Persephone flopped onto the bed as soon as she was returned to her room, the impact sending the pillows up and tumbling onto the floor. So many stupid questions. And so constant the lingering feeling, in the back of her mind…
She groaned and sat up, quickly wrenched her phone from her pocket, and began to frantically tap away. She needed to get out of this box. She needed some time away— some time 'alone'. She quickly brought open her messaging app.
[6:02 PM] Percy: are you in goldenrod
She stared at her phone desperately for a full minute, just beginning to lose hope when she saw those anxiety-inducing dots appear.
[6:04 PM] Elle: Yeah. Got in two nights ago.
[6:04 PM] Elle: Are you here too?
Percy swallowed, starting to type and then pausing. It was Elle. They weren't friends, and under any other circumstance she would have balked at being the one to approach her. But she felt desperate right now.
[6:05 PM] Percy: yeah
[6:06 PM] Percy: wanna go grab food somewhere
There was an uncomfortably long delay before she finally got a reply to that one.
[6:08 PM] Elle: Like hanging out?
[6:08 PM] Percy: I guess
[6:09 PM] Elle: Sure. Been trying to get away from my aunt all day.
[6:09 PM] Elle: I know a cute place in the radio tower.
[6:10 PM] Elle: Big needle in the sky. You can see it from basically everywhere.
It was very tempting. The radio tower would be easy enough to find. She'd been there once before on a school trip a few years prior. She'd found everything about the place to be tacky. The tower had endured a terrorist attack ten years ago when the failing remnants of an organized crime syndicate raided the facility, hoping to use their equipment to issue a trans-national broadcast. The Goldenrod Police Department and a team of volunteer trainers had retaliated, rescuing the hostage staff and detaining most of the organizers.
It was the final, killing blow against the infamous Team Rocket. With too much of their leadership behind bars, the rest of the organization collapsed and vanished into the shadows. For months afterwards, stories of law enforcement raiding and clearing some former hideout of the gang were a near-weekly occurrence.
The part Persephone found tacky, however, was how the tower had benefitted from the crime and violence. Once a slowly failing business as radio went out of favor, the attack had turned it into a tourist destination, with onlookers drawn like cattle to the memories of terror and of heroism. The tower still claimed to be in the broadcast business, but Persephone knew better than that where their real money was coming from: the gift shop next to the plaques.
But somewhere amid her cynical circling, she remembered the frustrating truth: she was tethered here.
[6:12 PM] Percy: no
[6:12 PM] Percy: I cant go far
[6:13 PM] Elle: Far from where?
[6:13 PM] Percy: float sam building
[6:13 PM] Elle: ?
[6:14 PM] Percy: idk its some business park
[6:14 PM] Elle: You want to eat in a business park?
[6:14 PM] Percy: fine I guess not I guess its stupid
[6:14 PM] Elle: You don't have to be like that.
Persephone huffed. Actually, she did.
[6:15 PM] Elle: I guess we can see if there's any food carts or something like that.
[6:16 PM] Elle: I'll head over now.
[6:16 PM] Elle: Just meet me outside.
[6:17 PM] Percy: okay
With that, she slid off the bed like oil off of water and fell to the floor, forcing herself to get up from there. She slung her bag over her shoulder and took two steps into the hall before feeling the faintest tug at her chest.
She glanced down the hall of unmarked doors and fluorescent lights that spanned to her left and could sense Haedys' presence somewhere that way. Her Pokémon wasn't back yet.
Persephone swallowed and clenched her fists.
Haedys could spend some time in the room without her, when the Misdreavus was done. Persephone would be bound no longer!
Persephone had gotten just into the small parking lot when she'd started to feel it. A tugging in her chest, like she was drawing taut an invisible string around her heart. It sent a shudder down her spine and sent her frantically backpedaling until she hit a wall. And no doubt her partner was up in some lab, squeaking in protest too.
This was her limit, then. She couldn't go further than this pitiful stone's toss from the building behind her.
