[attr="class","displaydevice6"]

[attr="class","angelow"]
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Not all those who wander are lost. [break][break]

Maybe it’s a shortcut or maybe it isn’t, but he takes the wilder path all the same. [break][break]

It would be easier to cycle out of Lilycove City along the manmade road, to let finely ground gravel crunch underneath his wheels and enjoy the smooth straight on his way to work. [break][break]

Instead, he slides off his saddle in favour of pushing an azure bike underneath a canopy of overgrown, low hanging green. Tires bumping over jagged rocks, not so much a path as it was a flattened trail of wilderness bordered between tree and fence. He's happy to become swallowed beneath the lush tunnel, warmed by the stray golden beams of sunlight that puncture through as he walks beside an ever-smiling canine companion.
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Perhaps it would add an additional five minutes to his travel time. [break][break]

But with a grip on the handlebars and a calloused hand absentmindedly brushing along the braided chain-link, a song of distant Wingull in his ears and a sea breeze entangling in the woodland fringe, he can’t bring himself to really give a shit.
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Something catches the sun, then. Drawing a curious mind, bringing footsteps to a slow stop. [break][break]

His roughened fingers - stinging slightly from their clash with iron - curl around the old, wire fence. Eliciting a strained metal groan from its weathered links as he leans in to peer through the gaps, hints of whatever secret hidden beyond the foliage of green becoming teased by a playful breeze.[break][break]

Rusted metal walls standing tall, a glitter of ocean blue and wisps of airborne white, whetting his explorer’s tongue. [break][break]

Suddenly, he’s the one trapped on the wrong side of the bars. Locked away.
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The chain-link fence rattles, calloused digits threading tightly around the thin, crisscrossing wires. His weight pushing down on the bending, weathered panels to pull himself up high. [break][break]

Not letting gaps that are far too cramped for fingers or toes of his sneakers deter him. If anything, it makes him all the more determined to scale it. [break][break]

The canine left on the path softly barks, wanting to be heard or not wishing to be left behind. [break][break]

“Stay with the bike,” he tells her, looking over his shoulder at the tan companion and said transportation left half-buried in the tall grass. Gaze quickly pulling skyward, back towards the wall he wishes to conquer. “Just having a look. I'll be back before you know it.”[break][break]

He lands on the other side with a thud. Then disappears through the door of verdant, hungry for the secrets it attempts to hide.

[attr="class","angelow"]
It’s been too long since he’s been here and yet, everything is exactly as he left it.[break][break]

From the overgrown foliage and out of control grass within the enclosed grounds, littered with debris. To the warehouse itself, gloomy save for the sunbeam puncturing through the hole in the ceiling that highlights a million shining dust particles as the ocean laps just outside, sloshing against the iron partition sealed shut that sits on the waters edge. [break][break]

As Angelo and Latias look around the derelict property after their extended absence, everything is in the same neglected disrepair as always. [break][break]

Save from the paths in the grass he’d flattened under his boots during past visits. Those had grown back, near as tall as his knees. A sign that, without him, this place received no appreciation and no visitors save from the Wingull perched on the edges of the unstable roof.[break][break]

He’s made up his mind about a lot of things lately. And as Angelo strides towards the old weathered sign, pushing brambles out of the way in unwavering resolution, this one is no different.[break][break]

The wooden ‘For Sale’ picket is tugged out of the earth and thrown, hidden, into the warehouse for nobody to find.[break][break]

This place, name signed on the dotted line or not, is his.