Jessica's car is a beat-up sedan that smells like coffee and old takeout. Pikachu sits in the back seat, nose pressed against the window, watching Hell's Kitchen scroll past. Celebi is invisible, tucked into the space between dimensions that only Pokémon can access, but Orion can feel her presence like a warm hum at the edge of his awareness.
The Hargrove Textile Mill sits at the end of a dead-end street, behind a chain-link fence that collapsed inward years ago. The building is four stories of red brick and broken windows, its walls stained with rust and age. A faded sign above the entrance reads HARGROVE TEXTILES in letters that haven't been maintained since the Obama administration. The loading dock on the east side is caved in, metal doors peeled back like tin foil.
Jessica parks across the street and kills the engine. She doesn't move to get out immediately. She stares at the building the way she stares at case files that don't add up.
"Three floors, basement, loading dock on the east side," she says. "Police searched it twice after the first two streamers went down. Found nothing. No toxins, no structural hazards, no signs of forced entry. The third streamer went in two days after the first two. Same result. Coma. No explanation."
Orion is already studying the building. Not with his eyes. With his Aura.
The energy hits him before he opens the car door. Not hostile. Not sad. Something else entirely.
Amused.
The building is watching them.
He feels it the way you feel someone's gaze in a crowded room. A pressure. An attention. The mill isn't just haunted. It's aware. It knows they're here, and it's curious about what they'll do next.
Pikachu's ears rotate like satellite dishes, tracking something Jessica can't perceive.
"Let's go," Orion says.
The front door hangs open on one hinge. Jessica goes first, flashlight in one hand, the other resting near her hip where Orion suspects she keeps something she hasn't told him about. He follows. Pikachu leaps from the car to Orion's shoulder in a single motion, claws gripping fabric.
The lobby is vast and empty. Dust covers everything, thick enough to write in. Pigeon droppings streak the reception desk. A calendar on the wall still shows June 2013, the pages after it never turned. The air is still and cold despite the lack of air conditioning, the kind of cold that doesn't come from temperature but from absence. Absence of warmth. Absence of life.
Jessica clicks her flashlight beam across the space. The light catches floating dust motes, makes them swirl like snow.
Orion doesn't need the light. His Aura maps the space for him, painting the room in colors only he can see. The walls are cold blue. The floor is grey. The ceiling is dark. And above them, on the upper floors, points of light cluster and drift. Four. Five. Maybe more. All gathered together on the third floor.
They know the newcomers are here.
The presences aren't hiding. They're waiting.
Jessica notices the silence first. She tilts her head, listening.
"No street noise," she says. "No wind. The windows are broken. We should hear traffic."
"The building is sealed," Orion says. "Not physically. Psychically. Whatever's inside has closed the space off. We're in its world now."
Jessica looks at him. Her expression doesn't change, but her grip tightens on the flashlight.
"The second floor is where they found the first two streamers," she says.
"Then that's where we start."
The stairwell is concrete and metal, their footsteps echoing in ways that don't match the space. Jessica goes first, flashlight cutting through the dark. Orion follows, Pikachu's weight steady on his shoulder.
The second-floor hallway stretches ahead of them, doors on either side all closed. Jessica sweeps her flashlight across the corridor. Dust. Debris. A fallen ceiling tile. Nothing moves.
They reach the break room.
The space is as the police left it. Sleeping bags still on the floor, rumpled and stained. Cameras on tripods, their lenses dark. A coffee mug on the table, half-full of liquid that has long since evaporated to a black residue.
But something is wrong.
Orion kneels and examines the chairs. The police report says they were scattered when the scene was documented. Four chairs, knocked over, spread across the room.
Now they're arranged in a neat line against the wall. All facing the door. Facing where the newcomers would enter.
Jessica pulls out her phone and opens the police file photos. She holds the screen next to the room. The photos show scattered chairs. The room shows ordered ones.
"These weren't like this," she says. "The cops photographed this room exactly as they found it. The chairs were everywhere."
Orion places his palm on the floor and extends his Aura. The residue is cold, the signature of Gastly-line Pokémon, but layered over it is something else. Excitement. Anticipation. Whatever moved the chairs was having fun doing it.
"They're playing," Orion says.
"Playing," Jessica repeats. The word sits wrong in her mouth.
They move deeper into the second floor. Jessica checks the foreman's office. The papers on the desk have been reorganized since the police photographed them. She's certain of it. The scattered termination notices are now in a neat stack, paper-clipped together. A filing cabinet she remembers being closed is now open, its contents sorted by date.
"Something has been doing administrative work," Jessica says.
Orion moves to the lockers along the wall. One of them has been opened. Inside, hanging on the hook, is a child's jacket. Small. Faded blue. A cartoon character on the front that's been washed too many times to identify. From years ago. He doesn't touch it.
Behind them, a door at the end of the hallway closes slowly. Not a slam. A slow, deliberate close. The latch clicks with the precision of a clock hand reaching midnight.
Jessica spins, flashlight beam cutting through the dark. The door is shut.
Orion extends his Aura down the hallway. The presences on the third floor haven't moved. But there's something new. A cold spot, small, hovering near the ceiling. Here. On the second floor. With them.
"Something just closed that door," Jessica says.
"I know."
"What was it?"
"A Gastly. Young. Curious." Orion's voice is calm, but his hand moves to Pikachu, a signal. "It wanted to see how you'd react."
***
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