Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Broken Ideals

Chapter 94: Anomaly

Chapter 94

Anomaly

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Zekra sat at an empty table within the mess hall the following evening, gazing idly at the celebrating Pokémon within the room. She could clearly see so many of them eating at various tables that Len and Crystelle helped to set up, eating delicious foods that the cooks had kindly prepared. Everyone was smiling and chatting amongst one another, though talking about what, Zekra didn't know. Despite her sensitive hearing, she couldn't understand what anyone was saying. Everyone's voices seemed to jumble up together, making a mesh of muffled voices that held no meaning.

Everyone clearly seemed happy and quite enjoying the celebration. She could smell the wonderful aromas rising from all the foods wafting from the kitchen and from everyone's plates. And yet she could not feel the slightest prick of energy or the urge to smile.

All she felt was emptiness. She could not even will herself to eat the large, juicy steak sitting before on a plate.

To her, the food might as well have been piles of manure with all of the Pokémon nothing but mangled, oozing corpses that stank of decay just like the ones that lined the Fellowship's halls a day earlier.

Zekra had not slept last night. She had tried to. She had forced her eyes shut and made her mind wander off, but she couldn't dive deep into the dream world. Her mind had wanted to remain deeply rooted in reality, refusing to rest. She could barely keep her eyes closed for five minutes before she could tolerate the darkness behind her eyelids no more.

So in the end, she had given up trying to rest. She only retreated from her spot amongst the spire, taking extra care not to alert the dragon that still sat before the slumbering Rayquaza, and crept back into the Fellowship. Then, after she had made sure that Len and Crystelle were both asleep in their separate rooms, she removed every single body from the castle.

There were some bodies that were quite heavy, such as Lairon or Rhydon. There were also bodies that when she had tried to drag them away, they came apart and spilled all of their intestines onto the floor, creating even more of a putrid, bloody mess. However, no matter how gruesome or challenging the sight, Zekra was able to bring every single body to the very courtyard where she had last seen Yimtri in his Sableye form. She dragged each and every one of them there with an apathetic stare, not even once cringing or reeling back in disgust at the horrendous conditions so many of the bodies were in. No matter how much blood was pooled around their bodies, how many faces had been mutilated to make the Pokémon unrecognizable, how horrendously the gastric acids filled the air with their scent, or the terrified and begging expressions forever frozen to every single identifiable face, Zekra did not react in the slightest.

She had only brought every corpse to the courtyard and threw them into a great, big pile. By the time she had gathered all of the corpses, it was hundreds of Pokémon large, innards and blood trickling down the hill of bodies like rainwater.

Zekra remembered that she didn't even hesitate to set the grotesque sight on fire.

She had not plugged her nose as she watched the flesh upon everyone's bodies become charred a deep black. Zekra had not closed her eyes as smoke and ash filled the air around her, casting her in a hazy world of burning death with the melting faces being the only thing she could identify amongst it all.

Zekra had stared back at those faces, those faces that lacked eyes and had only black holes with pale flesh oozing into them. She had watched them burn before her, keeping them company as everyone slowly became a massive pile of blackened bones and fur.

She remembered that she could not even will herself to feel pity for all of these lost lives.

She had stayed until the fire died completely, but she had found that not all of the bodies had been reduced to ash. Some of the Pokémon, particularly the rock and steel-types, had survived the fire and were now nothing but red-hot corpses. For those, Zekra remembered simply throwing them into the dungeon after their bodies had cooled.