A ghostly lull filled in from all around, it was as if I were drowning in the noiselessness. My breath shook behind my rib cage as I proceeded forward up to floor two from the lobby. Each grave was carved into deeply, names and messages like: "Beloved pet." "Trusted partner." "Life won't ever be the same without you." "Good luck on the other side." Here and there the walls would run up with disfigured codes in lime green lettering and black nothingness splotches.

The Glitch acted as if a parasite or a virus would. Yes that is very accurate, a virus. I traced it with my vision as it seeped from the ceiling like slime. Slow and horrendously.

One cement stone flickered, like a game portrait glitching. It only moved for a brief moment. Gently, I paced over to the stone which emanated a cold aura.

I knelt down to read, "Rest In Pieces."

"Delightful," I muttered, "the Glitch has a sense of humor..." My spine ran down with an icy chill quickly as I spun around. Paranoia eating my insides slowly. A violet haze sunk in around, dancing closer and closer. Forming in the center was a plum like object, snow white eyes flickering open. Its mouth widened to reveal two pearly fangs before screaming with an agonizing torture. The figure ran through with hundreds of digit, the creature spinning around in a confused rampage. Gastly then lunged at me as he screeched in its agonized craze before fizzling off into thousands of numbers and codes all around. They drifted just spaces away from where I had huddled and when I cautiously rose back up, I dared not brush the floaters in fear of what could ensue.

I shakily let out my breath and pushed onward. I had half the mind that day to run out of that place screaming. It was the curiosity to seek the truth, one which I was blinded from, that ushered me to continue. I thought I needed to see it all so to truly understand.

It was by the fourth floor where everything was really coming apart. The festering mold of the Glitch spread from wall to wall, speckling across the ground with holes leading to oblivion. Tombstones dissolved away into codes like they were being eaten by the corrosive hydrofluoric acid.

The tower shook with the ghoulish shrieks of the pokemon that once called this graveyard their home. Their screams forming an overly familiar tune that trickled though Lavender Town in the original games. Each scream adding to the harmony for a new note, sending violent shakes though my body. Gastly playing the high piercing notes like falling rain. The Cubones rolling moans giving a background. The Haunter creating the low echo of its pre-evolution.

Their screams tearing at me, making me want to scream too. I felt like I was going insane. My head being thrown over my shoulder every other second for anything that could jump out at me. Anything that would break away spontaneously.

Words left on remaining headstones would read odd things now, some were the letters just jumbled around, others only portions left. Some just being creepy shit.

And I am pretty sure that on one of the stones I saw an etching that looked somewhat like MissingNo. When I looked back at it, the stone read: "F0rg3t"

The stones began to flash about, changing their original positions. If one happened to block my way, I took the time to scan the words before moving around them.

"R3m3MB3R" It seemed etched smaller than the rest.

"Gr8 10ss" In average size as all the past writings would read.

"+R<3 B3+r@%@1" This was written messily across the tomb stone, over and over.

"!W S0??%" Two single words took up the entire grave stone.

"D3@+H" It was just like any other tomb stone.

"! H3Z!+@+3D" This too took up the entire headstone.

"!+ M@z W% F@<1+" This one gave me the hardest trouble to decipher.

"H3 M!11 R3+<R#" These were the final words I read on a tombstone, the letters written very finely.

Each time, the words became further muddied with codes and harder to decipher, letters reversing, replacing one another, still resembling a pattern though. The "E"'s were replaced with 3's. "L"'s replaced with 1's. There was the simple "O"'s to zeros. Oh, and the most obvious one being that "A"'s became @'s. From those I figured that + signs equated to T's. The % I found it was a Y. So I could piece together most of the words. I won't bore you with the translations, you might be able to figure some out yourselves.

Then, I came to the sixth level.

I was approaching the dissolving steps to the final floor when a snarl emitted, killing the horrific melody that hung over. It exited on an off note, like stopping a pianist in the middle of their piece my shooting them.

