HOME | DD

Description
Rachael's beautiful hazel eyes slowly opened to the world around her. Everything was really out of focus and dim. She rolled over to her side thinking it must have been too early and she was still sleepy. Though something didn't seem right; for one, her usual sleeping spot which was a bed of hay on the Everant ranch was now a hard, squeaky mattress that smelled of must. She couldn't understand this unusual change, so she decided it was time to get up. Rachael sat up and tried to adjust to the lack of sufficient light again. Her head spun with the weird surroundings, nothing seemed right about where she had awoken. Her vision finally came into focus and what she saw nearly knocked her right out from pure shock. The bed she was on was indeed old looking and seemed very unkempt and dirty. It was also the top bunk of a two tier bunk bed that connected to the filthy iron wall for support. The only thing Rachael could do at this point was climb down from the mysterious bed as she was too dumbfounded to think any further ahead. She passed the lower bunk bed on her way down the ladder, no one there but the unkempt sheets and a mist of dust filling the space. Once on the floor, which had a bit of slime and water everywhere, she checked the rest of her surroundings. A large metallic closet sat next to bunk beds on the right wall, a padlock on the handles. On the opposite end against the wall, an old useless looking sink sat stark still. Above hung a mirror, cracked and covered in so much grime, pieces of it seemed to be made up of rusted metal. Another pale metallic wall laid bare behind her, save for the single port hole like window that was set into the foundation. Even while having a bit of trouble reaching the high up window, Rachael could tell there was something off about it. She flinched and when she suddenly saw a school of Remoraid pass by the window in unison, this place was underwater. Rachael turned around to investigate the remaining side of the plain room. A great iron cast door sealed into the wall stood menacing in front of her. A couple wires led from some kind of lock on the door to a machine next to it on the wall, a keypad of some kind.

None of this actually mattered though; Rachael could only think of one thing, she was alone.

"Jake…Haze…," Rachael whimpered desperately, each name she called out to brought her closer to tears, "…Dagger…*sniffle* Tetra, Toran…Ryo *sob*Bradley…Xylon *sob*!"

Her legs gave out on her and she fell to her knees, breaking down to the cold darkness of being completely alone.

She cried for almost ten minutes, her eyes red and puffy from the hot streaking tears. Her fit ran down to a solemn whimper again as she rubbed away left over tears with her arm fur. A new strange thought occurred to poor Rachael as she did this. Something kept pulling at her left wrist when she wiped her face. She looked down to see a shiny red bracelet wrapped copiously around her left wrist. She pulled and tugged at the thing, but it wouldn't release its binding. She left it be and noticed an inscription on it facing her. The number '6'…she had no idea what the crudely carved digit meant and before she could ponder any longer on it, a small almost inaudible click reverberated through her cell like room.

Rachael's ears perked up to full alertness, she hoped it was the sound of the door unlocking to let her free. She thought this was some horrible nightmare she was about to wake up from. Rachael couldn't have been more wrong; Not only was this not a dream, this nightmare just became a whole lot worse.

A forceful jet of water blasted the port hole window open in an instant. The floor was transformed into a rising flood of sea water. Rachael's heart skipped a beat as she witnessed the terrifying scene she was in unfold. She was now panicking and raced to the opposite end of the room where the door was.

"Someone, please help!" Rachael screamed in terror as she pounded futilely against the heavy iron door, "Anyone! Let me out!"

Her efforts were left fruitless, not even her attacks could leave a scratch on the locked gateway. The water was rising very quickly and was now up o her waist. Rachael became frantic, there seemed to be no way out of this ghoulish deathtrap. She went back to the center of the room, just before the geyser of chilling sea water. She circled her gaze around the room, looking for anything that could aid in her escape. The bed, the locked cabinet, the sink, the mirror…wait, the mirror. Rachael had overlooked it the first time, but something caught the corner of her eye out of all the spots of filth on the reflective surface. A message was hastily scrawled in the bottom corner of the mirror amidst the layer of grime.

The digital root is the key

'Digital root?' Rachael thought, 'What does that mean?'

