Silver’s heart pounded as he stared into the depths. The grass was cold and slippery under his hands, the damp from the nighttime dew soaking his gloves. Spotlights swept across the ground of the training facility, narrowly skimming where he and Green crouched beside the ladder to the tunnels that would lead them underneath the force field that kept them inside.
“I knew there was a hidden path somewhere,” Green muttered as she yanked the hidden manhole away from the ladder, sending it sliding on the damp grass. “I knew he didn’t just vanish.” She hopped into the opening and climbed a few rungs down, then held out her hand. “Come on, it’ll be fine.” She smiled up at him. There was always a light in her eyes in times like these, something wild that relished in the fervor. “We’ll make it, I promise.”
Silver wanted to move, but he was afraid of the cold. He hated the metal walls of the training facility, how the mountain wind rattled the walls, but at least there the wind and wet didn’t seep into his skin. An icy chill seeped out of the opening as Green held out her hand to him, as if she was leading him down into a freezer.
A search light darted toward him, and she grabbed him and yanked him into the opening. His hand shot out to reach for a rung, but it slipped from his fingers and they tumbled head over heels into the dark.
Silver grunted as he hit something soft and pink, and Jigglypuff deflated underneath him with a soft hissing noise. Green was already on her feet, and she pulled him up and dusted off her hands. “Right, now we just have to get out of here before they follow us.”
Silver squinted into the dark, then blinked as Green switched on a flashlight. The tunnel stretched out before them. Its walls were sterile, uniform, and crusted with ice, just how the Masked Man preferred things. Green took Silver's hand and they walked forward, following the dim beam of the flashlight.
They walked on for several long minutes, accompanied only by their echoing footsteps and the sound of their freezing breath. Then they froze; a distant clanging sounded deep from the tunnels behind them, then quieted. Green gripped his hand tighter and sped forward.
“We’ll have to fight,” said Silver.
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. We just need to keep moving.”
Silver said nothing, but doubted she was capable of admitting that things were anything other than fine.
The tunnel ended and Green let go of his hand to scratch at the wall. She found a divot in the right side of the wall at her eye level and a crack that ran along one edge from the floor to the ceiling, stuck fast from the ice. “Stupid door,” she muttered. Silver turned to watch her back as he had been trained to do, feeling his heart speed up.
Green picked at the icy handle, her mind whirling. She could think of several tricks to open it, from Jigglypuff’s expansion to heating up the room, but she didn’t have the right tools for any of them. She bit her lip and grumbled to herself.
Another clang sounded down the tunnel, louder this time, and she froze. She had to think, what was the use of a mind like hers if she couldn’t open a door—
“Just hit it!” yelled Silver, whirling to face her. She shoved her shoulder into the wall and the sliding door broke free with a crack. She grabbed Silver’s hand and darted inside, slamming the door shut again.
Pale industrial lights flickered on as they panted, backs pressed to the door. Silver shivered; ice crusted every surface in the small room, from the wooden dresser to the second door on the other side. A worn curtain was drawn across half the room, hung from a metal slider in the ceiling like the privacy drapes in a hospital room. A machine hummed on the other side like an industrial refrigerator.
Green let go of his hand and yanked one of the dresser drawers free of ice, dipping her hand in to rummage inside.
“This is a weird place for a dresser.” Silver took a few steps toward the curtain. “And a bed.” The metal legs of a bed frame poked out from under the drapes.
“Doesn’t matter.” Green opened another drawer, not looking at Silver. “This is his place, so there’s got to be something important down here.” Her fingers closed around a pair of feathers. She drew them out and ran her fingers along the downy sides. “This is the only thing in here other than clothes. What kind of person lives like this?”
Silver had reached the curtain. He stared at it. He could hear a quiet, rasping breath from the other side, slow and rhythmic as if the person was asleep, and the slow beep of a machine. He gripped the curtain. He had to know who was behind it.
I knew he didn’t just vanish. The Masked Man was a monster to him, something subhuman that appeared in the training facility and disappeared like magic, imposing and impenetrable. But the breath he was hearing now belonged to a human, sick and old. The thought struck him and he forgot he was afraid.
“Green, he’s behind here.”
She tore her eyes from the feathers and pocketed them. “Yep, we’re leaving now.”
“No, I mean…” Silver looked back at the curtain. The Masked Man couldn’t be human. The idea made his stomach twist in anger for some reason. He imaged the Masked Man behind that curtain, drawing in those raspy old breaths. “I think—“
The door burst open and Will cartwheeled into the room, his Natu fluttering to the ground beside him. “Ah-haha! Tricky tricky! You stupid little kids think you can leave, huh?”
Green grabbed Silver’s hand and blew a raspberry at him. She darted to the opposite door, dragging Silver with her.
“W-wait!” he yelled as she slammed the door shut in Will’s face and took off down the tunnel.
“Don’t worry, we’ll make it out.”
Silver could only think of the Masked Man’s breathing until the moonlight was on his face and they were running away from the facility. It tainted his memory of the facility; on nights when he dwelled on his hatred, the sound of an old man breathing made him pause. He spent years simmering in anger, and only when he saw the Masked Man for what he was, a sad old man who had thrown away the last years of his life chasing his regrets, did the anger leave him and the healing begin.
