Here comes the new chapter! As usual, i don’t own any of the characters except for Marlene and Veronica.

Chapter 8

“I should get out!” Mimi suddenly screamed, startling everyone. “I can’t take this anymore. The mirrors... They are closing up on me!” The others realized they agreed. The mirrors weren’t fun anymore. Wherever they looked, it was their own images. Infinite number of them. They had started to feel weird, as though they were in a dream they couldn’t wake up from, or floating in a space that had no limits. It was starting to get on everybody’s nerves.

“We’d better,” Sora agreed with a nervous voice. Brock could see this got TK worried, too. “We must be in a totally hopeless situation if even Sora is desperate,” the little boy thought.

“Don’t worry,” Brock tried to calm them down. “We will.” Then he looked around the room for a while. He didn’t show it, but he was as worried as everyone else. Seeing himself wherever he looked wasn’t fun anymore. It was exasperating. Plus, he had the responsibility of getting his friends out safe and finding the others. How was he going to do all that? He punched one of the mirrors in despair. That was it! “Punch the mirrors!” he commanded.

The others didn’t get what he said straightaway. “Do what?”

“Punch the mirrors!” Brock repeated. “These mirrors are made of glass, right? Then we can break them...”

“But what if we fall?” Mimi asked. “What if there’s nothing behind the mirrors?”

“Anything is better than dying in this room, looking at my own dying self...” Sora muttered and started to hit the floor with her feet, using all her strength. The floor was made of mirror, too. Even the ceiling was a mirror.

The others punched the mirrors that made up the walls, but stopped with an expression of pain in their eyes. The mirrors did not even crack, let alone getting shattered.

“Why can’t we break them?” Mimi shouted with despair after punching non-stop for several minutes. “We will never get out of this place and lose our mind before we die!” Her words made TK even more hopeless and the poor little boy began to cry.

“It’s alright TK, don’t worry, we’ll get out of here,” Sora soothed him. Then she turned to Mimi and yelled “Stop talking like that!”

“Why should I?” Mimi yelled back. “Face the truth Sora, we can’t get out, the others are gone. What do you expect me to say?”

“Stop it!” Sora shouted again. Deep down she knew what Mimi told was true, but she didn’t want to believe it. Her friends couldn’t have been dead; Tai couldn’t have been dead; this mad place couldn’t have been their grave. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks. “Don’t talk like that…” she muttered softly. “I don’t want to believe that this will be our end…” She wished Tai was here with her now. He would never give up. He would not be scared, either. She hoped she could see him again. Soon…

By that time Brock had stopped punching the mirrors, too. He sat down beside Sora, trying to comfort her. He too, knew there was no way out.

Matt, Tai, Misty and Tracey had been in the maze for a very long time now. They had got used to darkness and could make out each other’s places by voices. The only difficulty was the creatures and traps they had to deal with. Tai and Misty were not fighting anymore. They were not talking, actually. They all felt they were approaching the heart of the labyrinth. They were scared that they’d meet something terrible there, but they also knew they had no other choice but to go on.

Tracey was surprised that he didn’t see any weird creatures or traps when he entered the next corridor. The ground had not moved, either. “Very strange,” he thought, and he shouted to let the others know about his situation. “Keep walking,” Tai answered him. “Maybe you’ll get out and we can follow you.” “OK” said Tracey and walked cautiously into the thick darkness before him.

Misty felt very sick and tired. The surrounding darkness had started to close in upon her. “I can’t breathe,” she thought. “I will never get out of here. I will never get to see the others again. Brock, Tracey… Ash…” She fell onto her knees and let out a sob. “I… Can’t do it… I’m sorry…” she moaned softly.

Matt must have been somewhere nearby, because he heard Misty although she was not speaking loudly. “Don’t give up Misty,” he tried to encourage her. “I do feel we are approaching something big…”

“I don’t care Matt” Misty answered. “I don’t care anymore. I’m very tired. I can’t go on…”

“But you have to.” Matt replied before Misty could finish her sentence. “We have to get out of here to go and save the others…”

“Save them? How do you know they are not already dead?” Misty cried angrily. “We’ve been here for days. We would have heard about them by now if they had been alive…”

“Oh I think just the opposite.” Matt spoke softly. “Maybe I can’t, but you would know if something happened to the others.”

“What do you mean?” Misty was confused now.

“If something bad happened to Ash… You’d know, wouldn’t you?” Matt insisted.

