A Spooky Story

"What's wrong honey? Don't you like it?"
He stared at the ghostly jellyfish for the umpteenth time. The way its red, unblinking eyes ripped right into his soul, the way it kept staring fixatedly at him in an uncomfortable way that made him feel like a mouse staring down the cat. In short, no, he didn't like it, but he wasn't going to say that out loud.
"He's... neat" he lied, his mother smiling. "I know you always wanted a Pokemon dear, so I went ahead and picked out one they said was 'hip' like all the cool kids wanted!"
She meant well, she truly did, but he was fifteen now. Old dreams of being a trainer had gone down the toilet for want of basic education years ago. His interests had mostly died the day that he'd hit puberty. Now Pokemon were just another fact of life, a responsibility he'd rather not indulge in, and the house hadn't even had one since their last one, a fat old Watchog even when he was a youth, had died earlier in his childhood.
Now here was this Frillish, in all its disturbing emotionless glory.

There was an air of mysticism to Ghost-types that he found somewhat fascinating, but it was a fascination that he'd much rather observe from a distance much in the same way people who like Sharpedo don't go around swimming in Sharpedo infested waters.
"Why him?" he pondered. His mother, oblivious to his petulance, continued her drawling on. "Well because he seemed so friendly dear! Just look at that adorable little face!"
He took another look at it. Big frowny mouth, big empty eyes, soulless. It didn't even inhale or exhale. Did this thing even breathe? Why didn't it speak?
...Why was it just staring at him? It wouldn't look away.
He hated it.
"I guess..." he conceded, failing to find anything adorable about this abyssal royalty. He admitted he knew little about them, most Pokemon in fact, but if he remembered correctly, weren't these things evil? Of course it would be his luck his mom would bring it into the house.
So, he resolved to ignore it to the best of his abilities. At this, he failed.

He went into the living room to watch tv. It stood (floated, really) in the corner of the room and watched him instead.
"Oh, look at that, it must find all the bright colors so fascinating!"
He found it too distracting so he shut it off and tried to read. That failed too. It just kept staring at him. Dammit, go bug mom or something! Why him? What about him did it find so fascinating?
He went to his room to play video games. That succeeded in distracting him for a while, even helping to relax him a tad. Only when it came time to go to the bathroom, he opened the door and found the hellish jellyfish directly in the doorframe. It nearly gave him a heart attack, yet despite his shock the Pokemon did not react. How long had it just been... sitting there? Staring at the door? Waiting for him silently?
Had his mom not noticed this fucking thing being a creeper yet?
He waited for it to move. It did not. Of course it didn't, why would it? "Move" he intoned. It did not. "Move!" he said again, quite a bit louder. It just floated there, looking at him.
Looking straight at him.
Those red sclera, tiny beady dots, sat within inky pits of blackish tar from which no light seemed to escape. And at the end were two, tiny pinprick white pupils that locked right onto him, straight into his eyes, at all times. It made them feel like they were the size of dinner plates, converse to their true size of a sesame seed.
He hardly noticed his breathing had increased, his whole body began trembling. Something about this Pokemon made him nervous, put him on edge, and he didn't know why.

"What the fuck do you want?!"
It moved a tentacle towards him, slowly, yet with guided purpose, right to his face.
With a grunt of exertion he shoved forwards, pushing himself through the jellyfish's blockade. Its skin was near freezing to the touch, and it had the consistency of something eerily squishy.
He rushed in a hurry to the bathroom and locked the door tight. Once he made it to the can he damn near hyperventilated himself into an early grace. At least the fear helped the bowels move along, so that was at least something to be thankful for. He tried to lose himself in his phone but, foolishly, he took a glance to the door. He could see a shadow outside, floating above the carpeting, but no feet. Two guesses as to who that belonged to, and the first one didn't count.
This doorframe was smaller than his bedroom's. He was literally blocked in now, and he didn't want to physically move the Pokemon out of the way. Or open the door. It may be mad at him after his earlier performance.
And so, not bold enough to confront the Pokemon, he sat there and waited for what seemed like an eternity. An hour in fact, before the Pokemon seemed to lose interest and float away. Not once did it emit a vocalization, make a noise, knock on the door. Just stark still, like a statue.

He went straight to his room and locked the door, skipping dinner that night. Tomorrow the things goes back to the store, he was going to make damn sure of that.
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That night, he went to the creek behind his house. When he was younger he'd love to explore the creek with his friend, playing in the muddy dried up riverbed after the frequent flooding had drained it away to bog and mush. They loved to explore, to find new things, find Pokemon.
One time, they crossed a wet part of the creek. There was a little river running through it, still tenaciously trudging on despite the lack of direction or destination. Per their exploration, they had to cross it.
His friend went first, stepping over it quite easily. "Come on, just a quick hop over" they encouraged him. He looked down, something within the water looked back. Curiosity overcame fear however, and he boldly took his step.

Two blue tentacles reached out from the wet and yanked him down hard, pulling him into the drink with a mighty splash. Moisture and saltwater filled his vision, reddening his eyes and blurring his sight. Yet down he looked, looking at the phantom jellyfish that was dragging him down.
It was a Frillish, blue as the ocean it inhabited, and its grip stung like the hottest fire. Poisons, paralyzing toxins, seeped into his blood, freezing him in place, not even able to turn his head. All he could do was stare as the Pokemon continued to glare at him, that same empty expression, that same unmoving personality. Its gripe was as cold as a glacier, uncompromising and remorseless as frostbite.
Stare as his lungs filled to capacity.
The pressure mounted, the water grew darker, and the deeper he sank the further he slipped down and out of his previous life. His head felt like it would explode, yet he continued to sink, be dragged ever further down into the darkness.

