---

Would the bus just come already? It’s cold and I feel like the clinic behind is staring at me.

The schedules are somewhere online, I bet, but I have no phone to look them up with, let alone will or knowhow to do so. I’d love to read them physically, but the ones on the poster at the back of this glass box are outdated - bus 20 isn’t even mentioned - so, no help there. I guess the box itself is nice, though. Blocks the wind, even if the panes are rather smudgy.

I lean forward and peek around the corner, trying to spot movement at the end of the street. There is none. Just like every other minute I’ve spent here. How long have I been here already? It feels like a long time.

I sigh, closing my eyes. I wonder what Michi and the mask are doing right now. Hopefully just playing house or whatever kids and their ghost friends do.

I wait like that for a while, not bothering to open my eyes, knowing an approaching bus will make noise anyway.

I hear something. Not a bus, sadly, but something else. Steps, jingling. I look to my left. Some woman is approaching. Tons of makeup on her, poorly dyed hair, fat, ugly. She’s covered up, but still looks slutty. Her jeans are stretched to their maximum width by her lard. From the pockets, there hang thin, golden chains - the source of the jingling.

Her way of walking is strange. It’s like she had a burning need to urinate. She turns her head from side to side, like she was looking for the nearest bathroom.

Suddenly, she looks at *me, come up to *me. Why? What does she want?

“I’m sorry, do you have a dollar to spare?” she asks with a whining voice. So that’s what she wants. Hmh.

I stay silent, stone-faced, hoping she’ll take the hint. But no. She just keeps this dumbass look on her face, like that of a spoiled snubbull begging for treats.

Pitiful. Just pathetic. This kind of grotesque individual should be removed from this world. Wiped off the face of this town like the piece of filth she is.

But no one will do it. No one dares. They hate her too, but they’re cowards.

But, I… I’m not held back. I could do it. Shove my knife into her gut. Have her squeal like the overgrown swinub she is. Pull it out and strike again. Again and again. Butcher her. My stabbing hand’s thumb scrapes against the rest of the fingers. The urge is strong. I have to satisfy myself.

The whore’s face twists into an expression of disgust. I’ve stared too long. She’s realized what I thirst for.

“Eww, what the fuck?” she screeches, definitely a lot louder than necessary. “Pervert!”

Perv... *what? She thinks I want to…

How delusional is she? How *degenerate does she think I am? No. I don’t, and *nobody else does either.

That’s it. I can’t take this. I’m not going to stand here and let some subhuman look down on me. I need to set the record straight. I’m above her. I’m above everyone.

A subtle smile forms on my lips as my fingers brush against the hilt of my knife. I can already see the fear in the whore’s eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey. What’s going on here?” a voice suddenly interrupts. I jerk my head to its direction. I freeze upon seeing the source.

It’s a man. But not just any kind of man, no - it’s a two-meter beefy giant whose musculature would put a machoke to shame. A man who could take on even Stalin, I bet.

The giant turns to the whore. I notice the necklace on him as it swings around with his torso. The spiny wheel-like symbol on the end is unmistakable. He's an Arcean.

“Are you alright?” the man asks the whore, voice lowered, as if he was afraid louder words would harm the fair lady's delicate ears. The woman nods hesitantly. The man politely prompts her to leave, which she does. He then turns back to me, heroic anger in his stare.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he booms, chin up.

I survey his body. I don't see any weapons. I look him in the eye, a shit-eating grin on my face.

“She was asking for it.”

Fury flares in the valiant knight's eyes and he raises his fist. I unsheathe my knife and hold it in front of me. The man backs away. My grin turns wider.

“Stick to *praying for the whores, pony boy,” I chuckle.

The man's reaction is priceless. He's so outraged, so offended, but he can't do a thing and he knows it. He merely remains standing, snorting like a tauros, eyes like a shellder’s.

“I think you should leave,” I say, waggling the knife in my hand. “Nothing good will come out of you staying.”

Silent rage on his face, the man backs up a few steps, then turns around and walks off, fists clenched.

