Spaceworld '97
Author's Note: This fic's premise operates on the presumption of Tommy's passing, which the English-language dub went out of its way to avoid, but was more ambiguous in the original. Enjoy the story and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of the Pokémon franchise.
Summary:
The creeping noise in the cemetery…Hop. Hop. Hop. Was it the long-lost Pokémon, Kyonpan? The subject of Allister's ghost story?
Regardless of the efficacy or effectiveness of treatment, nothing took. Traditional medicine, Pokémon-influenced solutions, expensive long-shot cures…The doctors had all but given up hope that John would pull through and recover from his perplexing, inexplicable illness.
How could they not admit the difficult reality to John's parents, when the deterioration was progressing rapidly? When it was the very decline they'd witnessed in Tommy's health before John's friend's untimely demise, a mere four days before?
The best they could do was place John in end-of-life care to ensure the lead-up to his last moments was a peaceful and comfortable settling of affairs. It was a river none wished to cross, discussing "end of life" as it pertained to a child whose life was closing out so short.
What else could they do? At times, yes, doctors are miracle workers. They can fix what's been broken and save lives. But eventually, some sickness would come along. A problem they just couldn't crack in spite of all the tools and knowledge at their disposal.
An abhorrent aberration like John's ailing heart.
"How long's it been now, Allister?"
"Today's the third day since they transferred him."
Tommy had no way of knowing when death would actually occur. His was an educated guess based on the assumption that, since he and John had the same disease, the time John pegged out would fall some place similar. Therefore, John would be with Tommy soon. And they'd do what they silently said they would: leave the hospital, and look out over the big hill nearby. To a world that from their confined scope was only reachable via Corviknight. That was the world awaiting them!
He waited for his friend to die, which seemed harsh, and seemed to be taking an eternity. Technically, he hadn't gone anywhere. He was still rattling about in and outside the hospital, looking out for John, and screaming for the nurses to come if John had an emergency. Waiting for John to die, but also not ready to accept it.
Nobody could see or hear him. Nobody except the Gym Leader of Stow-on-Side. The boy named Allister, with the uncanny ability to communicate with ghosts.
"Have you considered…" Allister's soft whisper is a reedy wind among the gravestones.
"What?"
"Never mind…"
"What?"
"That you and John might be cursed?"
"Cursed?"
"The Ghost Pokémon in this cemetery have a story they tell."
"Ghost Pokémon tell ghost stories?"
"Mm. A man loses his son in a horrible accident. Overcome with pain, he cuts and ties together lengths of straw from his fields into a doll to replace the son he can't see anymore."
"OK, that's not creepy!" Tommy's voice jumped a pitch higher.
"The man takes care of this doll. He slaves day and night carrying out his departed son's final wishes, hoping the doll will talk to him, but the doll, being a doll, never utters a peep. It never shows its age, while the man's hair turns white and brittle as straw, his body growing feebler by the day."
Tommy shuddered. Look at him! A ghost scared of a little ghost story?
"Before he dies of old age, the man, realizing he's wasted his life, spits a curse toward the doll and hammers a nail through where its heart would be."
"Then what?"
"He dies. His curse is reflected back at him. The doll wasn't his son, of course. But he'd poured so much of himself, his blood, his sweat, and his tears into it, it contained his own soul. He put a nail through his own heart, and the doll transformed into a Pokémon."
"A Pokémon?"
"A Pokémon the living have forgotten. Norowara. And after leeching the man's life for years and years and years, you know what happened?"
Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar were huddled around Tommy, the four of them listening intently to Allister's wispy, will-o'-the-wispy words.
"No. What?"
"The moment of his death, Norowara absorbed the man's curse, and it evolved!" Allister wiggled his fingers spookily.
The cemetery lit up with a Pikachu's Thunder, and Tommy heard the howl of a Lycanroc.
"What did it evolve into?"
"Kyonpan. A Pokémon with a smile that makes the skin pale and cold to the touch. With fangs whiter than eyes rolled back in a person's head, that makes an unmistakable noise as it moves. Hop…hop…hop…Ready to pass on its heart-wrenching Curse!"
Tommy gulped.
"A group of monks revering the legendary Pokémon Reshiram and Zekrom arrived from the Unova region and were able to stifle Kyonpan with a talisman they stuck to its body."
Something was hopping. Hopping. Hopping…
"Here, Scorbunny, Scorbunny!" Tommy creaked his neck nervously.
"Hmhm. Tag, Tommy! You're it!"
Tommy screamed to the moon, till he recognized the hands gripped around his shoulders.
"J-John! You could have scared me to death!"
"You are dead, Tommy."
"Oh. Yeah. So…So are you."
"Yeah."
"This is Allister. He's –"
"You're a Gym Leader! I've seen you on TV!" John shook Allister's hand animatedly, scaring Allister as well.
This was too much excitement for Allister. He hid, prompting Tommy to point out to John that Allister was cripplingly shy.
"Were you waiting long?"
"I would have waited longer!"
John wobbled forward and back on the headstone he was sitting on, unfazed he was dead.
The scariest sound you can encounter in the cemetery at night isn't a Pikachu's Thunder, the howl of a Lycanroc, or the hop-hop-hop of a Kyonpan.
It's the giggle of a deceased boy, skipping with his forever friend right behind him, their slippers and runners running rat-a-tat like Rattata down the cobblestone path you're walking on.