Numbers, letters and odd symbols found on a keyboard unstuck themselves from the walls. They began to storm over a patch of darkness spread on a tile. From the tile spot, a ghostly white hand spun about and clenched painfully. Once its fingers started to uncurl themselves, it melted into a new shape that was half-transparent.

A Marowak.

Its mocha skin was covered in deep gashes across its back, an eerie red stain left behind, and while down its fractured skull I could make out the cardinal red figures. Numbers filled the eye socket where a crack across the left side of the shapely head bone. The left arm, which did not happen to hold its club, was breaking off into nothingness.

The ghost monster shrilled out to me with suffering and rage.

I beat that! I said to myself as I leapt back, recalling when I played though the game. Then, I remembered. I was "too lazy" to get the Silph. Scope to see the ghosts in the Pokemon Tower, so I simply used a quick hack to walk through walls and trigger areas for things like, well... The mother Marowak murdered by Team Rocket.

"Well. Crap," I sighed, saying my thoughts out loud. "If this thing was terrifying as an unknown ghost, then this is much too horrific for any member of my team..." The echoed soul of Marowak let out another lonely howl as it took a step closer towards me. Bits of her bone-club trailing off into the air in red letters.

A pokeball on my belt suddenly began to tremble vigorously to the point I was losing my balance. I flared my arms about as the pokemon within released itself from its capsule. The ivory bone on her head matching the opponents, other than the broken part. Her bone sent clattering across the room to attack, "Waaaak...?" my ground-type wailed in a half-broken tone.

"MaRrooWOW!" the opposing monster retorted angrily, not recognizing her own daughter. Yes, I could tell. My Marowak was the child of the dead one.

My pokemon began to jumble out her cries to the ghost, a futile attempt in communication.

"Mo-"

"-om"

"-om..."

A voice shuttered though my mind with a quick setting photo flashing though. My mind reeling back into my memories, "Mom..." I saw my dark-haired mother standing in the broad daylight in front of a concrete tombstone. More surrounded her, though this one seemed special to her. "Mom," the voice cried yet again, the woman still not reacting.

Then I was back to reality. My bone-keeper beginning to approach her parent, speaking in the pokemon tongue which I could not understand. Yet I knew what she was trying to do. Tears welling into my eyes.

"mo-!"

"Mo-!"

"MO-!"

"Mom!" I shouted, I back to the flashback where my mother finally turned to face me. Her expression grave and angry. My eyes scanned the stone she stood in front of, the words reading: "Conan Verde".

Her tone was like glass, "Leaf. I told you to go and play with the other kids here."

"This is a cemetery." I retorted, "No one wants to hang out here."

"Well, I can't entertain you. So go run along and play nearby."

"Mom. I don't play. I'm 12."

She sighed heavily, the images moving like camera shutters are in between each. "You do enough of 'hanging-out' in your room all alone. Even though I remember telling you to make friends. Glad to see you're somewhat growing up. You know, 'hanging-out' instead of 'playing.'"

I smiled and mocked her tone, "Yep! And I'm just so happy that you never grew up!"

My mind flooded back to the world where I stood in a tower with Marowak and her mother. The two having their showdown. The glitched ghost seeming to now acknowledge her child, though not happily. She spat towards my pokemon, twirling her bone over her translucent fingers threateningly.

My Marowak still took another step closer to her kin, eyes wide and hopeful. Though as their conversing ensued, her tone became darker and spiteful. Like she was pulling at straws for her mom to be good.

"What di-"

"Wha- --d y-- --y"

"W--t d-- yo- sa-?"

"What did you say?" My mother recoiled as I was reeled back into my past. "You think I haven't grown up? Who feeds you? Who buys you clothes, who keeps a roof over your head, who kept you in school?"

"That doesn't mean you grew up!" I yelled back at the woman dressed in black.

That's when I thought my mom broke. But it wasn't, "I can only do so much of a spoiled child like you! And all you do is sit in your room playing with dolls and video games! I let you keep those! Even though I said no!"

