It all started when I was wandering through a thicket in the Kanto region. What's a thicket? Too many damn trees, that's what a thicket is. Every step brought a branch slamming into my forehead or scraping across my bare legs. It was nearing the end of winter, but the wind was still bitterly cold on my bare skin. "Why doesn't the Ranger Union give us a winter uniform?!" I mumbled angrily, rubbing my goose-bump covered arms... before walking straight into a huge and very solid tree trunk. I groaned as I fell backwards, my vision swirling around and flickering. Hey, where did all those Minun come from...? As my vision focused again I saw my partner Clues looking down at me in worry.

"Min?" he asked, concern in his eyes. I laughed shakily.

"I'm fine, bud," I replied, ruffling the fur on top of the young Minun's head. Clues cried out in joy and got off my chest, helping (but really only hindering) me to get back up. I sat on my heels for a few minutes, gathering my senses back together again. I glared at the tree I had walked into. If I wasn't a Pokemon Ranger and my partner was a fire type... man, would that tree be history. I looked around myself, still in a bit of a daze, when I caught sight of something in the bushes. It was moving, the leaves rustling. It was too heavy to be from the light breeze playing around us. Gulping down the anxiety that had begun to gather in my throat, I slowly approached the bush. I reached out a trembling hand... And drew it back with a yelp as a young, red and blue bat-like creature tumbled out. It rolled on its back, shaking and spasming, before laying still. It was then I realised what Pokemon this was; A Zubat, duh. But then, what about the red...? Oh, g-god... That... all that was blood...? Bile rose in my mouth and I turned away, retching. Stomach still spasming, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand before approaching the Zubat once more. The poor thing... Maybe... was it still alive? I pressed a single fingertip to its body, trying to find that tell tale sign of life.

Relief showered me as I finally detected that fleeting and fluttering drumbeat within its chest. Alive... but barely. I had to move fast if I wanted the young Pokemon to survive. Imagining the blo-- red stuff was jam, I picked up the Zubat and carefully cradled it in my arms. It was so small and defenceless... what would do something like this?

I made it back to the Ranger Base in record time. I stood anxiously outside the Base's own personal Pokemon Centre, twisting my shirt in my hands. If something went wrong... If I hadn't been quick enough...

The operation was over quickly. I anxiously stood awaiting Nurse Joy's evaluation. Her expression... it wasn't good.

"The Zubat you found was injured very badly," she began. "There was hardly anything that could be done for it." I could feel heat slowly building behind my eyes. Don't you dare cry, Lucas, don't you DARE... "But..." Nurse Joy's hesitation pulled me out of my inner battle. Was there a smile on her face? "We managed to sew up the wounds and stop the internal bleeding. There was severe damage to its spine and neck... oh, dear! Are you all right?" Nurse Joy rushed over to me as tears finally spilled out. I did it! I had saved the Zubat's life. Relief flooded through my system, and I motioned for Joy to go on. She did, albeit hesitantly. "Well... there was a lot of damage to its spine and neck, and several major organs were damaged... it's a miracle we managed to save it. I don't hold much hope for the future, though..." she finished sadly.

"No!" I said, reaching towards her and clasping her hands. "As long as it's stable, we can keep it alive!"

It was that single thought that kept me going that day. I stayed beside the injured Pokémon's bedside constantly, never leaving it. Eventually, as midnight crept in and my eyelids were drooping, I noticed movement. Its tiny wings were flittering up, mouth opening and closing silently. I waited for its cry, the confused glance as it noticed my presence with echo-location. But... nothing. No sound escaped its mouth. I was the confused one. Before I could call for Nurse Joy the Zubat full on threw itself off of the bed, wings flapping wildly. I saw the needle in its neck tear out and cringed - that must have hurt like Hell. But... the Zubat was still silent.

"Oh, dear!" Joy came running into the room in a panic, desperately trying to calm down the frantic Pokemon. Eventually she calmed it into coming to rest on her shoulder. She tickled its chin, causing it to squirm in silence. I was becoming most unsettled. This Zubat... why was it so quiet? I voiced my concerns to Joy, and she immediately checked him over. Finally, after finding nothing, she took and camera and peered down its throat. What she came up with shocked me to the core. "Oh, Zubat--!" She cried. "Its vocal chords have been completely wrecked! They're in tatters..."

