My partner was kneeling down next to a corpse, its white lab coat splashed with a violent red. Lacerations were slashed all over its neck and chest, and a startled expression was left frozen on its face. Wolf looked up at me disturbed, yet unemotional. I stared past him at a grisly, thick trail of blood running down the wall from the ceiling. It looked as though one of the victims had been dragged UP the wall, then fell back down. Dark, thick pools of ichor covered a back hallway beneath another hideous burst of crimson. “Mother of God,” I whispered. Scarlet death was everywhere. Another body was slumped against the back doorway, blood smeared down the frame. I saw more unspeakable things in that room, things I will never describe to anyone. Snapping out of a daze, I noticed that my partner was missing. I took one last glance at the poor researchers and tore myself away, back to the other side of the lab.

I found Wolf lurking around the computer terminals, digging through drawers and constantly looking back over his shoulder. “Hey,” I called out. He looked worried, and seemed as though he couldn’t find something. “Wolf…just what the hell is going on here?” I asked, frustrated at the lack of information provided to me. My fellow agent stood still, examining me.

“This lab,” he began, “was involved in the development of a temporal gate, a so-called portal in the multiverse.” I nodded in understanding. I’d heard about similar research, but nothing that even approached yielding results. “You read the journal?” he inquired. I narrowed my eyes and nodded again. “The entity beyond the gate…” he said, “was a malicious Gengar, apparently from another dimension. Camp knew this, and wanted it to cross over. The PRI has no knowledge of his motives.” I cringed. A Gengar, I thought. This is going to be tricky. “The beast slaughtered the team, including Camp. Our job is to stop it. Are you ready?” I opened my mouth to respond…

The lights died. We were instantly immersed in darkness, the same crimson glow flooding out from the narrow slat portholes. Wolf was visible in one of the beams of light. He motioned to me with a quick hand signal, and we moved toward the door. We edged backwards, trying in vain to identify any threats. The throbbing, electric pulse returned. It steadily grew louder, filling my mind with a monotonous drone. The deep shadows seemed to ebb and flow around us, leeching at our bodies almost organically. I watched with horror as the pylons began accelerating, spinning around the gate chamber. The glow from the slats blurred into electric blue rivers. The device was activating itself. Wolf and I broke into a flat-out sprint for the exit.

The lights were still somewhat functional in the long white hallway, but all the doors had closed themselves while we were in the lab. It hasn’t left, I thought, panicked. As we ran, I looked back and saw that each of the lighting panels was going out one at a time as though serpentine darkness was chasing us. We burst into the lobby and out the front door, guns in hand. Wolf stopped about twenty yards from the facility, and I strode over to him. A searing pain stabbed me in the shoulder, and I clapped my hand to it. The wound had reopened under my clothes. Blood was already soaking into my shirt, but I kept walking toward my partner. I rubbed my eyes and stood there silently while he seemed to be calculating a plan in his head. “The Tower,” he said. I released a Pokeball from my belt and the cool metal dropped into my hand.
“Let’s go,” I replied, shaken.

The Pokemon Memorial Tower is a truly ancient structure. Composed of granite blocks, the building is about eight stories tall and rather demonic in appearance. Its original architects are unknown, but the tower is currently used as a monument to slain Pokemon buried in the fields around it. It is largely empty—after it was abandoned centuries ago, no one has established a true presence there. The wooden fixtures inside are rotting away and the rock faces of the walls are covered in grime. Spiders are the lords of the edifice, spinning their silky webs through the spiral staircases and dead-end hallways. Wolf and I stood at the crumbling entrance and cast our eyes upward. The peak of the tower was invisible, fading into the black night. Silence filled the air. No crickets chirped, no owls cried their melancholy song through the thick obscurity.

I reached forward and grasped the heavy door, battling years of rust as it opened with a groan. We gingerly stepped inside the foyer, surveying the decrepit environment. Wolf looked at me once, then sprinted away, up the stairs with a Pokeball in his hand. Oookay, I thought, distressed. Soft starlight streamed through thin windows high up on the walls, glowing dully on ragged, filthy tapestries. A large stone slab sat atop a slanted platform against one of the walls. With a fatigued grunt, I hefted the sheet of rock and slid it onto the floor. A worn set of steps led down beneath the ground. Taking a deep breath, I kept the Pokeball in my hand and began going down…

Page Thirteen
Page Thirteen

Back _____Next