The reason for the sudden change in tenses I can't really explain. I wrote the first paragraph before. I left my computer for a while and continued when I came back. That is my fault.
Always,
always reread your work as carefully as possible before posting, especially if you're writing in any state of mind besides alert and focused (like sleepy, as you said you were). While proofreading by yourself doesn't guarantee perfection, it at least removes a lot of the errors you would be able to see yourself. For everything else and for a second glance, you could always
get a beta reader.
That being said, on to the story comments.
She was just your plain sixteen year old girl that was always bored at home,
A few other grammar rules bnb didn't cover, but whenever you state someone's age and use it as a single descriptor (either a noun
or an adjective that describes how old someone is), you actually need to hyphenate it so that it becomes something like sixteen-year-old. Like I said, it's because it's a single descriptor. You're not saying they're sixteen years old. You're actually saying they're a
person who's sixteen years old.
Also, whenever you talk about a person or another character who's alive, you'll want to avoid using "that" (as in, "a sixteen-year-old girl that was always bored at home"). This is because "that" is a word that's reserved for inanimate objects, things without genders, or anything else you want to describe as something that isn't alive. Instead, use the word "who," which implies that the character associated with it actually has that spark of life.
I'm bringing this up because it's the first line of the fic. Really, I'm not going to be spending too much time discussing grammar (for once) because I want to focus completely on the story itself; I just wanted to say it's a bit jarring to go into a fic and have a few things to point out right off the bat. I know that a number of readers might not notice, but just in case someone does, you'll want to make sure your first paragraph at the very least is error-free to make the reader think they don't have to worry too much about scouring your work for problems.
A condition she came to have back when she was five when her parents took her to a camp and late at night she felt she needed to go to the bathroom.
However, I
will bring up the way language is used itself because this isn't so much a matter of grammar as it is a matter of the way you build tone through wording.
That being said, I'm going to have to say this is a bit lengthy for a sentence fragment. While a lot of writers use fragments to make something sound blunter (plainer, dryer, like it was a plain fact), you'll want to remember that... well, they use that kind of thing to make a statement sound blunter. What I mean is that when a writer uses a fragment to highlight something, what they'll usually want to do is make the sentence
shorter. By doing this, the information it's conveying packs more of a punch because that's all the reader is getting out of that statement. It's stark, bare-bones information. You lose that effect the longer you go on, such as in a fragment like this. As a result, you end up creating the feeling that you're missing a predicate, not that you're trying to convey information that's packing a punch.
With that in mind, I'd suggest just rephrasing this sentence to make it seem complete. There's really no reason why you'd need a fragment here, really, because you're not so much conveying information with a punch as you are transitioning to a flashback.
Speaking of which, while I'm okay with your idea to explain Azuka's fear of Pokémon through flashbacks, it feels like you're going too fast with them. For example, instead of presenting Azuka's encounter with a Misdreavus as its own scene, you capture it in a single paragraph. This might not work for two reasons:
1. You're not really highlighting the importance of these events if you just tell us about them instead of showing us how they happened. The Misdreavus scene especially is the basis of a really important character trait for Azuka, so you really want to spend some time building up what happened.
2. It doesn't evoke much emotion in the reader. We don't feel as we're right there by Azuka's side when she encountered Misdreavus, so we don't feel that same sense of fear as we would if you described Azuka standing in front of a Misdreavus in the middle of a dark, cold night or the Misdreavus's long, mournful cry. In other words, if you spend only a paragraph on this kind of thing, you don't really build connections between the reader and Azuka's past because you're not really letting the audience watch what happened to her like they would any other scene.
she was technically bandaged all over her body
And I said I wouldn't do this, but the word "technically" is used to describe more abstract concepts. For example, you could say that this sentence is technically grammatically correct if you want to describe that it is according to grammar rules and basic fact. However, you can't say that someone is technically bandaged because there's no reason to look at it any deeper and define whether or not they're bandaged based on specific facts. You look at them, and they're bandaged. You don't have to argue whether or not they are based on exact data.
As she lied
The past-tense of "to lie" (as in, to lie in bed) is actually "lay." "Lied" refers to the definition that means the opposite of telling the truth. Homonyms and homophones are often tricky like that, so it's best to just memorize them.