Or technically, she could. As far as she'd seen, separating didn't actually harm her. It was just strenuous. She could put an image to it now: imagining that photo of her tangled aura being stretched and dragged, the shattered shards of Haedys still embedded in her and tugging her back towards the Floatsam Group's building like a strained slinky.
"Hey."
Persephone tried to leap back startled, only to slam her head against the wall right behind her. And so her greeting back to Elle was a pained groan as she massaged the fresh bump on the back of her head.
The young woman watched her warily, brow raised and Vee in her arms as always.
"Guess I can add casual greetings to the list of things I've seen you get hurt doing," she muttered dryly. She paused and tilted her head. "You started keeping Misdreavus in her ball, then?"
Persephone drew a deep breath, finally letting go of her head and glowering at her acquaintance. "No. She's up there getting some tests done or something. Also, screw you."
Elle politely ignored the latter point, craning her neck up to scan the building towering over them, floor after floor. "Did you get your issue fixed, then?"
Percy shook her head. "Nope. That's why I'm stuck here," she spat vitriolically.
The tone of hate made Elle take a careful step away from Percy, even the Eevee in her arms side-eying the bitter woman. "Okay, like, not gonna touch that one, but… How far can you actually go? Cause I did pass a few food trucks on the way in here. But they're a bit over there." Elle stretched up onto her tiptoes to point over a small patch of trees, towards the opposite end of the parking lot.
The answer was definitely a no. Persephone couldn't get halfway through the parking lot without tugging. But she didn't like that answer. And it was in the same darned parking lot. This was ridiculous.
"Yeah, that's fine," she lied.
The moment she'd said it, Elle had already started speedwalking away. "Come on quick, then. I think they were heading out soon!"
Persephone started running after her on instinct, though the sudden surprise helped with what came next. That string tightened around her heart and it suddenly felt hard to breathe. Pressure built up in her head, like walls closing in on her mind.
With each step it intensified a bit more, but she forced her eyes to on their goal in sight: just as Elle had promised, there were still two trucks parked at the far end of the lot. But as soon as she'd looked at one, their shutters closed.
A lump had formed in her throat by the time she stumbled to a halt in front of the one remaining, and though she tried to catch her breath it felt strangely impossible to do so.
"Hey! You still open?" Elle shouted, finding no one inside the window. The engine still hummed however, powering the kitchen inside, and the window was swung open to reveal a small menu of cheap southwestern. Percy might have scoffed at most of it, were she not struggling just to read it.
Silence for a moment, before the rattling and clicking of something inside the truck. A large man poked his head out from behind the window, looking surprised to see anyone.
"Eh? Sorry ma'am. Was just packing up. Could maybe still throw together like, uh…" He glanced around. "…nacho plate?" He shrugged.
Vee's ears perked up at the same time both womens' shoulders sank. A silent glance at each other conveyed their mutual disappointment, and Elle instinctually glanced over her shoulder into the city proper beyond the bounds of the business park.
"How much further can you go? I passed a café like a block over," Elle offered hopefully. Vee's ears fell in disappointment.
Percy followed the other woman's gaze slowly, still somewhat stunned. Her head hurt and her chest was burning and she didn't want nachos. The correct answer was that she could go approximately fifty feet in the opposite direction. The correct answer was to concede the point.
Her nails dug into her palms and she grimaced. One freaking block. She could tolerate this for twenty minutes.
"I'm fine," she practically growled. "Let's go."
Elle blinked, eyeing Persephone skeptically. But perhaps the fact that she'd begun this encounter already growling offset anything unusual about it. Elle shrugged and started walking, oblivious to Percy's struggle.
And a struggle it was. As she got further from the Floatsam Group's building, her heartrate skyrocketed a little higher. Marching past the truck and poking around the corner, Elle's memory was confirmed. They could see the little streetside seating pen just across a street and a single block over.
A two minute walk, and yet it seemed like miles.
