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Melisande wades her way into Route 217, the snow reaching up to her knees by this point.
The strong wind lashes at her, cutting through her clothes as if they were nothing. She thought she was prepared for this, she had her woolly hat, gloves, multiple layers under her coat, a scarf, but it feels like they're doing absolutely nothing to protect her from the icy cold.
Snow gets picked up by the wind, combining with that which falls from Mt. Coronet to obscure her vision with specks of white.
She holds herself closely as she trudges on, shivering all the while. Her team have all fainted, all aside from Ziggy, her Zigzagoon. Getting this far has been hard on all of them; both her Pokémon and herself.
Ziggy may still be conscious, but he's far from okay, having taken a hefty beating from both Pokémon and the elements alike. She keeps him in his pokéball, he doesn't need to suffer through this.
The wind begins to kick up, battering Melisande’s tired body even harder. It gets harder to walk, harder than it already is. The wind pushes against her, like it's trying to keep her back, to stop her from proceeding.
She doesn't really know where she is. Everything just looks white. No tress, no buildings, nothing. Just white, followed by more white.
She can't feel her hands underneath her thick gloves. She tries to move them but they don't cooperate, they're stiff and unresponsive. Her face is a bright red, the wind wildly blowing the stray strands of brown hair peeking out from underneath her hat to and fro. Her eyes water from the wind's beating. She has to squint to be able to see, but there's nothing to see, just a white void.
The conditions only get worse the further she goes. More and more snow fills the air around her. She can barely see a few feet in front of her. Turning back, she can't even see her own footprints, the snow having quickly refilled the imprints she left.
And yet she marches on, after all, she doesn't feel like she has a choice. There's nothing but snow and mountains behind her, nothing that can help. But up ahead is civilization; Snowpoint City. She doesn't know how far she still has to go, but she can't turn back now. She couldn't even try to find her way back if she wanted to, it would be impossible to retrace her steps, the snow making it seem like they never even existed. She doesn't even know which way she's walking, she hopes she’s going straight, but she doesn’t know for sure. It’s like she's fumbling around with her eyes closed.
All she can hear is the howling of the wind, the unending cacophony filling her ears with its cries, loud enough to drown out any other sounds that there may be.
Her entire body hurts but at the same time she can't feel anything. Everything stings from the freezing bite of the cold, yet everything is also numb. It's so cold, she feels like the blood flowing in her veins could freeze into a crystalline dark red ice at any second.
Her senses are overwhelmed. She can't see, can't hear, can't feel. She can barely even think, her brain screaming at her to find shelter, to find warmth. Try as she might however, she still remains in the vast nothingness. She feels like she's surrounded by darkness, but it's white instead of black.
The inevitable happens, her foot crashes into something covered under the knee high snow. Her body is too stiff to react, and she falls forward with a cry, face first into the snow. It's a soft but deeply unpleasant landing, the freezing snow searing at the exposed skin of her face.
She tries to push herself up, to get back on her feet, or at least onto her knees, but she can't. Her arms feel too weak, too numb. She manages to push herself a few inches up, but it just becomes too much, her arms crumple under her, unable to support her weight. She flops back into the snow.
She tries again, and again, but she gets nowhere. She manages to roll onto her side, which still feels horrible, but it's better than a face full of snow.
After a few more fruitless attempts to move, she gives up, resigning herself to her fate. "So this is it then?" She thinks to herself. "All this over a stupid badge?"
Part of her doesn't believe this is real, that it must be some sort of dream. She knows that part of her is wrong. Another part of her thinks she'll pull through this. Worse things have happened to her, it's not like just some snow and cold are going to be what does her in, right? She just needs a minute to rest, then she'll be okay. Just a moment to regain her strength then she’ll be off again. She’ll be in city sitting in front of a fireplace in no time, the roaring flames soothing her achy bones.
That’s what she wants to believe.
She lies there, for how long she doesn't know. It could have been minutes, could have been hours, she can't tell. She only gets weaker as the time passes, the cold sapping away at what was left of her strength. She tries to think of a way out of this, but her mind comes up with nothing.
The ever falling snow starts to cover her body, its icy moisture seeping into her clothes. She tries to shake it off, but it just keeps coming, there's too much of it.
