HOW IT FEELS TO DISAPPEAR: DESCENT

WARNINGS: Glitched/Disturbing Imagery

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[Is something wrong?]

Your mind begins to race with scared and frustrated thoughts. Despite your bubbling anger, though, you try desperately to rationalize his apathetic behavior to yourself.

It’s exactly the same as things have always been, after all. So rarely do you see him speak or emote… You’d always known your brother to be flat-faced like this, even at the worst of times…

Still, is it selfish to wish this would break through that cold exterior- that your suffering would warrant that icy demeanor melting a bit, if only to try and comfort you? Just like you’ve tried to protect and comfort him, since the very day you’d met? Is it so much to ask for just a little effort in return?!-

No. Wait. Stop.

The last thing you should do right now is to let your temper turn you against someone you love.

Deep breaths. Calm down.

… This must be getting to him too, you decide. People like that only enforce their walls harder when under stress. So if he can’t even begin to open up, then…

“… Is something wrong?” you ask tentatively, sweetening and softening your voice to the loveliest little tone you can muster. You need to let him know that you care. That must be what he needs right now. You can’t let yourself begin to assume anything else of him. He’s… He’s better than that. Right?

You watch the boy blink slowly, seeming to finally focus in on you instead of the wall behind you. His dull brown gaze is unwavering as always… Those eyes were always so striking, almost hypnotic- an ethereal kind of light that shone behind a dirty color that teetered closer to gray than anything natural.

Red reaches his hands up, slowly- the motion almost seems hesitant, but you’re unsure if that’s really it, or if you’re just making up hopeful reasons for his always-robotic and methodical motions. These slow and deliberate movements were just how he was.

The gloved hands come to rest on your shoulders, and you feel his hold tighten, with something like an underlying intensity lacing the grip. He leans down slightly, meeting your eyes.

“Leaf,” he whispers.

You can’t remember if you’ve ever, even once, heard a single word spill from those lips. It floods your mind- clouds your thoughts. You’re compelled to listen to everything he has to say. The words of a boy sworn to silence are worth more than gold.

“Do you trust me?”

Of course you do. Forever, always. As family must trust family. You nod quickly, feeling your chest tighten.

“Good,” he breathes, closing his eyes.

“… You have to keep going, Leaf… it’s for the best.”

He opens them again, managing a small smile. Like light running through you, his eyes, his smile- they soothe you, and bolster you with a new strength to power ahead.

The thought fills you, empowers you, floods your every thought- you do trust him, you’d trust him with your life. And if he says so, if the only way out is through, then…

You can’t stop here.

… His expression falls back into blankness and he averts his gaze, uttering his final words, so quiet that you barely hear him…

“… For everyone.”

With his few, rare words finished, he steps back, turning his empty gaze back to the window. Even while ending your brief exchange just as distant as he started… You aren’t upset, not anymore. You feel a bit warmer, now. Stronger. Focused. Ready.

“I’ll be home soon,” you promise him, before turning, clinging to the strap of your bag. Red doesn’t even so much as flinch, but… It’s okay.

Everyone copes in their own ways, you justify again.

Always, always justifying…

But it’s okay. It’s always okay.

You trust your brother more than anyone else.

You walk around the table in the middle of Mr. Fuji’s home, the new sense of focus driving you onward and to the door. Eevee still cowers in its bag, but… You’ll both be safe once this is over. This is the best thing you could do for it. Whatever it takes to make this nightmare end.

In the moment your hand comes to rest on the doorknob, before you can properly leave, one last thing stops you- a young boy’s voice, calling out-

“Y'know…”

You hesitate briefly, before turning to look at the Bug Catcher, narrowing your eyes quizzically. He just smiles, resting his chin on one hand.

“The ghosts can’t usually get in here,” he continues. His emerald eyes flicker towards something behind him- towards Red?- before he returns his attention to his Pokemon yet again, seemingly more bemused than anything.

“I wonder why that is.”

… You huff. It’s all nonsense to you. Is he trying to be funny? Cryptic? Looking to get under your skin like all the little bug-catching boys back home?

He’s not worth the attention, you think to yourself. You don’t have time for this- you’ve got things to do.

You swing the door open, ready to keep moving. Time to get on with your day.

Time to get this over with.

As you step out, you quickly find yourself disoriented. Rather than the damp air, grass, and stone walkways you’d anticipated, you’re inside, somewhere. It’s hard to say- you can recognize that you’re surrounded by hard flooring and walls, the structure of the room reminding you of… a lobby, maybe?

Somehow, though, unlike the other places you’ve been inside of, the fog has followed you in here. Everything in this room, from walls to floors to decorations, is obscured by it, no more than silhouettes and shadows in your eyes.

It’s familiar, though. You can’t deny that, no matter how badly you want to shrug away the feeling of unease that nestles within you from the thought.

You’re better than running around frantically, though- this entire time you’ve felt as frantic as a Torchic with its head chopped off, but not anymore. No, you have a goal, now. A direction to travel. Words to find strength in, comfort in.

The only way out is through, you tell yourself again, reminding yourself of your brother’s whispers. Forward, onward, straight ahead- focus, Leaf, focus.

You can’t let him down now. Not him, not yourself, not Blue, and not Eevee. Maybe if you do this, things will go back to normal for everyone.

The thought kindles the fire in your heart that spurs you on- a feeling in your very soul affirming that yes, yes. This is the truth.

