Pokémon Room 817

[Persephone]

“Code Gray in Wing 2C!”

Mrs. Abigail Northton stowed her radio and drew her weapon. The flashlight ignited in one fluid motion, earning a shriek before her nemesis ducked around the corner. With a swear muttered under her uneven breaths she rounded after the creature just to watch its filthy, unsanitary shroud slip into the stairwell. She summoned one more burst of energy and raced through the doorway.

The stairwell was colder and bleaker than usual. And the concrete shaft with unadorned, colorless walls and dull metal railings was plenty cold and bleak on its own. She flicked the flashlight on once more and slowly started scanning every shadow. There weren’t many: the harsh fluorescent lighting lit everything almost uncomfortably well. Just a few stray patches of darkness under the railings, none of which contained her foe. The only thing left to cast a shadow was…

She abruptly pivoted in place and shined the light behind her. The phantom reappeared with an unholy wail, only to be snatched up by its shroud. Abigail Northton glared at the now-whimpering monster. At its stained patchwork of a cloak that was poorly stitched together, some parts hanging loose and sagging down under the force of gravity. A bad parody of a pikachu with inky black tentacles dripping down beneath it before fading into fog.

“Ik-yuuuuuuu.” The creature’s cry was mournful. Almost human. The kind of thing she heard every day in the hospital. Abigail Northton’s grip slackened in pity and she started walking down the stairs.

“I’ll let you go this time,” her words echoed alongside her footsteps in the cavernous space. “But I’m hiring an exterminator soon. You won’t like what he’ll do to you. Trust me.” She opened the door and stepped into a side alley. The sterile air of the hospital was immediately replaced by the fragrance of a dumpster one day away from being emptied. She threw the dirty shroud into the trash where it belonged. Her sympathy for the undead only went so far. “Find somewhere else to haunt.”

She shut the door behind her before leaning back on the cold, concrete wall. So many ghosts. Not just the damn mimikyu, which had tried in vain at least thrice before to break in. There was also a fright of gastly living on the fourth floor, a misdreavus that loved to drift through the halls and wail every night, and even the odd party of drifloon settling down in the courtyard on particularly bad days.

They were scaring the kids. Scaring the parents, too. The idea that their child would have their soul eaten as soon as it left their miserable, sickly body… she’d heard the same shouting, sobbing rant from more parents than she could count. What was she supposed to do? Tell them that it was a hospital, a magnet and factory alike for the ghosts? That certified exterminators weren’t easy to find? That uncertified ones made the problem worse more often than they helped?

She straightened up and prepared to return to whatever problems work threw at her today.

The damn exorcist couldn’t arrive soon enough.

*​

A young woman with straw blonde hair walked out of St. Timothy’s Children’s Hospital, her pokémon following close behind. The small pokémon were more yellow than their trainer’s hair with shocks of black capping the ears. A ridiculously shaped tail jutted out behind their perfect, popular bodies.

Pikachu.

They’d brought in pikachu to play with the kids. Again. Just like they did every seven days. It wasn’t fair. Pikachu could come and go and the ghost couldn’t. She wanted to play with the kids, too. Soak in the love. The feeling. The meaning. Pikachu didn’t even feed on love and they got to come and go as they pleased!

Not. Fair. Not fair at all.

The ghost ducked into the bushes to sulk unseen. With the flick of an inky tentacle, she slipped her cloak off and laid it out before her. She had made a stupid, spiky tail. She had made stupid, black-tipped ears. She had made stupid swirly cheeks and a stupid face and stupid yellow skin. Why wasn’t it enough? Why did they keep kicking her out and escorting the pikachu in? There was no good reason. None at all.

The ghost slipped the cloak back on as easily as she’d taken it off. Wouldn’t do to be seen without it. She was very ugly. Didn’t look right at all. Didn’t look human. Not anymore.

Why did it matter if she didn’t look human? She was a… a ghost. A mimikyu. Ugh. Sometimes it felt like the world was just about to make sense but then it all fell through. Like. Like… Sand through your hands at the beach. Like something.

None of that mattered. What mattered was getting inside. Getting to kids. To A… to him. Finding someone to love and snuggle. She hadn’t been cuddled in… ever. She needed cuddles like humans needed food.

The mean woman said that an “exterminator” would be coming soon. That didn’t sound good. If the ghost wanted in, she would have to act quickly. Tonight. In the darkness. Daylight burned, even through the cloak, and by the time she crossed the burning river of black she would be too weak to complete the mission and get the sorely-needed cuddles.

Now she needed to rest. But as soon as the sun went down and the river stopped burning, she would make her move.

*​

In the dark no one could see how ugly she was. The cloak could come off. Her tentacles snaked up the door until they found the weak point. The next part was delicate work: one tentacle dissolved into shadows and branched off until dozens of tiny, shadowy tentacles took its place. One expertly entered the lock and pressed itself into just the right shape. With one powerful tug on the handle from a larger tentacle the lock snapped open and the door creaked outwards.

She dropped the tentacles and reformed the frayed one in an inky blur. In another movement the cloak was back on and she was inside the building. Halfway towards her first destination she remembered to go back and close the door behind her. Can’t let rattata in.

Her first objective was just a few doors down a quiet, empty hallway. She couldn’t be seen as she was, coated in dirt and twigs. There was a room of water and sweet-smelling goo. Two rooms. She picked the one with the silhouette of a human in a cloak, because she was also wearing a cloak. And you were a girl.

The lights flickered on in front of her as the door slammed shut. She stood stock still for a second, waiting on an “exterminator” to burst out of the strange compartments and drag her away. Or worse. But nothing happened. It was just the too-bright, automated lights that she had hated before as much as they brought her odd comfort now. After a quick glance under the compartments she hesitantly slid the cloak off. With quick snaps of tentacles through the air she grabbed ahold of the sink and hauled herself up, carrying the cloak behind her.