Following him with my gaze, I study his body closer. Man, I wish I was as tall as him. It may be points off from agility, but it sure adds to intimidation.

His bulk, I have to admit, is respectable. Even with that black jacket on, I can tell how admirably thick his arms are underneath. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into them after the ascension. They look delicious.

After a while, the bus finally arrives. With a wheeze, it stops in front of me. I rush in from the door opening near its front, gleefully leaving the chill of the outside behind.

The interior of the bus doesn’t smell good, but at least it’s warm. I pay the bus driver, obtain a ticket and search for empty window seats as I proceed along the bus. The vehicle jerks into motion, nearly flinging my unprepared body onto the stairs ahead. Luckily I manage to grab the pole, pull myself up and keep going.

There turn out to be no available window seats, only a few aisle seats. Quietly groaning, I settle for one, next to a sleeping young woman. She’s unlikely to disturb me during the trip.

I direct my attention to the scabbard in my pocket. I should reattach that to my belt. But can I do it here, or are people just going to freak out? Some people get really unnerved by knives. I suppose it’s a more logical thing to be afraid of than, say, the dark, but there’s no need to make a scene over a legal weapon on a man’s hip.

Well, I suppose no scene could be as bad as losing my knife would be. Just imagining getting into trouble and not having my claw by my side gives me chills.

I refasten the scabbard, occasionally glancing around to see if anyone is staring. No one is. Wonderful. I’ve had enough drama for the moment. I mean, hell, I’ve nearly ended up killing people *twice today.

The thought stops me. That’s really not a good thing.

What’s causing these sudden bursts of near-uncontrollable bloodthirst? Nothing new has happened in a long time - save for this whole mask ordeal, but the first fit came before that even started. Is it just coincidence? Whatever it is, I hope I can vent it out while getting rid of the ghost.

Hmh. At least I’m going to a quiet and familiar place now. That should calm me down. There’ll be no whores there, only silent bookworms refined and patient enough to still read things on paper in this age of technology. And, were I to stab them after all, I wouldn’t get seventeen STDs just by inhaling the fumes of their blood.

I sit still, silently and bored for the rest of the way as the same views from the cab ride slide past, only in reverse. Finally, I begin to recognize the surroundings. Not before long, the library reveals itself from behind a corner. I push the stop button. It feels sticky. Lovely.

The bus stops a few dozen meters away from the library. The second the crevice between the opening doors is wide enough for a man to fit through, I hop out and begin to briskly walk toward the entrance of the library.

The building is octagonal with white outer walls and a black roof. Small windows form a thin, dull band around the upper rim of the building.

From the outside, the library looks big and soulless, but I know the inside is far different. It’s a wonderful, peaceful place. It smells like paper and wood and freshly baked buns thanks to the café inside, separated from the actual book section with glass walls to trap any noise. But just like the faint steps and the swooshing of turning pages in the air, the smells are nowhere near overwhelming.

And the wooden shelves - they’re so smooth. Beneath a glossy layer of lacquer, there run beautiful curves of dark and light, like waves on a beach. Their liveliness reaches full bloom with the books they carry - vivid, colorful, like flowers. It’s a garden, but without the bugs.

Just thinking about it makes me feel warmer. And then instantly colder, when I remember I’m still outside. I accelerate my slowed down pace and soon reach the main doors. I dash to pull it open and slip inside, to warmth. But I’ve barely taken 3 steps before my feet are nailed to the floor from what I’m seeing.

This is not the library I know. Is this really the right building?

It must be. I can see shelves and shelves of books ahead. But the shelves are different. They’re look all… modern. The bookcases are formed by a long, slithering plane of metal bent to a polygonal squiggle, resembling a stack of short and wide Ss. The undersides are painted black, the top sides painted white. Both are matte and boring, causing the books they wrap around to appear lifeless as well. Underneath the bookshelves lie black carpets. Who did this? Someone who hates color?

The air doesn’t smell like sweet warm buns, instead it smells like rubber and something I don’t even recognize. I look over to the café to see what the deal is, but I don’t see a café. Oh, wonderful. They’ve replaced it with an exotic deli. That explains the mystery stench.

