Lowtide floated on a hill overlooking a museum.
The museum, yes. She was sure of it. This had to be the building she'd heard talk of, where ancient things were gathered and put on display. There were images of skeletons on the sign outside it, which was how she was told this place was marked. Outside the human scrawlings that probably told the humans even more, that was.
It was the dead of night, though like all ghosts, Lowtide could see just fine. The museum had no lights outside one that flashed every now and then. A guard, thought Lowtide, or maybe many. She would have to be careful not to be caught. Who knew what the humans would do with her if they found her.
Well, she couldn't let that deter her.
The dreepy floated down the hill and up to a window. No guard there at that moment. Quickly, she phased through and listened for steps. There were some, but they were receding. Relieved, she began to look around.
There certainly were skeletons. Though they weren't white. They were brown and looked like rock. Did skeletons turn into rock when they got old enough? Lowtide didn't know how, but she supposed there was still a lot for her to learn about the world.
None of these skeletons looked familiar, though. She floated on to another hallway.
Here… she saw something that made her pause.
In a raised platform covered by that human thing called glass, there were the remains-turned-rock of several pokémon that she swore she'd seen before. Before before, and not in her current life.
That convex carapace with two concavities on the back… yes, she was sure of it, these were those things that crawled on the ocean floor. They molted constantly, and when they were new and soft, they were easy to eat. But the things they became when they were older were feisty with sharp, chitinous scythes.
Lowtide opened and closed her mouth, imagining biting into one of the soft crawlers. Remembering it. It felt good. It made her feel alive.
After a while, she floated to another display. This one had spiral shells. She remembered those, too. The little ones always hid inside their shells, and they were too hard to bite into, though she was told that if one managed to catch them before they could recede, they were delicious.
The large ones, however, were the ones Lowtide had to be careful around. Get caught in their tentacles and you'd be up close and personal with their four-way beaks. Lowtide shuddered.
She moved on from display to display, not recognizing everything, but the remains that were familiar made those hazy memories so much more vivid. She remembered other things. She remembered the heart beating in her chest. She remembered the breath in her lungs. The scaly touch of her own skin.
She reached another display, where she saw a rock with a dark impression of a feather. She remembered playing with those. They were so smooth and gentle against her scales --
A cone of light fell on her from nowhere. She froze. She hadn't noticed the steps approaching.
"Hey!"
She turned to see a male human in dark clothes, flanked by a boltund. The boltund growled, and Lowtide flinched. She had to get away now.
She tried to fly away, but she was all too slow - golden rings of electricity caught her, and she felt her ethereal body lock up. She was left sliding through the air until she gradually came to a halt.
The guard clicked something and spoke. "Found a dreepy here. Be on the lookout for a trainer. Over."
"Understood. Over," answered a distorted voice, though Lowtide didn't know from where. And it wasn't as if she understood anything the voices said, either.
"Alright, you little rascal, time to see if you'll go in a ball or if Benji will have to drag you," said the guard. In moments' time, a red light overtook Lowtide, and she found herself somewhere completely new - a spherical space enclosed by red-and-white walls. This had to be one of those pokéballs she'd heard about. They could be escaped, right? But she still couldn't move…
"It went in the ball? Huh…" said the guard's voice from outside, though it was muffled. Another click. "The dreepy was catchable. So it could be wild, but could also be free-roaming. We'll need an interpreter. Over."
"I'll handle it. Over," answered yet another distorted voice.
That was the last thing Lowtide heard until the paralysis wore off. The moment it did, she bolted for the walls and rammed them with her head. The first couple of tries didn't yield any results, but eventually one part of the wall gave way and she was released. She looked around. She was in a lit white room with one glass wall looking out into a room closer to the rest of the rooms in the museum. The guard from before was sitting on a chair by the wall, watching her.
She let out a distressed wail.
"Don't worry," the guard said, and Lowtide got the feeling it was supposed to calm her down somehow. "You only need to stay here until we get an interpreter and find out if you're a thief or not."
Lowtide looked at the back wall. She had a feeling they would have done something to make it impossible for her to phase through, but she tried it anyway. Her first thought was correct.
She lowered herself onto the floor and curled up. She didn't know what would happen to her. She didn't know if she would ever be free again. She didn't know if they'd even let her continue this unlife she had.
