First oneshot on this site. Just a little something I typed up out of boredom... I personally think I'm better with oneshots than full fanfics, but someone might think otherwise... Please read and review.
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Pain. Pain so harsh and so pure and so consuming that it drowns me. Yes, it is drowning me in its stinging embrace. Only this is more than stinging. More than the worst stinging in the world. All my previous thoughts, which had been of so much importance and meaning before, give way to this immense throbbing that eats away at me. I feel it all. My flesh is ablaze. I don't know how it is possible, but it feels as if it is on fire; as if it is being twisted and curled up in black and burnt disformations. My muscles are popping apart. The searing in them is like ultimate heat, and ultimate cold, at the same time, ripping them apart. They hurt like they are being torn and shredded, unable to take the intense amount of tension built up in their coils. Every bone in my body; my whole skeletal structure, is shattering apart, into a thousand stabbing and biting peices that still lodge themselves into my body with more sears of hurt, just like needles. Explosions of my organs rock my insides. They have to be exploding. How else can it be? It can't be possible that they are filled with such splitting and numbing pain and not be blowing open in masive and throbbing bangs. The only part of me remaining intact is my heart. Even it feels like a ticking time bomb, pounding with more quick ferocity than ever before.
But my heart is not beating fast any more. Though I can hear it less and less, softer and softer, until it is faint in my mind, I sense and feel and hear it growing weaker, and weaker, underneath all this searing pain, roaring and ringing in my ears, and the blaring fear, purely instinctual by this point, that rage in what I have left of a mind. Fear. Fear. Pain. Hurt. Weaker. Weaker. Death. Death. Death. Death.
Everything begins going blank. I thought my eyes squeezed shut were by this point blind. But, they did see. They saw black, under my eyelids. You don't know what blindness is like until you experience it like this. It isn't eternal black. It isn't eternal white. It isn't anything. Not even black. Just... not having sight. Blindness is truly seeing nothing, not even the comforting darkness of your eyelids. And all the pain, the terrible, writhing pain, is fading into a great numb and tingling sensation. It can almost be mistaken for freezing. Maybe I am, for all I know. But the pain is fading. And now, I cannot hear my heartbeat. It is gone. My heart has stopped.
The fear comes back to me, though through this numbness and fading of being, it seems almost hot and sticky, like it isn't supposed to be now. I am now a battlezone. An all-out clash between instinctual fright and the calm nothingness I am so near to feeling erupts in my mind. This only gives the fear strength. Death. Death. Weaker. Pain. Heart. Stopped. Death. Death.
I open my mouth frantically, though I feel nothing from the numbness. My hearing has now given way just like my sight, and I am blind and deaf, on the verge of losing my nervous system. I know somehow my mouth is open, despite my lacking and throbbing sense of touch. And I use this chance to gasp inwardly. It is useless. My esophogus flutters helplessly, trying to inhale the air but finding no success. What I think are my lungs shiver and flick about in the same manner. Unable to do what they were created to do. Useless organs. My heart has stopped beating, I cannot breathe, and I am completely helpless. Too weak and throbbing to move even the slightest bit now. If I tried to open my mouth again, I wouldn't be able to. There is no strength left in my veins, as if it had all been drained away with their blood.
Nothing. Emptiness. The numb is fading too, just like everything else, leaving my nerves incapable of working at all. In fact, everything that hadn't left me before does now. Fear, worry, instinct, tingling sensations... Or... are they really floating away from me. Everything seems so far off... I feel empty and light, and gravity seems to have given up its grip on me. Am I floating away from everything else?
I am surprised when things begin to come back. There is light. I see that light. There is a faint sound like music, or, is it my ringing ears? I hear those sounds. And I feel an absense of everything, like I am flying but I don't even need wings to power that flight. I'm just flying, floating, soaring, above all. All gives way to an endless expansion of soft light, calm, and freedom from even the ground that once bound me so tightly to its surface. I sense a massive and warm presence coming forth. There is no fear left. Before, my scatterbrained instinct would be roaring in my brain, screaming, "NO!! RUN! GET AWAY!!" Now, nothing matters.
"Welcome... Brave Pokemon..."
"Who... Who are you?" I ask in awe at the bright light. Bright, but soothing. It doesn't burn to stare right at it. On the contrary, it feels warm and healing to be looking at that great light, which is like a white shadow that formes a great shape. A tall and magnificent shape, with four legs and a ring around its flanks.