I stared. And stared. And stared and stared. The Zubat's vocal cords... I approached to have my own look. That couldn't be true. But here it was, the evidence was right in front of me.

"What do we do?" I asked finally, falling back onto my chair. The shock of the situation was still fresh in my mind.

"There's nothing we can do," Joy replied.

I left the Zubat with a heavy heart. All I could think of was that if I'd been quicker, or picked up on its unnatural quietness sooner... With a promise that she'd call me later to tell of its condition, I went back to the Ranger Base, but I couldn't focus on anything. I messed up mission after mission... Finally that night at around eight, not able to stand it any longer, I phoned the centre.

No answer.

I furrowed my brows. Why the Hell wasn't she answering the phone? I was on good terms with Nurse Joy, and I knew that she always, without fail, answered the phone, just in case it was an injured Pokemon or some form of emergency. The fact that she wasn't now sent a small flutter of panic in my chest. No no, wait, calm down... she must have been in the op. room. But then... the Zubat! Was it in trouble? No, I really had to calm down... but I had to find out what was going on! Without another thought I made my way to the Pokemon Centre, the eerie darkness doing absolutely everything to ease my nerves. ...In case you didn't notice, that was sarcasm.

It wasn't long before I stood at the entrance. Clues sat on my shoulder, rubbing his cheek to mine. No lights were on, shadows looming in the windows, and I felt that familiar twang of unease again. This didn't look good at all... Nurse Joy always did 24 hour shifts, rotating between her and one of her many identical sisters. So why was the building do dark and empty? I crept through the doors, eyes peeled for any sign of disturbance. Nothing. The place looked the same as normal, minus the cheery Nurse and lights, which left it looking very old and... Well, almost like an abandoned hospital. Fighting back my instinct that told me to run and run, to just get away, I continued further into the Centre.

The op. room was locked and secure. All other doors I tried were either cupboards, empty wards or simply locked. Finally I came to her office. My sweaty palms slipped on the handle and I fought to get a grip on myself. Heart hammering, I opened the door, slowly and carefully, not wanting to provoke an attack.

Empty.

I felt all the pent up air in my chest release in one huge sigh. Nothing to worry about. But then again... my brows furrowed. Where was everyone? I turned to leave... and fought back a gasp. Lying with her back against the wall, eyes wide and glassy, was a barely unrecognisable figure. Only by the uniform could I tell this was Nurse Joy. Her throat was slashed wide, various score marks around the cut, and all over her face were bite marks and gashes. In some places, flesh had been torn out all together. Blood tainted with green poison still slid from the wounds. I couldn't hold it in. Once again, I turned and vomited into the nearest bin. I refused to face that sight again, easing my way out of the room sideways in a desperate attempt to avoid those piercing eyes, like those of a doll fallen from the shelf with its china face shattered.

I truly was shaking now as I rushed down the hallway. Someone... something... had killed her... and whoever it was could still be in the building. I slipped towards the door, planning to call Officer Jenny the moment I was outside... then stopped. The Zubat. My head swivelled slowly in the direction of the aviary. If it was in there... it could be in danger... I slapped my head. What was I thinking?! A Zubat can take care of itself; I needed to get the police! My feet stopped moving just as I reached the doorway. I should have gone through... but it was injured. I needed to get that Zubat out.

Hesitant, fearful steps led me to the entrance of the aviary. Steeling my courage, I opened the door... and was met with a massacre. At least thirty bird Pokemon lay dead and torn upon the floor. By the looks of it, the attacker had hacked and slashed at everything within reach - the walls were splattered with the putrid remains, the smell sickening right to the stomach. Once again, my lunch made an appearance. My eyes rose once again to the carnage, and only by breathing shallow, rare breaths could I continue through the corpses without puking once more. Pidgeotto, Spearow, Tailow, Unfezant... all slaughtered. All ripped to shreds at my feet. I was looking for one particular Pokemon though... and I never found it.

