"I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep," Misty said sadly as she lifted her head from her pillow for about the millionth time. She reached over and snapped the light on beside her bed.

Ash and Brock groaned from below, and Misty looked over the side of her bed down at them. They had their hands clasped over their eyes, which shot like daggers at her when they finally uncovered them. She flinched a little at their hard stares, but her expression remained the same.

"Well, can you at least try?" Ash insisted, squinting at the bright light. "I’m tired here!"

"Me too," Brock agreed. "Misty, you’d feel a lot better if you got some sleep."

"Believe me, I want to sleep!" said Misty forcefully. "But I can’t get that ringing out of my ears! It’s killing me!"

Brock rubbed his drowsy eyes and sat up. He looked up at Misty, whose attention was on him, and he smiled gently at her. She didn’t smile back.

"Misty, what can we do to make you feel better?" he sighed sleepily.

"I dunno," she replied apathetically. "I guess there’s nothing you can do, really. It’s up to me to fall asleep."

Ash listened to her speak so downheartedly, and he kicked his legs out of his sleeping bag. The bag crumpled from the lack of support underneath it, all but a small lump near the end of it. Misty and Brock watched attentively and curiously as Ash shook the lump gently, causing it to stir.

Pikachu popped his head out from the warm bag, his eyes droopy from being woken up. Ash smiled into his buddy’s face, then flipped his eyes up to Misty.

"Misty, would you like it if Pikachu slept with you tonight?" he asked gently. He felt like a million bucks when Misty’s face lifted.

"Would he?" she asked hopefully, flashing her pearly white teeth.

Ash beamed. "Course he would! Would ya do that for Misty, Pikachu?"

"Pika pika," Pikachu replied affirmatively but sleepily. Ash chuckled, and picked up the tired Pokémon and placed it beside Misty.

"Thanks, Ash," Misty said, running her hand up and down Pikachu’s ears. It wasn’t a lot, but the presence of the Pokémon would bring her at least a little more comfort. Pikachu settled immediately into Misty’s comforter, and nuzzled up beside her stomach. He was warm and soft, and with Togepi sleeping in her arms, Misty didn’t feel alone.

"No problem," Ash replied, getting back into his sleeping bag. "Can we try to get some sleep now? I hear it’s gonna be nice tomorrow and I have to make up for the training I missed today."

"Sure," Misty said, snuggling back into her sheets. She quieted herself after that, though she still felt uneasy about it. Along with being frightened, she felt disgusted as well. Here she was, surrounded by her friends and Pokémon, and Delia in the living room below, and she still felt scared. She just wished that sleep would overtake her, that in the next moment she would wake up, and it would be morning.

Misty turned the light off, and flopped her head down on the pillow. She heard Ash and Brock getting comfortable in their sleeping bags on the floor, and she took a deep breath to get settled. As her head sunk into the pillow, she replayed the events that had occurred that day. First Ash with cleaning his room, then the storm, then the basement. And with every new thought that popped into her head of what she might have heard, she tried to think of some sort of logical explanation for the whole thing.

She couldn’t think of one, though. The typewriter had been working. She heard it, Ash heard it, Brock heard it. Even Pikachu heard it. How could it have been the wind or their imaginations? How could they have concocted such a ridiculous event? And as Misty thought of this more and more, she couldn’t help thinking of Ash’s situation, too. He had looked so scared and so serious when he had blurted out what he had heard in his room. As did his mother and Brock, Misty was certain he had made it up. It was just too convenient. But the situation in the basement had suddenly made her think differently.

Lifting her head slightly off the pillow, Misty sat still for a moment. The room was silent. She breathed softly, and looked down at the floor.

"Ash?" she asked delicately, the sweet voice drifting through the room.

At first there was no response, but then Ash spoke up. "What?" he asked back.

"Um, what . . . what you were saying today," she said, "about your room. You, uh . . . you weren’t making that up, were you?"

"No," Ash answered, his voice drained. And that was all.

Misty swallowed gently and threw her hair out of her face with a swift shake of her head. "I believe you now," she told him lightly, just above a whisper. She immediately braced herself for a sharp reply from him, but one never came.

"It’s okay," mumbled Ash. Misty realized that the poor boy was falling asleep as he was talking to her.

"All right," Misty concluded, smiling warmly. She ended the small conversation there and rested her head back on the pillow. She glanced up at the ceiling, and watched the shadows dance across it. The window was open, allowing soft, warm breezes to blow into the room. The storm had ended, the electricity was back on, and the world was coming to a standstill. The night was growing deeper, and Misty’s eyes slowly began to droop. In no time she fell into slumber, the last thing on her mind being the Clue gameboard.