It's so cold. It feels like needles are piercing every single inch of her skin. She closes her eyes, it's not like she can see anything anyway, so she just replaces the white emptiness with a black one.
She feels something wiggling down at her waist and she gets a brief feeling of hope, maybe it's something that can help? Maybe one of the Pokémon that somehow live in this icy hell might help; maybe it'll drag her away to safety, or something, anything.
She reaches a hand down her body, her stiff, frozen arms groaning in resistance.
She gropes blindly for the unknown thing with her soaking gloved hand. She can hardly move her fingers, it takes all her effort to outstretch them.
She finds what she's looking for, and is met with disappointment. It's not hope, it's not salvation, it's just a pokéball. Given that it's moving, she figures it must be Ziggy.
She drags his pokéball up through the snow, placing it in front of her half buried face. She looks at it through a squinting eye, it's the same shiny red and white ball that she used to catch him however long ago it was. She knows he isn't exactly the best Pokémon, there's plenty of much stronger or useful Pokémon, but that doesn't matter to her. Melisande was just enamoured with him the first time she saw him, he looked so cute running around in the grass, she had to have him.
She loves him. She knows that she technically caught him, but she likes to think it's not like that; he can leave if he wants. She spent so much time playing with him, petting his zigzagged fur, cuddling his warm body, wandering the world together, just spending time together with him. He wasn't a pet or just one of her possessions; he was a friend, a companion.
She likes her other Pokémon too, don't get her wrong, but her relationship with Ziggy is special.
But now she won't be doing anything together with Ziggy anymore. Melisande won't be doing much of anything anymore at this rate. This seems like the end. The situation only gets worse and worse with the passage of time.
She looks at the ball, pondering whether or not she should let Ziggy out so that she can say goodbye. She wants to, but she doesn't want him to suffer any more than he already has, he doesn't need to freeze alongside her.
It would only take a few seconds to say goodbye and put him back in the ball, but she doesn't trust herself. What if she can't put him back, either because of selfishness or because she’s gone before she's able to? She doesn't want to die, especially not alone in some icy wasteland, but she couldn't live with herself if she tried taking him with her.
She moves his pokéball to her face, pressing it softly against her raw, chapped lips.
"G-Goodbye, Ziggy. I... I love you..." She whispers, her hoarse voice barely audible over the deafening wind.
She moves the ball to her chest, hugging it closely, right on top of her heart. It continues to slightly move, wriggling in her hands and against her body.
Tears run down from her one exposed eye, slowly sliding down her now blue face and into the snow. She can't move, she can't feel, she can't do anything. She just shivers there, half buried in the snow which just keeps piling up on top of her. Her body burns from the cold, everywhere, from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, is in agony, and there's nothing she can do about it.
She tries to think of something else, anything to distract herself from the constant pain.
She questions her decision to keep Ziggy in the ball. Would it be better to let him out and die, or to keep him in the ball for who knows how long? She doesn't know what it's like in the ball, it could just be like he's sleeping, but it just as well could be some kind of never ending purgatory, he could just end up waiting and waiting forever. But she doesn't want him to die. At least if he's in the ball there's some hope, right?
She closes her eyes for the last time. Her shivering body still continues to draw in ragged breaths, her heart continues to pump blood around inside of her. She knows it's all in vain though, it's hopeless. She knows no one is coming to help her.
She simply lies and waits, just wishing her pain and suffering would end sooner, for fate to just get things over and done with. There's nothing she can do, she's too weak to move. She’s stuck.
There's no coming back from this.
She suffers further in her misery, all sense of time lost to her. She just wants it to end. Her breaths gradually become more shallow, fewer and farther between. With the last of her strength she squeezes Ziggy's ball even harder against her chest.
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Melisande's soft breaths that were visible in the frigid air are no more. Her chest no longer rises or falls, her heart no longer beats. Her brain no longer functions. The unending snowfall of Route 217 continues to cover the land, gradually covering up the rest of Melisande's lifeless body, sweeping what's left of her under the rug, like she was never even there.
The only sign of life is the small red and white ball buried under the blanket of snow, which continues to gently rock back and forth inside of Melisande's cold, dead hand.