She didn't have much time to really think about it as the water level was now up to her chest. Rachael began to swim around the room as fast as she could, looking for any clues as to what this 'digital root key' was. She stopped in front of the locked cabinet and inspected the padlock that adorned it. Taking one of her scalchops, she sliced through the apparently weak metal and wrenched open the cabinet doors. Water poured into the sealed space til it was evenly leveled with the rest of the flood. Two black suitcases bobbed out and to the surface in front of Rachael. She shakingly fiddled with the simple latches on the secured bags, nearly jamming the mechanisms in her haste. Once she finally got them open, instead of finding a key to a lock like she had hoped for, a couple red metallic plates neatly sat tucked away within. Rachael was about to start crying again at her failed efforts to find a key, but she looked back at the plates to see jagged scrawls carved into the surface just visible in the haunting darkness. One by one, she picked up the plates, checking what hidden messages they held.

93   1
778512   2
5975   3
2325457   4
1305   5
5216   6

The random series of numbers all had one more number next to them as if it were to show its placement in a pattern.

"…!" Rachael gasped and took the plates back to the other end of the room to the locked door. The machine that was hooked up to the heavy iron door turned out to be a numerical keypad. It was very simple looking; all the numbers arranged from 0-9, the '#' and '*' keys as well, a small black bar or screen to show numbers that have been pressed, and two LED lights above the set up with the red one lit up and green one left unlit. Rachael waded in the rising water and turned to the mirror once more.

The message 'The digital root is the key' faintly visible as the water began to wash the bottom edge. She understood what this 'digital root' was; Jake had taught her how to solve all kinds of fun puzzles and codes, one of them being 'digital roots'.

'Now how did they work again?" Rachael said in deep thought.

By now the room was over half way filled with sea water. Rachael, being a water type could hold her breath underwater for a very long time, but even she would drown if she did not figure out this code in time. She concentrated with all her might on the numbers that were etched into the plates.

"Number 1, 93…digital roots have to do with something that use all the numbers within the entire number," Rachael racked her mind for the answer she needed, "Um, nine plus three equals twelve and this is the first plate."

The keypad was drowned halfway in the water, but surprising worked as Rachael pressed both the '1' and '2' keys. The red LED light flashed with each press and the numbers scrolled in on the black line. Rachael shuffled the first plate to the bottom of the stack in her hands, "So on this plate; seven plus seven plus five plus one plus two should be…thirty!"

Rachael shuffled the stack again and tapped the '3' and '0' keys on the pad.

"Now I have five plus nine plus seven plus five which is twenty-six!"

She dove under the water to reach the keypad and found the keys '2' and '6'. The red LED light flashed with each press, but suddenly began to flash violently and the screen with the numbers cleared away. Rachael's heart nearly stopped in her chest. 'She had gotten it wrong' is all she could think about. She tried the code again just in case she hit a wrong button by accident; 1, 2, 3, 0, 2, 6. The same thing happened again, the red LED light flashed hysterically and the screen cleared the numbers. Rachael screamed underwater, her voice lost to the lifeless liquid and hope fading. She thrashed her way to the surface which was about ¾ of the way up to the ceiling. She gasped for air between he choked cries.

'I'm going to die here,' Rachael thought, heartbroken, 'There's no way out.'

She was about to throw the stupid red plates across the room in frustration til she saw her little yellow spiral seashell necklace floating in the water in front of her. Rachael carefully cupped the precious keepsake in her free hand. Memories of her first time finding the trinket flashed through her mind.

She had visited the beach for the first time in her life as an Oshawott with her master Jake and her friends Haze and Dagger in Sinnoh. Rachael remembered how happy she was when she got to feel the soft, warm sand between her toes. Then the point where she stubbed her foot on something buried in the sand. She had almost chucked it into the ocean in anger until she got a good look at the glossy seashell cradled between her paws. From then on, she almost never took off the yellow spiral shell she made into a necklace that day. She would also show it off to every new teammate that joined their growing team. Not all of them saw how precious it was to her, but it was always a great way to start a new relationship and build new memories with all her friends.

Remembering the smiling faces of all her friends and teammates through the different times they spent together made Rachael sigh. She wanted to see her friends again, to see them all smiling. The only way to do that now was to hurry up and escape from this cursed deathtrap.

In her reminiscence, the water had risen up to just about a foot and a half below the ceiling. Rachael gained a new determination and pulled the red plates up to look at.