"I am Arceus. God and Creator of this world. And you are about to enter the afterlife."
"So... This is death?"
"Yes. I normally do not come before souls ready to depart like this. Not every Pokemon and human gets to experience this. You are one of the lucky ones. Only those pure in heart, who have performed brave, kindly, and wonderful deeds ever see my true light. And you did a brave, kindly, and wonderful thing before your death."
"And what was that? I do not recall..."
"Look into my eyes..."
I do. And as I look into those two green lights, it all flashes before me, almost as if I am there now, reliving it all. There is my master. No, my friend. My trainer and owner, who cares for and loves me. I see myself, standing between him and a snarling beast. The beast is a Houndoom, and my memory flicks back. My trainer has only me to guard him from the sleek and black beast with its massive fangs and scorching flames. It had attacked seemingly without reason, at least to him. I know why, being a Pokemon myself. It is hunger that led it. Hunger drives Pokemon to do seemingly evil things. It is as simple as that. And I have to defend my owner and friend, because of the bond we share. But from our journey, both me and him are weak and tired. The Hoiundoom looks tough. I see myself lunge anyways, and it all happens so suddenly. Fighting, fire, lightning, flying black fur from both sides. So it would seem, except, Houndooms have sleek and perfectly thin black furs. Luxios have the thich fur that can be torn off. In the end I see myself summon the strongest electrical burst I ever have, and there is suddenly an immense light. When it clears, I see myself. The Houndoom is nowhere to be seen. And I am on the ground in a red puddle of my own hot blood.
My owner and friend tries to wake me by rubbing his hands through my blue and black fur. It is useless. I am motionless and silent. He is tattered and sobbing. I am his lost hero, who saved his life.
My mind instantly breaks away from Arceus' glowing eyes, eyes so full of vision and wonder. I am back, in the white realm of the heavens, with the god of everything standing before me. How am I to feel? Happy? I saved my owner's life. Sad? He is now heartbroken without me by his side. Though I still am completely weightless and bodiless, I feel as if I have a pair of shoulders supporting a head too heavy to hold.
"You need not be in sorrow," Arceus whispers. It isn't much of a whisper; the voice is so deep that it loudly echoes through the emptiness despite the calm and soothing tone it always managed to eeze through.
"He is... tattered. He loved me. And he is hurting without my presense... He needs me."
I hear myself say this weakly and as if I have a clogged throat. Indeed, it does feel like I am being crushed too tightly to speak. This is the full extent of emotion. What else could be this string when you are without true physical form? It must be...
"I see. You shared a powerful bond. Truly incredible, really. I can feel his pain against my hooves, as I feel the pain of all living things. His is distinguished. It is a terrible pain, like a sorrow that runs too deep to heal. The friendship between human and Pokemon can be very powerful, indeed..."
There is a moment that passes. I am unsure how long it lasts. Perhaps it was hours upon days upon years of silence. Perhaps it was only a few seconds. And why should it matter how long it does last? In this free state of being, there is no need for hurry. I do not feel any urge to continue quickly, as there is nothing for me to get to. So, the length of this pause goes unknown, and is lost forever now upon Arceus' next words.
"I could bring you back to him."
"You could... do what?"
"It is a rarely used but possible procedure, led by destiny to always bring two souls back together despite all odds. It comes with the price that the one experiencing the procedure must lose all memory. He must be sent back free of knowledge of his past, only knowing his bond with the sould he must find from his past life..."
"Reincarnation?" I ask, "That's... I thought that was only imagined... It could never truly exist..."
"If the god and creator of all things looked into your soul with their own eyes and told you it did exist, would you believe it then?"
I am speechless. There is no way I can convey my feelings now; confusion, wonder, joy... However, there is no need to convey them. Arceus can tell. How couldn't Arceus tell; it created everything, and thus must have an understanding of everything, from the most complex workings of the universe to the simplest little emotions in my mind. That simple understanding is all I need.
"Farewell, then. We shall meet again, at the end of the life you have chosen to embark upon..."
These are the last words I hear before everything fades. The white, the calm and soothing light, and lastly, Arceus, the god of everything, the one who had given me another chance to be with my closest friend. Blackness overcomes my consiousness, and I see, feel, and know no more.