Misty thought about what Matt had just said, but she already knew he was right. The bond between her and Ash… It was very strong even though none of them had ever admitted it. Yeah, she would know if Ash was in trouble, just like she knew this would come. “Yes…” Misty replied finally very softly. At the same time she felt the strength returning to her legs. She got up, thinking “Don’t you worry Ash Ketchum. I’m gonna find you. I’m not going anywhere without you!”

“What is this place?” Tracey thought. The corridor had ended. There were no other passages, but a huge room with a very high ceiling shaped as a dome. The room wasn’t dark like the maze. It was well lit, even though it seemed there were no candles whatsoever to light up the room. In the middle of the room, there was a hole hanging in mid air. A hole identical to the one that had brought them here. “Guys?” he spoke loudly. “I think I have reached the exit…”

“Where are you?” he heard Tai’s voice ask.

“In a room, in the middle of the maze, I guess,” answered Tracey. “And there’s this hole…”

“Go ahead,” Matt joined the conversation. “We don’t have time to lose. Go and find the others!”

“Wait!!!” Misty yelled just as Tracey was about to go into the hole. Others could hear she was crying. “What if it’s a trap and you get hurt or…”

“Still, it’s the only way out” Tai interrupted harshly. “It’s our only chance.”

“I will be safe, Misty” Tracey replied her quickly, preventing breaking out of a new quarrel between Misty and Tai. “Come here as quick as you can, ok?”

“Ok. Just be very careful…” Misty replied softly. Tai was surprised to hear the concern in her voice. Maybe she did really love her friends after all, despite all the yelling and screaming…

“Don’t worry, I will.” Tracey said to her as he got into the hole. “See ya!” And he disappeared.

Ash, Izzy, Kari and Joe were almost done with painting. They had discovered that not all the symbols on the canvas were the same although they looked similar. Then they had painted the parts with different symbols with different colors. As paint, they had used the herbs and flowers growing on the island, which was Kari’s idea. They had been surprised to see that they could get many different colors.

They had also found fresh water as they pulled the herbs off the ground, but they couldn’t find anything to eat because they were not sure which of the plants were edible. Ash was so hungry that he didn’t care about getting poisoned, but Pikachu held him back by shocking him as he tried to eat some of the plants.

Ash felt worse as the hours passed. He was so hungry that he didn’t contribute to matching symbols with colors. He just painted, did what he was told. He felt useless. “I wish Misty was here,” he thought several times. He knew he didn’t act any clever than this when he was with Misty and he knew Misty would taunt him for being so stupid. Still, he felt more useful, because despite putting him down all the time, Misty showed she needed him by asking him to help her with small things: Building fire, putting up her tent… It didn’t matter even if she didn’t. Just being around Misty was a reason for him to feel better… He wondered if she was okay. She had foreseen all this. He would never ever forgive himself if anything happened to Misty. It would be his fault and nobody else’s. He was the one who insisted on battling for the badge today. He could have waited, could he not? He could eve have gone to another island and win another badge! Yet, he somehow knew that Misty was okay. “Otherwise, I would know it,” he thought.

“It does look like something…” Izzy muttered when they were done.

“You’re right…” Joe answered as he examined the picture. “I mean, the colors are not right, but we definitely have a picture of something.”

Kari looked very carefully at the picture. For no apparent reason, her heart started beating faster. Images of different scenes flashed through her mind for a second. It happened so fast that she couldn’t even tell what she saw. Colors and symbols started to move. They were dancing in front of her eyes. Her vision blurred. Instinctively she waited to hear the sounds and screams she had heard earlier, but none came. Instead, all she could see was the dancing colors. “Concentrate” she thought to herself. “You know what this picture is… You have seen it before…” More images raced across her mind, but she still was not able to make out what they were. She suddenly felt isolated from everything. It was as though she was in another dimension.

It was Ash, who noticed the change in Kari’s expression first. She was very pale, and the look in her eyes… Well, it was blank. “Kari, are you alright?” he asked. Kari didn’t seem to hear. “Kari…” He repeated several times. She still didn’t hear. Joe and Izzy called her name, too, but it was no use.

Kari realized that her friends were calling her name when Joe grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. She blinked and then turned to others with a surprised expression on her face.

“Are you okay?” Izzy asked. He was starting to think Kari getting sick had something to do with the situations they had been in all day long.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Kari answered reassuringly. “And I think I can find what this picture looks like… But you have to let me think.”

“Think?” Joe asked. “Like you just did?”

“Exactly” Kari answered.

“Are you sure?” Ash seemed a little unsure. “What if you get sick again and faint? What if we can’t wake you up?”

“Don’t worry,” Kari replied confidently. “I will be fine.”