End this, and it’s back to the status quo. Everyone’s lives can go back to normal, just as intended.

Everything will be as it should.

You begin walking, following the tiled floors and the vague image of sleek walls that guide you towards the back of this lobby.

An imposing door stands wide open, beckoning you into the dark.

The only way out is through.

You step forward, swallowed up by the darkness.

… Your path, still shrouded by fog and an inky veil of darkness, is thankfully straightforward at least.

You try to be keenly aware of your environment but refuse to step off the path laid out for you. The series of rooms you traverse seem empty, thankfully… although they’re decorated in odd statues that you can barely make out through the low visibility.

You enter the first room. The first thing you notice is how cold it is. The blue tinted tile floors sting your bare feet, frosted over from the damp air. Your sight is only obscured further by your foggy breath, clouding up the air in front of you. The outlines of six pillar-like structures, three on each side, are the only defining structures you can see.

You swear you hear gently crashing waves from below as you step through another pitch black doorway.

Second room. The little color you can make out seems more washed out than the previous room. You can’t tell if the tiles here are chipped away, or covered in dirt and gravel- the small bits that dig into your soles only grow more plentiful as you continue through. Alongside the growing mess, the already dull, sandy colors fade into a dim grey. Much like the last room, you count similar pillars on each side once again- though towards the back, you noticed hunks of rock and boulders strewn about. You’re almost left to find out the hard way when your leg grazes against one of the rough, rigid stones.

You swallow thickly as deja-vu begins to invade your mind. Another door. You keep moving.

Third. The chipping of the flooring is even worse, you can see as much- though now you’re certain the last room must have had something else, because the pieces of paint and tile don’t hurt as much anymore. Flecks of lavender that once colored the place are now the minority. Instead, the room is filled with a washed-out, near-white tint that seems to stick out even through the lack of lighting, giving off a ghostly shimmer that faintly lights the room through the fog. There’s six pillars, you count again- they seem shorter, though. It’s harder to pick them out through the clusters of other structures that now decorate a majority of the rest of the floor, colorless and rigid. As you pass one of the shapes close enough to reach, you absently run a hand over it; cool to the touch, smooth but with a gentle texture of chiseled stone… You feel slim dips across the front of it, seeming to make up lines of letters. You don’t let yourself think too hard about what this stone must be, instead hurrying forward to the next exit.

The familiarity of this place only grows as you continue, making you feel more and more ill as you keep continuing onward.

But you must keep going. Keep pushing. Keep moving forwards. Keep going. Don’t stop.

You step through another door.

Fourth. Final. You know this is the last one. It’s laid out differently. The hall seems to curve, weave, and you stumble half-blind to get through the less linear area.

There’s no more color here. The entire place is dyed grey, walls washed out to white and floors as simple monochromatic paneling. In the back of your mind, you now know it’s all wrong- the tiling should be that of dazzling turquoise, the walls should shimmer with golden colors and lining, intricately carved patterns should have been written up on the different panels, brought to attention by yellow spotlights. Now, though… it’s just plain, flat, and empty, as bland and sterile as a hospital. The walls are blank, the floors are drab. Not even the mess of chipped tile or rubble is there anymore, no pain or flavor for your poor, bare feet. Just a smooth and plain pathway.

The imposing statues that you remember, those lovingly carved stone visages of the mightiest of beasts and dragons, are gone. All you see in their place is that plain flooring. There’s minuscule specks of residue and broken rocks- the amount so trivial that you only notice they’re there when you bump one pebble with a toe, listening to it skid away and hit a wall.

You step through a gate, this time- the hallway opening up into the biggest arena of the four. The fog hangs all the heavier here- you can barely see your own two feet anymore. Your pace slows to something hesitant, fearful, but you still move ahead.

You can no longer discern the six statues that you know should be there. Something else entirely fills the spot of the massive, arching array of ancient dragon’s teeth that had once left you shaking with anticipation.

Instead, the room is flooded with the faint and foggy silhouettes of the beasts that once sat outside in the hallway. You can’t tell one apart from the other anymore- each horn and feature blending into one another in the mess of colorless decorations. The placement is all haphazard, it’s senseless, it’s oppressive- all clustered in a circle so dense that you can’t hope to see the room’s walls through both them and the fog.

You slow to a stop when you come close enough to the exit door. You can see the suffocating black of the only way forward, beckoning you in.

Within the ink, you can see a faint, crimson glow. You see the blood trickling down from it. Hear the clack of footsteps approaching.

You stagger away as something emerges.

This is not like the other ghosts you have met. Though the eyes, crimson and bleeding all the same, tell you that this must be what it is…

This figure is not like the others. Its form, hunched over as if in pain, is stained an inky black, like nothing more than a shadow. Red markings decorate its body, and it seems to distort in more unnatural ways than the beings you’d seen before.

It blocks your way forward, staring down at you with bloody eyes. Looking closer, you see the blood trickling from where a human’s ears would be, too- it seems to bleed from every opening of its face, you realize much too slowly.

The reds decorating its body are not markings.

You stumble back again as it reaches a hand forward, but… It isn’t reaching towards you, you realize. It patiently holds it out, palm up, as if waiting for you to take its lead.

“… Right this way,” it speaks, and though you can read a calm tone in its voice, it is layered in heavy distortion, the baseline of an eerie melody echoing through the chamber with its words.

“The Champion is waiting.”

In spite of the eeriness of the entire situation, that remark is somehow the one that leaves your jaw on the floor.