Misty was suddenly awake. She didn’t know how she woke up, but she found her eyes staring at the window. It was still dark out. She blinked her eyes once hard, then sealing them shut tightly. Groaning sleepily, she shifted her weight on her right side and turned over. She focused her eyes on the clock beside the bed, discovering that it was a little after four A.M. A bit shocked, she couldn’t believe how fast the night had gone. The sun would be rising soon, and she had made it through the night. She smiled contentedly to herself and shut her eyes. Lowering her body back onto the bed, she yanked the covers up to her chin and settled back into sleep.

Tap.

Her eyes opened immediately at the sound. Shuddering confusingly, she turned her head in the direction from where she believed the sound had come from. It had only been a small, sharp knock, but it was quite loud. Staring sleepily at the wall behind Ash’s dresser, she didn’t know what she was looking for.

Too tired to support her head anymore, she plopped it down back on the pillow. It was nothing. Figuring that it had been the house settling, Misty’s eyes shut easily and she wrapped her arm around her snoring Togepi. If Ash was going to get them up bright and early like she imagined he would, she wanted to get sleep now while she could.

Tap. Tap.

Misty’s eyes flew open rapidly, immediately tensing.

What is that? she thought as she lifted herself on her one arm. She looked once again at the wall where she heard the noises coming from. She realized now that that was not the sound of the house settling. They had been two, very obvious knocks. But from where?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Misty’s eyes opened even wider, this time fearfully. She had no idea where it came from, but at that instant she recalled what Ash had been telling them earlier. He had described knocking behind his wall. And that’s exactly what she was hearing now.

Three more hard, sound taps came from across the room, and Misty held her breath. Oh man, she groaned to herself, gently lifting her legs out from under the covers. It’s Ash’s tapping! Suddenly, panic took over her, and she felt her blood pump furiously. The tapping occurred again, and this was when Misty got really nervous. Without a second though, and brimming with fear, she climbed down from Ash’s bunk, fell to her knees on the floor, and crawled swiftly to Brock’s sleeping bag. It was the closest, and she felt drawn there anyhow.

"Brock! Brock!" she whispered strenuously, shaking her friend quite forcefully. "Brock, wake up!"

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Misty froze for a moment, her attention drawn to the knocking again. Gulping loudly, she gave Brock a good hard shove. But he was like a rock, totally immersed in slumber. Brock was a deep-sleeper, and Misty was about to give up hope and go to Ash. But she was stopped before she even had the chance.

A loud crash disrupted the peaceful, soundless moment of the room, causing Misty to literally jump out of her skin. Unlike the tapping, this one was quite loud and sudden, and the startled girl let out a blaring yelp. In that instant, she instinctively grabbed hold of some sort of near protection, which happened to be Brock. Actually, she unerringly tackled him, grasping on to him firmly. This was enough to wake him.

"Huh? What?" Brock yelled loudly and fearfully in surprise to have been brought rudely out of his sleep. He immediately panicked, the darkness of the room confusing and intimidating him. All he felt was someone clutched tightly onto him, but he didn’t realize that it was Misty at first.

Misty felt him squirming uncomfortably in her arms, panic rising in him. "What’s going on?" he shouted loudly in alarm, trying to break free of the unknown force on him.

"Brock! Brock!" Misty whimpered, still grasping her arms around the startled boy. "It’s me! It’s just me!"

"Misty?" he asked, gasping for breath from being awakened so suddenly. "Oh my God, what . . . what . . ."

"Hey, what’s going on here?" Ash’s voice suddenly joined the confused ensemble. He sounded almost as panicked as Brock did, and bolted up immediately to flip on the overhead light to the room.

Misty and Brock squinted unintentionally as the bright light attacked their sleepy eyes, and they winced painfully. Through his strained eyes, Ash looked down to see Brock sprawled in a disturbed fashion on the floor, Misty right on top of him. She had both her hands full of big clumps of Brock’s pajamas, clamping onto them so tightly that her knuckled were white. Ash backed away in alarm as he noticed the terror in both his friends’ faces.

"What the heck is going on here?" Ash asked worriedly, his eyes scanning both of them.

Brock was the first to speak. "I dunno. Misty’s goin’ crazy!"

Ash looked over to Misty, seeing her eyes shut. Her lips were pulled back, showing her clenched teeth. He could see that she was breathing rather choppily. Her knotty, clumpy hair drooped over her face.

"Something crashed over there!" Misty squeaked, pointing her finger towards the wall without opening an eye.

Ash and Brock followed her pointed finger to the wall. Brock didn’t know quite what he was looking for, but as soon as she had pointed, Ash knew well. His eyes immediately flew to the floor, where sure enough, the same photo of them in Celadon City lay on the floor. Only this time, the glass was shattered. Tiny, flashing pieces of glass glistened amidst the blue carpet.