Thankfully the shiny glass did not capture her hideous reflection. Just a cloak suspended in midair by forces unseen. The cloak is dumped into the basin and the water turned on, hot. A snap and a crack brought the container of purple liquid over the water and cloak. A short pop pours some onto it. After a quick, aborted dip of a tentacle tip into the water, the hotness is reduced and coolness is added to the flow. Then a tentacle slips back in, testing with the tip and then splashing in, shadows moving the suds and cloth around until the bottom of the sink is clogged with twigs and mulch. Then she moved to the next sink and tried it all again. And again. Until the cloak no longer tasted of outside at all.

Content that she was clean, the ghost slipped the cloak back on and shuddered under the new weight of the water. It wouldn’t do. Brown paper was obtained and dragged across the side of the cloth until the paper was soaked, then more was snatched and the process repeated until another sink was filled up.

The cloak was still too heavy, but it was tolerable. A quick test showed that she could still slip it into shadow if she had to. And not a second too soon.

Quick footsteps sounded off in the hall, echoing off the hard, clinical walls and floors. The ghost darted into the nearest shadows, the cavern where the paper had been, and waited. The steps kept going. The door to outside swung open and then closed. Then there were no steps to be heard.

She swung the door open and drew her tentacles fully under the cloak and away from the light. Then she bolted towards the stairwell with dozens of tiny steps. The light on the stairs was every bit as harsh as she remembered it early in the day, but at least the stairs themselves cast plentiful shadows. She shifted the cloak up so that her tentacles had room enough to haul the cloak up the stairs.

Two floors up she heard barking. Not like one of the fluffy white dogs with long necks and a coat cut into a ridiculous shape. Not like any of the eevee she had observed while contemplating a fox-shaped cloak. This sounded darker. Fiercer. She felt it in her soul.

There was nowhere to hide in the stairwell. She’d learned that three times before. The only option was getting into the hall and hiding before the dog found her. She flung open the door—the time for subtlety had passed—and ran as fast as she could while keeping her core hidden by the cloak. The dog’s barking became ever louder and ever fiercer as the footsteps of a large human slammed down behind the canine’s agile feet. She heard the dog try—and fail—to turn a corner behind her. Heard the slamming of stone(?) against the wall. All the while she desperately scanned the hallway for somewhere, anywhere to hide. She found one with a panicked glance up. A hole in the wall with a thin metal grate. The constant, low whine behind it was intimidating, but not as scary as the dog running after her.

She steeled herself and extended three tentacles down as far and fast as she could, another two reaching up to grab ahold of the metal as her body lifted off the ground. Her sixth tentacle reached up and tore straight through the obstacle while the others reached up and pulled her in.

The new space was dark. Cold. If it weren’t for the fearsome, terrible wind it would’ve been perfect. She looked down to see a large man glaring up at her, a terrifying dog at his side. It had horns curling from the back of its head and exposed bone coating its back. Its tail ended in a visibly sharp dart. She could almost feel it tearing straight through her cloak.

“Mimikyu, huh?” The man says. The dog just growls in response. The mimikyu ducked deeper into the passage and tried to press on. Except, she couldn’t. Her tentacles could find nothing to grip as the wind sheared them into fog and what remained slipped helplessly off the smooth metal. She glances back down to see the man and his terrible, terrible dog looking back up at her. “Well, ready to come out? Not going anywhere in the shaft.” No. That couldn’t be true. Not now. Not when she was so close to cuddles. To the only person who’d been there for her near the end. She pulled the cloak back into the shaft and pressed forward as hard as she could—only for her tentacles to pierce straight through the metal before dissolving uselessly into smoke. “Come on. I can make this easy on you. Or I can let Rexy here use you as a chew toy. Your choice.”

There was no running. And she needed food. Needed Ai… him. Badly. Leaving now, after all this effort? That would be the end. She’d starve to death, alone, wondering why the pikachu had it so good. No. Not that. Not again. The first inklings of a plan came to her mind. By the time it was half-fleshed out she was already sailing through the air.

Darkness hit her. Not good darkness. Terrible darkness. Darkness that pierced her soul and twisted. For a moment she could think of nothing but pain and… and another darkness. Surrender. Release. The end. Then reality hit her. Literally. The darkness had not knocked her off course at all! Her cloak struck the man’s chest and she started moving before she could think. Two tentacles slipped the cloak off. Another two yanked it over the man’s head while the rest of her body swung out behind him, the remaining two holding onto his waist.

“Don’t… look…”

Had she just spoken? In human? Was that her? Oh gods that had been her voice, just slashed to pieces and gargled out. That was what she was now. Just an unlovable, hideous, freak. No. A question for later. Whoever spoke the words, the words led to the man standing still. The dog growled and stamped its feet but stayed in place, afraid to attack with its target on its trainer. A stray thought and the swish of a tentacle sent a red light out from the man’s belt. The dog disappeared. Moments later the ball was thrown up into the windy passage. It sounded like it was rolling away in the darkness. An excellent distraction.

A temporary one. More humans approached. No. They could not be allowed to see her ugly self. She slipped the cloak back on, scuttled down the man, and began to run towards the stairwell. The man didn’t follow. Good. She still wasn’t taking any chances. The door was thrown open and she practically flew up the stairwells, two tentacles at a time grabbing onto a railing and pulling hard enough to send her flying past it, but not quite hard enough to bend the metal. She took leap after leap until she finally stopped on the top floor. With nowhere else to go she opened the door and entered the hall.

Things were quiet up here. Mercifully quiet. She could hear something being rolled in the distance. Still gave her plenty of time to roam the halls and find—whatever she was looking for. Kids. In the end she walked past a lot of doors, never quite feeling right about any of them. There was one that… that had lots of feelings behind it. Bad ones. Anger. Fear. Sadness. She never wanted to go through that door again. Besides, there was no one behind it.