Well. This may be a kick in the shin, but nothing near crippling. The books in here are still the same, it make no difference for me or my plan if they’re surrounded by grayscale vomit.

I spot two signs hanging from the ceiling. Fact, Fiction. I need facts, even if my situation is straight out of a ghost story. Or perhaps not. Ghost stories don’t usually have people like me as their protagonists.

Having walked underneath the Fact sign, I locate the section on pokémon. It takes me a while to find the subsection of ghosts, as it’s very far back and rather small - only one bookcase. Seems that humanity still doesn’t know all that much about them. For certain, anyway.

I study the spines of the books. Most of them are in dark, gloomy colors. Fits the theme. None of the books’ titles mention yamask yet. I’ll have to search deeper, it seems, although brushing up on knowledge of ghosts in general first isn't a bad idea.

I grab one book with a rather generic title - Sensational Spirits: A Guide to Ghost Type Pokémon. Its cover features illustrations of several ghost-type mon on a dark violet background. No yamask on it, though.

I move over to a nearby table to take a look at its table of contents. “Introduction”, “What Are Ghost Pokémon?”, “Habitat”, ”Life Cycle”, “Attacks”, “Interaction with Humans”, “How to Train a Ghost Pokèmon”... Much to read, but probably won't take too long to skim through.

I search my surroundings with my eyes and find a clock hanging from the ceiling. It’s nearly four. I guess I should be quick. I turn the page and begin to read.

A lot of the book’s contents is already familiar to me, as I expected. Even if my memories are limited due to the merge, I get the feeling I’ve learned all of this rather early.

*Ghosts are immune to fighting and normal type attacks. Ghost attacks are strong against psychic types and other ghost types…* and so on.

*Ghosts can be fully incorporeal or be tied to something, like an object or a body. Incorporeal ghosts (eg. Shuppet, Duskull) can pass through objects freely, but ghosts tied to something (eg. Banette, Frillish) usually cannot, as they are held back by their physical parts…* and so on.

*A lot of ghosts feed on negative emotions such as hatred or envy…* So on, so on, so on.

Now I’m halfway through the book, yet there’s no word on how to kill one of these things. Well, an emotion-feeding ghost could technically be starved, but that takes a very long time and they tend to be incorporeal anyway, so there’s no way to trap them. And that yamask didn’t look very malicious, just sad.

I look at the clock again. That took twenty minutes? I need to switch to a better book.

I return the old book to its place in the shelf, pick out a more advanced-seeming one and walk back to my table. The Complete Guide to Ghost Pokémon. No pictures on the cover. Says it’s “complete”. Can’t go wrong with this one.

I went wrong with that one. No word on either how to squish a ghost or what the hell a yamask is, and it’s a quarter to five. “Complete”, my ass. I tramp over to the bookcase and shove it back in the shelf.

With a heavy sigh, I go through the spines of the books again. No, no yamask here. Not here, not here… Wait.

One book is placed in the shelf with its spine facing the away from me. With my finger on its top, I drag it out from between the others. It has black covers. I look at the front. In golden, shining letters, five wonderful words are written. Yamask: Shadows from the Past.

Eagerly, I snatch the book and zoom back to the table. I lay the book open and dig right in.

*Deep beneath the sand of Unova’s Desert Resort, in the halls of the mysterious Relic Castle, it seems empty at first glance. Nothing but pillars and bricks for…* Yeah, I’m just going to skip ahead…

*Yamask is a shadow-like ghost type pokémon. It has a main body, two arms and a tail with which it carries a golden mask. Its large red eyes appear to leak a fluid of the same color, but strangely, the liquid disappears upon touching the ground. Because of this, the contents and nature of the fluid are yet unknown. Yamask seem to have human-level intelligence, but unlike most other ghosts, they’re unable to speak. They can learn and understand human language, but they can physically only emit wails and screeches.* That does match what I’ve seen. But *what are they?

My question fortunately seems to be answered right in the very next paragraph. Finally.