"What do I need to do?" Rachael thought aloud, feeling like she had missed something from before.

She had added the first three plates' numbers together to get double digit numbers like she was taught. Rachael gasped at the realization of her mistake

'Solving a digital root, the answer must end up as a single digit,' Jake's voice echoed inside Rachael's head.

She had totally forgotten that if the first answer had more than one digit, then you had to add those digits together like the first time. She squealed in delight for figuring out her mistake, but in all her panic she had forgotten her answers to the first three plates before; she would have to start over. Her head hit something hard and she looked up to see it was the ceiling mere inches away. There was very little time now, she probably had only one chance. Rachael took a long, deep breath and dove underwater to where the keypad clung to the wall. She raised the first plate up to reexamine the numbers.

'9+3=12; 1+2=3'

She pressed the key labeled '3'.

'7+7+8+5+1+2=30; 3+0=3'

This went on again and again as Rachael solved each plate.

'5+9+7+5=26; 2+6=8'

Rachael tried to stay calm under the pressure, but her heart and mind raced, urging her to hurry up.

'2+3+2+5+4+5+7=28; 2+8=10; 1+0=1'

Everything was starting to get a little blurry, but she willed herself to keep going.

'1+3+0+5=9'

Only one plate remained, the others had drifted from her hand and to the floor with muffled 'clunks' under the water. Rachael felt very light headed, she saw a veil of blackness creeping in from all corners of her eyes. It was very hard to concentrate on anything at this point, but there was still one more plate she had to look at.

'5 plus 2 plus 1 plus 6 is…14…1 and 4…are…5.'

Rachael couldn't tell if she hit the right button, or even the keypad itself, because all she could see was the back of her eyelids as she began to fade. Suddenly, she felt some kind of force hit her, like the water rushing by her and yanked her along with it. She hit the, floor? The floor perhaps of cold steel and no longer suspended or surrounded by any liquid. Rachael could only faintly feel her lungs expand with a small gulp of air. The last thing she remembered was a scream and a bunch of voices around her before her tired mind shut down into unconsciousness.

Description
Rachael's beautiful hazel eyes slowly opened to the world around her. Everything was really out of focus and dim. She rolled over to her side thinking it must have been too early and she was still sleepy. Though something didn't seem right; for one, her usual sleeping spot which was a bed of hay on the Everant ranch was now a hard, squeaky mattress that smelled of must. She couldn't understand this unusual change, so she decided it was time to get up. Rachael sat up and tried to adjust to the lack of sufficient light again. Her head spun with the weird surroundings, nothing seemed right about where she had awoken. Her vision finally came into focus and what she saw nearly knocked her right out from pure shock. The bed she was on was indeed old looking and seemed very unkempt and dirty. It was also the top bunk of a two tier bunk bed that connected to the filthy iron wall for support. The only thing Rachael could do at this point was climb down from the mysterious bed as she was too dumbfounded to think any further ahead. She passed the lower bunk bed on her way down the ladder, no one there but the unkempt sheets and a mist of dust filling the space. Once on the floor, which had a bit of slime and water everywhere, she checked the rest of her surroundings. A large metallic closet sat next to bunk beds on the right wall, a padlock on the handles. On the opposite end against the wall, an old useless looking sink sat stark still. Above hung a mirror, cracked and covered in so much grime, pieces of it seemed to be made up of rusted metal. Another pale metallic wall laid bare behind her, save for the single port hole like window that was set into the foundation. Even while having a bit of trouble reaching the high up window, Rachael could tell there was something off about it. She flinched and when she suddenly saw a school of Remoraid pass by the window in unison, this place was underwater. Rachael turned around to investigate the remaining side of the plain room. A great iron cast door sealed into the wall stood menacing in front of her. A couple wires led from some kind of lock on the door to a machine next to it on the wall, a keypad of some kind.

None of this actually mattered though; Rachael could only think of one thing, she was alone.

"Jake…Haze…," Rachael whimpered desperately, each name she called out to brought her closer to tears, "…Dagger…*sniffle* Tetra, Toran…Ryo *sob*Bradley…Xylon *sob*!"