At the fork in the hall she turned left on a whim. Whim? This was the whole point. Passed three doors on each side before coming up to Room 817. There were also feelings behind that door. Some bad. Stupid arguments. Scared people lashing out. Most good. And he… no, Aiden badly needed a hug. Needed his friend.

She gently slipped the door open and stepped into the room, another tentacle flying up to make sure that the door closed as slowly as possible. The boy didn’t stir. That was good. She slowly, gently made her way into the bed. He was lying on his stomach, one arm beneath him and one splayed out to the side. His head faced the ghost. A thin stream of drool ran down it.

The mimikyu softly moved towards the boy’s elbow. She half-faded into shadows to best squirm under his arm and press into his body. He did notice that. The ghost stood petrified as the boy moved in his sleep, both arms coming out and wrapping around the cloak. He pulled her tight to his chest. One arm fell back down and the other draped limply over her.

She stayed there, curled up in her cloak and feeling the warmth of Aiden’s chest as it slowly filled and emptied with life-giving breath. A deep-seated part of her was jealous. It was unfair that he got to be human—got to be alive—while she was hideously ugly. But mostly? Mostly she was just glad to be here. To be loved. To feel a flicker of life flowing back into her from the cuddles.

In the morning the nurses would come. The exterminator might come back with his devil dog and its piercing shadows. That didn’t matter. Not anymore. She was here with Aiden.

They’d already been through so much together.

What was one more challenge?

 

[K_S]

“Code Gray in Wing 2C!”

The flashlight ignited in one fluid motion,

I like how this feels so like a hospital announcement/code word. However in regards to the flashlight unless the lot’s being set on fire, or a traditional lamp with oil to catch, I’d recommend swapping ignite for something less incendiary…

She flicked the flashlight on once more and slowly started scanning every shadow.

It’s not shown that she turned if off at any point…

(replace “just” with… well this is an easy substitution that avoids another “there” starting sentence and keeps meaning and tone. And thus disposes of the fragment if you’re interested in that.) All that were left were a few stray patches of darkness under the railings. None of which contained her foe. The only thing left to cast a shadow was…


So it was hiding in her shadow? That’s one cunning ghost type.

I don’t know if monster would be the right word here? After all the human who caught it is titanic compared to the cloth scrap ghost. And monster alludes to the thing being labeled as as malicious, cruel, dangerous, or unnatural. And the intruder (thus far) does not seem any of those things (though unnatural could be contested… with it being undead… but then this is the ‘mon world so unnatural is going to be a stretch to hit so that makes the lot a grey area) Considering the fact it was hiding in a hospital and what fabric it would have to “work” with to make it’s “disguise” … eww. I hope Abigail thought to wear gloves before gathering it up.

Paragraph analysis:

Abigail Northton glared at the now-whimpering monster. At its stained patchwork of a cloak that was poorly stitched together-

Because we have an “at” in the middle of the first line, and a sentence starting with “at” less than five words later I’d recommend a slight tweaking of the second line so it starts with something else to break the repetitiveness here. Weirdly the last line, that starts with an “A” draws attention it is, I’m guessing it’s because there’s a lot of A words in the line, names, ats and the like that make it stick out…

“Ik-yuuuuuuu.” The creature’s cry was mournful. Almost human. The kind of thing she heard every day in the hospital. Abigail Northton’s grip slackened in pity and she started walking down the stairs.

If she slackened her grip wouldn’t she drop it? I’d almost recommend her shifting her hold so it was near cradled, that’d show a slant of tenderness. And give her an easier pose for tossing it in the next section….


She shut the door behind her before leaning back on the cold, concrete wall.

Because there’s no motion, to show her moving beyond the door after closing it… I’d recommend putting something there. A few steps, one moment to show perhaps the gloom of the hall changing tenor to show the mimikyu was not present perhaps? And then her leaning so the concrete wall doesn’t just pop out of nowhere in the description.


Tell them that it was a hospital, a magnet and factory alike for the ghosts?

I’d recommend a tweak of words to help with clarity. Tell them it was a hospital, and that hospitals were a magnet and factory alike for the ghosts...

Definitely getting a sense this is a hard worker not getting paid enough for the insanity of a haunted work place and freaked out patients and parents… understandable and all considering ghosts but still…. Out of curiosity though why don’t the league, local gov, or staff, catch the ghost ‘mon, it’d be one way to cull them out?

Imposture syndrome in a mon, as its main trait, who is feeling the bite of that problem as an existential crisis… I’m feeling for that ghosty here, really, I am.

It’s an interesting spin on ghost mon’ with them “possibly” being humans in the previous life. And remembering. Double ouch on that set of cards fate passing out. Is the crossed out lines what she doesn’t want to think about or what she’s remembering improperly due to dying?

Daylight burned, even through the cloak, and by the time she crossed the burning river of black she would be too weak to complete the mission and get the sorely-needed cuddles.



I’m having warrior cat vibes and hocus pocus vibes from how that pavement/parking lot was described… it’s an odd feeling to put it mildly.


Thoughtful, though, and considerate, few haunting could claim as much. The thought she takes in tidying herself, the effort in the cleaning, the vampire-esk reflection situation. The whole cycles through cute, charming, and amusing I like how sense are emphasized here, how things feel, sound, it makes a sharp contract between the two characters, the night nurse and the ghost sound very distinctive and the sensual focus of the ghost give her a misleading seeming simplicity….

It makes sense night shift job having a dark type. Guessing mimikyu got stuck in an AC vent. Laughs. That was an ideal distraction tactic. Even in her desperation, starving and running, she’s so considerate… Seriously I’d offer this ghost a cuddle or two, she’s really too sweet for words.

Thanks for posting this work it was a real treat to read and I hope you like my review in response.