Step by step her blood pressure grew and her head felt heavier. Her surroundings were becoming an increasingly blank void as her defiance tightened further around a single directive to keep moving forward.
Something, somewhere in her head was trying to warn of her of something else she was forgetting. But she let that be drowned away, too.
She refused to be a prisoner. Percy wouldn't lose herself to the ghost. She was the one in control of herself here, and if she wanted to go out, she would. She muttered that mantra to herself, over and over.
The radio tower on the skyline became her beacon, her singular point of visual grounding to follow like a zombie. A tall, dark, and metallic structure that loomed over everything. It was frankly an eye-sore, made of crossing dark metal beams as if the architects had simply forgot to bother with the façade. The few faces Percy perceived as she bumped into them in her half-blind stupor watched her with a mix of horror and concern. Her pain must have been clearly visible as she stumbled dizzily down the wide, populated street.
"You look, uh…"
Persephone had started to wander right past the café, more fixated on her beacon than the actual destination. It only partially snapped her out of the sea of nothingness which was everything outside of her focus. Elle's eyes were wide with concern as she'd finally noticed, Vee still wrapped up in her arms. Even the Eevee looked concerned on Persephone's behalf, sunglasses propped up by her ears. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," Persephone snapped, quickly glancing away to hide how obviously untrue it was. Her eyes and ire turned back up to skyline. "I just… why is that thing all black, and so blocky? Tallest building in the city, they couldn't make it look any nicer?"
Elle tilted her head in concern, starting to sense that this was something more than Persephone's usual temperamental nature. "It's a radio tower. It has to be taller than everything since it's sending out a signal." She craned her neck back to stare up to its tip. "Guess it is kind of ugly, though. Probably would have torn it down, or at least sold it by now if it wasn't historical."
Persephone didn't respond, instead just continuing to glare at nothing in particular. She took a few heavy breathes. On some vague level she knew that she should respond— should do something— but her mouth was hardly working. Every bit she had in her was resisting the impulse to run back towards the darned Misdreavus.
Elle finally broke the awkward silence with a nervous suggestion. "Let's head in and uh… get you some water."
Sensing that no response was coming again, Elle shifted Vee under one arm, and a moment later Persephone felt her hand grabbing her wrist and faintly tugging. She didn't resist, letting the other woman guide her into an entryway she hadn't even perceived.
Percy only fleetingly processed the interior of the building they'd entered. Dim, orange lighting and almost-rustic wooden aesthetic tried to establish a moody atmosphere that was entirely ruined by loud, chatty people and plastic bags. People standing in a line to the counter, with a few people and Pokémon on duty.
Elle dragged her to the back of that line. Persephone tried to gauge how long it was, but trying to sweep her gaze across it just made her dizzy, so she quickly stopped.
"We'll get you some water and find somewhere to sit you down, okay?" Elle imparted with a bit of urgency.
"…fine," Persephone grunted in protest, finally making a feeble tug to free her arm from Elle's grasp. She succeed, letting her shaky arm fall to her side, but only because the other woman let go. "I'm fine."
Elle frowned, shifting her weight but making no effort to argue the point with someone who seemed barely cogent. When she responded, it was with a complete change of tone and topic.
"So how long are they going to be checking up on Misdreavus?"
Persephone drew a deep breath, vaguely annoyed at the reminder. And that sense that she was forgetting something pinged a bit harder beneath the surface. She tilted her head downwards and clutched her head with a hand, feeling as if it might burst open. "No idea," she answered flatly. "Maybe forever."
"I really doubt that," Elle asserted. "Didn't you want them to look at this? Why are you mad about it now?"
Persephone planted her free hand on the glass pastry display and shifted her weight, leaning onto it and leaving a hideous handprint. Her fingers scraped tight across the glass. "Not mad," she grunted.
