The sound of voices, overlapping and piling up on each other until all you can catch are quick snippets of conversations. Words, here and there, that have no place, no meaning, no context. Shoes shuffling, people walking back and forth hurrying to get to their destinations without stopping to take in their surroundings, or think about anyone else around them. Laughter. Yelling. Honking. Giggling.
Arron cracked his eyes open, feeling groggy as though he'd been as light as a feather just one second prior, then came crashing down onto the pavement like a lead bar had been dropped on top of him. Groaning as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, he immediately sensed that something was off. Something wasn't right.
First, he was in a city, and last he could recall, he'd been out in the middle of some tall grass looking for a new party member—far away from the urban sprawl. Second, as he automatically reached down to feel for his pokeballs, instead of spheres, he felt pins. Third, despite his arms pushing his torso off the ground, he couldn't exactly "sit up" per say. Having been face-first in the pavement, he'd of course taken the obvious course of action; That is, he attempted to turn over and sit on his backside, like any normal person. The only problem was, his legs stubbornly refused to oblige—laying like useless sacks of flesh on the floor. Bizarre just couldn't describe it. Arron twisted around, furrowing his brow as he used one hand to prop himself up and the other to brush his long bangs out of his eyes. Why wouldn't they move?!
He reached out to manually toss the limb over, a tentative reaction to something he hoped was just a temporary affliction. But that wasn't the case at all.
"What the--!?" Arron's hand reeled back as he realized that he couldn't feel his hand against his leg. On his fingertips, he felt solid skin, the soft sensation of flesh and the taut muscle from months and months of walking. However the feeling was one-sided—his legs seemed not to register at all that there was a pressure on the back of his calf. And why wasn't anyone slowing down to check if he was alright?! He was lying on the floor, helpless, freaking out, and everyone just moved on like all was well!! His brow furrowed together into his signature frown as he snapped at anyone who was listening, "Ain't no one got the decency to tell me what's goin' on?!"
Almost instantaneously, recollection hit like a frying pan in the face. He'd been killed—sat on and then stepped on in what was an ungraceful death that he'd prefer not to recall. But that explained the legs. It didn't, however, explain how he was supposed to deal with it. He swallowed hard, taking deep breaths as he slowly lowered himself back onto the pavement. Staring hard at the black gravel underneath him, Arron listened to his racing heartbeat, a mixture of rage, panic, and anxiety. This was unfair- an unfair way to die, and an unfair way to play the second chance game. He was at a complete disadvantage if he couldn't even do something so simple as walk around!! And nobody seemed to realize his dilemma!
He clenched his fist, letting out a strangled yell of frustration—it wasn't as if anyone could hear or see him, or else they would've at least stopped to ask if he was okay, right? Yeah, wrong. But if he sat here and pitied himself, it would be like admitting defeat, right? Arron took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down as he sorted out the priorities in his mind. First of all, he needed to sit up, so he could survey his surroundings 360, rather than just the area directly in front of and beside him. Using his hands to rearrange his legs, Arron looked up just in time to see a blue wheelchair sitting quietly in front of him. It was basic—absolutely the bare essentials, a chair and wheels with some uncomfortable looking arm rests. Indeed, the type that most hospitals used for their temporary patients, where mobility was valued far over comfort.
"Aight someone didn't think this through," Arron grumbled to himself, looking at the distance between his immobile legs and the wheelchair, "Ain't never sat in a wheelchair, ain't never tried to get into one from down on the ground, and ain't never worked one neither….." It would be an ordeal to get into that thing, seeing as he wasn't exactly facing the right direction to drag himself over to it. As he simmered in his irritation, the sharp sound of his cellphone cut through the air, interrupting his steady flow of muttered profanities. Not a phone call, but a text message—strange, seeing as Arron had very few accquaintences who used that method of communication. He flipped the slim black device open, peering down at the contents.
"Make the invisible plain to see. 2 hours."
Arron narrowed his eyes in confusion and disbelief at the screen. Cryptic message that made no sense and a time period. A time limit? Or—or would the invisible be seen in 2 hours?? "…. What the fu— OWWW MOTHER OF MAREEP!"
Arron dropped his phone, clutching his other hand in shock as a sharp pain went through the palm of his hand. It wasn't so much that it hurt, so much that he hadn't been prepared for it at all! On his hand, a ticker that looked as if it had been etched into the very muscle of his palm was slowly counting down.
OK.
Now THAT. Was bizarre. Staring at his hand, Arron couldn't believe his eyes. There was a freakin' timer, on his freakin' hand, that was freakin' changing with each second!!!
A screech cut his internal panic short. Suddenly a ball of feathers whipped past him, narrowly missing him and hurtling away into the sky. If this could get any weirder, Arron would be pretty dang shocked. He whirled around, looking for the source of whatever had nearly taken him out—spotting what was unmistakeably a pidgey, but…. Not quite a pidgey. It's wings were 2-dimensional, almost like tribal tattoos jutting out of the feathery body. This game that he'd found himself in? Yeah. It had just gotten even weirder, and Arron was… well, pretty dang shocked.
"Ay—Wait just a minute 'ere!" He shoved his cellphone back into his jacket pocket, scooting backwards frantically with his hands as the pidgey spread it's wings for a second dive, "This ain't fair at all! I got nothin' to frickin' fight with ya cheatin' nutjobs!"
Twisting his body just out of the way as the pidgey swooped past, Arron caught sight of the infernal beast quickly turning in the air, beating it's strange wings against the air. Essentially immobile on the ground with nothing to fight this monster off, Arron threw his arms up over his face, bracing for impact…….