*Yamask are believed to be incarnated spirits of the people who lived in ancient Unova. Each carries the face of their former self on their mask. Most appear to have memories of their past life.*

Aw, fuck. Incarnation. Memories. In other words, the worst case scenario. It truly is Joanna, back beyond the grave - that is, if she had a grave. Michi must be expecting Joanna to remember something, even if it was just her name.

But why was she reincarnated? She’s not an ancient Unovan, she was only a bit older than me. Her relatives live right here in Pallet. She was ethnically Tojhoan. There was nothing specifically Unovan about her apartment. It doesn’t make sense - she should be dead for good, like all the others.

Oh, wouldn’t it be fantastic just to wish upon a star in the beautiful night sky and have them both smitten in the blink of an eye, but life doesn’t quite work like that. Yet, anyway. Till then, I’ll need to find out more and remove this threat by non-divine measures. I’ll keep reading.

*Yamask seem to have human-level intelligence, but unlike most other ghosts, they’re unable to speak. They can learn and understand human language, but they can physically only emit wails and screeches.*

*With enough experience, a yamask may evolve into the coffin-like pokémon cofagrigus. Cofagrigus is ghost type as well and shares the same ability with yamask, but it is more hostile. They are known to attack explorers, opening up and sealing them inside their bodies. They then sap the life out of their victim, leaving only mummified remains left. They also have a strange affinity for eating nuggets of gold.*

Coffin-like? How does that work?

I search up the chapter on cofagrigus with the help of the table of contents. The images on it are… unsettling.

Cofagrigus’ disguised form appears to be an upright gold and blue coffin with the mask of the mon’s previous stage on top of where the face of the deceased inside would be. However, in its true form, the front of the coffin has opened up to reveal a disgusting face. Big, small-pupiled eyes that are human in all but their piercing red color and glow. A mouth filled with needles twisted into a malicious grin. But everything else - a pitch black void, even when the back of the coffin should logically be showing through. It simply doesn’t look real.

And that’s not even all. On top of revealing its monstrous face, it has sprouted a multitude of long, oddly fibrous arms with bony humanoid hands at their ends. Those are what it must use to shove its prey inside itself, possibly also to keep itself shut while its prey struggles as its being fed upon.

So that’s how a coffin-like mon works.

Speaking of feeding… I don’t think I’ve eaten anything in a few hours. My stomach is feeling uncomfortably hollow. It’s twisting in protest of my involuntary fasting. I’d love to sate it, but I really doubt that exotic deli has anything for me, and I’m on a tight schedule anyway… I’ll grab a quick bite somewhere after I’ve gathered all the information I need. So, back to reading.

*Like some other ghost types, yamask are also capable of possessing humans. The first proof of this came about thirty years ago, when a group of explorers found an ostensibly abandoned gold mask. One of the explorers jokingly put it on his face, but soon the others noticed him starting to behave strangely. After a few days, the man recovered on his own, having managed to slay the spirit of the yamask by stabbing at its image inside his mind with a pen.*

...Is that true? That’s how you kill a ghost? By killing its mindscape self? That doesn’t sound very easy… But if some explorer can do it, a killer like me should be able do it to an inexperienced mon with my eyes closed. Still, I can’t be sure. I need to find out more to flesh out my plan.

Suddenly, a shadow emerges in the corner of my vision. My heartbeat’s tempo accelerates to twofold in a second. Who is it? The ghost? Have they caught me?

No, it’s just a person… Some gangly guy looking at me, walking this way. What does he want?

“Sir, the library is closed,“ he says in an authoritative manner, eyes locked into mine.

“What?” I peek at the clock. “It’s only… five.”

“We close at five.”

I grunt. “I need to finish this book.”

“Then loan it.”

“I don’t have a card.”

“Then you’ll unfortunately have to leave.” His tone is sorry, but the last word is quite stressed.

“But I need to finish this book,” I rush to repeat, louder. I can’t leave. I’m not ready. There’s more to this book, more to yamask, ghosts. If I don’t read it all, I’ll miss something, I’ll fail, I’ll --

“I’m sorry, you can’t.”