"Oh, damn," Ash moaned, carefully stepping over his friends and heading toward the picture. Misty and Brock watched him as he bent down and picked up the cracked frame, careful to not drop any more pieces of glass on the floor. Without a word, he lifted it up, and looked at it for a moment.

He shrugged and sighed, then looked down at Misty and Brock. Misty was still hugging Brock closely, who had now draped a comforting arm around her shoulders. A small smile crept to his mouth, and he shuffled the photo in his hand.

"I don’t what my wall suddenly has against this picture," he laughed, mostly in an attempt to cheer Misty up. His smile weakening, he frugally placed the remainder of the photo on his dresser. The fact that it had happened again was beginning to upset him, but he refused to scare Misty or Brock any further at that time.

Misty was beginning to simmer down, breathing in and out softly. She was still a little shaken up, tugging gently at Brock’s pajamas. Well, at least they finally saw the picture fall. Ash had certainly not made that one up. And at the same moment, she remembered the tapping, as well.

"Ash! The tapping," she said, a little muffled.

Ash’s eyelids rapidly flew open. "The tapping? You . . . you heard it?"

Her mouth agape, she nodded affirmatively. Her eyes were wide in fright. "It -- it was behind that wall," she told him, motioning toward it with a nod.

Ash groaned and looked at the wall, giving it a nasty glare. Why had it come back? When they were in his room the whole evening and nothing had happened, he was starting to fell positive that at least that had gone away. But it was back again, doing the same unbelievable damage that it had before. With an angry grunt, Ash kicked the wall hard.

"Ash, stop!" Brock shouted, shocked. "You’re gonna wake your mom up!"

"I don’t care!" Ash replied. "What the hell is going on?! I don’t like this."

"I don’t like it either," Misty wailed softly. She buried her face into Brock’s shoulder.

Brock sighed softly and he rubbed Misty’s back. With the recollection of the typewriter incident earlier, he didn’t know what to think. Misty wasn’t one to make up insane stories, but she did let her imagination get the best of her sometimes. The wall thing didn’t sound that unbelievable, but he still didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t heard it yet. As it all turned out, what was believed to be just a wild excuse for Ash to get out of cleaning had resulted in the three of them awakening at five in the morning, clutching each other in terror.

"So, what are we doing here?" he asked indifferently, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

Ash shrugged, leaning against his dresser. His eyes yearned for more sleep, also, but he was too excited now to even think of it. He looked over despondently at the smashed photo on his dresser, and a new rush of nervousness swept through him.

"There’s something weird going on here," he announced, running a hand through his tangled, black hair.

"What do think it is?" Misty asked him, her eyes full of dilemma. Ash quivered slightly at her distressed expression.

"I don’t know," he replied calmly, his eyes shifting to the floor.

"It’s scary," Misty said.

Without warning, and completely out of the moment, Brock began to chuckle. Ash and Misty looked strangely at their suddenly amused friend.

"Guys," he giggled, shaking his head. "The way you’re talking, you sound like this place is haunted or something!"

He continued to laugh, but stopped gradually as he realized that they were not going to join in laughing like he had expected them to. He stopped completely and looked at them, taken back at their somewhat distraught expressions.

"Oh, c’mon!" he said. "You’re kidding, right?"

Ash and Misty’s eyes rose, and they seemed to shrug with them. Brock looked at each one of them separately, unable to believe that they were actually thinking that. The Ketchum house, haunted? Insane! Where in the world did they pick up that feeling?

"Don’t doubt it yet, Brock," Ash said calmly, his lips barely moving. "I mean, I hardly believe that that’s what it is, but . . ." He trailed off for a moment, leaving Misty and Brock in a small second of suspense. ". . . How else can you explain what we’ve been experiencing lately?"

Misty groaned fearfully, and Brock shook his head. "Stupid coincidences?" he suggested, shrugging. "Come on, Ash, do you really believe in that crap?"

"I do," Misty put in neurotically. Ash and Brock looked down at her. Her eyes humbly darted from Ash’s to Brock’s, and she breathed in deeply. "I mean . . . Ash could be right. He does have a point. I don’t know about you, but right now I was about to have a heart attack. And stupid things like the house settling or our imaginations don’t scare me that much."

Neither Ash nor Brock responded to this. Misty’s terrified words sunk into them, and it made them think. Misty did get frightened a lot sometimes, but she always knew what was worth getting scared over. They watched as she released her grip finally from Brock, and climbed up to Ash’s bed again. Stroking her sleeping Togepi, Misty curled herself into a little ball underneath the covers, and looked down at her two friends, almost like she was expecting something from them.

They were still silent, and ever so gradually, they both returned to their sleeping bags. The sun was beginning to rise in the east, casting bright streaks of light across the bedroom walls. The kids lay down, but none of them slept. Ash, Misty, and Brock remained awake till they finally arose many hours later.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .