Ash's Story (Part 6: Unova)

Chapter 57: Ghost Eraser

Strange House waited beyond Lentimas like it had been expecting us before we even chose the road.

The building stood away from the warmer streets, half-hidden by dry brush and quiet trees. Lentimas had felt dusty and alive a few minutes ago, but the air around the house felt different. It was colder, stiller, and heavy with the same kind of silence Celestial Tower carried after dark.

Cynthia walked beside us, her coat moving in the wind. "This is Strange House. People near Lentimas avoid it, but the stories usually point toward Psychic or Ghost-type activity rather than simple superstition."

Golly looked at the warped windows and tightened her grip on her notebook. Haunter drifted beside her shoulder with Yamask and Lampent close behind.

"Looks like none of you are afraid of ghosts," Cynthia said.

"We have a Dark-type trainer and a future Ghost-type trainer with us," I said with a small chuckle. "Golly has also seen death."

"Let's not mention that," Golly sighed.

Alice gave me a look that said the joke had walked too close to a cliff. I accepted it because she was right.

The front door opened without anyone touching it, slowly and deliberately.

Inside, furniture scraped across the floor as if invisible hands were rearranging the house for guests who had arrived too late. A chair slid away from a doorway, then slammed back into place. A bookcase shifted across the wall, revealing a room that had not been visible a second before.

"This is not like the Route 7 abandoned mansion," Eve said.

"No," Cilan said softly. "That place is haunted. This place remembers."

A girl stood at the end of the hall.

She was pale, still, and not fully there. Her voice drifted through the room like someone speaking from the bottom of sleep.

"An everlasting dark dream... an endless dream of darkness... Dad, Mom, Abra... where are you...?"

Then she vanished before anyone could answer.

Alice's hand closed around mine. "Do you think that was a ghost?"

"I don't know," I said. "Compared to the Litwick trying to drag us into the Ghost World, this feels different."

Cilan looked at the empty hallway. "Less hungry. More lost."

The house made us walk in circles. Every time we entered one room, furniture moved behind us and opened another path. Stairs became reachable only after cabinets slid aside. Bedrooms appeared, vanished, and reappeared with small changes, as if the house itself could not decide where it wanted memory to rest.

Golly marked every path until the map stopped making sense.

"Spatial rearrangement confirmed," she said. "Possibly Psychic influence, Ghost influence, or both."

Iris groaned. "Can you confirm where the exit is?"

"Temporarily no," Golly replied with irritation.

On the upper floor, we found the girl again near a narrow room with torn curtains.

"In the dark dream," she whispered, "I heard my dad's voice. Forget about the Lunar Wing. Please stay here with me..."

The wall moved after she disappeared, opening a small bedroom. A feather-like object lay on the floor, glowing with moonlit colors that did not belong in the dusty room.

Cynthia knelt carefully. "That is a Lunar Wing."

The girl appeared behind us before Cynthia picked it up.