“Well… can’t I buy it? I have money,” I splutter. Everyone likes money.

“This isn’t a bookstore.” The man’s face has tightened. He’s a full grown adult, about my height, but a lot lankier. I could take him on. But I can’t do that. That’ll just make things worse. What do I do?

“Come on, bud. Let’s go,” the man says, taking a step toward me. He knows I can’t attack him. He knows that if I do, he can call security. He has power over me, and that’s so fucking frustrating…

I jerk up, stare fiercely at the page number in order to burn it onto my mind, then close the book with a thump. I stamp to the bookshelf and shove the book in a random spot. I flash the man the fakest smile I can, then strut past him and head for the doors. When I’m outside the building, I snarl to myself. I should have just stolen the book while I could.

My way home is about as pleasant as the rest of the day. After the first thirty steps, a drop taps on the top of my head - after one more step, three more, and so it starts to rain. Having no umbrella, I settle for pulling up my hood, but with the wind throwing the water all over the place, it’s not much use. All of this while still plagued by that stubborn hunger.

Finally, my jacket and hair dripping, I arrive home. I thrust my key into to lock, twist it and wrench the door open. Like a shopkeeper’s bell, Abe immediately chimes his greeting. “Hi, Red!”

I enter, disrobe and turn to the kitchen. Abe is there, eating a bowl of cereal while reading one of his school books.

“You’re home pretty late,” he points out, briefly glancing at me, then back at his text. “But anyway, how was the appointment?”

“Fine,” I answer, opening the fridge and grabbing the carton of eggs. Eggs are nutritious, delicious and easy and fast to make. Not the fanciest, but right now I’d be ready to eat them raw if it meant a decent meal and it wasn’t possibly diseased.

“Did she say anything?” Abe asks while I ready the stove and pan.

“Nothing special.”

He stays quiet for the next minute or so, but when I’m at the point of flipping the eggs, he speaks up again.

“You need to see her a second time,” he spurts.
“What?” I turn to look at him. He’s not looking at me.

“She called me,” he confesses. “I scheduled a second time.”

“When?” I bark.

“Same time next week.”

With a bothered exhale, I turn back to my eggs. Well, at least by then I’ll be clear of the ghost. I’ll be able to lie better, convince her I’m all nice and normal. Maybe she’ll even have her tits covered that time.

I finish my cooking and set the fried eggs onto a plate. They look rather lacking all by themselves. What should I have with them?

“Hi, Red,” a quiet greeting suddenly sounds from the living room. Immediately, the image of the voice’s bearer enters my mind. His innocent eyes, His shiny shell, His curiously coiling tentacles, He’s overwhelming.

No, not right now. I’m not strong enough. I have to get out of here.

I quickly grab some utensils and the plate of eggs and briskly walk to the stairs, keeping my head down. I don’t want to see… it. I hop up the stairs, enter my room and lock the door. I sit on my bed, now daring to raise my head again.

I shouldn’t feel this way, I shouldn't react like this, I know, it’s wrong, I know, but I need to spare my energy for other things right now.

I wonder if He saw the can of shrimp yet.

No. Stop that. Don’t think about those things.

To clear my mind, I focus on the eggs. I cut a piece off and eat it. I realize I forgot the salt. Well, then I’ll focus on something else.

Michi. The mask. What is my plan regarding them?

I look at the clock. Half past five. It’s still very much daytime, but the library’s closed. I can’t get any more information - unless I were to seek it from another library. That idea may have something to it.

I’ll go to Viridian. It’s not too far, and it likely even has a better selection of books. I can use the bus to get there faster as well. This may really work. It will.

Right after finishing my eggs, I exit my room. At the top of the staircase, I stop.

Yes, the omanyte will be there. But you still don’t have to look. You’ll just keep on moving, no matter what happens. It’s air to you.

Mind strengthened by those thoughts and the knowledge of the relief I’ll get once the yamask is eradicated, I descend the stairs.

---