A Rose Made of Shadows

Chapter Two

Ever experienced one of those days where everything seemed perfect? The weather, the mood, everything? That day was a seemingly perfect example of it. The sky was a vivid blue, a few clouds dotted about here and there, the wind was still a gentle breeze, and the midday sun shone high in the sky. Pokémon were everywhere along the way as we drove towards the beach: A flock of Swanna flew overhead, a family of Sawsbuck was walking along the edges of the forest while an Emolga glided between nearby trees, a Pansage was playing tag with an Aipom around a clearing, and a Tallow nest was perched atop a tree. Everything seemed picture-perfect all along the way, so who wouldn't have enjoyed sights like that?

Anyways, Raizel has been taking driving lessons for the past several months and seems to be getting better at it. For instance, we only crashed into 4 signposts and almost crashed into a tree twice—the same tree. Still, she's pretty much the only person we know that can drive, especially a car as flashy as a Lamborghini.

"So Rai," I asked after a while, now getting curious. "Who decided to host the picnic? And why? Is there a special event like an anniversary or something?"

Raizel kept a strong hold of the wheel. "Glad you asked. Haroff decided to host it in honor of Darkrai King's 2-year QuizUp anniversary. It certainly came as a surprise for DK. Think of this kind of like a surprise party."

"Ah. Makes sense, although I was expecting more of a party in the city or something."

"We did consider doing a huge party at a club, but Blazey came up with the idea of a beach party, and everyone went with it. Honestly, I like the beach idea more than what we came up with at first."

"Plus, I haven't been to the beach in a long time," Chibi Chu joined in. "So it's even better."

"Same," I replied. "I've been wanting to surf again for some time now."

"You surf?" Raizel and Chibi Chu said at once.

"Yeah, it's just a little something I liked to do every once in a while. I thought Sapphire liked to surf too?"

"She likes jet-skiing, not surfing," Raizel replied. "I also heard that Oz likes to go spearfishing but I've never seen him do that..."

"Probably spearfishing for pizza, I'd bet", Chibi Chu joked. We all laughed.

After passing through the forest and some winding hills, and after an hour's worth of singing random songs, we finally arrived at the beach.

But as we pulled up towards the parking lot, we noticed that something wasn't right: the beach was empty. Desolate. Abandoned. It looked as if no one had been there in years. Wooden fences were broken and pieces of garbage were scattered all over the place. Some tall grass grew in a few spots in the sand, and a mini dust devil was visible closer to the shore.

Confused, Raizel looked around for anyone in sight but saw no one.

"Strange... Haroff said everyone was already here setting things up... where the heck is everyone?"

Suddenly, from out of a bush jumped out a skeleton, or rather, thrown out of the bush. It was the skeleton of a person, and it even still had clothes on.

But when we saw what it looked like, we were met with a horrifying realization: those clothes looked familiar—too familiar.

They were the clothes of Fireblaze.