Banette.

((Not sure if I should put a filter on this, but it IS the most violent story I've ever written. You have been warned.))

"C'mon Clare, we're leaving!", a little girls mother
shouts to her. "Nooo!" Clare shouts back. "I can't
leave yet Mommy! I have to find it!" The little girl
and her family were moving to another house, quite
distant from where they were now. "Clare, just forget
it. You have plenty of other dolls. If it means this
much to you I'll buy you another one on the way
there", her mother said, getting impatient. "But it
won't be the same one!", Clare replied, still frantically
searching the house. She was looking for a doll. Her
favourite doll. A doll that her mother gave her as a
baby. She had practicaly had it for her whole life.
"We're leaving now!", her mother said, and grabbed
Clare by the hand before starting to forcefully drag
her to the car. Clare was crying, crying silently.
True tears of sorrow. For her it felt like she was
leaving behind a lifelong friend or even a brother.
Just before she was pushed into her seat, she cried
out the doll's name one last time. "KEN!!!"

-

Two weeks later, their old home's new inhabitant had
finished unpacking and redecorating the house. Frank.
A single man in his late twenties. A man who was just
starting to build a decent life for himself, completely
unaware that his choice of house would cause him to
lose it.

He was sitting in his living room, watching a TV show.
A normal night for him. Or so he thought. He heard a
loud 'thump' from upstairs, as if something had just
fallen. He ignored it and continued watching a re-run
of the latest pokemon contest to be held in the region.
He heard the noise again. Then, only about two minutes
later, again. Now he was getting a little scared. Had
someone broken in upstairs? He quietly snuck out of
the room and went to get his baseball bat. With it in
hand he slowly and cautiously crept up the stairs and
peered in through the keyholes of the upstars rooms one
by one. He saw nothing in the first few, leaving only
one more room to check: the one that used to belong to
Clare. He silently tip-toed along the carpeted floor
to the door. Thump. The sound could be heard again.
Coming from the other side of the door. It sounded
almost as if te intruder was standing at the other side
of it. This gave him the opportunity, he hoped, to
surprise them. He threw the door open, expecting to hear
someone collapse having been hit by it, or at least to
see someone standing in the room. Nothing. Nobody. It
must have just been his imagination. He looked around
room once more to be sure. He still saw nobody, but
noticed something strange. A drop of something dark was
trickling down the wall. He warily walked over to it and
touched it with the tip of his finger. A close inspection
confirmed it. It was blood.

He stumbled back, horrified. The blood was clearly seeping
from the wall, but it could't have been. Walls don't bleed.
Another started to trickle down about a meter away from the
first, but suddenly stopped as if suspended in place by
some unseen force. More and more blood drops seeped out of
the wall and stopped illogically. It was only a matter
of minutes before the various lines of blood took form
as runes. Spiked, demonic looking, but still distinguishable
as letters. They spelled out "She left me... I thought she
loved me... I thought I was her friend..." As Frank read
the message mentally, something even stranger happened.
A voice sounded. The voice of a teenage boy. It was reading
the message repeatedly. Each time the voice started to
sound more sorrowful, until the voice was breaking, sobbing,
barely able to speak. It sounded as if it was coming from
all around him. Then suddenly it stopped. It fell silent for
several seconds. Then in an emotionless tone, he heard it
say one final thing. "Why...?!" The word was followed by
a low rumble, like the growl of a rabid wolf. Then all was
silent again. Frank was left speechless, frozen in fear.
His eyes were fixed on the message written in blood on
the wall. Until he saw something else move. Directly below
him. His shadow. It fell to its knees like a lifeless corpse.
As if it had been shot in the back of the head. Frank was
sweating with fear. He couldn't bear to take his eyes off
it no matter how much he wanted to. His shadow moved again,
raising its hands to its eyes like it was crying. It began
to move as if it was, and as it did he heard the crying of
a baby. Once again it came from all around him. From where
its eyes would have been if visible on it, thin streams of
read began to slither across the room like tears trickling
down his shadows cheek. "What kind of sick joke is this?!"
He cried aloud. As soon as he did is shadow froze in place.
Its blood tears sank into the ground like water on parched
desert sand. Its hands fell from its face, its arms dangling
limply. It started to move again, as if standing but different.
Its head was hanging. It moved to the point that it seperated
from him. There it swayed slightly from side to side.
It was almost as if his shadow was hanging by its neck.

He tried to scream, but choked, unable to make any sound.
The choking feeling increased, and he started clawing at
neck in a desperate attempt to relieve himself of the pain.
His neck sank in on itself, as if a rope was tightened around
it. He felt himself being pulled backwards, dragged now, as
his legs went limp from a lack of oxygen. With the last of
his strength, he clawed at his neck again, but there was
no rope around it. His fingernails went right through the
invisible and intangible force that was choking the innocent
man and into his own flesh. Unable to stop or pull back on
the force he had already applied, his nails went deeper,
and were pulled down, tearing his skin, forcing up beads
or crimson from the unintentional self inflicted wounds.
He was unable to scream still from the pain he had caused
himself. The doors of the child's closet swung open behind
him. He still struggled to try to breathe purely out of
desperation to live. Once he was pulled inside the doors
swung closed behind him and the intangible rope that was
choking him released him. He was in too much shock, and was
also too weak to breathe. He couldn't even see now, within
the darkness of the child's closet. "Clare...", the young boy's
voice echoed again. "You are not Clare... You are worthless
to me... I am sorry for what I did to you, good sir...
I had mistaken you for someone else... but do not worry...
your suffering will now end...", he said. A pale gold
coloured row of rectangular teeth, all but the one on one
end equal in length, appeared before him then. Two glowing,
violet eyes opened above them. Frank knew it was a pokemon.
He recognized it as the face of a Banette. But in place of
a Banette's usual, haunting and eerie smile, there was a
ghostly visage full of silent despair. The pain and sorrow
of loss. A face like that of a child, soundlessly crying
while looking at their mother or father lying dead in a
coffin. This was the most dreadful kind of sight anyone
could ever see. The image burned into Franks mind and he
began crying himself. No because he knew his life was at
an end, but for the sake of this unfortunate pokemon...

