There isn't much trouble with the other rooms, really. The tags are all placed in such obvious positions it's hard to miss them.

Unfortunately, that thought doesn't last long. As fate would have it, the last room (or the first, actually) is so thrilled to give me a headache. I have gone to every nook and cranny of this hellhole, flung every book out of their shelves in the two rooms located at the wings of the second floor. Of course, the first instinct is to always check the doors. But no place seems to be suitable at all.

Unless... Could the last Cleanse Tag be slapped on the main door of the Old Chateau? No, it's unlikely. I have slammed against the door and twisted and turned the knob for the umpteenth time to make sure it's surely locked.

The sweat on my brows refuse to dry, so I am nowhere near square one. Certain cues must be noted when everything happens in reverse. The way my body acts is a crucial one.

I mumble senseless words and claw at my hair as I go around in circles under the chandelier. Without the ghosts, I am all alone.

There has to be a clue somewhere! If it isn't to seal a particular room, then could it be a particular furniture? I return to the left wing of the Chateau where the moss eats at the bookshelf and yellowed papers flood the room. Evidence of rummaging, unlike the tidiness of the right wing. It is enough to suspect the ghost girl or the butler had run rampant here, searching for something.

It is strange how it feels as though everything ticks forward now. The anxiety I feel is a sheet amount and it makes no sense. Why would I be panicking so much to find the other four rooms that have been so easy for me? Perhaps initially I just wasn't observant enough.

Or it is another one of those ghostly shenanigans.

A slip of paper slips into a book at the corner of my eye, possibly driven out of home by another rush of cool air. And I see it, a strange message.

"Som...hing so pecu...r shou... make off ...ith the mot..."

The notebook is strangely the only one that is legible, albeit barely. This could've explained the sudden jolt in my head and the dashing to the dining room to unseal it.

"Something so peculiar should make off with the motor." points to the refrigerator.

Yet the sudden temperature drop as if it's isn't already freezing doesn't make further sense.

This has to be the same case as in the Lost Tower. I must be back to being myself again. But why now?

If this is yet another defence mechanism pausing my journey, then I must seek it out and stop it to proceed with the story.

I attempt to blink, and I succeed. I have regained control. And I will relinquish it soon after.

There has to be a special trigger, though. Back then, it was just the confrontation with the Spiritomb. Is it because of my phasmophobia? A direct encounter. A memorable one that weighs in my head and heart.

Thinking about it, it is strange that I've yet to meet any Pokémon along the way, even in this supposedly haunted place.

Am I... denying any memory of Ghost-types? No, I can't put myself back into that box anymore. I must escape. I will escape the sky castle and return home safely. I got this.

My heart rattles against my ribs as I enter the archway and greet the five doors once more. One of them has a television in there, so it fits the deal with the motor.

I approach the second leftmost room and knock. I turn the knob and release an agonising breath.

"It's empty?"

The television is turned off. But another step into the room causes it to flicker, and I fall backward.

The static on the screen gives way to a black and white image of the Old Chateau. However, the mansion seems more well-maintained than its current state. Could it be that the ghost wants me to look into its past? If that is necessary for me to leave this place, then I'll watch. I got this.

I got this.

The buzz subsides and a voice speaks. "I have been living alone with my butler for years."

The scene changes to pan left and right across a soulless dining room.

"It's not a choice. My family died from an illness, and only the two of us are left."

The camera zooms out and turns to the Sandshrew statue. I could've sworn it blinked.

"We've had visitors from time to time, but there was that one exorcist."

Said exorcist enters the frame. My eyes bulge. It's the Spiritomb guy I killed. I was an instrument in her revenge plot! Goosebumps ripple through my skin and I shudder.

The ghost girl from before jumps in front of the camera, blocking the exorcist.

"We need your help. We will be sealed. We need you. Please remove the tags when-"

Bzzt!

She's gone. He's gone. The television screen shuts off.

From what I can gather, the ghosts are sealed by the exorcist whom I was later told to kill, whose soul I tried to seal.

But why me?

I whirl around, when something warm glides across my leg. Two blue oval eyes, a strange smirk, an indescribable body with plasma coursing around it holds my gaze. Rotom, the ghost in the motor. It's strange to see a Pokémon other than the Hypno when I'm in this supposed stasis.

Nothing here seems drastic enough to warrant this stasis. Or had I done something horrifying right after I removed the first tag?

Thus far, there is only one room that I have consciously avoided like the plague, because it seems too obvious and unlikely. The room beside the ghost girl's. No one would seal two adjacent rooms, right?

No... It's only right, to prevent escape by walking through walls. It's to trap her forever.

My hand freezes on the doorknob. Footsteps pound on the steps, steadily inching toward me. It's not the Rotom: the Ghost-type has no feet.

"Are you sure about this?" The Hypno taps my shoulder and in my peripheral vision, he is certainly more worn-out than before.

I nod. I have to delve further into the past. I can't stop me.

"I hope this is the last time we see each other in stasis. You have that determination with you."

"What determination?" I frown. My hand still lies on the knob, unable to budge.

"A killer's."

Hypno smiles and ambles away. My surrounding seems to melt and grow warmer by the second. A force pulls me as I kick and thrash about, but to no avail. It's an out-of-body experience to journey into the body, my soul sucked in again, to be a voyeur.

It's like I'm supposed to live and die over and over, this feelng. A loop of going in and out of my body (now more of a shell). Fear pulls the strings and I dance, an obedient marionette.

Fear compels me to twist the cool metal in my sweaty palms and push the door open.

Fear coerces me to scan the room. An unimpressive dresser leans against wall, sandwiched between a window (glass tinted green) and a painting. I glance aside at the clock, broken, hands drooping, pointing downward. It never moves at all. Some of the bronze tiles are scraped and faded and four squarish holes puncture the floor, likely from a bed that has been shifted.

But it's not feat that makes me uncomfortable. It's the pair of crimson eyes in the painting that depicts a spire of smoke foaming at the peak of a dark hill, lavender strokes sweeping the canvas without a care for elegance. However I tilt my head or move my feet, the gaze is locked onto me, and it follows closely.

The door is shut tight, unrelenting to my pulls and pounds.

Cackles fill the air, and the eyes reach out for me from within the painting. No, it gives itself an amorphous body and a brute grin.

I'm trapped in this room with a forlorn Gengar.