Chapter no.30

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The night was silent and brought no sounds with it. Any insects that were active in the forest did so without making a sound. There were no sounds of owls hooting, dogs barking, or birds flapping their wings to break the silence. As Ash laid on his side, attempting to tune out the deafening silence, he found that he yearned for a sound, any sound at all. He would have settled for any sound. When he realised that he wasn't able to hear Growlithe, he immediately broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead. In spite of his best efforts to maintain his rationality, he kept telling himself that the dog wasn't moving but was nevertheless keeping watch.

Or had the bugs managed to get to Growlithe and quietly put an end to his life? Were they getting closer to his personal space and getting ready to sting him now?

Not at all, Ash replied to himself, shaking his head once to get the ideas out of his head. It's all good with Growlithe. He is equally as tense as the rest of us, and he is maintaining his silence.

On the other hand, poison can be lethal quickly and covertly.

Ash jerked and lurched up from his bedroll, slapping at his feet as he did so because he had perceived what was crawling on the ground beneath him to be an insect. The sound of his palm striking the fabric with such force that it rang like a firecracker caused Misty, Growlithe, and Pikachu to jump up and run in the same instant. Misty had suddenly produced a hatchet from thin air while simultaneously holding a pokeball in the other hand. Ash was able to see the sweat on Misty's face and detect the rapid rises and falls in her chest because Pikachu's cheeks were crackling and providing enough illumination for him to do so. It's possible that she wasn't getting enough rest either.

Misty hissed, "What is it?" as she asked.

Another shake of the head came from Ash. He responded with "nothing" The nauseating feeling that something was moving beneath his bedroll had finally stopped. "I'm sorry," he continued in a hushed voice. "It was nothing more than a dream."

Misty let out a sigh of relief and, as a result, physically shrank a little bit. Pikachu loosened up, his yellow fur with its spikes lay back down on his body, and he curled into Ash in a manner that was more feline than rodent. "Alright," the trainer with the fiery red head said. "I'm really starting to feel the effects of this forest..."

When Ash saw that Misty was lying down and heard that she had done the same, he said, "Me too."

Again, Ash was unable to fall or stay asleep throughout the rest of the night despite the fact that neither of them spoke again. The lack of stimulation allowed his imagination to run wild, which, according to him, drove him to the verge of insanity. No matter how tightly he squeezed his eyes or how tightly he curled himself up in the bedroll, he was unable to stop the riotous images of poisonous monsters that paraded through his mind.

When Ash woke up the following morning, he realised that he had absolutely no recollection of even beginning to nod off to sleep. The fact that he was still very tired in the minutes before dawn led him to believe that he must have passed out rather than simply gone to sleep. He and Misty got up and quietly packed up their tent together before leaving. Both of the trainers could see dark purple bags under the other's eyes as the sunlight began to penetrate the canopy of trees, and they immediately understood what had happened.

During lunch, Ash mumbled to himself while leaning against a tree, "Grandpa told me that this forest did things to people." He continued to listen intently into the eerie stillness that pervaded the forest where there was no wind. They had travelled so far into Viridian at this point that even in the middle of the day, the forest appeared to be wrapped in the coils of dusk. Before, sunlight and even glimpses of the sky could be seen through breaks in the canopy that overhung the forest floor. However, now the vegetation was so dense that only diffuse light with the colour of ashes fell to the forest floor.

Misty spoke these words as she finished off the last of the canned meat in the jar. "It takes something special to get through," she said. She was oblivious to the situation as she threw the garbage into the trees and stood up as Ash was finishing up his lunch. They continued to push forward, and the hours began to drag by slowly. At five o'clock in the afternoon, the Viridian Forest had once more become as dark and as quiet as a crypt, and it had also started to become chilly. Ash could feel the weight of it all beginning to add up on his limbs, the exhaustion, the lack of sleep from the previous night, and now the icy front that was moving through the forest.

When he and Misty finally decided to stop for the night a few hours later, he mused to himself that this must be what it is like to experience mental deterioration.

At this point, the weather had turned for the worse, and the ground had turned into a crusty dirt. The trainer reasoned that after a few more nights of this, working on the Pokedex would be the last thing they would need to worry about. Ash, who was beginning to shiver and could feel the cold prickling on his face, attempted to force the thoughts out of his mind, telling himself that tomorrow would be the midpoint of the journey and... and... and that would mean that tomorrow, the day after yet another cold and sleepless night, would be the day with the most difficult day's journey. Fuck…