 

[Flaze]

Dang it Persephone, why must you break my heart on a sunday, though I guess it's technically my fault for reading it on a sunday but still.

Anyways, I'll get the one caveat I took notice off while reading this out of the way. While your prose and description is great when it comes to delivering impact and engaging the reader, I feel like some of the paragraphs here end up getting a little wordy. This doesn't deter the story too much, but it did make it so that some of them were a little harder to get through. It might've been just a me thing but it's something you could watch out for.

With that out of the way. I wanted to say that I really enjoyed the general conceit behind the one-shot, it was both really cute and really sad and a surprisingly whimsical story, I say that last part because I haven't read your stories in a while so I didn't know you'd started doing stories like this. That being said, I like how you can strike a balance between a story feeling both silly and sad through prose, the events that go in the actual story aren't exactly disney-level or anything but they could generally be taken as more comedy-driven, but your prose manages to emphasize the inherent tragedy beyond Mimikyu's quest without actually reflecting it in the story.

The other thing that makes me curious is how you tackle a topic that I've always wondered about, which is...what exactly ghost types even? The franchise itselff always plays coy with this idea of whether they're like japanese yokai that just exist out of the wills of people, if they're pokemon that have died and taken on new shapes or if even humans could be ghost-types. I think that the idea of humans turning into ghost-types is both interesting and also really somber considering that normal humans will just look at them as inconvinient animals.

I feel like that's sortt of what happened here between mimikyu and Aiden, where she died and is just trying to get back to him. I do wonder though, who was she? Was she a parent? a sister? a friend? lots of intriguing questions.

This also kind of reminds me of an old story you had before...I can't remember which one, but I do remember you were planning to have a ghost feature there as well.

Now for some line by lines!

She abruptly pivoted in place and shined the light behind her. The phantom reappeared with an unholy wail, only to be snatched up by its shroud. Abigail Northton glared at the now-whimpering monster. At its stained patchwork of a cloak that was poorly stitched together, some parts hanging loose and sagging down under the force of gravity. A bad parody of a pikachu with inky black tentacles dripping down beneath it before fading into fog.

Best ghost! I knew from the moment I read this description that I was in for something heart-breaking. Also you highlight how this hospital worker is so used to this that the sight of a mimikyu is just an annoyance.

She shut the door behind her before leaning back on the cold, concrete wall. So many ghosts. Not just the damn mimikyu, which had tried in vain at least thrice before to break in. There was also a fright of gastly living on the fourth floor, a misdreavus that loved to drift through the halls and wail every night, and even the odd party of drifloon settling down in the courtyard on particularly bad days.

Sounds like she needs to call the ghost busters. I do like this detail, worldbuilding wise, because it does make sense that ghost types would gather around hospitals plus it makes sense with the usual stories that ghosts also tend to gather around hospitals.

A young woman with straw blonde hair walked out of St. Timothy’s Children’s Hospital, her pokémon following close behind. The small pokémon were more yellow than their trainer’s hair with shocks of black capping the ears. A ridiculously shaped tail jutted out behind their perfect, popular bodies.

I love how you use perfect and popular at the end, they don't actually do anything in expanding pikachu's description but it tells us how mimikyu sees them and how it annoys her.

They’d brought in pikachu to play with the kids. Again. Just like they did every seven days. It wasn’t fair. Pikachu could come and go and the ghost couldn’t. She wanted to play with the kids, too. Soak in the love. The feeling. The meaning. Pikachu didn’t even feed on love and they got to come and go as they pleased!

Do Mimikyu feed on love?

The ghost slipped the cloak back on as easily as she’d taken it off. Wouldn’t do to be seen without it. She was very ugly. Didn’t look right at all. Didn’t look human. Not anymore.

Why did it matter if she didn’t look human? She was a… a ghost. A mimikyu. Ugh. Sometimes it felt like the world was just about to make sense but then it all fell through. Like. Like… Sand through your hands at the beach. Like something.

I really liked the slashed text and how they contrast what came before by showing us the residual, human, memories that Mimikyu has, it really did help in increasing the drama for me.

Thankfully the shiny glass did not capture her hideous reflection. Just a cloak suspended in midair by forces unseen. The cloak is dumped into the basin and the water turned on, hot. A snap and a crack brought the container of purple liquid over the water and cloak. A short pop pours some onto it. After a quick, aborted dip of a tentacle tip into the water, the hotness is reduced and coolness is added to the flow. Then a tentacle slips back in, testing with the tip and then splashing in, shadows moving the suds and cloth around until the bottom of the sink is clogged with twigs and mulch. Then she moved to the next sink and tried it all again. And again. Until the cloak no longer tasted of outside at all.

I'm just imagining a bunch of things floating around in front of a mirror at this point.

At the fork in the hall she turned left on a whim. Whim? This was the whole point. Passed three doors on each side before coming up to Room 817. There were also feelings behind that door. Some bad. Stupid arguments. Scared people lashing out. Most good. And he… no, Aiden badly needed a hug. Needed his friend.

Okay okay, so I missed this part, I guess she was his friend. I'm gonna assume that they're both kids that were at the hospital and developed a friendship then.

In the morning the nurses would come. The exterminator might come back with his devil dog and its piercing shadows. That didn’t matter. Not anymore. She was here with Aiden.

They’d already been through so much together.

What was one more challenge?

This was a really cute and teary ending, it does make me wonder what happens to Mimikyu after this though :c

 

[kintsugi]

me taking a bajillion psychic damage realizing that not only did I not complete z21 reviews, but I also didn't complete z20. er, I mean, this is all my plan, my machinations have laid undetected for years ...

mostly keeping things broad strokes since I think you've heard the bulk of this before + know; deadlines are annoying sometimes.

