12. Mürrisch Town

[Seductive Secretary]

QUEENSLAND
Alice stared. She stared for hours and hours, but what was she staring at? She was staring at Cofagrigus, yes, the Cofagrigus she nicknamed Abyss. She named him Abyss because he devoured people into his abyss that was the coffin. “Abyss…” Alice turned her head from Abyss to the cement floor below her. She immediately began scraping her fingers around on the ground until they bled. Why was she doing this? She didn’t know, or did she?
Once all ten of her fingers were bleeding, she extended her dainty fingers towards Abyss and giggled, “My blood is red. Abyss, do you have blood?” Abyss emerged from his coffin and laughed hysterically at Alice’s fingers for they were drenched in tiny bits of cement and blood. “It’s funny isn’t it? Why don’t I feel anything Abyss? I can see my skin peeled and my fingers bleeding, but all we can do is laugh.” Alice twisted her head so that she was staring at Abyss from a side angle. She then created a twisted grin on her face and laughed. “I wonder what my own blood tastes like!” Alice shoved the three fingers in her mouth and tasted the metallic sensation that she knew so well. Time and time again she’d tasted blood, but it always tasted the same. Why did it do that? When you eat a hamburger, sometimes it tastes different depending on which place you buy it from, but blood, blood always tasted the same, regardless of which part of her body it came from.
Abyss laughed and laughed at Alice, to the point of screaming out its melancholy and dark hysteria. “I want to find someone else’s blood. Let’s go make screams okay?” Abyss laughed but complied by following Alice as she walked down the street in the search of some people to make scream.

“I want to hurt somebody. I want to make them bleed.” Alice held all ten of her fingers up, which were all still bleeding from the moment ago where she was scraping the cement with her nub fingers. “Look, there’s flesh!” Alice pointed to a human riding a bike down the lone road they stood on. “Abyss, it’s your turn.” Alice twisted her head and waved to the passerby on the bicycle. He waved back, but as he did, a shadow arm wrapped around him and pulled him towards Abyss. “I want to hear him scream now, but make him bleed.”

The man, almost on cue, began to scream and cry out for help but Alice merely giggled and watched as his form flew in closer and closer towards Abyss, whose coffin was now open, ready to devour the man whole. “No! I don’t want to die!” “Then you should have never been born.” With that, the man was slammed shut inside of the coffin.
It was quiet for a moment, but then suddenly, his screams began to echo from inside Abyss, causing the Cofagrigus to laugh hysterically.
Blood dripped from the bottom of the coffin, most definitely that of the man inside. “I want to know what happens in there.” The Cofagrigus’s eyes shifted to Alice and it began to roar with laughter causing Alice to take several steps backwards. “Bleed for me.”
Alice wiped her fingers on the bottom of the coffin to get a sample of the man inside’s blood. She then placed her fingers inside her mouth and giggled. “It tastes like mine.”

Alice slowly began to walk down the street, allowing for Cofagrigus to float closely behind.
 

[Seductive Secretary]

QUEENSLAND
The screams echoing from within the coffin seemed to be as loud as ever. Perhaps it was because the man inside the coffin still had hope. Hope; that was such an annoying emotion that people had. “Abyss, he’s loud.” Abyss was still giggling to himself every time the man yelled out in pain. Whatever was going on inside the coffin was really something that Abyss enjoyed partaking in.
“There’s spirit tower Abyss. We should catch a Pokémon.” Alice began to suck her thumb, absorbing the blood that was beginning to dry on it as well, causing the scab on it to begin re-bleeding once more. She was thinking, and she liked the metallic taste of blood while she thought. “I want a Duskull.” The Cofagrigus merely laughed as Alice mentioned what Pokémon she wanted, it was still clearly torturing the man inside.
Every second seemed like an eternity for that man, Alice knew it. The seconds didn’t just go by, they dragged on. People screamed for hours inside the coffin. They didn’t just die after a few minutes, they began to moan as time wore on, making their final moments a living hell was Abyss’s specialty and the more he did it, the longer their screams wore on. It was clear that he was getting better at torturing but not actually killing. “The only time you don’t laugh is when they die.” Alice pointed to the stomach of the coffin, where the screaming was coming from. “Is it because you can’t listen to their screaming?” Alice twisted her head sideways, to which the Cofagrigus laughed in a short reply. It’d been laughing all along, but its laughing got quieter for a split second as a way of replying to Alice’s question. “Death is absolute. You must prolong the absolute, yet reassure them it is inevitable.”

Alice pushed open the doors to the spirit tower and giggled at all the shocked reactions people gave her when they heard screaming coming from the Cofagrigus’ coffin. “Does anyone want to bleed?” Alice turned her head sideways and walked up to an elderly woman who seemed to be shaking with fright. “Are you scared?” The older woman nodded, a bit fearfully as well. “You’re so old, you’ll die soon anyways. Don’t you want to taste your own blood? You can die before your already dead Pokémon.” Alice pointed to a tombstone that the old woman was kneeling in front of that belonged to a Rapidash that had died three years ago.
Alice thought about it for a moment but decided to not kill the woman. “I’ll come back for you once the man in Abyss is dead.” The screams of the man trapped inside of Abyss echoed throughout the spirit tower. They weren’t the screams of someone scared; they were the screams of a man dying. The very pain he felt could be shifted into every single soul inside of this building through the helpless sound that resonated in this empty yet full place. “I want a Duskull Abyss.”
Abyss laughed loudly, as a thumping could be heard from inside of the coffin. “He’s trying to kick his way out, why does he still have enough blood left to do that? Abyss, are you being nice?” Abyss laughed aloud and nodded as he did so. “…You’re funny.”
 

[Seductive Secretary]

QUEENSLAND
Alice looked up to the ceiling of the first floor on the dark tower and giggled. A small light flickered off and on in the back of the room over several graves that seemed pretty much abandoned at this point. “I feel them all, everyone here. The dead, they hate me.” Alice turned to the older woman and began to laugh out loud as she made her claim about the dead hating her. This caused Cofagrigus to laugh as well. “They can rest, but they choose to resent me. I see them around me, screaming. They remind me of their own torturous death.”
Alice stood up and walked towards the flickering light, staring at it as she did so. It gave the portion of the room a dark atmosphere. “The spirits in this corner aren’t happy Abyss. They’re the forgotten ones, the ones no one left on earth know.” Alice pointed to all the graves and began to laugh at each and every one of them. Abyss joined in her empty laughter with a loud laugh of his own that echoed through the whole room, causing the screams coming from within the coffin to be muffled.

The laughter continued as a Chandelure appeared. One that was strong, but not strong enough to defeat Abyss. “Another ghost?” Alice sighed and slowly began walking towards the Chandelure. “You can’t kill a ghost Abyss, they don’t bleed. They’re already dead.” Alice walked through the Chandelure, making her way towards the door, ready to exit. “Come on Abyss. There’s a meeting today, don’t you want to see those people?” Alice laughed, almost like she told a joke or something, most probably because it was sarcasm.
Abyss giggled, but that was only because of the man inside the coffin kicking and screaming, begging to be saved. “You should drain more of his crimson blood; I am tired of that banging.”
Alice walked out of the spirit tower and stood before it, looking up at its ominous magnificence before ultimately deciding to leave town for the time being.