wishes

cold

       braixen blinked, the room she was in was dim, and cold. the air had a twinge of humidity, which made her shudder. she couldnt see anything, and tried to blink, only to reacquaint with her senses to learn that there was a blindfold placed over her face. her mouth was dry,-- wait, no, there was something in her mouth. a rag? she couldn't tell, all she knew is that she was unable to move and that all of her sense receivers were restrained or impaired in some sort of way.

well, all of them besides her hearing. but . . it was deathly quiet. for a good while, at least. that is, before she heard the distant footsteps of somebody walking in a room above her.

she tensed up, letting out a muffled sound from her mouth. the footsteps paused, and then seemed to change directions. next thing she knew, she could hear the creak of a heavy door, and then somebody scaling a ladder. braixens heart quickened, where was she? was this it? she didn't remember anything about how she got here, and everything was a haze as she fought some invisible force that tried to keep her from regaining consciousness.

"you're awake." a monotone voice echoed in the room, he seemed to be a few feet away, standing a distance from her.

braixen struggled, making a few unsure noises, still unable to formulate words or sentences as there was cloth in her mouth, preventing her from actually moving her mouth in order to speak. her breath was heavy, and frantic. adrenaline coursed through her as her situation fully sunk in, and she was flooded with the memories from the previous day.

that was mudkip.

she was tied up, blinded and silenced in what could only be mudkips lab. . basement thing. she felt the ropes that bounded her wrists and her ankles, and the rope that strapped her body to the chair she had been tied to.

braixen paused as she heard mudkip heading toward her, fear clouding her mind. she choked, and started to cry, the tears dampening her blindfold and making it stick to her face. this couldn't be happening, she couldn't die now, she had to apologize to him, she had to tell her parents goodbye, she had so much she needed to do before she died. so many unresolved issues, she couldn't just disappear here and now.

suddenly, the blindfold was lifted from her eyes. as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out mudkips dark figure in front of her. the light that emitted from the open trapdoor that led into the basement shone downward, slightly illuminating him.

they both sat in silence for a while. braixen could only stare at mudkip in bewilderment with reddened and tearful eyes. she tried to speak, but was suppressed by whatever was occupying her mouth.

"no use in trying to talk." mudkip stated plainly, looking braixen directly in her eyes. "you won't be able to make out a word, and well, nobody can hear you from down here anyways."

braixen blinked, looking around the room, and then downwards in defeat.

"you might be wondering why you're here exactly. and since you can't ask yourself, i'll answer the question." mudkip started speaking, disinterested. "to put it simply, i had a feeling that you'd end up snooping around in business that isn't yours, and well, i was right, as usual." he said, rolling his eyes.

"you really need to stay out of this. the only reason i even allowed you to live after chespins disappearance is because i know what value you held to him. and plus, it's useless. why kill you when that could just cause so many more issues for myself? it's not an intelligent move on my part."

braixen looked back up at him, and mudkip sighed. he took the cloth out of her mouth, and finally braixen could speak. she stayed silent for a bit, trying to adjust to the dryness of her mouth, before hesitantly asking a question.

"you speak about his disappearance like you know something about it." she said, in an accusatory tone.

mudkips apathetic expression quickly turned to one of intense anger. "are you insinuating that i had something to do with his disappearance?" he asked, furiously. "i'd never do anything to hurt him on purpose, chespin is the only one in the whole fucking world that i don't despise!" mudkips tone was unstable, seething with anger. he was obviously very passionate about the topic, and seemed . . strangely genuine, especially for him.

braixen pursed her lips at this, maybe she was wrong, but at the same time, what other explanation was there? it didn't make sense.

mudkip brought his hands to his face, sighing in intense frustration. "don't ever accuse me of something like that. you don't fucking know me, you never will, nobody ever will. not even chespin. nobody would ever understand what its like. i'm the good guy here! but everybody acts like i'm some .. supervillain! when ALL i did was want the best for him." he ranted, his voice wavering ever so slightly.

he . . really thought that about himself? the realization hit braixen like a truck. 

he thought he was in the right this whole time.

in some sick way, mudkip had some sort of justification for everything he did. she . . never really thought of it like that. she had never really known anybody who did shit like mudkip did, and to see him broken over chespins disappearance just as much, if not more, than everybody else was shocking in a sense.

mudkip stood there, faced away from braixen for a minute longer, just silent. his fists were balled up, and they shook with a mix of intense emotion, but after a while, he silently turned to braixen. wordlessly, he pulled the rag that had kept her silent back up to cover her mouth. she protested, squirming and pleading through muffled words, but he wasn't deterred.

finally, mudkip took a few steps back, contemplating blinding her again, but instead he dropped the blindfold on the ground, leaving it there. he looked her in the eyes, giving her a glare that held a fragile mask of detachment. she wondered what was all beneath that, but that train of thought was quickly cut off as mudkip reached the top of the ladder, climbing out of the basement and shutting the door. leaving braixen in the cold, slightly wet, dark.