I like the broad strokes of this. Conceptually there's a lot of room for fridge horror in the entire existence of ghost-types, especially since canonically some of them are actually just dead kids and that's chill apparently. Mimikyu as a metaphor for not feeling comfortable in your own body is powerful and a really workable concept, especially in a universe where people are determined to strip mimikyu of their rights and don't treat them like people. I liked the concept in broad strikes in the gastly/haunter/gengar entry and I think I'd like it here, although it does end up feeling a little unresolved--the mimikyu solves the nearterm problem of cuddles but is even further from the longterm problem, which is that she's a person who no one else sees as a person.

(and, fair, I don't think problems like that get solved in oneshots that are mostly couched in "cats should be snuggled", but the story structure feels unsatisfying as a result. it's easy to pick up on the "what happened"; she's dead and probably died in this hospital and golly all these hospital administrators can't figure out why so many ghosts are here; it's a lot harder to pick up on the "what now". But the plot mostly revolves around unraveling the "what happened" mystery, until the chase scene at the end, and it doesn't feel like the characters end up learning/solving much either)

I do like the core concept here, and the general subversion that things that are monster-shaped can be friends and things that are friend-shaped can be monsters. It'd be interesting to see this one fleshed out/revisited, although I know that your BT revisions were already massive in their own right, so I see how your hands have been full lol.

Spoiler

Mrs. Abigail Northton stowed her radio and drew her weapon. The flashlight ignited in one fluid motion, earning a shriek before her nemesis ducked around the corner.

I thought this intro was a little overdramatic but also not quite exaggerated enough for it to work in a comedic sense either--nemesis, weapon, etc; it's clear you want us to interpret this as a threat but even Abigail isn't really seeing it as one + ends up letting the mimikyu go out of pity, again.

At its stained patchwork of a cloak that was poorly stitched together, some parts hanging loose and sagging down under the force of gravity.

I think some words got lost here.

A bad parody of a pikachu with inky black tentacles dripping down beneath it before fading into fog.

In general I'm okay with sentence fragments but this one just felt kind of out of place.

“Ik-yuuuuuuu.” The creature’s cry was mournful. Almost human. The kind of thing she heard every day in the hospital. Abigail Northton’s grip slackened in pity and she started walking down the stairs.

I didn't quite follow "the kind of thing she heard every day in the hospital"--are kids just crying wordlessly a lot? I was waiting for the deeper pun on NICU (pronounced nik-yu lol).

“I’ll let you go this time,” her words echoed alongside her footsteps in the cavernous space.

Dialogue punctuation.

Tell them that it was a hospital, a magnet and factory alike for the ghosts?

nah just tell them what actually happens to their kids

A young woman with straw blonde hair walked out of St. Timothy’s Children’s Hospital, her pokémon following close behind. The small pokémon were more yellow than their trainer’s hair with shocks of black capping the ears. A ridiculously shaped tail jutted out behind their perfect, popular bodies.

I didn't grasp the jump in narrator first--I mostly expected that the mimikyu would focus first on the pikachu and not the human.

A short pop pours some onto it. After a quick, aborted dip of a tentacle tip into the water, the hotness is reduced and coolness is added to the flow. Then a tentacle slips back in, testing with the tip and then splashing in, shadows moving the suds and cloth around until the bottom of the sink is clogged with twigs and mulch. Then she moved to the next sink and tried it all again. And again. Until the cloak no longer tasted of outside at all.

There were some random swaps to present tense in this + a few later sections.

The cloak was still too heavy, but it was tolerable. A quick test showed that she could still slip it into shadow if she had to. And not a second too soon.

I think the tension of this section gets muddled for me because I didn't even realize she was intending to flee/what she was trying to avoid here.

Darkness hit her. Not good darkness. Terrible darkness. Darkness that pierced her soul and twisted.

tbh when you type it out that way now i'm really confused about why ghosts are weak to dark

No. A question for later. Whoever spoke the words, the words led to the man standing still.

The phrasing is kind of odd here--I'd do something like "No. A question for later. It didn't matter who said the words. The man had heard them, and now he was standing still."

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, dropping in for a quick and dirty review of this one-shot. Not fully sure what it’s about other than that it opens with someone getting violent in a hospital from the first line being about a ‘Code Gray’, but let’s just roll with things and find out:

Spoiler: Line-by-Line

“Code Gray in Wing 2C!”

Mrs. Abigail Northton stowed her radio and drew her weapon. The flashlight ignited in one fluid motion, earning a shriek before her nemesis ducked around the corner. With a swear muttered under her uneven breaths she rounded after the creature just to watch its filthy, unsanitary shroud slip into the stairwell. She summoned one more burst of energy and raced through the doorway.

Oh yeah, that’s totally a good sign for the state of affairs in this hospital right now.

The stairwell was colder and bleaker than usual. And the concrete shaft with unadorned, colorless walls and dull metal railings was plenty cold and bleak on its own. She flicked the flashlight on once more and slowly started scanning every shadow. There weren’t many: the harsh fluorescent lighting lit everything almost uncomfortably well. Just a few stray patches of darkness under the railings, none of which contained her foe. The only thing left to cast a shadow was…

Oh, she’s chasing a Gengar right now, isn’t she?

She abruptly pivoted in place and shined the light behind her. The phantom reappeared with an unholy wail, only to be snatched up by its shroud. Abigail Northton glared at the now-whimpering monster. At its stained patchwork of a cloak that was poorly stitched together, some parts hanging loose and sagging down under the force of gravity. A bad parody of a pikachu with inky black tentacles dripping down beneath it before fading into fog.

Okay, nevermind, she’s chasing a Mimikyu. For what reason, I’m not fully sure why.

“Ik-yuuuuuuu.” The creature’s cry was mournful. Almost human. The kind of thing she heard every day in the hospital. Abigail Northton’s grip slackened in pity and she started walking down the stairs.

… Oh, so dead humans spawn new Ghost-types on occasion in this setting? Since them getting agitated and crabby would explain there being a ‘Code Gray’ called in.