Elle stared another moment before dropping Vee and flinging her arms out in dismay. The Eevee let out a yip but landed perfectly on all fours. "Okay, what's going on?" Elle demanded, voice dripping with concern. "You asked me to hang out— which was bizarre enough as is— and suddenly you're like, really messed up."
She lowered her arms and gave an apologetic look to the people Persephone assumed were around them. "I at least need to know whether I should be calling an ambulance," she continued in a gentler, more frightened tone.
Somewhere in Persephone's mind it processed that this one wasn't a question she could disregard. She drew a deep breath and trembled slightly.
"Separate," she mumbled. "It hurts… to be separate," she confessed in a shaky voice.
As Persephone's head turned towards the glass case, something else came into her limited awareness. Her own reflection in the glass, staring back at her.
And for every bit of hurt she felt in that moment, she found a renewed determination in seeing her face, and her face alone staring back.
Elle tilted her head, scooping back up the indignant Eevee that was now pushing on her kneecap. "Wait, like… emotionally, or literally, with the weird stuff you've got going on? Is that why you said you had to stay nearby?"
Persephone's wide eye twitched, the question agitating. She shoved herself off of the display case and turned to face Elle, nodding. "Literally," she growled.
"Oooookay," Elle responded, taking a careful step back from the deranged woman, as though she might abruptly bite. "Why are you separate then? Why not just wait until they're done and bring her with you?"
At that Percy glanced aside again, a conflict written on her face that she struggled to even verbalize in her own head— much less out loud. She chewed the inside of her cheek and was silent a moment before relenting.
"Because I want to be alone again for once," she answered.
She quickly regretted that though, as the question that followed was obvious:
"By… asking me to hang out?" Elle clarified. Even Vee looked visibly confused in her arms.
Persephone let out an emphatic exhale and flung her arms, accidentally knocking a bag of coffee off the sales counter that she had no idea was even around her. In a rare instance of luck it didn't splatter open on the floor, and as far as Percy was concerned it had stopped existing when it left contact with her hand.
"Alone in my HEAD!" she snapped. "I want to have my own thoughts without HER in them. And even if it's freaking KILLING ME, at least I'm dying ALONE!"
That shut her up. Elle's baffled and frustrated expression slowly faded into something far more obnoxious: dripping sympathy. Her shoulders fell and her mouth hung open, clearly uncertain how to even respond to something like that. A problem she could hardly understand, much less relate to.
Still looking sad, she said nothing. Instead she bent over to pick up what Persephone had knocked down in her flailing and returned it to the counter. She didn't turn her attention back to Percy.
"Water. Just… some cold water," Elle quickly requested, flashing an awkward smile. "Maybe a plain bagel."
For the first time Persephone pushed to take in her surroundings again, realizing they were at the front of the line. Every face around her was deeply uncomfortable. Even the Leavanny assisting behind the counter somehow looked concerned, despite their eternal grin.
"Erm… Okay…" the cashier muttered. He was still staring at Persephone like she was a wild beast. She shot him a truly murderous glare in return, which quickly made filling their order far more fascinating to him.
"I'll pay, just… sit down," Elle instructed, releasing the Eevee from her arms. Vee hit the ground and immediately tugged at Percy's pantleg to follow.
Persephone stared blankly down at the little fox. Briefly her limited cognition wondered how Vee understood this all so well. Understood what Elle was asking for. But as she started walking where the tiny fox tugged her, that consumed any mental space for the thought. She mindlessly staggered to an empty table and collapsed into a chair.
And with no objective, no conversation forcing her to engage, her mind went blank again. A blur of existence without time or any content at all, beyond that overwhelming pressure constantly threatening to crush her mind, like a stone in the ocean's depths. For all Percy could tell it might have taken Elle a minute to get their food and water, or an hour.
The sound of a wrapped, dry bagel striking the table snapped her to reality as the other woman set a bottle of water in front of her.
"Drink. And eat," Elle instructed through pursed lips. "You look like you're about to pass out."
