Pokémon Life 3: Split Dimensions

Chapter 60: Cold Case

Sleeping in a hospital waiting room wasn't very comfortable.
Especially with the unknown fate of your friends lying above your head.
Pikachu unfortunately couldn't sleep thanks to both of these factors.
His mind couldn't stop thinking about everything.
Endless thoughts and questions plagued him through the entire night.

'Who were those people who kidnapped us when we were human?'
'Why did Kyurem split us up if we're going to the same world?'
'How dangerous is this mystery figure?'
'What if this Pokémon isn't a singular being, but it's a group?'
'Where are my friends?'

At least that last one could be slightly answered.
Tepig is lying on the clean marble floor, just flat on the squares of the reflective white material.
Oshawott is sleeping on a pillow Luxray gave him while sitting against the wall, underneath a poster talking about different berries.
Zorua is curled into herself, sitting as comfortably as her half bandaged up body could be on a cotton chair.
Pikachu was in the same position as Oshawott, except without a pillow and poster.

After a few hours of waiting, Pikachu gives up on trying to go to sleep and decides to walk around a little.
He quietly gets to his four yellow paws and explores the waiting room they're in.
The best way to describe it is simple.
There's not much to add spice to the room, except for a few potted plants that were clearly fake.
All the walls were light gray, with simple lines of muted colors splitting the walls into sections.

Two sets of double doors mirror each other on either sides of the room, one leading outside and one leading further into the facility.
Pikachu pushes open the door leading deeper into the hospital.
After a small straight hall, the place splits into two, most of the hospital rooms being on one straight line.
Lining the walls is an assortment of medical equipment, ranging from small refrigerated cabinets filled with different berries, to sanitized containers of different types of blood.
Surprisingly, there wasn't a single Pokémon in the halls, not even a doctor.

Pikachu was alone in this hallway.
It was pretty unsettling once this sunk in.
Right when his brain raises his anxiety and puts him on edge, a door swings open.
The Luxray who let Tepig and himself into the hospital walks out of a nearby room, making Pikachu jump.
The black and blue Pokémon doesn't even seem surprised at the yellow mouse, and just turns to him.
"What are you doing out here?" She asks bluntly.

"Uh- Hi! I just couldn't sleep, and wanted to stretch my legs. Sorry I'll go back-" Pikachu begins to turn away from her, but she steps in front of him.
"Nonono, you come with me. I need your help with something." Luxray says, using her yellow tipped tail to lead Pikachu down the hall.
He follows along, unsure if he really had a choice, but also she did let them stay in the hospital overnight.
"I've been stuck on something for a while now, but I don't really have any free time around here to look into it, and I want you to for me, alright?" She explains, leading Pikachu to a door labeled 'Break room'.
Pushing open the door with her front left paw reveals a room that leaves the other Pokémon speechless.

The room looked like what a hospital would tell you to avoid at all costs.
Only a few tiles of the roof remained, and they were extremely close to falling or breaking completely.
The floor was covered in different splashes of colors and substances, none of them being actual spills, but stains left over from when there was something there.
Peeling would be an understatement for the walls, looking like termites had gone through them multiple times, yet Pikachu wasn't even sure termites existed here.
Finally, the table wasn't even standing anymore, two legs haphazardly thrown into the corner and the main plank of wood just lying on the floor.

The only clean thing in the room was the lockers, probably because people actually stored and used them regularly.
Luxray walks over to the leftmost locker and carefully grabs a newspaper in her mouth.
She places it down in the wooden slab that used to be a table.
"So there's this... puzzle I've been, lost on. Mind taking a crack at it?" She hesitantly says.
Pikachu walks over to the plank of wood and reads the paper.

Dead in Red!
Two Pokémon found in the forest, surrounded by symbols drawn by their own blood.
Police were stunned and disgusted by the scene sprawled out in front of them.
The Zebstrika and Liepard were a couple, and just had a child, who is now missing.
Investigators have been stumped by this mystery for years, and are now asking the public to help them crack this unreasonably brutal case.

There are five suspects who Police are completely sure that one is the murderer.
It has also been figured out that the two Pokémon were murdered around two hours after midnight.
Suspect one says they were reading books from the library.
Suspect two said they were walking around the main plaza when the murder happened.
Suspect three claims that they were eating with a friend and then immediately went home after their late night meal.

Pikachu reads the newspaper in both disgust and suspicion.
'This feels oddly... wrong. Wouldn't there be an image to go with this? Or at least a drawing if it was too graphic?' He thinks.
Then he reads the small text above the article's name.
"Mystery Creations Institute." Pikachu reads out loud.
Luxray turns to him, looking surprisingly annoyed.

"What did you just call this?" She asks bluntly.
"The news article. It's just a fake. It was made to be solved by people who like puzzles." Pikachu points the name of the company behind this fake gruesome case.
Luxray reads it slowly... her face completely unreadable to him.
"Oh. I guess... it was." She eventually says, placing the newspaper back into her locker.
Pikachu and Luxray walk out of the hazardous room and back into the clean hospital hallways.

She leads him back into the waiting room, everyone still sleeping.
Pikachu walks back to his spot from before he left.
"I guess... you are pretty smart... huh." She blankly speaks into the quiet night air.
Luxray turns away and the door shuts behind her.
And so Pikachu was left with more questions than answers, and no steps closer to figuring out any one of them.

* * *
I'm just kinda hitting my stride a little with this story.
And by that, I mean I have the rough outline set out now :D
Writing this still feels like I'm rubbing my brain against sandpaper.
Anyways, Cy'all! I _ <  <3