When you go into the description of the doctor, it feels like it should come earlier. The reason why is because you go from talking about the fact that no one is in the room at all to someone's line of dialogue, so it feels like it's coming out of nowhere. I would suggest describing the doctor walking into the room first, considering Azuka would most definitely notice someone arriving if she's focusing on the fact that no one is visiting her.
Doing this will also solve another problem at the same time: it feels like the doctor magically knows that Azuka is awake. It may be a good idea to have him comment on the fact that she's awake, rather than address her right off the bat as if he knew before he walked into the room.
Additionally, his dialogue seems a little too casual for a doctor's speech. For example, he says "you got badly burnt." "Got" in this sense is actually a casual usage. In a slightly more formal way of speaking, you would say "you
were badly burnt." The difference is all in the word "get," which implies that something was received. However, "burnt" is its own verb; you can't receive a burnt the same way you'd receive a burn. As such, "were" is a helping verb in this case that describes when the action verb took place.
Likewise, he hesitates when he mentions her eye was burned. ("And... Uh... It got your eye.") A doctor is usually used to conveying to a patient the extent of their injuries and conditions, so it seems a little unnatural for this doctor to pause as if he's not certain what exactly he should be saying.
As a side note, a burn can't really "get" any particular organ because it doesn't spread like cancer or a flesh-eating bacteria. What you might say is "your right eye was also burned," although this is also debatable based on science. (Burns in the medical sense are usually confined to just the skin and occasionally muscle and bone. Eyes aren't made of skin, so it'd probably be more accurate to say, "Your right eye was blinded by the fire.")
Also, while we're on the subject of nitpicking the possible, if your entire body was bandaged, you're probably not going to be moving swiftly because your joints are tightly bound. Of course, if Azuka was in a full-body
cast, she wouldn't be moving at all.
She grabbed the paper and pen that always come in the hospital rooms
First off, you'll want to avoid explaining things in this manner (like, right in the sentence where they're relevant and not before) because it makes the reader feel like it's more like an afterthought to explain what you think is a plot hole than it is a natural detail of the story. Instead, perhaps have Azuka look for a pen and paper and notice a bit to the side.
Second, hospital rooms aren't hotel rooms. While I don't know about childrens' hospitals, I've been in enough adult ones to safely say that, no, they don't always stock paper and pen without the patient requesting it first. Pens especially for certain units because of the risk that the patient might accidentally (or intentionally) injure themselves further. With ICUs (intensive care units, which Azuka most likely is in considering she was seriously burned and
just woke up), this idea probably applies more than the more long-term units.
Third, she's also bandaged, which would make writing (or even gripping a pen) nearly impossible. Here's an experiment for you: if you have a first-aid kit at home, crack it open and find the ace bandages. (That's a roll of stretchy cloth that's used to wrap wounds and things of that nature.) Take it and wrap your writing hand exactly the way you'd imagine Azuka's hands to be bandaged. Now, try picking up a pen and writing. Depending on how her hands were bandaged (i.e., whether or not her fingers were exposed), this is probably not going to be as easy as it looks.
For that matter, when you're in a hospital suffering from some pretty serious injuries, you can't really move around too quickly. Most likely, Azuka is also on anesthetics due to only half of her body being covered in third-degree burns. (The other half would most likely carry a lot of second- or first-degree burns because you just can't have third-degree burns by themselves. While third-degrees aren't exactly painful because your nerves are dead by then, the other ones hurt like a mother.) That just means her reaction time is probably going to be slower than normal. And even if she wasn't, she just woke up after hours upon hours of being under anesthetics (most likely, especially if she received surgery to remove dead tissue/graft new tissue onto her body) and fainting, which means she probably won't be super-alert. So, yeah, she probably wouldn't be jumping around as much, and it's hard to say whether or not she'd feel the same sense of shock someone who's more alert would experience.
She looked at it wonder what had happened just then and then let that thought sink in.
This might be missing a couple of commas. ("looked at it, wondered what had happened just then, and then let that thought sink in") Additionally, you'll want to switch "wonder" with "wondered" to make the verb tenses consistent in that list, and I would advise dropping "just then" because the last item in the list already starts with "then." (So, you're dodging a feeling of redundancy.)
