The Trial of Dreams and Memories (TMM 2)

Gone

"After you became the Champion of Kalos, they held a ceremony for all five of us and gave us badges! I've got the picture right here!" Shauna said, taking a small framed picture from her bag and sliding it across the table to Morai. 

"No!" a guard yelled, diving forward and using his entire arm to send the picture flying off the table. 

"Nice going," Morai said as she rubbed her temples. "Do you want a medal too? We're at the end of the story, so I had no reason to do anything, genius."

"It's hard to tell with you," the guard said with crossed arms. He turned to Shauna. "What'd I say about reflective surfaces?"

"Oh, come off it!" Morai said. A surprising number of the guards, including Arthur, were from Galar, and the prisoner had heard the phrase so many times she had started to repeat it.

"Oh yeah?" The guard asked, brandishing his gun. Morai growled and stood up, which he responded to by pointing it at her leg with his finger on the trigger. 

"Alright, fine," Morai sighed, shaking her head as she sat down. "If we're not going to fight, it means nothing to me."

"I guess that's it for today?" Trevor asked. Everyone looked at the guards and they shrugged. 

"We didn't get the run-down on how this was actually supposed to work," one of them said. "We just had to keep her  in line."

"So, does any of that...ring a bell?" Tierno asked. 

"No," Morai answered flatly, standing up and dusting herself off with her handcuffed hands. "It's all a faded dream. I think it's best that you four turn away and forget me. I'm no longer the friend you knew, and you certainly don't want anything to do with me now."

"Oh, that's not true!" Shauna said, stepping around the table to embrace the prisoner. It was just like what Lillie had done. 

What's wrong with all of them? Morai wondered. It's idiotic! They see the blood on my hands and the crimes I've committed and the terrible things I've done, yet they choose to believe that she, their old friend, is still here. 

The Mask Maker nonviolently shook herself free, eyeing the guards as they both took a step toward her. 

"Look at me and understand," she said. "I'm not who I was before. I'm different. Everything about me is different. I'm not who I was before, and I never will be. I suppose you're here because you simply can't accept the death of a friend while she's technically still living, but believe me when I say that she's dead. Her soul is gone and my dark, terrible soul has replaced it. Grieve as though she's dead and move on. Forget the monster she's been replaced with, for your own sake and mine as well."

The four trainers only gave Morai silent looks of sorrow. Calem walked over to the shattered frame and took the picture from amongst the glass. He walked up to her and placed it into her bloodied hands, looking up into her eyes. Her eyes—when they weren't red—were perhaps the only thing that had stayed exactly the same throughout the years. 

"If she's still in there somewhere, if the tiniest sliver of her soul is still there, please tell her that she'll never be forgotten, and that we miss her very much."

Morai could see the glistening of tears in everyone's eyes, and for a moment she almost began to share in their sorrow the tiniest amount. It was her very own soul, after all, that had been randomly shattered in an instant nearly three years ago. What had Morai done to deserve such a fate? She had been a hero. What warranted the burning away of her pure and good soul, only for it to be replaced by an unbalanced and tumultuous one—one that had eventually created the terrible thing that is locked away in this prison today?