to go to the mountains, Minun. It was not yours." He said. "You merely accompanied him, out of friendship and the curiosity that is mutual between you two."

For a second, I thought about what he said. A quiet anger began to rise in me as I realized what he was doing: he was trying to blame Plusle for all of it! He was trying to make it seem like it was all his fault, when it was more mine than his that he never left Boulder Mountain alive. Plusle was dead! He was gone, and all Albert wanted to do was try to find someone to blame.

Albert must have sensed my thoughts from the look on my face, because he quickly added, "Please don't misunderstand. I didn't mean to blame him, not at all. I merely meant that you shouldn't blame yourself, because neither of you could've ever known what would eventually happen.

You were two young, feisty Pokemon who were curious about anything and everything, and no amount of persuasion would've kept you away from Boulder Mountain. There simply wasn't any way to avoid it. If it hadn't been then, I can assure you it would have happened later." With that, he turned and left.

A moment's silence fell over the room, permeated with Evie's heavy sniffling. Perhaps it was because she was a vaporeon, but on the rare occasions that Evie cried, it would take hours for her to stem the gushing torrents of tears. Now, though, she seemed to have amazing control, and I soon found out why.

Barely a minute later, Albert reemerged with Plusle's parents, who seemed even more pale and worried than before. He whispered gently into their ears. Suddenly, Plusle's mother let out a loud wail, and his father gasped.

I knew then that he was telling them about how Plusle died.

It was a while before Plusle's parents calmed down enough to speak. Plusle's mother tried not to glare at me, but it was all to obvious: she blamed me for Plusle's death. Plusle's father was more reasonable: he merely shook his head, muttering about Boulder Mountain.

Finally, they departed, Plusle's mother sobbing, while his father, through his tears, merely echoed the same sentiments Albert had said earlier: "We mustn't blame them for this. Plusle and Minun were children; they are always curious. It is only natural. The only ones to blame for this is us, for not teaching them. We only warned them, we only told them to stay away. That only fueled their curiosity. Had we told them of the true nature of that monster, this tragedy would have never happened."