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My name is Red Pryce-Tougan. My mom named me after my oldest brother, who died before I was born trying to get out of Kanto. When she thought I was old enough, my sister sat down with me and told me how she had found him, frozen to death in the mountains after falling off a cliff.
I didn’t tell her then, but I’ve always had nightmares about the cold. I sleep under thick blankets even in summer, and my other brother always gives me a jar of his special fire before Mom and Dad take me to visit anywhere cold.
I remember that as my body goes cold and I fall asleep, that night. My brother’s also a death god, so I know about resurrection. It’s kind of what he does. I wish I’d thought to ask him, or my sister, if it’s cold in the afterlife. They’ve both visited, though they weren’t dead.
There’s snow in my face, but I don’t have the energy to brush it away. I don’t even have the energy left to open my eyes. I wrap my tails around me and struggle to keep myself warm. The afterlife is cold, isn’t it? I really should have asked. I try to press myself down, but my arms won’t answer me.
There was something important I had to do, but I can’t remember. Talking to someone? Was I waiting? How can I be waiting if I just died? Maybe everyone who’s dead is just waiting. I can’t remember who they were, anyway. I need to tell them something.
There’s a voice somewhere around me, then someone touches my arm. I pull away from it. I can’t remember who I’m waiting for, but I can remember that… something bad happened. Something bad happened and anyone who touches me might be dangerous.
I’m at the quay back home with my school friends. We’re playing in the water, which we’re not supposed to do, but because of ships, not because I don’t like it. I hated water when I was little, but I’m not little anymore. I was scared that it would burn to touch. I thought you always had to be careful around it.
When did I lose my grip on the railing and fall in? I know that happened, and now I’m in the water. I can’t swim. I’m scared. Is the water burning me? It feels like it is.
Suddenly I’m surrounded by warmth, like when I sit by the heater in wintertime with Mom, Dad, and big mugs of tea. I’m out of the water, and my brother is beside me. Wasn’t he working today?
I hear his voice from everywhere around me. From inside of me? “Can you hear me? Saylee and Blue are on the way. You better be fucking okay, you little prick.” He sounds like he’s going to cry. But I’m safe, right?
No, that isn’t what he said. When I fell in the quay, he showed up and carried me home, then tried to scold me about stupid risks, but he kept sniffling, and that made him angrier.
I get picked up by someone. Probably Silver. Everything’s kind of vague around me. Are my eyes even open? No. I can feel that they're closed. Everything goes dark.
A moment later, I open my eyes. I’m looking down at a bed, but why am I asleep? All the lights are on, so I should be up. I realise why I opened my eyes. The door opened, I'm in bed in the room I share with Scarlet, my niece, in our suite at Castelia City. Saylee’s coming in, still in her kimono from the party she told me I couldn’t come to. Why isn’t she still at the party? It's pretty important.
She’s talking to someone outside who I can’t see. Maybe it’s Janine, or maybe Alice. Something bad must have happened. Maybe that’s why I’m in bed, down below me.
Saylee picks up my hand. Well, now that I think of it, is it my hand? I’m not in bed, I’m watching myself sleep in bed. That’s a little weird. I wish Saylee would tell Blue, who’s come in behind her, to turn off the light so I can sleep properly. I can’t sleep with this light and my stomach hurts a lot, like it's tearing itself up.
Behind Blue is Janine. Her suit sleeve is stained with-
I’m falling. One of my classmates dared me to go up to the Solaceon Ruins. Xe thinks that there’s a way to Johto through here. But that’s stupid. You can’t teleport outside a portpad. Unless you have a psychic. Or you’re a god like my sister’s one friend. I’m falling because I tripped on the doorway of a room in the ruins. When I land on the rough floor, my left hand hits the edge of an ancient vase.
I scream as it cuts right to the bone, and there’s no echo. “Alexis!” I call back to the entrance. “I’m gonna come out now!” Maybe I should go further to prove there’s no way to the Ruins of Alph through here, but my hand hurts a lot and it’s bleeding. It’s bleeding a lot. The blood is pooling on the floor and I can’t raise my eyes up from it. My nose is full of the rusty, metal smell of it all around me.