Percy didn't have it in her to protest, and while the thought of eating was repulsive the sparkle of the water looking tantalizing. She reached out, her arm bending awkwardly to reach over the furry obstacle on her lap (when had Vee climbed up there?), and her fingers wrapped around the bottle.
She fumbled with the lid a moment before clawing it off and flinging it carelessly into the blank space behind her. She couldn't hear the protest from her neighbor as she threw her head back and poured a heavy stream of water down her gullet. Persephone practically drowned in it, crushing the bottle tighter, tighter in her grasp. Until it was suddenly ripped away from her.
Looking up, Elle had taken the bottle and was giving Percy a strange look as she set it back on the table. To Percy's great remiss, after just a single draught only a quarter remained.
"This isn't acceptable," Elle said flatly, frowning across the table. "You are like… literally dying, just to avoid being with your Pokémon."
Persephone grunted. "Better to die myself." She reached mindlessly for the water again but Elle slapped her hand away. The pain felt strangely distant.
"Pace yourself," the other woman directed, gently pulling the water away again. "And Persephone, please stop being melodramatic just this once. I'm not going to pretend I have any idea what's going on with you, but it's been a week. You're getting it checked out, alright? You only have to put up with it for a bit longer."
"And what if it can't be fixed? What if its irreversible? What if she's changed my head forever?" Persephone moaned, her arm wobbling like an Orthworm in an ineffective attempt to snake past Elle's defenses and steal the last of the water.
"Changed what, Percy? You still seem like yourself—for better or for worse," Elle couldn't resist adding dryly.
Persephone abandoned her attempt and slammed the table instead. "I can feel things changing!" she protested. "She's making me like creepy ghost stuff! Messing with my head, making me think things!"
Elle blinked, briefly confounded, and Percy used this opportunity to strike and snatch the water bottle. She quickly swallowed the rest of it in a single gulp.
"…That's what's got you torturing yourself?" Elle asked incredulously. "That's— that's perfectly normal! You're spending a lot of time around a Ghost. You're going out on travel for the first time, right? People are supposed to change? What makes you so certain this is her?"
"What else could it be?" Percy growled, haphazardly flinging the bottle aside. "You think it's some… coincidence that I become more like her as soon as she's attached to me?" She instantly began scanning the room for more water, unseeing to the staff whispering to one another and pointing at her.
Elle curled her lip. "And so what?" she replied in a hush. "Do you hate her that much? Is being a bit more like her the worst thing?"
Persephone reeled back, baring her teeth in disgust. "It's not about being like her, it's about not being me!" she snapped.
The young woman abruptly stood up, knocking her chair over as she did, and made a lunge for the refrigerated compartment near the counter. She grabbed a bottle of sparkling water and wrenched it open, not even caring about the carbonation on her tongue as she guzzled it down.
"Percy!" Elle yelled in protested, jumping up at the same moment one of the baristas moved to try and stop her. She threw them the most apologetic look possible. "We'll pay for that," she promised.
But as the fizzy water electrocuted her throat, Persephone finally started to feel a strange relief. Miraculously the tension in her chest was starting to loosen, and she was becoming vaguely aware of her surroundings again.
Oh, her surroundings.
The chair on the floor, the several pieces of a water bottle strewn throughout the shop. The other customers all staring at her in horror, as the staff looked about ready to kick her out.
A smile was slowly creeping onto her face.
She could take it all in again. Her head was clearing up. She'd just needed to tough it, was all. Power through, until the darned ghost had let her go.
Percy raised a hand to stop the staff from grabbing her, smiling smugly. "Sorry, sorry. I was sick. I'll pay for it." She turned to Elle as she pulled out her wallet to square that away. "See? It's starting to lighten up. I just… needed this. To get out some."
Elle had paused, watching Persephone skeptically. "Oh, you're just… fine now, are you?" she clarified. "All of a sudden, after drinking water? The cure to your weird magic sickness thing was hydration?"