She looked down to check on misdreavus, and suddenly her fear of pokemon was gone, and with a smile, she brushed her hand over its head. Then, with the last hope that she would speak again, she said a word.
The first sentence is actually a run-on. Notice how you have multiple comma-conjunction pairings in it? That signals that you've actually got three dependent clauses strung together. You can't really do that because the sentence becomes too wordy and unwieldy for the reader.
Second, "thank you" is not
a word.
Third, this point feels rather awkward. She's spent over ten years of her life being deathly afraid of Pokémon, and although one saved her life, it's seriously not that easy to get over a phobia. It's just not an instantaneous thing or something that happens within a day or two. For example, arachnephobia. I have it, but it's not as bad as it was when I was a kid. (When I was young, I used to flail and scream whenever I saw a spider at all. Now, I'm okay with looking at spiders after years and years of seeing them, but I'm most certainly
not okay with touching them or their webs.) In other words, it just feels like you've built her up to have a really interesting character flaw, but just like that, without any internal struggle over the fact that she's
deathly afraid of Pokémon (as you've mentioned in your reply with how she couldn't stand to be in the same room as them), she gets over it to bond with the exact Pokémon that caused her phobia in the first place. (In fact, it seems weird that she doesn't react
at all to the fact that it's the same species as the one that scared her when she was five.)
In all, I have to say the first chapter wasn't too bad. I do have to admit I like the idea of this girl becoming buddies with a Pokémon. (As bnb said, the last part of the chapter, even with it's oddities, was a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.) It's just that I'm afraid that you might make this a little too easy for Azuka. The reason why is because there's a lot of strange things that happened in this chapter that aren't particularly realistic or otherwise seem to imply that you could use a bit of help from Google. (It's perfectly okay to do a bit of research as you're writing a chapter. A lot of amateur writers think, "Oh man. I don't want to do research because that's hard work," but actually, it doesn't take long to look things up via Google if you know how to ask for information. On top of that, it's an easy way to learn about how the world actually works and the crazy things that can actually happen.)
Tangents aside, the more frequently that happens, the harder it is to get into the story because it feels like you're not really acknowledging the restrictions you're putting on your character. For example, she's mute. Instead of struggling to communicate with the doctor, she automatically finds a piece of paper and a pen to write down her question. She's bandaged. Rather than struggle to move and grip a pen, she can do those things as if she's not bandaged up. She just woke up from a coma and is recovering from burns on 50% of her body. However, she's also alert and doesn't seem to need anesthetics. She's afraid of Pokémon. Instead of having reservations about being in the same room as one, she gets over her fear of the same species that induced her phobia within a short period of time.
You see what I mean? A lot of the times, you set up really interesting barriers between your character and her ability to function as a normal human being. However, as soon as you do, you seem to forget how significant these restrictions are and have her function as a normal human being
anyway. Continuing this habit will most likely break your story later on because you're dealing with a lot of other flaws that will leave long-term affects on her. (For example, being blind in only one eye screws up a person's depth perception, so they can't really judge how close or far away objects are anymore. This seriously affects the way they walk, the way they reach for things, and all sorts of other fun stuff. For another example, third-degree burns leave permanent scarring unless you spend loads of money on surgery to get that fixed. That will deeply affect her socially unless it's of your opinion that the Pokémon world is full of rainbows and candy and people who don't really judge based on appearance. And, of course, there's the phobia, but it'll be awkward to go back to that after this chapter's instance of, "She got better.")
The reason why I say it'll break your story is because not only does it put Azuka at risk of becoming a Mary Sue (a character around whom reality bends so that everything goes her way in some form), but because a lot of these problems are serious ones, they should be setting up a lot of barriers and problems she'll need to overcome that normal characters wouldn't face. These problems
would make her journey (wherever she goes) more interesting, but if you don't acknowledge that these problems would exist for her, it'll just make things
very awkward.
Now, I'm not saying you're not thinking about all of this. I'm sure that, on some level, you are. Otherwise, you wouldn't be giving your character these problems. I'm just saying that in this first chapter, she got over a
lot of obstacles she really shouldn't have been able to get over that quickly, and it made a lot of this chapter seem a little weird to me. My advice would be to take things slowly, think things through, and do a bit more research, and you should be able to overcome those kinds of oddities.
Good luck with future chapters!