Her legs gave out on her and she fell to her knees, breaking down to the cold darkness of being completely alone.

She cried for almost ten minutes, her eyes red and puffy from the hot streaking tears. Her fit ran down to a solemn whimper again as she rubbed away left over tears with her arm fur. A new strange thought occurred to poor Rachael as she did this. Something kept pulling at her left wrist when she wiped her face. She looked down to see a shiny red bracelet wrapped copiously around her left wrist. She pulled and tugged at the thing, but it wouldn't release its binding. She left it be and noticed an inscription on it facing her. The number '6'…she had no idea what the crudely carved digit meant and before she could ponder any longer on it, a small almost inaudible click reverberated through her cell like room.

Rachael's ears perked up to full alertness, she hoped it was the sound of the door unlocking to let her free. She thought this was some horrible nightmare she was about to wake up from. Rachael couldn't have been more wrong; Not only was this not a dream, this nightmare just became a whole lot worse.

A forceful jet of water blasted the port hole window open in an instant. The floor was transformed into a rising flood of sea water. Rachael's heart skipped a beat as she witnessed the terrifying scene she was in unfold. She was now panicking and raced to the opposite end of the room where the door was.

"Someone, please help!" Rachael screamed in terror as she pounded futilely against the heavy iron door, "Anyone! Let me out!"

Her efforts were left fruitless, not even her attacks could leave a scratch on the locked gateway. The water was rising very quickly and was now up o her waist. Rachael became frantic, there seemed to be no way out of this ghoulish deathtrap. She went back to the center of the room, just before the geyser of chilling sea water. She circled her gaze around the room, looking for anything that could aid in her escape. The bed, the locked cabinet, the sink, the mirror…wait, the mirror. Rachael had overlooked it the first time, but something caught the corner of her eye out of all the spots of filth on the reflective surface. A message was hastily scrawled in the bottom corner of the mirror amidst the layer of grime.

The digital root is the key

'Digital root?' Rachael thought, 'What does that mean?'

She didn't have much time to really think about it as the water level was now up to her chest. Rachael began to swim around the room as fast as she could, looking for any clues as to what this 'digital root key' was. She stopped in front of the locked cabinet and inspected the padlock that adorned it. Taking one of her scalchops, she sliced through the apparently weak metal and wrenched open the cabinet doors. Water poured into the sealed space til it was evenly leveled with the rest of the flood. Two black suitcases bobbed out and to the surface in front of Rachael. She shakingly fiddled with the simple latches on the secured bags, nearly jamming the mechanisms in her haste. Once she finally got them open, instead of finding a key to a lock like she had hoped for, a couple red metallic plates neatly sat tucked away within. Rachael was about to start crying again at her failed efforts to find a key, but she looked back at the plates to see jagged scrawls carved into the surface just visible in the haunting darkness. One by one, she picked up the plates, checking what hidden messages they held.

93   1
778512   2
5975   3
2325457   4
1305   5
5216   6

The random series of numbers all had one more number next to them as if it were to show its placement in a pattern.

"…!" Rachael gasped and took the plates back to the other end of the room to the locked door. The machine that was hooked up to the heavy iron door turned out to be a numerical keypad. It was very simple looking; all the numbers arranged from 0-9, the '#' and '*' keys as well, a small black bar or screen to show numbers that have been pressed, and two LED lights above the set up with the red one lit up and green one left unlit. Rachael waded in the rising water and turned to the mirror once more.

The message 'The digital root is the key' faintly visible as the water began to wash the bottom edge. She understood what this 'digital root' was; Jake had taught her how to solve all kinds of fun puzzles and codes, one of them being 'digital roots'.

'Now how did they work again?" Rachael said in deep thought.

By now the room was over half way filled with sea water. Rachael, being a water type could hold her breath underwater for a very long time, but even she would drown if she did not figure out this code in time. She concentrated with all her might on the numbers that were etched into the plates.

"Number 1, 93…digital roots have to do with something that use all the numbers within the entire number," Rachael racked her mind for the answer she needed, "Um, nine plus three equals twelve and this is the first plate."

The keypad was drowned halfway in the water, but surprising worked as Rachael pressed both the '1' and '2' keys. The red LED light flashed with each press and the numbers scrolled in on the black line. Rachael shuffled the first plate to the bottom of the stack in her hands, "So on this plate; seven plus seven plus five plus one plus two should be…thirty!"