“I’ll let you go this time,” her words echoed alongside her footsteps in the cavernous space. “But I’m hiring an exterminator soon. You won’t like what he’ll do to you. Trust me.”

She opened the door and stepped into a side alley. The sterile air of the hospital was immediately replaced by the fragrance of a dumpster one day away from being emptied. She threw the dirty shroud into the trash where it belonged. Her sympathy for the undead only went so far.

“Find somewhere else to haunt.”

Cue the theme music:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaV1r341wYk


I do wonder if this paragraph would’ve been more effective cut up into a few small parts, though.

She shut the door behind her before leaning back on the cold, concrete wall. So many ghosts. Not just the damn mimikyu, which had tried in vain at least thrice before to break in. There was also a fright of gastly living on the fourth floor, a misdreavus that loved to drift through the halls and wail every night, and even the odd party of drifloon settling down in the courtyard on particularly bad days.

… Wait, is this an abandoned hospital or an operational one? Since if it’s operational, there’s no way that all these ghosts are helping its patients’ life expectancies like this.

They were scaring the kids. Scaring the parents, too. The idea that their child would have their soul eaten as soon as it left their miserable, sickly body… she’d heard the same shouting, sobbing rant from more parents than she could count. What was she supposed to do? Tell them that it was a hospital, a magnet and factory alike for the ghosts? That certified exterminators weren’t easy to find? That uncertified ones made the problem worse more often than they helped?

Oh, so it is an active hospital. Though even if you rolled ‘it’s folklore’ on some of the more

-tier Pokédex entries for ghostmons, I suppose it would make sense they’d like hanging around hospitals given that a number of them are either emotion eaters or associated with phenomena related to death.

She straightened up and prepared to return to whatever problems work threw at her today.

The damn exorcist couldn’t arrive soon enough.

What sort of licensing does an exorcist need to go through in this setting anyways?

A young woman with straw blonde hair walked out of St. Timothy’s Children’s Hospital, her pokémon following close behind. The small pokémon were more yellow than their trainer’s hair with shocks of black capping the ears. A ridiculously shaped tail jutted out behind their perfect, popular bodies.

Pikachu.

Whelp, found the Pokémaniac here.

They’d brought in pikachu to play with the kids. Again. Just like they did every seven days. It wasn’t fair. Pikachu could come and go and the ghost couldn’t. She wanted to play with the kids, too. Soak in the love. The feeling. The meaning. Pikachu didn’t even feed on love and they got to come and go as they pleased!

Not. Fair. Not fair at all.

… She owns that Mimikyu the security guard caught earlier, doesn’t she?

The ghost ducked into the bushes to sulk unseen. With the flick of an inky tentacle, she slipped her cloak off and laid it out before her. She had made a stupid, spiky tail. She had made stupid, black-tipped ears. She had made stupid swirly cheeks and a stupid face and stupid yellow skin. Why wasn’t it enough? Why did they keep kicking her out and escorting the pikachu in? There was no good reason. None at all.

Oh, well nevermind then, we’re seeing things from the Mimikyu’s perspective. Though I suppose that as a Pokémon with a canonical complex about trying to mimic another, that it’d be salty about not getting its disguise routine accepted.

The ghost slipped the cloak back on as easily as she’d taken it off. Wouldn’t do to be seen without it. She was very ugly. Didn’t look right at all. Didn’t look human. Not anymore.

Oh, so the Mimikyu was created from a deceased human soul, huh?

Why did it matter if she didn’t look human? She was a… a ghost. A mimikyu. Ugh. Sometimes it felt like the world was just about to make sense but then it all fell through. Like. Like… Sand through your hands at the beach. Like something.

Did this ex-human die from drowning or something? Since ‘sand through your hands at the beach’ is a rather peculiar thing to think about there.

None of that mattered. What mattered was getting inside. Getting to kids. To A… to him. Finding someone to love and snuggle. She hadn’t been cuddled in… ever. She needed cuddles like humans needed food.

Oh, so this is a deceased relative of one of the patients in the hospital, huh?

The mean woman said that an “exterminator” would be coming soon. That didn’t sound good. If the ghost wanted in, she would have to act quickly. Tonight. In the darkness. Daylight burned, even through the cloak, and by the time she crossed the burning river of black she would be too weak to complete the mission and get the sorely-needed cuddles.

Boy is it unfortunate that in your new life you apparently lost your literacy, Mimikyu. Since you’d think that writing out “I’m here to see Johnny, I’m his mother/sister/aunt/[whatever]” would get more of a positive reception.

Now she needed to rest. But as soon as the sun went down and the river stopped burning, she would make her move.

Mimikyu: “*... Boy do I hope that the night shift’s less competent than the day one.*”

In the dark no one could see how ugly she was. The cloak could come off. Her tentacles snaked up the door until they found the weak point. The next part was delicate work: one tentacle dissolved into shadows and branched off until dozens of tiny, shadowy tentacles took its place. One expertly entered the lock and pressed itself into just the right shape. With one powerful tug on the handle from a larger tentacle the lock snapped open and the door creaked outwards.

inb4 this is all being seen on CCTV and the night shift just beelines straight to Mimikyu from it.

She dropped the tentacles and reformed the frayed one in an inky blur. In another movement the cloak was back on and she was inside the building. Halfway towards her first destination she remembered to go back and close the door behind her. Can’t let rattata in.

Yeah, Mimikyu is totally the deceased relative of one of the patients here, I can already tell.

Her first objective was just a few doors down a quiet, empty hallway. She couldn’t be seen as she was, coated in dirt and twigs. There was a room of water and sweet-smelling goo. Two rooms. She picked the one with the silhouette of a human in a cloak, because she was also wearing a cloak. And you were a girl.

Small typo with Mimikyu’s thoughts there, though I see that the plot is hard-confirming what I’d been suspecting up to this point here.