"Maybe it—"
Percy was cut off by a sudden, frantic shrieking and the sound of people running and shouting. She turned wide-eyed towards the café entrance and her heart sank. Her mind now clear, she remembered what she'd been forgetting: this curse ran both ways.
She sensed her before she saw it: the little blob of gray and pink that darted into the café with pinprick precision and purpose. That flew right at her, crashing into her chest and embedding itself there. That nuzzled against her, crying frantically and clearly expecting to be held.
But Percy's arms never raised to comfort Haedys, and her face went flush. Her shoulders sank, and her stare became distant.
There was no escape. There was no relief from the pressure but to surrender to its demand. She couldn't even try to fight it, without dragging the ghost through hell with her. A tiny hostage, weapon forever at her metaphorical throat should Percy dare to defy.
"Miiii. Mimimiiiiii!" Haedys continued to wail, nuzzling further and further against her trainer in dismay. She was confused, and afraid, and wanted comfort.
She didn't understand what had happened. She could feel Persephone so far away all of a sudden, and it felt so awful. And now she could feel that Persephone was afraid too, and she didn't understand why and that only made things worse.
No comfort came for the frightened Pokémon. Persephone had none to offer, lost in a dissociated stupor. Only a sickening dread that she shared, willingly or not, with the already terrified Misdreavus. It wasn't the ghost's cries that finally dragged her back to reality, but the entry of two new faces into the café.
Persephone only vaguely recognized one of them, but she instantly realized who they were by their attire and their angry glares. Both in business casual, with Floatsam Group badges dangling around their necks. One was from the lab that morning with the aurascope, while the other was an older man with a shaved head that she had yet to receive the displeasure of meeting. They surrounded the table, instantly filling her with a new sort of claustrophobia.
"Who the hell told you that you could leave?" the older, and unfamiliar man hissed at her. "You made the Pokémon flip out and interrupt our tests."
Percy recoiled backwards to dodge the spittle of his hissing and snarled. "Since when do I need your permission?" Percy growled back. She shoved Haedys from her chest to make space for folding her arms. The little ghost gasped, before quickly rushing in again to try and wiggle between them.
Elle squinted at them with similar disgust. "Who are these people?"
"You need our permission since you're tied to our test subject," the younger man responded. "You're being provided full accommodations. Show a bit of gratefulness for the hospitality, why don't you?"
Haedys wriggled a bit tighter between Persephone's arms, peering warily back at the disgruntled research staff. Percy bared her teeth like an animal, before standing abruptly and scoffing. She unfolded her arms to push Haedys back out towards them, earning a betrayed squeak.
"Whatever. Just… whatever. Fine, take her. Finish your whatever. I'll come back."
Part of her wanted to bite them for the way they were talking to her. But if this was what it took to end this nightmare, to set her free…
Elle watched Persephone with worried eyes, slowly rising and lifting Vee as she did. She wrapped her arms around the Eevee defensively, as if the researchers might try to take her.
"…You sure? You don't have to go anywhere with these guys that you don't want to." Elle asked, catching Percy dead in the eyes with a serious gaze.
But Percy quickly glanced away and rubbed her arm. "Yeah, I'm sure. This is something I've got to do."
Elle was quiet a moment, as if uncertain whether she should let this happen. But her shoulders finally loosened, and she let out a sigh. "Alright. Just send me a text tonight, lemme know everything's worked out okay."
"Can we move it along?" the older man growled, tapping at his wrist. "I'd like to get off sometime today, and you've added an hour to my workload."
The younger had tried to grab Haedys, only for the ghost to dart into Persephone's hair again, undeterred by her trainer's stunned unresponsiveness. She didn't have any energy left to protest.
Persephone gave them both a dirty look, before giving an unwilling nod.
"Whatever. Let's go back," she relented.
It was fine. This was fine. Fine, fine fine. She'd stay in her room. She'd wait it out. Let them do whatever they needed to with Haedys.
Be the perfect little test subject.