The air in Lavender Town was thick with the scent of summer flowers, but it was not the sweet, soothing scent that one might expect. Instead, it was a heavy, oppressive scent, like the cloying perfume of a funeral home. The small town would have been otherwise unremarkable, if not for the massive memorial tower that was recently erected in the town's center. The Pokemon Tower was built as the Kanto region's prominent Pokemon gravesite, a monument to the powerful creatures that fought at their trainers' sides.

At first, despite the lugubrious nature of new tourism, Lavender Town citizens welcomed the chance at new sources of income and embraced the macabre, even maintaining the guise of Halloween year-round. However, the town began to have ghost sightings in the Pokémon Tower that soon extended into eerie sights around the town proper. I had never taken any stock in such rumors, dismissing them as fuel to stoke the flames of souvenir sales. That was my belief until I saw the Ghost of the Tower with my own eyes.

The new Tower was now the biggest employer in our small town. Though the population was heavily skewed towards older folks who sought a quiet town to retire in, there were a handful of younger people who needed a job closer to home and the tower provided. The Pokémon Tower is a seven-floor graveyard that holds the graves of departed Pokémon. On all seven floors, the tower houses hundreds of graves of deceased Pokémon. Due in part to the morbid tour groups, Pokemon Tower received heavy foot traffic and someone had to keep the place clean, and that someone was me.

Ironically, I was working the graveyard shift when the event occurred. I had been sweeping up on the 6th floor when I heard a hammering sound. I didn't have to search long until I found the source of the sound: a smaller than usual Cubone who was using its little bone club to hammer away at a marble grave marker. It had managed to just break off a chunk of the stone before I called out to it. The cubone's assault stopped dead in mid-strike and its skull-cover head whipped around towards me. Usually, a cubone's eyes were partially obscured by the skulls that they wore but this one's eyes were in full view. This was not the teary-eyed stare that I had expected. Instead, two yellow glowing eyes fixed upon me and its mouth slowly stretched into a wicked, impossibly wide smile that should have dislocated its jaw.

I made to run away but was anchored in place by some invisible force. I strained against my bonds as the "cubone" began to rise from the floor and float slowly towards me. The seconds felt like hours as it closed the distance between us until it was its face was within inches of mine. I tried so hard to shut my eyes but even that was now outside of my power. I could not bring myself to look into its glowing eyes and opted for the floor but it was so close to me. So close that I was able to now see that the jaw was indeed broken as its fangs were cracked and the bone was visible through the soft palate of its mouth.

The "cubone" just hovered there, breathing its putrid, foul breath into my face and I could feel no warmth from its breathing.

Look in my eyes! The harsh voice did not come from the distended maw of the creature but echoed in my mind so sharply that despite myself, my eyes snapped up to stare into the other-worldly glowing eyes. What I saw surprised me, despite its smile, its eyes were portals. Portals through which a mournful pain now flowed like a river into my heart. I saw a small cubone, alive, desperately fighting against a Granbull, an opponent thrice its size, and being goaded on by some unknown child. I felt its last echoes of pain as the final blow was struck, breaking the cubone's jaw, and it never rose again.

As the scene faded, the glowing eyes were now streaked with tears and my tears came unbidded. I couldn't speak but I wished desperately to say some words of comfort to the cubone. My intent seemed to be understood and I was released from the chains that held me. The spirit turned away from me and returned to its work destroying the grave marker. I simply left my broom behind and spent the night huddled in the first-floor greeting area with the hum of an old radio for company. When daylight came, I left a letter with my resignation on the desk and never returned to the Pokemon Tower.