And then, from behind the Frillish, he saw it. A thousand tentacles, ten thousand, perhaps a million, reaching for the legs of all humanity, waiting to pull them into the blackest fathoms, rip them down from their arrogant perches and send them tumbling. Yet only he was sinking, and the rest of the world was blissfully ignorant of his plight.
The dark grew darker, ever darker, and the pain rose until at last the foamy bubbles of his suffering breaths turned blood red, and at once the pitch black murk became the dark sanguine undertones of hell itself.
Something about that redness seemed to change the very nature of the deep, for below the ocean seemed to lead down to a gigantic red head, skin stretched thinly over a skull, gaping open wide with a harlequin grin to swallow the ocean. And from it everything went down, down in the deep, yawning, black void of its gullet.

The Frillish wrapped around him tightly as he sank. His limbs popped from his sockets, his eyes breaking and flooding with blood, and his limbs twisted like noodles into unnatural shapes. Through all of this he kept his gaze upon the Frillish, never breaking eye contact, and it the same.
Until its gaping maw stretched that is, and lunged forwards.
The last sight he saw was of the monstrous mon as it devoured him whole, the top of its toothless mouth passing over his head to obscure his vision of the nothingness surrounding him. He survived for several seconds more however, and fell down, down, down into the murk at increasing velocity.
Something was coming up to greet him at the end.
He never saw what it properly was, for the sight of it made him wake
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It took all the energy he could muster not to wake up screaming.
The world was real. His bed was real. His blankets and his pillows were real. Gestalt memories of faux terrors left him. His heartrate, the speed of a jackhammer, trickled to a crawl. He hadn't had a nightmare that bad in the long time. Those who say you can't get hurt in a dream are goddamned liars, because that shit was painful and he'd felt every second of it. The constricting tightness especially, which still seemed to linger.
Most notably on his throat
...
He looked down at his mouth. His heartrate soared again. A blue tentacle, squishy and soft yet the color of azure, was wrapped around his neck and cupped over the bottom part of his head. It continued to slowly wrap itself around his jaw, slithering like a slug. His spine felt like someone had laid a pack of ice on it, so cold it almost burned.

Was he going to die? How'd it get in? Dammit, he'd forgotten to lock his door hadn't he? The freak must've slipped inside to finish him off. Any second now and he'd be dead.
Should he scream for help? Should he try to fight back and overpower the Pokemon? Which option was less likely to get him killed? His eyes darted around the room for anything nearby to grip on, but he was firmly nestled into his bed like an infant smothered in swaddling.
Briefly however, his eyes caught a glance of the mirror in the corner of his room, and through it he saw the Pokemon. There it was, snuggled right up into his spine. That explained the cold. One of its tentacles was indeed wrapped around his head, the other one splayed out across a nearby pillow. Its bottom three tentacles seemed to be coiled around his legs.
Most curious of all however was its expression. Eyes shut for once, it was smiling peacefully.
Why?
He also saw, to his dismay, the door wide open. That was one mystery down at least

He was left puzzled, conflicted as to what he should do. Just what was its obsession with him? His befuddlement almost negated his anxiety entirely.
With surgical precision and molasses speed, he tried to move the tentacle off of him. It wouldn't budge. In fact, it tightened its grip. In its sleep it smacked its lips and briefly widened its smile.
He realized he could probably just... stand up and all. However he was too nervous. What would happen if it woke up and realized he was awake too? What would it do?
...
It didn't seem to be trying to hurt him but he wasn't exactly eager to get back to sleep. The
Slowly, he shut his eyes and tried to steady his breathing, tried to return to his slumber. He didn't resume for a long time.
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He woke up feeling like he'd been slapped with a ton of bricks upside the head. Fatigue from a bad night's sleep and weariness to return to sleep had left him with precious little hours.
He ate breakfast with his mother. The Frillish sat in-between them and watched them eat, him specifically to be precise. "Aw, look at that sweetie, he likes you!" she cooed. He only briefly dared to look at it once more. Still the same vacant expression, still the same stare.
"Hey Mom... uh, look..."
Tell her to send him back. You don't want him.
"Yes dear?"
He began to conscientiously reconsider his decision. How would the Pokemon react to his words? It made him hesitate. He couldn't get a read on the damn thing, and eventually, his resolve turned to jelly. He promptly chickened out. "Uh... Nevermind, I forgot."

It continued to observe him quietly as he set everything up, as he expected it would. He had his online classes to look forward to. With the virus still ongoing, he was forced to do more of those obnoxious Zoom calls with the camera on and all.
And when he turned the camera on, he wasn't the least bit surprised to see the Frillish still in the background, staring at the back of his head like an archer at a bullseye.
Whatever. He'd deal with it later.
He gave it one more look, noting its empty eyes. Hollow, devoid of life, yet not devoid of focus.
"Is everything alright?" someone asked.
"Huh?"
"You look nervous dear" said the teacher.
He gave one last look to the Frillish and focused his gaze on the rest of the screen. "Its nothing. Its fine."
And as he learned, the Frillish watched. Quietly, patiently.
Silently.