“Okay, then,” the others agreed and started to wait.

“I can’t stand it!!!” Mimi screamed. “I hate this place, I hate these stupid mirrors, I hate you, I hate all the images of you, I hate me!!!” And she started kicking and punching the mirrors with all of her strength. The others did nothing but watch her break down. They didn’t feel any different, why would they stop her?

This tantrum went on for several minutes. Brock, Sora and TK could understand exactly how she felt. It was very stressing, seeing nothing but infinite images of you. It was tiring. It was driving them crazy.

Kicking and screaming wasn’t enough to calm Mimi down. When she got too tired to kick and punch, she fell to the ground and started bawling.

Sora couldn’t take it anymore. “Shut up!” she yelled at Mimi. “Have you gone nuts?”

“I won’t!” Mimi yelled back. “And yes, I have! This place is driving me nuts!”

“Girls, calm down,” Brock tried to break the fight. “It is no use, breaking each others heart…”

“Oh, I don’t care!” Mimi yelled at Brock this time. “I am sick of all of you and I don’t care about your stupid hearts!”

“And we are sick of you!” Sora answered. “We are sick of you crying and screaming like a baby!”

“Girls…”

“Please, stop it…” TK interfered. Both Mimi and Sora ignored.

“You’re sick of my crying and screaming, eh? Well Miss Mature Girl, take this!” And then she started screaming like she never did before. She screamed in the highest pitch of voice she could manage. And it was quite high, I must say. It was so annoying that Brock, Sora and TK had to cover their ears. But Mimi didn’t stop except for to take in deep breaths.

“Stop it!” Sora shouted after a few minutes. “You’ll make us deaf!” But Mimi didn’t seem to hear that. She kept screaming. She looked completely out of her mind.

Brock was standing with his back against one of the mirrors, as far away from Mimi as possible. It was in vain, though, as the sound echoed all across the room. He felt the mirror behind him jitter. Wait a minute. The mirrors are shaking. Because of Mimi’s voice! Brock suddenly had a new plan.

“Keep screaming!” Brock shouted. Sora and TK looked at him with surprise. “You guys, you should scream, too,” Brock said to them. “That’s our way out!”

“How?” Sora asked. Even Mimi had stopped to listen to Brock’s new plan.

“If we scream in a very high pitch,” Brock started to explain, “We can crack the mirrors! I know it because they just shook because of Mimi’s voice!”

“Well, trying won’t hurt,” thought the others. And then they all screamed. They screamed as loudly as they could.

They could all feel the mirrors shake now. But it wasn’t enough. They had to scream even more. Their throats started to hurt. They had been in this room for God knows how many hours or days or weeks. They had no food, no water. They all felt they would lose their voices forever unless the mirrors cracked right now, but they didn’t care. Getting out of this hell was worth everything.

And then it happened. The mirrors started cracking. They kept on screaming until all the mirrors were fractured. When the mirror that made up the floor was fractured, too, they stopped. Nothing happened for a second. “So, what?” Mimi murmured.

Suddenly the mirror beneath their feet shattered into millions of pieces. There was nothing but emptiness below. They started falling.

Matt had got out of the maze, too. It was now Tai and Misty. They were not talking at all. Misty didn’t like it. She was afraid, and she needed to talk to someone to feel safer. “So…” she tried to start a conversation. “It is kinda fun after all, isn’t it?”

“What, this maze?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh yeah,” Tai replied sarcastically. “Except for the evil ghost and the evil fairy and the evil blue creature and the treasure chest that literally tried to eat me!”

Misty didn’t like this answer, but at least, they were talking. “Well, come on, I thought you faced worse things in that Digital World…” she tried to carry on. Tai didn’t answer. “Sora told me how you once risked your life to save her…”

Tai remembered that day like yesterday. It was the day he learned to use his crest of courage. It was his desire to save Sora that taught him to use his crest. He remembered how worried he was. Losing Sora… He couldn’t even bear the thought of it. He remembered once more how important Sora is for him. She was his best friend. She was more than that. She was… Very special. And now he didn’t even know if she was alive or not. He had to get out of this labyrinth and go find her as quick as he could.

“I think it’s very romantic,” Misty carried on. “Honestly, I wouldn’t expect something like that from you… But then again, you do treat Sora in a more special way…”

Tai forgot what he was about to say to shut Misty up upon her last words. Treat her in a more special way? Did he really show? “What do you mean, special?” he asked, trying to sound indifferent.

“Well, the way you talk to her, and look at her…”

“Oh, shut up, I don’t do that…”

“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.”

“You do too.”

“I do not.”