The lights flickered on in front of her as the door slammed shut. She stood stock still for a second, waiting on an “exterminator” to burst out of the strange compartments and drag her away. Or worse. But nothing happened. It was just the too-bright, automated lights that she had hated before as much as they brought her odd comfort now. After a quick glance under the compartments she hesitantly slid the cloak off. With quick snaps of tentacles through the air she grabbed ahold of the sink and hauled herself up, carrying the cloak behind her.

I actually wonder how the struck-through text is meant to “feel” to Mimikyu in her head. And if that’s meant to be subconscious thoughts or if she’s cognizant of them but brushing them aside since she can’t really make sense of them or something like that.

Thankfully the shiny glass did not capture her hideous reflection. Just a cloak suspended in midair by forces unseen. The cloak is dumped into the basin and the water turned on, hot. A snap and a crack brought the container of purple liquid over the water and cloak. A short pop pours some onto it. After a quick, aborted dip of a tentacle tip into the water, the hotness is reduced and coolness is added to the flow. Then a tentacle slips back in, testing with the tip and then splashing in, shadows moving the suds and cloth around until the bottom of the sink is clogged with twigs and mulch. Then she moved to the next sink and tried it all again. And again. Until the cloak no longer tasted of the outside at all.

I kinda wonder if this should’ve been two paragraphs since it’s a bit long, though admittedly I’m tripping up on finding a definitive place to suggest a split. Dunno, maybe I’m overthinking things.

Content that she was clean, the ghost slipped the cloak back on and shuddered under the new weight of the water. It wouldn’t do. Brown paper was obtained and dragged across the side of the cloth until the paper was soaked, then more was snatched and the process repeated until another sink was filled up.

Ah yes, someone’s gonna be popular with the night shift at this rate.

The cloak was still too heavy, but it was tolerable. A quick test showed that she could still slip it into shadow if she had to. And not a second too soon.

I actually never really thought too hard about whether or not there were certain things that could mess up a Ghost-type’s ability to phase through obstacles. Though I suppose that the net effect of getting wet like this was basically equivalent to Soak and that’s why Mimikyu was testing to make sure she could still phase her disguise?

Quick footsteps sounded off in the hall, echoing off the hard, clinical walls and floors. The ghost darted into the nearest shadows, the cavern where the paper had been, and waited. The steps kept going. The door to outside swung open and then closed. Then there were no steps to be heard.

Oh, so the “exterminator” did review the CCTV footage, huh?

Mimikyu: “*That was way too close…*”

She swung the door open and drew her tentacles fully under the cloak and away from the light. Then she bolted towards the stairwell with dozens of tiny steps. The light on the stairs was every bit as harsh as she remembered it early in the day, but at least the stairs themselves cast plentiful shadows. She shifted the cloak up so that her tentacles had room enough to haul the cloak up the stairs.

I see that somebody doesn’t remember CCTV cameras from her prior life, or else this is set in an era before they became ubiquitous.

Two floors up she heard barking. Not like one of the fluffy white dogs with long necks and a coat cut into a ridiculous shape. Not like any of the eevee she had observed while contemplating a fox-shaped cloak. This sounded darker. Fiercer. She felt it in her soul.

Oh, they’re Houndour with this “exterminator”/”exorcist”, huh?

There was nowhere to hide in the stairwell. She’d learned that three times before. The only option was getting into the hall and hiding before the dog found her. She flung open the door—the time for subtlety had passed—and ran as fast as she could while keeping her core hidden by the cloak. The dog’s barking became ever louder and ever fiercer as the footsteps of a large human slammed down behind the canine’s agile feet. She heard the dog try—and fail—to turn a corner behind her. Heard the slamming of stone(?) against the wall.

All the while she desperately scanned the hallway for somewhere, anywhere to hide. She found one with a panicked glance up. A hole in the wall with a thin metal grate. The constant, low whine behind it was intimidating, but not as scary as the dog running after her.

Would recommend breaking this paragraph up into two here. Though yeah, I feel pretty good about that prediction that the “exterminator”/”exorcist” was rocking Houndour there.

She steeled herself and extended three tentacles down as far and fast as she could, another two reaching up to grab ahold of the metal as her body lifted off the ground. Her sixth tentacle reached up and tore straight through the obstacle while the others reached up and pulled her in.

Can’t tell if this is a sign that Mimikyu watched Die Hard as a human or if this just happens to be the most convenient escape route for her at the moment.

The new space was dark. Cold. If it weren’t for the fearsome, terrible wind it would’ve been perfect. She looked down to see a large man glaring up at her, a terrifying dog at his side. It had horns curling from the back of its head and exposed bone coating its back. Its tail ended in a visibly sharp dart. She could almost feel it tearing straight through her cloak.

Oh, so it’s a Houndoom, that’s even worse right now.

“Mimikyu, huh?” The man says.

The dog just growls in response. The mimikyu ducked deeper into the passage and tried to press on. Except, she couldn’t. Her tentacles could find nothing to grip as the wind sheared them into fog and what remained slipped helplessly off the smooth metal. She glances back down to see the man and his terrible, terrible dog looking back up at her.

“Well, ready to come out? Not going anywhere in the shaft.”

No. That couldn’t be true. Not now. Not when she was so close to cuddles. To the only person who’d been there for her near the end. She pulled the cloak back into the shaft and pressed forward as hard as she could—only for her tentacles to pierce straight through the metal before dissolving uselessly into smoke.

“Come on. I can make this easy on you. Or I can let Rexy here use you as a chew toy. Your choice.”

Would recommend breaking this paragraph up into a few pieces like so. Though boy is it such a

mood to see the flip side PoV of what to Rexy and his trainer’s perspective is an obnoxious pest there to scare the kids or worse in the hospital.

