Chapter 4 Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein "He's alive." The dream slowly began to fade as consciousness returned to Brock at the sound of Misty's meek voice. He slowly opened his eyes, seeing a tall dark figure at the foot of his bed, the door open but an inch, staring him down. He rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes, feeling a tinge of a small headache warning to approach, "Misty, what are you doing up? Why are you in my room?" "He's.. a-live." She repeated. Brock stared at the pale-faced little red-head retreating slowly to his door, opening it slightly more. Her shirt was wet and she seemed to be sweating, and from the looks of the darkness beneath her eyes, sleep was a whole other option. "What are you talking about?" "Ash. He's still alive." "Misty-" "No!" She shouted, digging her nails into the wood, "I know he's still alive. And he wants me to find him. A-and I will!" She turned to leave, slamming Brock's door behind her. It wasn't long until she felt a pair of hands whip her around. "Misty, get a hold of yourself! Ash died. A long time ago. You need to deal with that." "But I know!-" "Listen, this is crazy! Get some sleep. Just forget about all this and you'll feel better tomorrow morning." "Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I am losing my mind. But what if I'm not? What if he's still alive and in serious need of my help?!" Brock hesitated for a second, but sighed. "Fine. Do what you must, just don't get hurt." "I'm going to Goldenrod." Misty gently shut her door behind her, feeling, as usual, that she wasn't alone in the room. She pulled open the squeaky closet door and began rummaging through much junk that she kept stored in there until she found it. 'Finally… I get to use this thing.' She thought, pulling out the bright blue duffel bag. She clicked off the closet light and softly shut the door. Turning around, she caught a glimpse of her reflection and gasped rather loudly. Realizing her mistake for a ghost, she sighed. 'All this supernatural turmoil is making me so damn jumpy…' She thought with disapproval and frowned at her agreeing reflection. She tossed the bag on her bed and thought of what to pack. 'The usual… toothbrush, hairbrush, clothes… whatever needed.' She thought, already stuffing things into the bag. On second thought, she removed the second tank top and replaced it with a picture- old and a bit dusty- that had been sitting by her bed for a while now. She smiled timidly and traced the silver frame with her index finger. Looking around the room cautiously, she kissed the boy in the photo and stuffed it back into her bag, zipping it shut. It was the only part of the frame that wasn't dusty- his face. Walking out the door, and lifting the not-so-heavy-because-she-was-'losing-her- muscle' duffel bag over her shoulder, she caught another glimpse of the mirror as she passed. This time, though, it wasn't her reflection. It was Ash. And he was smiling. Instead of screaming… she smiled back, this time. And then, she left. Misty felt the drowsiness of her recent lack of sleep consume her nearly entirely as the bus shook above the rocky terrain. Another girl, a total stranger and whom looked like a foreigner, sat beside her nervously writing things down in a hand-sized notebook. Misty, out of boredom, spied on the wording, but the letters were not of her language. The strange girl caught this new attention and weakly smiled up at her. "Hi." "Hi." Misty returned the greeting immediately and averted her eyes to the front of the bus, "Sorry." "Don't be. I know you can't read this, anyway…" "How do you-" "My name's Jahzara." She held out a hand and Misty shook it. "Misty." She said. "Hey Misty. So, do you live in Goldenrod?" Misty nervously brushed at her bangs. She had a weird enough situation, did she really have to discuss it? "Um… no, I'm just... uh, visiting a friend, you might say." She said unsurely. "Oh. Me too." Jahzara said sullenly and continued to write the little symbols. 'This girl is strange… long black hair, blue- nearly crystal- eyes, and such a deep, entrancing voice. …And she writes backwards.' Misty noticed that after twenty minutes of still being on the bus, Jahzara continued to write, erase, and so on and sometimes it was the same symbols over and over. "So…um.. what are you writing?" Misty inquired, a few minutes later and totally bored. The girl, taken from her trance in writing, looked up at this stranger, unamused. "Huh?" "Well, it isn't any of my business, but… I'm just trying to make conversation.." She chuckled nervously, "I'm bored out of my mind." Her solid, white face softened and she smiled. "Oh… I sometimes completely forget about every one else around me. Well," She looked down to her piece of work, "I don't think you'd understand… but.." Misty inwardly sighed. 'I should've just stuck to staring out the crumby window.' "..I-It's a spell.." That took Misty out of her thoughts, "A spell?" Jahzara nodded. "Mm-hm. For my friend. He's a little… sick and needs psychic help." "Well, wouldn't your average ibuprofen or Tylenol do the trick?" Misty chuckled. "It's.. not that kind of sick… You see, he's…" She fidgeted with the paper's edges, "soul-sick." "Oh…" "I've spent about a month trying to cure him, but he.." She laughed, a nervous wave washing over her, "He just won't return to his body!" The girl smiled, crumbled up the piece of paper with a sigh, tossed it to the bus floor, and began working on another spell. A sudden jerk of the bus snapped Misty into reality like a rubber band. "Soul- sick…?" She muttered. "Jahzara…" She looked up, but when she did, the seat next to her was mysteriously empty. Her heart paced quickly, at