[attr="class","body"]
Being left alone to her own thoughts was her own personal hell... Inescapable, just like the tether around her neck, binding her to her shadows. Binding her to her intrusive thoughts, to the
ugliness that lay inside.[break]
Yuina hardly dared to move, stuck somewhere between abject fear and the intention to keep herself as out of the way as possible. She only moved to grab the next crystal to work on, raking it along the fabric of the uniform they were all forced to wear, but little else. There was nothing else for her, not right now, not when she had already scanned the room, taking in how many of them were there, trapped, captive... Alone...[break][break]
No one is looking for you...
[break][break]
The silence, save for the occasional whisper among other prisoners was deafening. Even the clatter of the shards they were polishing began to fall into the shuttering quiet that Yuina was struggling not to drown in. Focus... Focus on literally anything else... There were no windows, no natural light anywhere, and the platform moved up and down. Were they underground and going up was the way out? Or was there more beneath them? The tera crystals seemed to be a power source maybe for the platform? Where were the tera crystals coming from...[break][break]
You'll be lost here...
[break][break]
The Megalopolans were wearing toxic chains too, she didn't remember the toxic chains affecting them in the caves beneath the swamp... Were they afflicted too? The bird seemed to be in charge, watching it strut around the room, even the Megalopolans seemed to keep a distance unless beckoned by it. They weren't even trying to go after the body that... Don't look at the body, don't look at the body...[break][break]
Erased from this life, just like before...
[break][break]
The bird, the toxic chain that hung from its feathers... It looked familiar, where had she seen it before...? The statues, within Rusturf tunnel, there was the bird, a canine? There was a third one... what was it...[break][break]
Nothing but a shadow...
[break][break]
Just polish the crystals, just do the work, focus on the work, don't focus on the blood...[break][break]
Alone
[break]
Forgotten
[break]
Lost[break][break]
Alone, alone, alone, alone....[break][break]
[break]
It wasn't until she felt the sting of the cut on her hand that Yuina blinked, she almost hadn't been breathing it felt like, her chest heavy, eyes bleary with tears. The physical pain of the cut was almost welcome, she just needed anything other than the suffocating pain of her thoughts, anything to bring her out of the depths...[break][break]
She had been trapped there within herself for... How long had it been, an hour? A couple...? Yuina nearly jumped as there was movement beside her, someone coming closer to her, her cellmate... His words didn't register, she barely heard him, but where she might have flinched to draw her hand away as he grasped onto it, Yuina froze entirely.[break][break]
Her heart stopped, his fingers brushing over her skin felt... No... But for the first time, looking at him... really looking at him outside of the darkness of their cell, sitting more upright... The color of his hair, the texture, the way it fell over the mask and across his shoulders...[break]
No... the hold on her wrist, he was turning over her arm, a scar that didn't mean anything to anyone else... And... and... he too had a scar, the edges of it along his chest just above the uniform they wore...[break][break]
'No...'[break][break]
She couldn't find her voice, it was lost within her fear, but the silence of everything stopping around her was so loud she wanted to scream.[break]
The fabric wrapped around her hand, it stung, but nothing was more painful than knowing...[break][break]
'No... please no...'[break][break]
Her eyes darted around them, his hands held hers within them, clasped together for a moment, they couldn't do anything, they couldn't say anything, they weren't safe, what if the megalopolans noticed, they... They would use that against them, wouldn't they...[break][break]
'No, please, don't let go, don't let go, don't let me go!'[break][break]
His hands left hers, she was trembling, her head cast down. She brought her injured hand into her lap, cradling it with her other, her shoulders shook in a silent sob. It was killing her knowing how close they were, but how easy it would be for them to be separated... How easy it would be to lose each other...[break]
"T-thank you...," was all her small, broken voice could manage. This was a new kind of personal hell...[break][break]
[break]
Before anything else could be said or done, the bird gave a loud call, everything ceased, they were done with their work for the day... And their ward had supposedly performed the best. However, that didn't mean that the other wards apparently had performed on par, in fact... Another example was being made.[break][break]
There were 'thieves' in the other wards, Yuina's eyes glanced to the crystals, what had they been trying to do? But as a 'screen' of sorts flickered along the tera crystals above them, more megalopolans to do the bidding of the toxic chain that marred them, it was impossible to look away.[break][break]
One by one, Pokeballs were smashed to pieces, unrecognizable, irrepairable, and the Pokemon inside... Yuina's heart ached. She only waited to see if any of her own Pokemon would have appeared, if only to continue to spite the lot of them for nothing else... She wondered if the
Naganadel that she kept close with her, would suffer the same fate, or if they would recognize it as their own... And then, they spoke of past transgressions... One final Pokeball...
A gigaton ball...[break][break]
"No...," Yuina breathed, she recognized it anywhere, knew who it belonged to, knew the Ursaluna within its confinements... Crushed... Her fists clenched, another piece of hisui squandered by them...[break][break]
And yet, now they were supposed to accept a reward, their ward had performed to satisfaction, and they would be lead to this chamber by the nooses that formed one long chain of them around their necks. Yuina did grasp Doug's hand though, without hesitation, her fingers intertwined with his... She needed it...[break][break]
And then they were given a choice, as the 'screen' flicked again, the other wards could be seen, antagonized by two other Pokemon and their toxic chains, held just like they were... They were to be punished... And they were supposed to make the choice? Monsters...[break]
Emboldened by holding his hand firmly in her grasp, enraged by knowing what had just happened to the Ursaluna, Yuina didn't care much for the snide remarks of a woman within their ward (
Elisabeth Fiorelli), the way she regarded
Navy that she know knew was with them... He was right...[break][break]
"No, you won't make us sacrifice each other," Yuina spoke to the megalopolans, especially when she could imagine that
none of them mattered in the end of this, none of them will be alive when this was all over.[break]
"If choosing none of us means punishing all of us, then so be it," she returned, she wouldn't dare vote against the other wards who were just like them in the end, turning them all against each other would only make this that much harder.[break][break]
"You will pay, murderers," she finished, foreign words, but her intent was clear... A threat. They'd already erased her kin, the Hisuians from the swamps... She wasn't going to let them go in vain either, they deserved to be remembered for what happened to them.
John Sullivan[break][break]
NOTES
- Yuina realizes who is there with her, who her cellmate is...[break]
- Watches Doug the Bloodmoon Ursaluna's Gigaton ball get smashed by the megalopolans, she's furious[break]
- Would they do the same to the Naganadel that she harbors?[break]
- She will not turn against one of the other wards, they're all there, and they all won't matter in the end. If they turn on each other now, there's no chance of getting out alive.
Yuina does not vote for a ward[break]
-
'You will pay, murderers', Yuina makes a threat in Hisuian