Pokemon Heroes: Sinnoh Saga [Book 1]

Chapter 27: Eterna's Ancient Mansion

"Things aren't always what they seem. If I'm going to say it once, I'll probably say it a thousand more times in my adventures to come. One time this rang true was during our travels through Eterna Forest, specifically the Old Chateau, where we traced Alyssandra. With my strength back, we packed up almost instantly and moved as fast as we could towards Eterna Forest, following Niya's Glameow towards Alyssandra's scent. What we found in there later become subject to much debate between us...but even now we laugh it off as just another unexplainable oddity, until we went back..."

Alyssandra walked up the spooky mansion. She had spent the past few days camped outside of the mansion, in the old gazebo that once served as sitting place for the family who used to live here.

Alyssandra refused to go inside the haunted house, whether the stories were true or false. She also figured that if she waited, it would give her friends some more time to catch up to her—she had been a few days ahead of them...who knew where they were, or if Sam was better yet.

Alyssandra sighed, her Pokémon refused to stay outside of their Poké Balls too long around the mansion. She couldn't really blame them; Alyssandra herself refused to enter that place, and barely enjoyed the thought of being around it at all.

But her time had come; she was bored of waiting in a broken gazebo for her friends to come find her, and she couldn't even enjoy the backyard because most of it lay in ruin.

Alyssandra knew her friends were coming to get her at some point, but the only way she was going to pass the time by was if she waited in the house. Besides, if the rain returned, she'd be a sitting duck; she'd get soaked through within minutes...plus, with Team Galactic braving to get closer to the mansion with each day, she would need to stay someplace far out of their sight.

They may be brave enough to walk the grounds, but inside the house was a different story.

Alyssandra saw the truth of this as she pushed on the large oak doors that comprised the front entrance of the house. The old doors were antiqued and had heavy brass knobs and a doorknocker that looked like a Dragonite.

In the panels of the door were carved scenes of Pokémon, of all species and types, playing in fields of wide-open space. If this house wasn't so old and creepy, and the door not so weathered with age, it would've been a beautiful work of art. But alas, inside the house was no better than the front door.

It was as if the front door was, but a glimpse of the inside would look like. As she entered the house, she became surrounded by darkness, the only light coming from her flashlight.

It was dusty; it was dark and covered in rot and decay. The place smelled of old, wet, rotted wood—and no doubt the holes in the roof had attributed to the furthering of that smell.

Dusty, cobwebbed sheets covered all the furniture in the foyer. A chandelier sat in the middle of the large, high ceilinged room; shattered against the ground...no doubt it fell decades ago.

The walls were draped with paintings, many lying against the ground now, their nails having decayed and rusted beyond the point of use. These paintings were torn or deformed and now grotesque looking; what was once a beautiful painting of a man and his young bride was now a zombie portrait of a headless ghostly looking man with a half a bride in a muddy brown dress.

A piano sat by the stairs...several of which were broken or collapsing, and hallways shot off in all directions...this place was a maze.

Alyssandra shivered as the door closed behind her, the holes all over the place provided a very uncomfortable draft, and this was one of the few times that Alyssandra regretted wearing a skirt, as it left her legs wide open to the freezing cold.