“Do too!”

“Do not!”

“Do… Hey, why are you mad?” Misty suddenly asked. “What is wrong about caring for someone?”

“Nothing,” Tai answered, trying to calm down. “But I don’t treat her any differently than I treat the others. I care about all my friends.”

“But you care a little more about Sora,” Misty insisted. “And I think it is very nice. Sora is very lucky.” Tai realized her voice becoming dreamy and sorrowful as she spoke. “I wish someone treated me like that, too. I wish someone really cared…” She thought about Ash and herself. Ash never showed special concern for her. It was true he was very sweet to her sometimes… But then, he was nice to Brock and Tracey, too. She was not special.

Meanwhile, Tai remembered the twister at the beach. If it wasn’t for Ash, Misty would have been swallowed up by that twister. Ash had got really anxious when he saw Misty was in trouble. And when she fainted… Tai could swear Ash was about to cry. Misty definitely had someone who really cared. She just didn’t know it… “Are you sure no one cares?” he asked.

“I am,” Misty answered.

“What about Ash?”

Ash… That sounds so perfect… Yet so far… Ash would never feel anything more than friendly love for such a scalawag like her. Sometimes she thought he didn’t even like her as a friend but just put up with her in order not to pay for her broken bike. “I don’t think so,” she sighed. “All Ash cares about is his pokémon and his badges…”

At the same time, she was thinking about the strangeness of the situation. Here she was, talking about her most secret thoughts… With the one person that got on her nerves the most. But surprisingly, it didn’t feel bad. He wasn’t teasing. He was really listening. It was almost like they were really… Friends.

Tai was thinking similar thoughts. The girl telling there was nothing wrong with him liking Sora was so different from the person that screamed at his face for splashing a glass of water on her by accident a few days ago… Brock and Tracey were right. Misty could be nice if she wanted to. And caring… She did seem to care about Ash…

While chatting, they had both reached the room with the black hole.

“Finally!”

Tai moved aside, saying “Ladies first.”

Misty thanked him and waited. “Tai… In case we don’t get to see each other ever again… I want you to know…” She cleared her throat. “Well, maybe you’re not such a terrible guy after all…”

Tai chuckled. Yes, Misty definitely wasn’t that bad. She just couldn’t express her feelings. “You neither…” he answered. “You’re not such a terrible girl either…”

“Thank you,” Misty whispered. She was glad the last person she saw was not the Tai she disliked. It was a new friend… “Bye…” And then she let herself through the black hole. Tai followed.

Kari’s eyes were moving. She was dreaming awake. Ash, Izzy and Joe were watching her with worry. What if she could never wake up?

Kari felt she was flying. She was flying at the speed of light. She was flying over familiar places, but she couldn’t remember what these places were just now. And then she saw it. She felt the dancing colors find their true places. She saw the true picture on the canvas. She saw it for hundredth of a second, but she knew she had the answer.

“Found it!” she shouted as she woke up form her trance. The others ran towards her. “Look,” she started explaining as they all stood in front of the canvas. “There is a mountain…” she pointed. “And an opening… A cave. All around the mountain is sand… And around the sand is sea. It is an island. An island with a mountain and a cave and nothing else.”

The others examined the picture carefully. The shapes started to make sense as Kari explained. Yes, it was so obvious…

“Are you sure you are right?” Ash asked with hesitation. Nothing happened…”

Before he could finish his sentence he saw the blue of the sea being wiped off. The sky, the sand, the flowers, the rocks, everything started to disappear as though being erased by an eraser. A black emptiness started to surround them. When the last piece of earth they stood on was erased, they started falling.

James still was not awake. He was feeling better, though. At least he was not having any more of those nightmares. Nobody was really interested in him right now, though. Jessie and Meowth were listening to the story Marlene told.

“But… We can’t just stand here and wait for the twerps to do something!” Jessie spoke when Marlene was finished.

“Oh, I’m afraid that’s the only thing we can do, dear,” Marlene answered sadly.

“But… They are trapped. How are they going to save the world when they cannot even save themselves?”

“We’ll have to wait.” Marlene was trying to keep calm, but Jessie and Meowth could see how nervous she was.

Jessie looked at James. They were in Marlene’s bedroom. James was lying on Marlene’s bed. He was very still. So still that it had started to scare Meowth and Jessie.

“He’d better wake up soon,” Marlene commented softly. “We’ll have a chance to help the kids if James wakes up.”

Jessie took James’s hand in hers. It was burning. “Please James, get well soon,” Jessie thought. “I hate to see you suffer like that. You are strong. Come on…”