I tossed both my arms out at my sides in frustration, "And all you do when you're not working is mourn over someone who died almost 13 years ago! You stay in the past and ignore what is right in front of you!"

"How do I ignore the present? I have given you everything I possibly can!" she replied, pacing to me now.

"You never loved me."

This time, what brought me back to the scene in front of me was a loud crackle. Looking back at the mother-daughter pair of pokemon I saw that Marowak's mother had come closer and swung her bone across Marowak, who was flung backwards.

Yet, that seemed too much for the Spirit's glitch essence to take. One attack. One movement. One action, as Marowak glared up at her mother, caused the ghost to shatter. The codes breaking apart to be one with the dust particles that floated around. She let out a final terrific cry before she was gone forever. The ghost's own demise was herself.

Marowak sat in silence, staring with disbelief to where her mother once stood, as my flashback continued.

"I -mm every---ng yo-"

"I've d--nn --rythin- fooor'"

"I've done everything for you!"

"That's not it! What I needed was you to be there for me!" I shouted with the rage of the past years.

My mother rose her arm sharply, "You don't need anyone! You shouldn't!"

"So just grow up!" The slap echoed across the rolling graveyard, my cheek tingling with pain as I cupped the burning hand print left on my face. The time slipped between us as I angled my head to face her, my eyes scrunched together with a broken-ness. The woman I stared at suddenly becoming just another woman. Her face fell as she read my eyes, "Oh, Leaf. I- I didn't mean to hit..." She tried to take it back. To fix it.

But things have already been broken for a while. Words hurt, but can be said ten million times before the trust between parent and child is broken. It takes one thoughtless strike to shatter it like crystal.

I spun and gave my back to her. The words of the past years overflowing, but only few escaping past my lips, "Too late! You never were there for me when I needed you! So stop trying!" I started my way from the field, clouds looming over- I could smell the rain coming.

"Leaf!" My mother desperately called.

I ran. I don't remember where to, just that I ran. "Leave me alone!" tears were racing down my face as I muttered, Why can't I hate her...

"Mrah..."

The groan permanently snapped me from the daze and I ran to my pokemon's side. She stood, struggling to where her mom once towered. Tenderly, I reached out and halted my heart-broken Marowak. She shook, holding herself up and giving me a mighty facade that crumbled away in seconds. I pulled her close in a sudden movement and into a light hug, "It's okay, Marowak. You don't have to be strong. Not around me."

She sniffled a big HICK! before sobbing into my shoulder.

Her cries cued in the return of the others. The Lavender tune starting once more, though it was less sinister. Now it was hinted with a melancholy. I held my mask up around my pokemon though, I was just as heart-broken and now more confused than ever. But to her, I needed to be the strength she could no longer be.

The minutes struck by, and I finally returned Marowak back to her pokeball once she was mostly done. I had to move along. There must have been one more thing I didn't see there. There must have been more to know. More to make all of this less confusing. To make it less probable and make it more fact.

So I rose back to my feet and danced about the steps that were breaking away. I didn't observe like I should have. I didn't see what was up ahead until one foot fell though.

The room I entered was more of a corridor. A long straight path that snaked up to where two pokemon statues watched, set onto podiums. All to the left and all to the right were dozens upon dozens of graves where creatures were buried. The swelling glitch eating it all away. The floor was nothing but a pit. Black as a plummeting abyss with verdant letters swimming about.

And I took the step into it when I didn't realize. I thought it would feel like some darkness swallowing me like quick sand. But no. There was nothing. Just a bottomless hole I started plummeting into, the air in my lungs being crushed once I had fallen.

I couldn't even scream as all light blinked from my vision once my head had been taken in.

So I simply screamed internally.

~~~

A/N: So! Today's dedication is to Grenineon! She is has volunteered to help Critique this book as a private critic! She's also a really great person, kind, nice, professional. And her and I work together on WattyRP and I learned she is REALLY creative, organized and keeps her word. Her ideas are genuinely genius. SO CHECK HER OUT ALREADY!!!

LOVE YOU!!!

~Avalon R. Day