-

"A man in his late twenties was found dead today. His body
was found hanging from a noose in the closet of one of the
rooms in his home. A message was found written on the walls
in what authorities assume is the man's own blood. It is
thought, judging from the evidence, that the man committed
suicide because of a recent fight and seperation with his
girlfriend. Police are still investigating, but-", the news
reporter was cut short as Clares father changed the channel.
Clare had just entered the room and he didn't want her to
find out what was happening in the house she used to live in.
She sat down and, with a sad expression, started watching the
cartoons that were showing on the channel her father had
changed to. Her father felt guilty, knowing that he and his
wife had caused this depression of hers. "Clare? Are you alright?",
he asked her. After a long, silent pause it became obvious
that she wasn't going to answer. She wasn't giving him the
silent treatment, but was simply too devastated by the loss
of her favourite doll to speak. "Would you like to go to the
park", he asked her. She only replied by shaking her head,
gesturing no. "Would you like to go get some ice-cream?",
he asked her. Again she shook her head. "Do you just want to
stay here and watch cartoons then?", he asked. This time she
nodded. Her father stood up and left, going into the kitchen.
His wife was there waiting for him. They both knew what the
other was thinking. They were both worried about Clare. She had
barely spoken, barely eaten, barely done anything since they
moved. It was as if a part of their daughter had died or had
been left behind when they moved. They were considering taking
her to a therapist, but resorting to that extreme simply because
she lost a doll was an idea they quickly dismissed. They were
completely unsure of what to do. The next day they bought her
a new doll, almost identical to Ken, but she simply took one
glance at it and payed no more attention to it at all. This
really got them worried. Before getting a new doll was like
getting a new puppy in their daughter's eyes. Now she seemed
to think nothing of it. They couldn't think of anything else
to try now. She refused to even talk about it to them. They
decided to see if time could heal this emotional wound of hers.

Another week passed but there wasn't even the slightest
improvement. Clare remained in her depressed state.
She barely spoke, barely ate, and almost never left the
house. Every morning her mother found what she assumed
to be fresh tears on Clare's pillow. That night, a storm
was blowing heavily outside. Rain pelted against the
windows like hailstones. Clare lay awake in bed, tears
streaming down her face. "Ken..." she said quietly,
barely able to speak because she was choking on her sorrow.
Her shadow flickered below her bed and began to change
shape. She didn't notice however. The Banette was drawn
to this childs lonliness, to her despair. It recognized
her by it. Its dark, ghostly form began to rise up from
the shadows. She was startled when she saw the ghost
pokemon standing by her bedside. But she wasn't afraid.
She didn't see a Banette when she looked at it. "Kenny!",
she shouted happily and threw her arms around him.
The tears she was crying changed to ones of joy.
"Clare...", The young boy's voice sounded. "I missed
you...", he continued. "I missed you too... I tried
to look for you, but my parents made me leave before
could find you. Kenny, I'm so sorry... I promise
I'll never leave you again", Clare said.
"I promise too... I will never leave you again now...",
the boys voice said softly. "Cross my heart, hope to die,
stick a needle in my eye...", he added, the grim but
childish way to say that he'll never break his promise.
"It was your parents that drove us apart...", Kenny said.
"Yeah... they were in a real hurry to go, so they made
me leave before I could find you", Clare explained.
"I see... Clare... I'm sorry, but there's something
I have to do", Kenny said. "You're leaving...?
But you promised you wouldn't leave me again!", Clare
said, sounding sad again. "I suppose I'll have
to break that promise... but only for a moment. I
won't be gone long and I won't be gone far", Kenny
told her.H then sank into the shadows again and all
was silent for a moment. Then, screaming. Horrible,
ear-piercing xcreams of pain from her parents'
bedroom. She covered her ears, crying again.
When it stopped she ran there. She was so frightened
that it took every shred of will she had just to look.
There was blood splattered everywhere, on the floor,
walls and even the ceiling around her parents' bed.
She saw that all that was left of her parents now
were piles of entrails, some scattered around the
room. When she looked down, barely stopping herself
from vommiting at the sight, she saw her parents
hearts lying on the ground in front of her.
And about a meter away from her her old doll
Kenny was on the floor. A doll again, no longer a
Banette. He had broken his promise to stay
with her. The doll had a pin stuck into both of
its eyes, and two pins stuck at either side of
where its heart would be, forming an x.
The old and gruesome promise echoed in Kenny's
voice. Slowly, and sounding in extreme pain,
he sang it.

"Cross your heart... Hope to die... Stick a
needle in your eye..."