Rachael shuffled the stack again and tapped the '3' and '0' keys on the pad.

"Now I have five plus nine plus seven plus five which is twenty-six!"

She dove under the water to reach the keypad and found the keys '2' and '6'. The red LED light flashed with each press, but suddenly began to flash violently and the screen with the numbers cleared away. Rachael's heart nearly stopped in her chest. 'She had gotten it wrong' is all she could think about. She tried the code again just in case she hit a wrong button by accident; 1, 2, 3, 0, 2, 6. The same thing happened again, the red LED light flashed hysterically and the screen cleared the numbers. Rachael screamed underwater, her voice lost to the lifeless liquid and hope fading. She thrashed her way to the surface which was about ¾ of the way up to the ceiling. She gasped for air between he choked cries.

'I'm going to die here,' Rachael thought, heartbroken, 'There's no way out.'

She was about to throw the stupid red plates across the room in frustration til she saw her little yellow spiral seashell necklace floating in the water in front of her. Rachael carefully cupped the precious keepsake in her free hand. Memories of her first time finding the trinket flashed through her mind.

She had visited the beach for the first time in her life as an Oshawott with her master Jake and her friends Haze and Dagger in Sinnoh. Rachael remembered how happy she was when she got to feel the soft, warm sand between her toes. Then the point where she stubbed her foot on something buried in the sand. She had almost chucked it into the ocean in anger until she got a good look at the glossy seashell cradled between her paws. From then on, she almost never took off the yellow spiral shell she made into a necklace that day. She would also show it off to every new teammate that joined their growing team. Not all of them saw how precious it was to her, but it was always a great way to start a new relationship and build new memories with all her friends.

Remembering the smiling faces of all her friends and teammates through the different times they spent together made Rachael sigh. She wanted to see her friends again, to see them all smiling. The only way to do that now was to hurry up and escape from this cursed deathtrap.

In her reminiscence, the water had risen up to just about a foot and a half below the ceiling. Rachael gained a new determination and pulled the red plates up to look at.

"What do I need to do?" Rachael thought aloud, feeling like she had missed something from before.

She had added the first three plates' numbers together to get double digit numbers like she was taught. Rachael gasped at the realization of her mistake

'Solving a digital root, the answer must end up as a single digit,' Jake's voice echoed inside Rachael's head.

She had totally forgotten that if the first answer had more than one digit, then you had to add those digits together like the first time. She squealed in delight for figuring out her mistake, but in all her panic she had forgotten her answers to the first three plates before; she would have to start over. Her head hit something hard and she looked up to see it was the ceiling mere inches away. There was very little time now, she probably had only one chance. Rachael took a long, deep breath and dove underwater to where the keypad clung to the wall. She raised the first plate up to reexamine the numbers.

'9+3=12; 1+2=3'

She pressed the key labeled '3'.

'7+7+8+5+1+2=30; 3+0=3'

This went on again and again as Rachael solved each plate.

'5+9+7+5=26; 2+6=8'

Rachael tried to stay calm under the pressure, but her heart and mind raced, urging her to hurry up.

'2+3+2+5+4+5+7=28; 2+8=10; 1+0=1'

Everything was starting to get a little blurry, but she willed herself to keep going.

'1+3+0+5=9'

Only one plate remained, the others had drifted from her hand and to the floor with muffled 'clunks' under the water. Rachael felt very light headed, she saw a veil of blackness creeping in from all corners of her eyes. It was very hard to concentrate on anything at this point, but there was still one more plate she had to look at.

'5 plus 2 plus 1 plus 6 is…14…1 and 4…are…5.'

Rachael couldn't tell if she hit the right button, or even the keypad itself, because all she could see was the back of her eyelids as she began to fade. Suddenly, she felt some kind of force hit her, like the water rushing by her and yanked her along with it. She hit the, floor? The floor perhaps of cold steel and no longer suspended or surrounded by any liquid. Rachael could only faintly feel her lungs expand with a small gulp of air. The last thing she remembered was a scream and a bunch of voices around her before her tired mind shut down into unconsciousness.