Chapter 10: Calling Out

My ears ring fiercely from all the previous noise, my muscles are tense as rocks, and I’m barely breathing. I’m at the edge of the magnificent aura, its overwhelming void stretches my soul away from me, even if it’s all in my mind. Its final, earth-shaking clangs move away from me.

My brain shuts down. It’s going away?

I’m frozen struggling to process a modicum of this. I sharply inhale realizing I’m not even breathing. It’s really just walking away from me? What does that mean? What’s happening? What was all that just? Did it not see me or something? Am I really alive?

What should I do now?

I don’t believe I’m actually alive, despite what the aura drifting away means otherwise. One thought does anchor me back to reality, though. Just do anything! I peel myself off the wall and stand back up on my feet. My dizziness makes me wobble, I steady myself with a paw on my helmet as I waddle back out of the dead end and into the room.

The shimmer’s become a deeper red than before, it may not even be the same substance anymore. I inch towards where the gale entity last was, moving with my toes first lest I bump into something. They do find something – an edge.

I duck down to find a crater. I study it while I let the metal beast travel farther away from me. The ground within it is coarse and ravaged while cracks grow out around its circumference. Lying at the bottom is a mass of tar-like blubber, slices of it strewn around the wreckage. Pink bubbles float out from deep gashes in it. I wonder if this is the true form of the gale entity, or at least the true form in a mutilated state, although I hesitate to believe anything given how otherworldly everything is.

The booms are quiet and distant now. The only way forward is back to the lander, so I walk around the corpse and move on. Just before I enter the corridor, a cracking sound comes from the direction of the object. I contemplate checking it out but decide I  don’t need any more surprises.

Back in the room we landed in, the shimmer’s a bit clearer and lighter than before. I walk to where the lander is to confirm a suspicion. It’s been devoured. In its place, a large mass of black floats, tilted and shuddering. Where I last seen Kommo-o.

What happened to him? He’d be consumed if he was on the lander, but he wasn’t. He just disappeared.

It makes no sense. Pokemon stay together when they enter Mystery Dungeons together, we’ve known this for millennia. What could have happened to him?

Still, I have a way to contact him. I press my comms button. “Kommo-o! Where are you? Are you okay?”

There’s silence followed by the incoming communication beep playing. Rich static streams through the radio with its volume moving up and down in waves, an interference pattern I’ve never heard before. A machine whirrs within the feed, although it also sounds like mumbled nonsense. I can’t tell. It warps in pitch randomly.

“Kommo-o? Is that you?”

The static grows louder. My mind must be playing tricks, it’s clearly industrial racket yet I can’t shake the feeling I’m being warned. It’s getting louder. The line starts cutting out intermittently before an abrupt scream ends the feed.

 A bestial, mechanical roar rings through. Its aura is approaching me once more.

I gulp and head off in a new direction. My finger hovers above my comms button as I think what I should say next and when. But a few steps later, my foot misses the ground. My heart skips a beat and I throw my arms around for balance – I have stomped on the first step of a staircase leading down. In the room we landed in. What a joke.

Still, I can’t return to this floor once I’m down. It’s my last chance to find Kommo-o if he’s still here. I jam my finger into the button. “Kommo-o! Please! The stairs are in the room with the lander. Please tell me where you are!”

The static responds without delay this time. The distortions in it are intense and sudden. The mechanical clamour returns as a stuttery rant. A softer, higher-pitched sound grows beneath it as if the “voice” is splitting into two. 

“Kommo-o?!?” I shout into the radio.

The sea sharply darkens to a deep shade of crimson. A new aura of wind joins behind the oncoming metal beast, and behind that, an aura of thundering clouds. Something cracks behind me. The darkened lander has come closer to me. It vibrates violently, periodically twisting to new angles in a blink of an eye.

My finger’s shaking against the button, ready to press down, but beneath the cacophony of the static and garbled machinery, I hear a voice. Its deep, bass tone is unfamiliar yet it’s unmistakably a Pokemon speaking. 

“Stop calling.”

The lander thrashes in jerky movements. Faint auras surround me in all directions, even above and below. The shimmer darkens with each second and the clanging of the metal beast is just beyond this room. I still hold my finger on the button, wanting to push.

I walk down the stairs, leaving it all behind.