Dark Infestation P.1

             Things had been rather fine these days, no enemies trying to cause trouble, just absolute bliss. Although, the night before, YuuMii had been feeling some discomfort in her neck, which was easily fixed by Antasma massaging it before she fell asleep. The following morning, YuuMii awoke, feeling a bit sick to her stomach. Antasma awoke when he felt the blankets shift from her sitting up and hearing her moan a little.

             "Are you alright, lyubov moya?" he asked concernly, as he turned towards her.

             "I don't feel so good...," YuuMii moaned.

             "You vant me to get you something?"

             Suddenly, YuuMii felt something rise in her stomach. Quickly, she leaned over the edge of the bed, and vomited into the trash can.

             "YuuMii?!" Antasma responded with worry, sliding over to her, then started rubbing her back.

              He wondered what was making her sick. She couldn't have caught something in Daydream Valley, because Autumn made it so you can't get sick there. It certainly wasn't morning sickness, coupars can't reproduce. And YuuMii hasn't been to the real world for a while and she didn't do any drinking last night. Eventually, YuuMii's heaving stopped, and she just laid there panting for a bit.

              "Should vee take you to a doctor?" Antasma asked softly.

              "I don't know...I feel kinda better actually," YuuMii answered, opening her eyes...then she noticed something in the trash can, "...........What?"

              "Vut is it, YuuMii?" Antasma asked.

              YuuMii sat up and turned towards him. She had a shocked expression and a small amount of blood on her lips.

              "Get a plastic bag," she said, "We need to go to a hospital in the real world....The leeches are inside me."

               Look of horror came over Antasma's face. The leeches. She didn't mean the Shadow Leeches did she?! Antasma rushed out of the room to inform Autumn and Jake of this, then got a plastic bag for YuuMii. The bag was to put the dead leeches YuuMii vomited out in, to show the doctor. After getting ready, Autumn, Jake, BiiMii, YuuMii, and Antasma went to the real world, where Autumn's parents lived. Val and Linda drove them to the local hospital, where YuuMii was immediately taken to a doctor. While his assistants were examining the leeches, the doctor asked some questions, regarding symptoms.

               "Have you had any strange behavior lately?" the doctor asked.

               "I've had PTSD for five years," YuuMii answered, "I was tortured by Mutnia, and I tried different things to give my mind enough peace to sleep. I...resorted to sleeping around, but I stopped doing that around three years ago. I'm in a committed relationship now...And also three years ago, I made an attempt to murder one of Mutnia's followers, who was in involved with my torture...But then...BiiMii stopped me by hitting me in the head, and after that things changed...I starting acting like my old self and for a while I forgot about most of the torture as well as some bad things I did."

                "What made you remember?" the doctor asked.

                ".....I heard the scream of a pokemon...it was suffering..."

                "Did you have any different behavior afterwards?"

                "Not so much, but I did act violently towards someone who tried to hurt one of my pokemon. I also would feel rather disturbed sometimes. But, after meeting my boyfriend, things got better. I really enjoy his company, enough that I rarely have nightmares, or be reminded of the torture. He also eats my nightmares, whenever I have any."

                "He eats your nightmares? Like the pokemon move, Dream Eater?"

                YuuMii nodded.

                "I can see why that would lessen the symptoms of your PTSD and the shadow leeches," the doctor said, "As you know, shadow leeches feed on the negative emotions of their host. Perhaps, some of them died because they weren't getting enough of that. I also have a theory about what happened three years ago. It sounds like BiiMii may have killed the leeches that were in your head, when she hit you.

              "I'm surprised she didn't cause you any serious damage," Linda said.

                "Coupars with the same protectee can't injure or kill each other," YuuMii explained, "We might feel pain for a brief moment, and we can knocked each other unconscious, but we can never cause damage. BiiMii knew what she was doing when she hit me in the head."

                "But I didn't know she had leeches," BiiMii said, "I didn't want her to kill in rah-venge. Lunar-wis and Sa-lina say rah-venge can make people bad."

                 Just then, one of the nurses came in. "Sir, you're gonna want to see this!" he said.

                 The doctor left the room with the nurse, while everyone else waited for him to come back.

                  "That doesn't sound good...," YuuMii said, then Antasma hugged her.

                  "YuuMii....could it be that, five years ago...when Mutnia was...could that have been when she put the leeches inside you?" Autumn asked hesitantly.

                   YuuMii thought about this for a moment. "I...I remember Mutnia making that big cut under my left breast...and reaching her arm into it...I could swear I felt her literally touch my heart....That must've been when she did it....And the torture, was just to feed them, to help them grow inside me. She planned all of this."

                   Teary eyed, Autumn ran over to YuuMii hugged her and YuuMii returned the embrace.

                     "I think she wanted to use me against you," YuuMii said, "I would never want to hurt you, Autumn. Even when I was insane, never did I wish to harm you."

                     "I know, YuuMii," Autumn said, "And now, you will get the help you've been needing for a long time. The doctors will remove the core leech, then the other leeches will die, and you'll be cured."

                     YuuMii smiled and nodded.

----Eighteen Years Ago---

          Six year old Autumn had just returned home from school, and went straight to her room to play. As she was playing with her dolls, YuuMii appeared. She was sixteen at the time, and wouldn't get older until Autumn turned fifteen.

             "YuuMii!" Autumn responded happily.

             "Hey sweetie, I hear something special happened at school recently," YuuMii said.

             Autumn smiled happily. "My picture got first prize!"

             "That's awesome! Of course, how could someone as talented as you not?" YuuMii said sweetly.

             "My teacher wrote the wrong name on my picture though," Autumn said, with a nervous smile, "It was suppose to say 'Simba sees the Birds,' not 'the Birds see Simba.'"

             "Well, grown ups tend to get names wrong sometimes."

             "Like how Momma is with me and my sisters," Autumn giggled.

             "Yeah, but you can't blame her. All of your names start with the letter 'A.' Anyway, I'm so proud of you sweetie."

              "Thanks, YuuMii."

----Present----

              The doctor then came back into the room. "YuuMii, we're gonna schedule the operation to as soon as possible. Upon examining the leeches, we found that they were once joined together, but were torn apart as your body was in the process of getting them out of your system. You seem to be at stage five of infestation."

              A look of horror came over everyone else's face.

             "There is a chance that at this point, the leeches that remain are weak and may not pose as much of a threat," the doctor continued, "The leeches you vomited out looked like they starved to death. So, we should be able to get the core leech out without much difficulty."

              Everyone else sighed with relief.

              "Well, at least I can worry less about killing anyone," YuuMii said.

              Pretty soon, YuuMii was taken to her own hospital room, and she was left alone with Antasma, who would help her get into her hospital gown. Everyone sat outside in the hallway, feeling relieved that things would be taken care of soon.

              "All this time, she had Shadow Leeches inside her," Autumn said, "It wasn't just PTSD, they were causing her to act in ways she wouldn't have in the first place."

              "Hopefully, this will help her completely over come her PTSD," Jake said taking Autumn's hand, "I know how hard it is to be haunted by past events."

              "We're all here for her, we'll get through this together," Val said.

               Suddenly, they overheard glass breaking and YuuMii screaming "Mutnia!"

               Everyone stormed into the room, and to their horror, Mutnia was there, having got ahold of YuuMii, by phasing her tail through her spine, while Vutumn held a wounded Antasma against the wall by his throat. YuuMii had a look of pure terror on her face, while she held her spear in her hand.