Chapter 12: Neighborhood, Who you gonna call?
Once outside the building, Jared found Mali waiting for him at the statue.
"What took you so long?" she asked.
Jared shrugged it off. "Just had a quick chat with someone. So, where are we headed?"
Mali smiled brightly. "I'll explain on the way. Let's get going!"
.
Fourteen years ago, there was a mine on the outskirts of Tapu Village that contained a large amount of elemental rock stones. No accidents occurred during the excavation. However, after the mine was fully used up and abandoned, people would sometimes enter the mines hoping to find something that the miners had missed. Unfortunately, some of them were found dead in the mine, and nobody could figure out how or why. Since then, it has been sealed off. The mystery surrounding these deaths had caused rumours to circulate that it was haunted.
Jared and Mali approached the entrance to the mine, which was situated on a steep hill and surrounded by dense vegetation and towering trees. The entrance was partially obscured, but a pile of rotten boards nearby indicated that it had been blocked off in the past. However, a new metal cover now stood in its place, glinting in the sunlight.
As they drew closer, they saw a warning sign that read, "Five have died here. Turn back. Don't give this place your life too." It seemed like the authorities had taken extra measures to prevent anyone from entering the mine, perhaps hoping that this would finally discourage anyone trying their luck. Judging by the intact metal cover, it seemed to have worked.
"This is the place. It looks pretty haunted, doesn't it? Let's light up these lanterns and break in!"
Jared's unease grew as they approached the entrance of the mine. The warning sign and the pile of rotten boards left nearby were clear indicators of the danger that lay ahead. Even if Mali seemed unfazed by the ominous warning, Jared didn't see any reason to risk his life for the sake of 'maybe there's ghosts'
"I don't think we should be breaking in," he said firmly, "Those people likely died in the mine due to poor ventilation and random bursts of noxious fumes. We should turn back."
Jared's knowledge of mining safety came from his time on earth, he knew enough to recognize the danger signs. He felt it was pointless to take a risk in this place when there were supposedly many other spots just as 'haunted' as this one.
"That, or it's because of a Gastly!"
Jared rolled his eyes. "I don't think so. What other reason could there be for people to keep dying here, specifically, rather than elsewhere? Anyways, now that I've seen it, I'm heading back, and you're coming with me. If you die in there, they are going to blame me."
Mali crossed her arms. "Humph, I'll only leave if you agree to search a haunted house with me."
Jared thought for a moment before agreeing, on the condition that the house was really abandoned and nobody was around to see them enter.
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After a few hours of walking, a man and a woman stood outside a dilapidated building in the outskirts of town.
"So let me get this straight, a man in his eighties died here of old age, and now people believe it's haunted?" Jared asked.
"No, of course that's not the only reason. Lots of strange sounds have been heard coming from inside the building," Mali explained.
"You mean this old building was creaking?"
"No, it was more than just creaking. There were strange noises... and people have reported feeling a presence here."
"Well, whatever, since I agreed, then let's just get on with it."
As they entered, the floorboards creaked under their feet, and the musty smell of dust and decay filled their nostrils. The wallpaper was peeling, and cobwebs hung from the ceiling. The furniture was old and covered in a thick layer of dust, and there were broken picture frames scattered throughout the room.
The lights wouldn't turn on, leaving them with no choice but to rely on their lanterns. Jared let out a frustrated sigh, unimpressed by the dim light they provided. He wished they had flashlights in this world, but unfortunately, they did not. Unlike on Earth, where batteries were readily available, in this world, electric Pokémon were gathered in power stations to generate electricity. The only available battery banks were made of thunder stones that could store vast amounts of power, but only stones of a certain size could act as decent retainers of electricity. Thus, it was not economically viable to use these prohibitively expensive thunder stones as portable batteries, and only the very wealthy could afford to do so.
To save time, Jared suggested, "I'll check upstairs, and you check the basement, okay?"
However, Mali shook her head and said, "I think we should stick together. It's not a big deal, right?"
Jared was sceptical, "You were willing to explore an abandoned mine alone, yet you're afraid of this house?"
Mali shrugged and brushed it off, "It's just different, okay? Let's go down already. We're wasting time."
"Whatever," Jared said, opening the basement door. Suddenly, he heard strange sounds and paused.
"I can hear something," he said.
Mali's eyes widened, "Is it a ghost Pokemon?!"