the sight of another strange, unexplainable happening with information that only was allowed to her by a force stranger than unimaginable. "Misty?" Called a deep voice from the front of the bus. "Aren't you getting off?" Suddenly, Misty noticed that all the seats were empty and that Jahzara stood leaning against the drivers seat with nothing under her arms, on her back, or in her hands but that piece of paper. "So, you're telling me this, because…?" "I have to tell someone. Or else I might go crazy." Jahzara chuckled. "Well, I think you're doing the right thing. I'd do the same thing if my friend was haunting me." The restaurant was nearly empty, it being so very early in the morning. Misty and Jahzara sat at a booth at the far end of the establishment engulfed in their conversation. Jahzara tapped the straw on the table, the wrapping peeling off and stuck the plastic contraption into the fizzy soda. "Well, I know a few ways to bring people to life." She announced. "You do? Really?!" "Yeah…" She said, smiling sheepishly, "I just never tried anything before." "So…that's why you're writing these spells, right." Misty asked, a little depressed. "Exactly." Misty yawned, slid her drink over to the other side of the table and laid her head on the table. "I'm sooo tired." She groaned. "Did your ghost keep you up all night?" Jahzara grinned. "Ha ha." Misty said sarcastically. "So… tell me about some of your little.. 'supernatural happenings'. About this ghost. What's it like?" Jahzara said, suddenly interested. "You don't want to know." Misty said, sitting up with her eyes still closed. "Why else would I ask?" Misty glared at her. "It's so scary, you think I'd be making it up." "Well, I'll make you a deal." "What's that?" "If you tell me about these strange things that have happened to you, I'll try my best awakening spell on your friend." Misty shook her head in disbelief, "Yeah, but I've seen those movies where you witches, no offense," "None taken." Jahzara said quickly, mentally noting that this isn't the first polite person to label her as a witch. "-raise the dead and they come to life as… zombies or something or vampires or evil or something where their soul is totally twisted…" Throughout the entire second part of Misty's sentence, Jahzara was giggling unstoppable. "You are not the first person to think that! But, seriously, those are just movies… And the real deal is this: do you want to live the rest of your life with ghost? Because if you don't there are only two choices you get: to raise it, or destroy it." She said seriously. "Destroy it?" "Well, " She scoffed, "When I mean destroy, I mean to put to rest. For the soul to go to Heaven or Hell or Purgatory or wherever instead of floating around Earth and scaring little kids." Misty glared at her, leaning on her elbows. "You really want to know what happened?" Jahzara's eyes flashed with interest. "Oh yes, I looooove ghost stories." She grinned. Misty sat proudly against the booth seat with her arms crossed defiantly across her chest at the look of Jahzara's surprised face. "Wow." She said, "So, this friend of yours wants you to find him and… he told you to come here?" "Well, actually the news reporter did-" "Well yeah, I know." Jahzara waved her words away, "That's just his way of telling you." She rose a finger at Misty, "He's not aloud to talk to you or let you see his actual spirit form." "What do you mean?" Misty was about to take a sip, when she noticed that there was nothing left but ice in her cup. "That's just… how they work. It's the rules of the dead- or at least the kind who aren't at peace." "Yeah." Misty nodded. Jahzara smiled suspiciously, "You must be lucky." With Misty's concerned look, she continued, "For him to choose you over all of his other friends and even his family." Misty blushed, "Well… we are-were real close…" "Oh." Jahzara laughed lightly, "You only said he was your friend, you didn't say anything about a boyfriend. Sorry, I should've kno-" "He wasn't my boyfriend!" Misty flushed, "We're just best friends. In fact, I have no idea why he chose me." Embarrassed, she looked away. "No need to get embarrassed. Oh, hey, do you know what the black feathers stand for?" "What? What do they stand for?" "…I don't know, that's why I asked." "Well, in that case, I have no clue whatsoever. I never thought that they meant anything, anyways." "They probably do. You keep seeing them everywhere, ne? And you said you had a dream about him? That's so cool. What color was his blood?" Misty, slightly taken back by the question, looked at her as if she was a total mental case, "…Why? Purple, I think." A small fire of determination burned within Jahzara's glare. "So, he's serious about this stuff. He really wants you to find him. And soon, too. That's serious." At Misty's confused and utterly surprised expression, Jahzara quickly added, "Oh, you know me, I study this sort of stuff all the time, you know?" Misty laughed, "You really are into this, aren't you?" "A witch to the very end!" "So, Misty, what's it gonna be?" Said this new friend, cracking her knuckles. "Um.. What?" "Think about it. What would your friend prefer? To be cast into eternity, or to live once again. Here's a clue though, I wouldn't give him life if he killed himself, though. He'd probably just die again the day later." "Well…" Misty thought for a while, taking long sips from her fresh drink, "I don't really think that Ash meant to die… And I know that I didn't want him to die." Suddenly, Jahzara gasped. Her face paled. Her jaw dropped and the crystal- ness within her pupils darkened into a deeper blue as her stare intensified, mixed with feelings of awe and surprise unimagined. "You're… Ash's Misty?"