I reached the back end of the aviary and took the opportunity for a slightly deeper breath. Here, there were less... bodies. I looked about me for any sign of the poor Zubat, but it wasn't anywhere in the room that I could see. I peered deeper into the murky gloom, trying to ignore the scattered blood drops that turned my stomach over and over, until a rather odd formation caught my eyes. Right there, on the wall, in the centre... I approached hesitantly before letting out a gasp. Written upon the wall, in a thick, red liquid, were words that were barely legible. Either the writer was completely insane or simply didn't care about whether it was read or not. Hell, they must have been blind. I followed the lines carefully... W... H... E... I couldn't read the next few letters... Then E... Y... eyes? Whe-something eyes? What on earth...? I squinted at a new area. The letters were slightly clearer here... T... O and another O... K... M... Y... V... O... No, the rest is illegible. So... Whe-something eyes, and... Took my vo-something? Far from shedding light on the situation, these words just confused me even more. I gulped as I turned to leave.

... Clues.

I stopped dead when I realised the young Minun was no longer with me. Where could he have run off to? Looking for him brought more words to my attention, but I was too frantic to bother to read them. The one who had killed all these Pokemon... they could so easily get Clues too. I rushed around desperately, searching, searching...

... I wish I hadn't found him...

It was the second to last door on the second floor, right at the end of the corridor. A room to let, with no sound emerging from inside but a faint drip, drip, drip, like a tap. The sound unnerved me, though it wasn't something I was unused to. It seemed... like it wasn't what it seemed... I gripped the cold handle with a slippery palm... and ever so slowly slipped the door open.

The room was dark, curtains drawn and lights out, a black shadowy mass within the centre of the room. A moving black shadowy mass. It froze at my gasp, what appeared to be a head raising and turning with terrifying slowness. A stare pinned me to the floor, and I felt my mouth widen with horror, shock, disgust, and a whole manner of other emotions that could never and will never be described. The Zubat. It was all the Zubat. Its fangs were dripping with crimson saliva, its jaw coated, and the feet like appendages under its wings covered also. But what terrified me most - what froze me to my very core, made my blood run ice, my legs threatening to collapse beneath my exhausted form - were the two eyes peering out from above its mouth. Eyes that were surrounded by open flesh, eyes held on by rough and haphazard stitching and squares of sticky tape holding open the lids in a grotesque, drunken, half-lidded, lifeless gaze, eyes not meant for... not suitable for such a home on such a face. The Zubat blinked once, slowly, the tape straining to stick still before snapping the eyelid back open half-way. It crawled from its position on the floor with its wings, dragging itself slowly towards me. And I noticed the Pokemon that had been lying beneath it.

Clues... his entire body was torn and ripped, empty sockets staring at the ceiling and a look of perpetual horror on his face. I felt a scream building in my throat.

It never got the chance to come.

~

... They say I'm crazy. They say I'm delusional.

They don't know what I know. They didn't see what I'd seen. If you saw what I'd seen, you'd be this way too.

Here's the safest place for me. Here he can't get me. Here I'm safe. I'll sit here in my little blue flowered gown. I'll watch the clouds go past the windows. I'll conform to your stupid rules to 'bring me back'.

But I won't ever live without that terror.

The white-coated man hands me a white board that I take with numb fingers. He smiles at me. I don't respond.

He asks me questions. Always the same. I always tell him the truth. He always nods his head in understanding.

Always the same.

"How did the Pokemon die?" It. Understanding nod.

"Why did it kill them?" Cold darkness. Another nod.

"Why are you still scared?" My voice. Nod. Nod, nod, nod, nod, NOD.

"It's not real." Says you. Nod, this time with a sigh.

They tried to get me to use a computer. They said it was more efficient than a whiteboard. They thought I was losing body function when all that I could type was the same mass of words and numbers...

5CR34M

5CR34M

5CR34M

5CR34M

5CR34M

5CR34M

5CR34M

5CR34M

I did. Once. I can't anymore. They had to sedate me to calm me.

... Why is it still there?

I threw myself against the locked door of my room over and over until they agreed to reinforce my doors and walls with steel, and put thick bars on the window. But that doesn't stop it. I know that won't stop it.

It comes to me nightly, and I sit there unable to make a sound, only able to shiver as I see its shadow at the window.

5CR34M.

All I can hear, over and over, whispered to me in my voice.