Without hesitating, she rushed inside to check, then screamed and ran out. Jared peeked inside and saw thirty small, white, glowing eyes reflecting back at him in the lantern's light. He then heard hissing noises that slowly grew in intensity.
"Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope," he muttered, quickly closing the door and running outside. There he found Mali waiting for him.
"It's infested with Spinarak," Mali complained. "How are we ever going to know if there is a ghost Pokemon in there with those... nasty things everywhere?"
Jared shook his head. "I've done some reading about Spinarak in a newspaper a while back. Once they've nested they become quite territorial and won't take kindly to intruders. We likely won't be able to explore it easily without them attacking us."
Looking at the sun's position in the sky, Jared sighed. "And I've wasted the whole day... I'm also exhausted from all the walking," he said, turning to Mali. "It's getting late, so I'm going to head home. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow."
Mali's frustration was evident as she stamped her foot. "Fine, go if you're afraid."
Jared shrugged and began walking away from the old house. After a minute, he heard Mali's voice shouting after him, "Coward!"
At this moment in time, Jared had lost interest in exploring haunted houses and abandoned mines. His mind was now set on researching all he could about ghost Pokemon and devising a plan to encounter one.
Walking past the spearow corpse from earlier, Jared found the sight quite unsettling. The bird's body had been stripped clean of its flesh, leaving behind nothing but its bare bones. Had the Spinaraks skittered down from the rooftops and made a meal of it? Or maybe the Meowths that roamed the area had claimed it as their own?
By now, the sun was almost set, and the shrill calls of Spearow and the restless spinaraks on the rooftops heralded the end of the day. Jared stood outside his home, glancing at the broken window of the townhouse next to his, but all he saw was an empty window.
He shook his head wryly, maybe what he saw earlier was just stress playing tricks on him. After all, why would the shadow in the window look exactly like the horror in his nightmare? It seemed too coincidental.
As Jared stepped inside his apartment, he flipped the light switch on, but the light bulb took a long time to slowly flicker on. After cooking some rice on the stove, he washed himself off with the cold water in the tub and settled down to sleep.
The usual nightmare played out, but Jared woke up full of vigor for the new day, despite his hurting back. He couldn't help but think that his mattress was just too uncomfortable. Nonetheless, he was determined to make the most of the day and continue his research on ghost Pokemon.
.
Arriving at the library after twenty odd minutes, Jared scanned the area but failed to spot Mali or Malia. The quietness of the place provided him with a sense of solace as he made his way towards the bookshelves that housed the books on ghost Pokemon. Once he had selected a few, he walked to a table and settled in for an afternoon of reading.
He flipped through the pages and became engrossed. Even as the library began to close, he kept reading until he was forced out, but he was somewhat unsatisfied with his gains. As he headed home, he reflected on what he had learned. It actually wasn't much. Just lots of conjecture, and speculation, but he did now know of the four known ghost Pokemon - Gastly, Haunter, Gengar, and Misdreavus. Not only that, but he now knew that the only ghost pokemon that ever got caught by a trainer were Gastlys, which meant that should be his target. Besides very rare sighting of haunter, the books even doubted that Misdreavus and Genger existed, because all the evidence of their existence was hearsay.
Jared couldn't help but wonder why people didn't realize that Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar were part of the same evolutionary line. However, he knew that he couldn't necessarily rely on his knowledge from Earth to hold true in this world of Pokemon. But he also considered the likely possibility that someone had transmigrated from the future in this worlds timeline and used their advanced knowledge to create a popular franchise out of the Pokemon world. If that were the case, then that gave more credence to the authenticity of that information.
His thoughts then turned to the characteristics of Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar. He remembered from the anime that they loved jokes, but he wondered if that was just made up. He also recalled that Gastlys hated wind because it made it more difficult for them to maintain their gaseous bodies. They also hated light... because ghost things...
He rubbed his chin as he pondered the implications of this information, while looking out into the darkness from his window.
"If I follow this line of thought," he said to himself, "then I should search for places with little wind. But what kind of places would those be? Even houses or caves would have a little bit of air going through them."
Jared shook his head, Gastly could apparently phase through solid objects, so Jared realized they could probably just hide under the earth where there is no oxygen, and no airflow, why would they bother to go elsewhere?
He knew he needed to tackle this problem from a different angle, but which angle?
Then he began thinking about what the researchers of ghost pokemon knew Gastly could do, and what he knew they could do, perhaps by using his information from earth as reference material he could figure this out.
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