Broken Souls

Rain and Regrets

The door to the inn creaks open, ushering in a rush of warm air that floods my damp body. I find myself jolt a bit as the shivering stops and my muddy Pokemon tramp their way into the small, wooden room. There's some semi-popular songs that were popular years ago (then again, they could be from just months ago and I wouldn't remember) playing in the background on a chic radio and the entire room smells faintly like the woods, car fresheners, and cinnamon. It's a strange combination but it works.

"Do you have any rooms?" I ask, my hair covered in water and mud. I must look like a straggler from off the streets, utterly unkempt and slightly savage.

Then again... I suppose both are true.

The innkeeper fixes me with a kind, sympathetic stare, but her eyes quickly move up and down my body, stopping on every bit of dirt caking to my sides.

"Well! We do happen to have quite a few vacancies."

I throw a considerable amount of money onto the front desk and she takes it and slides me my change. "Junebug, why don't you show our guests to their room?" She tells a nearby Slowpoke, sitting amiably in a basket.

The Slowpoke yawns and trudges out of its bed, looping a key around its tail and walking down the hall. I follow, my team and I tracking mud all the way down the hall.

Note to self: take shower.

Additional note to self: get team to take bath.

When we reach the room at the end of the hall, which is conveniently facing the Pokemon Center and Gym, I take the key off the Slowpoke's tail and turn the lock. Inside is a homey wooden room with freshly made beds and extremely nice wooden flooring that is being utterly destroyed by my team and I's presence.

Ten jumps up onto the top pillows of a sofa near the windows, getting his muddy claws all over the plush cushions. He stares out the window and tilts his head quizzically. "Who's that?"

I move up to the window. An old man is standing in the center of the town as if to address a mass of people who aren't there. At least, that's what I assumed, but slowly people seem to be drawing towards him. The light glimmers heroically around him, resting on his wrinkles and his kindly smile. For a second, I'm almost convinced of the illusion that he knows what he's doing. "Azalea Town, your patron saint is here!" he declares to a host of childlike citizens and tailless Slowpoke of around the same intelligence.

Kurt bends down, which takes a solid minute, and pats one of the Slowpoke. It drools contently, unaware of its surroundings. "Hua," it mutters, which even I can't translate. Perhaps Slowpokes are so infalliably smart that their language has evolved beyond the reaches of regular Pokemon speak.

That or they're just really stupid.

Probably the latter.

"Such needless pain," Kurt mutters. "Cruel are the people who would do such a thing. They must learn the price of their insolence."

"I know where this is going," I mutter.

"Didn't you say something earlier about it?" whispers Reginae.

Ten narrows his enormous eyes.

Kurt hobbles out of side, most likely towards the well. There's a crack that reverberates through the town and all sound and light are suddenly sucked away with the realization that the ladder down to the well isn't the only thing that could break.

Reginae says some words he probably learned from my outbursts under his breath and I regret every time I've sworn in front of the team.

"That's quite a way to go." D'spinas says, although her expression conveys no empathy whatsoever.