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The pencil in my hand rapped loudly against my desk, desperate to kill the boredom while the teacher lectured on about the War of 1812 or whatever.
I checked my back and found Derrick, the only dude from the team in this class.
Being in the same boat, he met my eyes. “You ready for the game tonight?” He asked.
“You bet I am; those Stanton dirtbags are gonna see we’re way better than those losers they’ve played so far,” I said.
“Hell yeah, brother,” he said, pounding my fist.
“Quiet in the back!” the teacher scolded.
I faced forward and scoffed; either the teacher didn’t hear it or ignored me as they continued droning on.
God, who cares?
There were still another five minutes until lunch; the bastard should just call it close enough and let us go. I’d skip, but the admin was already pissed off at me. How they expect us to sit here and listen to this shit is bad enough, but they also expect us to learn it? Fuck this place.
My eyes wandered, landing on the kid at the desk one ahead and to the right of mine. He wasn’t much of anything: scrawny, quiet, always trying to go unnoticed. Apparently, he’d been in a coma for a couple of months, and this was his first day back. He didn’t seem too interested in class either; he was drawing in a notebook.
Craning my head, I got a better look; it looked like he was drawing… no way, was that Pokémon? Ha! Shit, no wonder he had no friends!
Eventually, the bell rang, and the other students walked off as fast as they could, except for that kid.
“You coming, man?” Derrick asked me.
“Yeah, just give me a sec, I wanna… catch up with someone.”
He smirked and nodded before walking away.
Now that we were the only two people in the room, I walked over and peered over his shoulder. The page was almost filled with pencil sketches of a single character.
“Well, hello there,” I said.
He jumped and looked up at me with his beady little eyes. “Hello.”
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the page.
He tried to pick it up and put it away, but I pushed it down into the desk. My strength effortlessly outmatched his; I made a show of flexing my meaty biceps.
“That’s kind of rude; I just wanted to know what it is.”
“…My notebook,” he said after some time, uncertain.
I frowned. “I have eyes,” I said and jabbed a finger at the character. “What. Is. This?”
“…Snivy.”
“Snivy? Well, I’ll say it’s pretty good.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I sneered. “In fact, you shouldn’t be keeping this for yourself; I want to show my friends.”
I reached for the notebook and tore the page out, ripping the paper toward the bottom.
“Hey!”
He tried to get it back, but shoved him into the desk and ran off to the cafeteria. Oh man, the guys were going to love this.
◈◈◈
The next day, I didn’t have any classes with the weird kid, but I did find where he sat for lunch: a small, four-person table separated from the rest; all alone, of course. He was playing on what looked like a Nintendo DS.
I sat with the rest of the boys in the middle of the open room; our normal spot. Nudging Derrick, I pointed to the kid; Derrick smiled and nodded.
We got up and walked over. When Weird Kid noticed us approaching, he quickly squirreled away the game console. It was too late, however; I saw he was playing another Pokémon game.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Just thought you could use some company; I brought my buddy,” I said, gesturing to Derrick.
Derrick didn’t say or do anything; just stood there with a smile on his face.
“What? You’re not gonna say hi?”
“…Hello.”
“His name is Derrick.” I said expectantly.
He sat silent for a while until he spoke up again. “…Hello, Derrick.”
“Whatcha doing here all alone?”
“Eating lunch.”
“You haven’t touched your food,” I said. His tomato soup sat in the bowl; it’d been sitting there so long that it wasn’t even steaming anymore.
“Not hungry,” he claimed.
“What game were you playing?”
“Nothing.”
I lowered my voice. “I don’t like it when people lie to me, so I’ll ask again… what were you playing?”
He didn’t respond. After a good ten seconds, I got in closer; towering over him and threatening to reach into his bag. My height wasn’t that impressive, but I still had a head over him when we were both standing; not to mention our difference in bulk.
“Pokémon Mystery Dungeon,” he said quickly.
Derrick couldn’t contain his laughter, which came out as a deep snort.
“You know that game is for children, right?” I asked.
“…”
“You want some advice?”
“No,” he said, quickly again.
