Part One

The powers of bravery and spirit

A silent town. How unusual.

The sounds of my rapidash’s hoofs reverberate through the dust. There is nothing but dust here. It’s everywhere. I can feel it seeping into my breath, resting on my tongue, drying my already parched throat. I cough weakly.

Rapidash isn’t faring well either. Her head droops. Her fiery mane and tail flicker low, her tongue hangs from her lips.

“Don’t worry girl we’re almost there. All our hope right now resides on whether he is there when we get there…you know him. He probably remembered to forget to come…”

Rapidash gave a disgruntled snort. Her rider took it to mean, “He’d better not. I walked all this way.” Or some variation of the same sentence. With Pokemon it was difficult to pin point exactly what they were trying to say.

I gave my surroundings a calculated glance. It was almost eerie. No, it was eerie. There were no people. It hadn’t even been listed on the map. Strange as it was large enough to be considered.

I was taken by surprise as I walked over the sparsely covered hill to see the little settlement in the distance. Surprised and relieved. Rapidash and I hadn’t had nourishment or water for the entire day since we had left the last town.

“Excellent. Luck is with us today.” I remember saying. Looking back I realize the irony in the statement. Luck was not with us today.

We had wandered into a ghost town.

Rapidash threw her head back nervously as a wind disturbed the deadly calm of the town. The dust flew into our faces. I shielded my eyes with my arm. Rapidash lowered her pointed horn into the wind.

Along with the dust came an assortment of sounds that one would expect to hear in an abandoned town. Creaks from the dead rotting wood, the flapping of some dirty and dusted old curtain, the bang of a door as the wind awakened them from their slumber.

A moment later the wind subsided. The sounds died down. The dust settled.

Rapidash neighed. The sound carried far, seemingly through the whole street. I felt a shiver.

“I’d say we’d better get out of here. It is way too scary.” I muttered to my steed.

She picked up the pace in response and none too reluctantly.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe we decided to come all this way just to meet one person. What a screw up…” I mumbled.

Rapidash, who was clopping along at a decent pace, watched me out of the corner of her eye. She neighed quietly in response. The reply was not words of comfort. No, Rapidash is not like that. She agreed.

“Thank you so much. You are so very loyal.” I retaliated sarcastically. The words came out of my mouth loudly. And as my mouth opened a gust picked up and blew a lot of sand onto my tongue. I coughed uncontrollably for the next few minutes.

Through the hail of involuntary hacking I didn’t feel Rapidash stop. Over the sound of my own furious coughing I didn’t hear her hoofs halt the hypnotic rhythm they had kept for the past few days we had been walking. I didn’t hear the faint neigh of fear.

I stopped trying to heave my lungs out through my mouth. My instincts were accosting me from all sides. They were telling me the very thing that would insure my survival: get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

The reason for this was simple. Very simple.

The sight of it in my own eyes was enough for me to want to run, the feeling of terror that seeped from my stomach upwards was enough to make me want to die at that moment.

I grabbed Rapidash’s reins and tried to hastily make a plan. Where would I run? There wasn’t another town for miles. I would surely be killed or whatever was going to happen to me would happen before then.

I wouldn’t get to meet him at all. It seemed.

I guess I wouldn’t be doing anything after this.

Rapidash grew tired very quickly of my indecision. Being the strong spirit that she was she made her own decision. And me, unlucky me, who happened to be sitting on her back at the time was forced, without consent or control or contribution to her plan, to go along with it.

She was brave. Perhaps stupidly so. I wouldn’t know until all this was over. I guess it would be called bravery if we managed to survive or if we got out unscathed. It would be called stupidity however if we found ourselves in heaven after this. That is, of course, if it even exists.

Rapidash charged head first. Her elegantly crafted horn leaned forward, her flaming mane roared with life and I could practically feel her adrenaline pumping through her body.

I closed my eyes. Wondering whether there would be an impact.

After all weren’t ghosts transparent?

End Part One