"Then… why are you living here in the first place?"
Edward couldn't understand the situation at all.
The Petalburg Woods was indeed beautiful, but it was absolutely not suited for human habitation. What made it worse was that it was currently summer.
And summer in the Petalburg Woods carried a suffocating heaviness, an oppressive weight in the air that made one feel like living was a burden and dying might be easier. The forest was also humid, with a drastic temperature difference between early morning and late night.
"I… I don't have money to live anywhere else. If I stay in Rustboro City, they'll send me to a welfare center…"
The girl, whose name was Kitty Pride, replied timidly.
Edward's eyes filled with contemplation.
If that was the case, then it did make some sense. Still—when he looked at the girl in front of him, Edward found the situation a little odd. Her clothes looked fairly decent. He didn't expect that she wouldn't even have enough money for lodging.
Edward glanced at Zoroark.
Zoroark instantly understood what Edward meant. It rifled through the items in its hands, then checked the phone. After a moment, it put it down again.
"Boss, our company does have employee benefits," Zoroark whispered softly to Edward.
Edward nodded. He remembered—there were employee benefits. Those benefits included staff dormitories, though not many people actually chose to live in them.
After all, Ghost Films used to be located inside Rustboro City itself. Most of its employees already owned their own homes. This was something worth explaining—houses in the Pokémon world were not very expensive. In fact, they were relatively cheap. In most cases, people could afford to buy a home. The real difference came down only to size and location.
Large houses like the ones owned by Ash or the protagonists of past game generations cost more, while apartment buildings in major cities varied depending on their location. But overall, housing prices were never so high that a family would need to exhaust their entire life savings just to purchase a single property.
That was precisely why Edward was so shocked—he didn't expect to meet someone who genuinely had no place to live.
"Um… Kitty," Edward said, "our company has staff dormitories. You can move in for now. After all, a place like this…"
He looked down at the script in his hand. Ever since the moment he picked it up, Edward felt something strange. The pages were a little damp, giving him the sensation of holding soggy clothing.
Anyone who has worn wet clothes knew how unpleasant they felt—cold, sticky, clammy—and holding these pages evoked the same discomfort. Because of that, Edward could easily imagine how dreadful living in this forest must have felt for Kitty.
Not to mention that Rustboro was a coastal port city. It was heavily influenced by monsoon weather patterns.
To put it simply: this damned place rained easily, often violently and especially during the rainy season.
But there was no helping it. In the current Pokémon world, aside from Kanto and Johto, which were connected and separated by mountain ranges, all other regions were separate islands. Naturally, these islands suffered heavily from oceanic weather patterns.
Hearing Edward's suggestion, Kitty nodded quickly. She did want to live in a dormitory. While the wilderness had fresh air, it was definitely not suited for living long-term.
"Besides this… have you written anything else?"
Edward asked curiously. He found the girl's story interesting, with a creepy, goosebump-inducing style. So, he wondered if she had written other stories.
"I did."
Kitty ran back to the tree hole and retrieved her manuscripts. But the notebook was already badly soaked from humidity, making it look even more unsettling. Some of the handwriting was even blurred. Oddly, this only heightened its eerie atmosphere.
Edward flipped through the stories with interest and signaled for Kitty to pack her things. He planned to take her back with him and let her move into the company dormitory.
The protagonist in the story was still named Paris. Edward didn't know what to say to that, but he continued reading anyway.
Story One
Paris was a woman living alone, with her own work to handle. Every night, she went to her warehouse to organize items. But one night, after she finished and stepped outside, she saw a scruffy middle-aged man staring straight at her—openly, blatantly.
Paris felt frightened, speeding up her steps to leave.
As she passed a bulletin board, she noticed a missing-persons flyer. A young girl had vanished. She wore a red sweater and carried a bag. Recently, many girls had gone missing—four already. Paris studied the poster briefly before returning home to rest.
The next night, she went again to her warehouse. But this time, she saw the scruffy man violently breaking into her warehouse.
Paris panicked. She grabbed a steel pipe nearby and walked toward him. The man looked at her—but oddly enough, he didn't move at all. Paris raised the pipe and struck him down.
Inside the warehouse sat four suitcases, all dripping blood.
From one of them, a corner of a red sweater protruded.
"This kind of twist isn't great…"
Edward silently criticized. The twist relied purely on creating a contrast: a seemingly helpless woman facing a creepy man, with the missing-girls cases making the audience assume he was the predator.
But in reality, the woman was the serial killer, and the man might even have been the father of one of the victims.
The problem was the ending—the man simply stood still and let himself be killed. Edward found that unreasonable. She wasn't some supernatural spirit. A normal person wouldn't freeze in terror and refuse to defend himself.
He felt disappointed. The story wasn't very good.