It takes me a moment to pick myself up using my good hand, but then I turn around and step carefully over the doorway. “I’m fine!” I call, expecting xir to be running up the hillside to check on me.
Across from me, where the door was before, there’s just a wall covered in writing. I think it’s Galarian?
“Okay.” I’m standing in a hallway now. This happens sometimes, in stories. Ruins can change a lot if psychics live there. Maybe Alexis was right.
There has to be a way out. Saylee told me once to follow one wall in a place and you’ll find a way out. Or was that in a maze? Anyway, I put my okay hand on the wall to my right and start walking. I hold my other hand out carefully so I don’t get blood on the nice shirt Mom got me to visit Lost Tower.
I remember this. Time was weird in the ruins. I was hungry and my feet hurt when I came out the door, but Blue told me that Alexis had just run to get him after I screamed. He was visiting Mom and Dad for Silver’s birthday because Saylee was busy being Champion in Kanto.
He hugs me, on the hill outside the ruins, and I hear him say near my ear, “He’s not badly hurt, but he might have a concussion from the fall.”
I frown up at him when he lets me go. “I’m hurt!” I tell him. I hold up the hand that I cut open. “See, I’m-“ I look at my hand. Under some bits of dried blood, it’s totally healed. There isn’t even a scar.
“Hey,” Blue says, and it doesn’t sound like he’s talking to me, “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Of course not. I’m the smart one.” That’s Saylee. Where’s Saylee? I have something to tell her. Something unbelievably important. “Can you call Silver for me?” she asks Blue.
I know what’s going on now. I’m asleep, so I’m dreaming. I struggle to wake back up. There’s some reason I have to talk to Saylee that’s just out of reach. As I’m pushing my way through clouds of ice and crowds of thousands of people to get to being awake, I see things like they’re being reflected on the backs of my eyes. Saylee at Langnicht with the Pryces. A Charmander holding out a hand to me. Saylee searching a cold, cold mountain. Saylee, the little girl I didn’t want to leave behind.
I force my eyes open. Half the lights have been turned off, and the room is dim. There’s a strange, metallic smell in the air. The air conditioner has been turned on high—I know what that sounds like because I tested it out with Scarlet as soon as we got here, and the fan is on in the bathroom, humming along distantly. I can feel Blue beside me, and hear his Pokégear ringing someone.
“Hey.” Silver’s voice is grainy. It’s a second delayed from Oreburgh, which is weird because I heard his relief at answering the call without any delay.
“Hey.” Blue’s voice is full of fake cheer, like it was that day he found me outside the Ruins. “Your brother is fine, but your terrifying sister is chatting with Janine about what to do next about Scarlet.”
Good, Saylee’s close by. I can tell her… whatever it is I need to tell her. Why does she have to talk to Janine? What happened to Scarlet? I stop those thoughts and focus on Blue. I can’t lose track of what’s happening like I did before.
“Your terrifying wife is going to run off and do something stupid with her saviour complex best friend, and I won’t be able to tell you when that happens,” Silver says. He sounds exhausted, but he shouldn’t, since it’s the middle of the day in the Fairlands. “How’s Red? He seems more aware now.”
“He’s fine. Hardly a scratch on him.” There’s a tightness in Blue voice. It’s like at the Ruins, but there’s also something weirdly brittle about his voice? What happened? No, I can’t think about the metal smell right now. I’m not going to identify it.
Silver sighs really loudly. “It’s a whole fucked up mess,” he tells Blue. “Call me when he’s up, okay? I- Oh shit that’s Aaron calling. This is probably about Saylee, I gotta go.” He hangs up. Silver’s like that, when he has something important to do.
Blue puts his Pokégear down. He looks really tired. I try to tell him that, because he's the kind of brother I can say that stuff to, but I make a weird croaking noise instead. My lower chest kind of aches. He looks up and sees that my eyes are open.
“Hey, kid,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
Lost. My mind is all messed up, but I don’t know what I was dreaming about. I really want to talk to my sister, but I don’t know if it’s to cry all over her like I’m three years old or tell her I’m proud of her for going on without me. I’m also realising that I’m super angry, because I know why Blue sounds so tired, and it’s the reason why Scarlet’s not sleeping in the next bed over.
None of that is what I say. Instead, I say, “I think I got stabbed?”