Chapter 8

Kiera flopped down onto the red covering of her bed with a tired sigh. She had already dropped her Entei attire in a cluttered heap on the wooden floor. Legend Fest had completely zapped all of her energy...of course the afternoon's previous events might have contributed to this as well. But right now, she was too tired to dwell on this afternoon's memories. Instead, the Vulpix closed her eyes and allowed the bliss of sleep to gradually enfold her into a state of unawareness. A few hours later, Kiera was awoken by a humid, uncomfortably hot feeling, a problem not uncommon to fire-types like herself. Instinctively, she reached out with a paw and yanked away the blankets that were smothering her with their warmth. Although this helped a little, her room was still too stuffy for sleeping comforts. Blearily opening her eyes, Kiera slid from the bed and went over to open her window to let some night air in. As she pulled the round, wooden-rimmed window pane back, she was met with cold, nipping breeze. The Vulpix shook her head as she trudged back to her sleeping place. She didn't see how it could be so hot in her room while it was such a cool night outside, but the wind would take care of the problem, now. An odd feeling struck her, as she looked at her messy, unmade bed. She didn't exactly remember unmaking it, or even pulling the covers back for that matter. Shrugging it off, she hopped back onto her bed. She usually didn't remember most things that she had done before going to sleep. Why should this time be any different? With a sigh, she settled back down and closed her eyes. After a little while, she noticed that the room was not getting any cooler like it should have. In fact, it actually seemed to be growing hotter. Opening her eyes again, she turned to see if the window had been blown shut. A blur of movement that vanished as soon as Kiera glanced at the window made the her jump with a prickling feeling in her skin. After rigidly staring at the window for a few moments, the Vulpix relaxed a bit. "Calm down, Kiera," she tried to reassure herself. "It was probably just a Hoothoot or something." Still, she couldn't quite bring herself to go over and close the window, so the fire fox opted that turning away from the direction of the window would be her best option. The Vulpix stayed in that position until curiosity finally won and she took a peek backwards. A pair of glowing, golden-yellow eyes peered back from just outside the window. With a frightened yelp, Kiera dove under the blankets, suddenly not caring about how hot it would be underneath. She waited to hear the noise of heavy thumps and growls of some hideous monster intent on gobbling up whoever it came across. However, the sound that she heard was not loud, but was the muffled sound of several, quiet whispers. Pale lavender light started to shine through the blankets, lightening up Kiera's space beneath. Cautiously, the fox raised the blankets up a crack and looked up. Hovering near the ceiling were clusters of Lampent and Chandelure, all of them conversing in the same hushed tone. The sight of their flickering, lilac flames swaying in the dark was actually a little...pretty, which is what caused the Vulpix to venture out from the blankets. Eventually, Kiera managed to catch one of the Chandelure's eyes, and she could have sworn that they were the same golden pair from before. "Wh-what are you doing here?" Kierra flustered. "Oh, don't worry about us, my dear," the Chandelure replied in a raspy voice. "We won't be staying very long, just long enough to see who gets your spirit." "My spirit?!?" Kiera choked out. "Yes, we need it to fuel our fire," the Chandelure further explained. "They're getting quite low, see?" The ghost pokémon waved its black arms in demonstration. "It's been so terribly long since we've last consumed any spirits that we can't even remember who gets first dibs this time." Kiera slowly backed up as far as her bed would allow. "You–you're not getting mine!" she growled in a voice that she hoped sounded confident. "Oh, poor soul," the Chandulure said in a tone that was oddly sympathetic. "You think it's going to hurt, don't you? Don't worry, our fire causes no physical pain. In fact, you won't ever have to feel any pain ever again after tonight! Won't that be nice?" "NO!" Kiera protested. "I'm not letting you have mine!" "Aww...it's cute that you think you have a choice," the Chandelure crooned. "But I'm afraid that this matter isn't in your paws." WIthout warning, half of Kiera's bed violently lurched upwards. The Vulpix let out a terrified scream as she started sliding down along with her mattress. She desperately pushed upwards and managed to grasp one of the wooden bed posts with her front paws. After digging her tiny claws as far into the wood as they would go, the fire-type pulled herself up as high as she possibly could. With each of her six tails tightly wrapped around the post, she looked down to see a purple, swirling mass of fire at the foot of the bed. Already half of her mattress had been completely consumed with not even as much as a speck of ash left in its wake. This hideous fire was like nothing Kiera had ever seen. It's intense heat was hurting her face from here, and she was positive that not even Flash Fire could save her from these flames that licked up everything near them. A sickening, cracking noise sounded beside Kiera's ear. She turned to see the wooden post deteriorating right before her eyes. Before she had time to react, the base of the post snapped. "NO!!!" Kiera yelled as she fell down towards the fire. Instinctively, she closed her eyes in an attempt to shield them from being scorched. Then just like that, it was all gone. No heat. No falling. No whispering. Was this what it felt like to die? Scared of what she might see, Kiera opened her eyes. The Vulpix found herself lying on her bed—her neat and already made up bed. Hardly daring to believe it, she glanced around her room. The round window was closed, and the room wasn't even hot. There were no pokémon floating in the air. The bedpost wasn't rotting. Even her Entei costume was still in its same place on the floor. Everything was in its proper order. "Than that means...it was all...a nightmare!" Kiera sighed with relief. She cast one last glance at the window, and froze at what she saw. The night's moonlight shown from outside and illuminated two sheets of paper that were lying on the ground. Paper that was not there before she went to sleep. The fur on Kiera's neck rose as she struggled to calm herself. It was just paper...paper never hurt anyone....right? The Vulpix slowly made her way over, casting a few cautious looks at the window. The closest piece was browning with age and crinkled a bit as she picked it up. Intricately fancy, cursive handwriting centered the page. Kiera wasn't used to seeing this style of writing, so it wasn't before a little difficulty when she finally was able to decipher that it read: "Pleasant dreams, compliments of the real Great Keeper of Darkness." Kiera was on the verge of being sent into a panic before the second sheet of paper caught her attention. It was not only in a much newer condition , but was scrawled over with slightly-on-the-sloppy-side, familiar, print writing which read: "Heyo, Kiera! Sorry 'bout the dream. I kinda lost a bet to a Darkrai. Heh heh...please don't be mad at me! Anywho, Legend Fest was really FUN! I wanna go with you guys again, next year! Oh look! I'm running out of paper to write on, so I guess this is–"

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It is FINISHED!!!! Thank you so much for taking the time to read "What Hides Behind This Promise," and and even bigger thanks going out to the kind users who subscribed! I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I did in creating it! ^_^ For this fic, I tried working on plot twists and foreshadowing. Did these twists take you by surprise, or did you see them coming a mile away?°^° Some of the the foreshadowing was intentionally made obvious, while others were meant to be subtle. Did you catch on to any of it, or all of it? Also, I envisioned the characters as being in the 7-8 year-old age range. I hope they seemed about that old to all you readers! Any feedback is greatly appreciated, and it flat-out makes my day when someone make a the time to send me some!