I ignored him. “Playing those stupid games is why you have no friends and only makes people want to do this!”
I palmed the back of his head and shoved it into his bowl of soup. When he himself pulled out, his face, his hair, and his clothes were absolutely dripping in the stuff.
Derrick and I laughed and left before some teacher came around to check out the scene.
◈◈◈
Weird Kid wasn’t at school for the rest of that week; it wasn’t until the following Monday when he showed his face again.
The first few days, I just observed him during the periods we shared. He focused on coursework and did nothing with his drawing or video games; however, the last period on Thursday was art class.
The assignment for the past few weeks had been to paint a landscape or whatever of places we’d been. I couldn’t give less of a shit, so I didn’t do it.
Weird Kid, however, was painting some kind of dark, barren place. Rocks floated in midair; the trees were bare and also looked to be made of stone. The sky was bleak, the grass was all dead, and the only water was a waterfall pooling into a large basin. I’d have said it was kinda cool… if he didn’t also add two creatures staring into the colorless water; I could guess what they were.
Is that all he thinks about? This kid’s got problems.
Lucky for him, I solve problems.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day; the classroom emptied quickly.
I walked up to the kid again. This time, however, he seemed to look at me with disgust.
“What is this you made?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“‘Cause I’m trying to figure out where on Earth I could find floating rocks.”
He looked away. “…You can’t.”
“How could you have gone to a place that doesn’t exist?”
“It does exist!” he snapped, taking me off-guard.
“Bullshit,” I said.
“It’s true!”
I slammed both of my hands on the table. “You want some real advice this time? Life isn’t some children’s game. Grow up; clearly someone needs to tell you.”
He grabbed his bag and stormed off; I knew where he was going, though.
◈◈◈
I crept around the back of the school. I’d heard from the boys that they’d seen him hiding back here more than once.
Students weren’t allowed back here; this was where they kept all the equipment for training the football team and the stuff for groundskeeping. I stuck my head behind the shed, and sure enough, there he was, sitting on the lawnmower, drawing in his notebook again; he had his back to me.
Creeping up, I snatched the notebook and ripped it in half as he turned to look.
“This shit is only as real as I can rip it up with my two hands!”
Then, something happened in him. He was livid.
“What, you gonna cry? Life sucks; get used to—”
He stormed up to me and grabbed me by my shirt collar; I’d waste no time laying the smackdown on this kid…
But I couldn’t move.
His eyes… there was something beyond the rage. I felt dizzy as knowledge not of this world rushed into me; thoughts melted away, then sensation, then my body. Reality itself broke down as I stared into his now sky-blue eyes; everything went black.
Suddenly, I was someplace completely different, but I wasn’t ‘me’; merely a spectator as two pokémon stared at a little hut in the forest, shaped like a Mudkip’s head. Crossing the threshold, they then stood upon the clouds; gazing up at a swirling tower as a hulking meteor hurtled toward the planet.
Then two different pokémon were on the beach; the sea breeze whisking the Krabby bubbles away.
In a flash, they were in Treasure Town after saving Azurill.
“…and then my partner sees or hears events that happened in the past! Or about to happen in the future!” Vulpix said.
Dusknoir was shocked. “What?! Well, that’s… that’s… The Dimensional Scream!”
Their voices echoed into oblivion; the visions surged. The world’s dark future where time froze; even the small waterfall stood suspended in time. The sacred Hidden Land hiding the Rainbow Stoneship, the crumbling remains of Temporal Tower.
Journeys through the ley lines, the floating palace of ice, Pokémon Paradise!
Revelation Mountain, the prehistoric ruins.
The Voidlands.
The Tree of Life.
Everything went so fast I couldn’t comprehend them before they became something else. Then, abruptly, it stopped.
My entire being felt like it was dropped into a freezing lake; overstimulated. I came to, finding myself lying on the cement.
I looked up at him. He looked normal, as if nothing had happened, but… it did happen! Everything happened! It was real! I felt it!
He scowled at me, narrowing his brown eyes. “Don’t talk to me ever again,” he said before walking away.
I lay there, taking shuddering gasps of air; watching that aberration of nature go.
Who the hell is this kid??