…
Story Two
The next story featured another girl—also named Paris. Edward no longer found the repeated names surprising.
This Paris was a corporate employee living in a communal apartment. She had a neighbor: a mother and a cheerful little girl. The child often played outside happily, and Paris would smile warmly whenever she saw her.
One night, after returning home, Paris received a call from her supervisor—an urgent assignment due early the next morning. With no choice, she stayed up the entire night working. After finishing, she fell asleep on her sofa at daybreak.
As she slept, she heard knocking and the voice of a little girl.
It was unmistakably the neighbor's daughter, calling out, "Mommy, open the door!"
Still half-asleep, Paris yelled that she had the wrong door.
But the knocking didn't stop.
Already exhausted, Paris wanted to snap—but she held back. It was just a little girl, after all. She repeated that she had the wrong door and remained lying on the sofa, too tired to move.
But the knocking continued relentlessly, driving Paris into a fury. She finally shouted angrily for the girl to stop.
And then… silence.
She slept for over an hour before another knock woke her. This time, it was Officer Jenny. When Paris opened the door, she was shocked to see blood on the ground.
Officer Jenny told her the truth:
The little girl had been hit by a car while outside playing. Covered in blood and disoriented, she had wandered back seeking help—but could no longer recognize her own home. She kept knocking on Paris's door, calling for her mother.
But because she was not treated in time, she died right outside Paris's door.
Paris's eyes widened in horror. Only now did she realize—the girl hadn't knocked on the wrong door at all. If she had just endured her exhaustion and opened the door… the child might still be alive.
As the realization hit her, an overwhelming sense of suffocation engulfed her—
and faintly, she could still hear the girl's voice calling for help.
"This story is pretty good," Edward nodded.
There were flaws, but overall, it was well-done. The only issue was how complicated it was to judge Paris.
Did she do something wrong?
That was the dilemma.
The writer had deliberately set her up as someone who had just spent the entire night working. Anyone who knew the misery of overnight shifts understood how unbearable it was. And the girl never once said, "Help me" or "Save me." It wasn't unreasonable that Paris misunderstood.
And yet… a child died because she didn't open the door.
For the character, that guilt was an unbearable torment.
Still, Edward felt it was missing something.
…
Story Three
"Ah… another Paris?"
Edward's expression stiffened when he saw the name again. This was getting bizarre. But he kept reading.
This Paris was an office worker. One night after work, she passed by a passport photo booth. It had a curtain, but the bottom was open—you could see if someone was inside.
As she passed, she dropped something. When she bent down to pick it up, she caught sight—out of the corner of her eye—of a man sitting inside the booth. He wore leather shoes and white socks, completely motionless.
Paris was startled but didn't think too much and quickly went home.
The next day, on her way to work, she passed the same booth, and saw the man still there. That unnerved her even more.
Over the next few days, whenever she walked past—whether going to work or returning—she always saw that pair of shoes inside.
Feeling uneasy, she told a coworker. The coworker advised her to take another route.
But Paris always took this route because it was the shortest. Changing paths would mean a long detour. So, she continued using the same road.
That night, she passed the booth again—and indeed, the man was still inside.
Just as she turned to walk away, the photo booth suddenly printed a photo.
Paris mustered the courage to pick it up and saw nothing but pitch black.
She screamed in terror.
At the same moment, the booth's curtain was violently pulled open.
When Paris turned around, she let out a blood-curdling scream.
Days later, a man passed the same booth. He dropped his lighter, bent to pick it up, and saw a woman sitting inside—wearing high heels.
The very same high heels Paris always wore.
Edward found this story acceptable. Not extremely scary, but workable. Oddly, none of these were actually ghost stories. He didn't know why—maybe Kitty simply preferred psychological horror over supernatural themes.
"These stories have areas that can be revised. I'm sure you can see that some parts don't fully make sense," Edward said, returning the manuscript.
Kitty nodded obediently. She knew very well that some aspects were unreasonable. But if every detail had to be logical, some stories simply wouldn't happen—like the second story. If Paris had asked Officer Jenny for help, the plot would fall apart instantly.
But that was how stories worked.
After experiencing some bizarre events in real life, Edward's tolerance for illogical things had increased greatly.
In his view, reality could be more absurd than fiction. Sometimes real events were so bewildering that not even novels dared to depict them—readers would scold them for being "unrealistic."
But reality had no such restrictions.
After bringing Kitty back, Edward had Zoroark accompany her to the company dormitory. Edward didn't follow—he had other matters to handle.
He headed to Devon Corporation. There were documents he needed to process, and he also wanted to visit Fortune. It had been a long time since he last saw the little guy.
"But thankfully, I still have Fortune. Without him, things would be a real headache…"
Edward sighed. The little fellow truly had helped him tremendously. Without Fortune, his peaceful life would have been impossible.
(End of Chapter)