There was no running. And she needed food. Needed Ai… him. Badly. Leaving now, after all this effort? That would be the end. She’d starve to death, alone, wondering why the pikachu had it so good. No. Not that. Not again. The first inklings of a plan came to her mind. By the time it was half-fleshed out she was already sailing through the air.

Which is kinda a bad sign for how that plan’s gonna turn out, but you do you, Mimikyu.

Darkness hit her. Not good darkness. Terrible darkness. Darkness that pierced her soul and twisted. For a moment she could think of nothing but pain and… and another darkness. Surrender. Release. The end. Then reality hit her. Literally. The darkness had not knocked her off course at all! Her cloak struck the man’s chest and she started moving before she could think. Two tentacles slipped the cloak off. Another two yanked it over the man’s head while the rest of her body swung out behind him, the remaining two holding onto his waist.

“Don’t… look…”

Oh, well that guy’s going to have some problems in short order. Though creative use of that disguise there even if that Houndoom might be busy going full [AlviseScared] at Mimikyu’s appearance given that its true form is apparently quite shocking to behold in canonical materials.

Had she just spoken? In human? Was that her? Oh gods that had been her voice, just slashed to pieces and gargled out. That was what she was now. Just an unlovable, hideous, freak. No. A question for later.

Whoever spoke the words, the words led to the man standing still. The dog growled and stamped its feet but stayed in place, afraid to attack with its target on its trainer. A stray thought and the swish of a tentacle sent a red light out from the man’s belt. The dog disappeared. Moments later the ball was thrown up into the windy passage. It sounded like it was rolling away in the darkness. An excellent distraction.

Another bit where the paragraph probably would work better cut up into two.

A temporary one. More humans approached. No. They could not be allowed to see her ugly self. She slipped the cloak back on, scuttled down the man, and began to run towards the stairwell. The man didn’t follow. Good. She still wasn’t taking any chances. The door was thrown open and she practically flew up the stairwells, two tentacles at a time grabbing onto a railing and pulling hard enough to send her flying past it, but not quite hard enough to bend the metal. She took leap after leap until she finally stopped on the top floor. With nowhere else to go she opened the door and entered the hall.

Cue Mimikyu walking straight into an ambush of like half-a-dozen Dark-types.

Things were quiet up here. Mercifully quiet. She could hear something being rolled in the distance. Still gave her plenty of time to roam the halls and find—whatever she was looking for. Kids. In the end she walked past a lot of doors, never quite feeling right about any of them. There was one that… that had lots of feelings behind it. Bad ones. Anger. Fear. Sadness. She never wanted to go through that door again. Besides, there was no one behind it.

Oh, so Mimikyu was a friend from the hospital ward with Ai, huh? Since I’m getting that vibe right about now given how Mimikyu apparently doesn’t want to go down this particular wing of the hospital that reads like it’s specifically a pediatric wing.

At the fork in the hall she turned left on a whim. Whim? This was the whole point. Passed three doors on each side before coming up to Room 817. There were also feelings behind that door. Some bad. Stupid arguments. Scared people lashing out. Most good. And he… no, Aiden badly needed a hug. Needed his friend.

Ah yes, we have a name for the kid that Mimikyu is going after here. Even if I’m not sure whether or not this one-shot is shaping up towards her being able to successfully meet him or not.

She gently slipped the door open and stepped into the room, another tentacle flying up to make sure that the door closed as slowly as possible. The boy didn’t stir. That was good. She slowly, gently made her way into the bed. He was lying on his stomach, one arm beneath him and one splayed out to the side. His head faced the ghost. A thin stream of drool ran down it.

Mimikyu: “*A-Aiden? Wake up. It’s me.*”

The mimikyu softly moved towards the boy’s elbow. She half-faded into shadows to best squirm under his arm and press into his body. He did notice that. The ghost stood petrified as the boy moved in his sleep, both arms coming out and wrapping around the cloak. He pulled her tight to his chest. One arm fell back down and the other draped limply over her.

This is at once [seviuwu] and all sorts of

since I’m not sure that this is going to end well if Aiden wakes up right here and now.

She stayed there, curled up in her cloak and feeling the warmth of Aiden’s chest as it slowly filled and emptied with life-giving breath. A deep-seated part of her was jealous. It was unfair that he got to be human—got to be alive—while she was hideously ugly. But mostly? Mostly she was just glad to be here. To be loved. To feel a flicker of life flowing back into her from the cuddles.

… Mimikyu, you’re scaring me a bit right now.

In the morning the nurses would come. The exterminator might come back with his devil dog and its piercing shadows. That didn’t matter. Not anymore. She was here with Aiden.

They’d already been through so much together.

What was one more challenge?

D’aww… I love happy endings. ;_;

Though altogether I thought it was a nice piece. Creepy and unsettling in parts since it’s got some transformation horror vibes going on, but ultimately touching in the end. Which I suppose is appropriate for a one-shot about a Ghost-type that’s just out for some much-needed hugs and companionship. The dynamic of Mimikyu’s subconscious thoughts IMO was well-done, and it helps fill in the gaps behind her motivations here, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen another story do something like it. Was there another novel or whatnot that this took influence from? Since I’m a bit curious now.

I don’t have too much to pick bones with about this one-shot since it’s short, sweet, and to the point and a lot of “I’d like to know more about this” topics are things that Mimikyu realistically wouldn’t know from her PoV. That said, I did notice that a number of paragraphs felt chunky to the point of being hard to pick through. It might make sense to reformat at least a few of them into a few smaller ones.

But those honestly were only minor quibbles with this piece, and I had quite a bit of fun with it. I honestly wish I’d read it a bit earlier, since I would’ve otherwise included it in my Week 3 recommendations last night, since it’s a touching and very imaginative piece getting into the head of a human-turned-Ghostmon.

Good luck with Review Blitz, and I look forward to crossing paths with your writing again in the future. ^^