Quackerdrill
quiet, huh?
- 19
- Posts
- 19
- Years
- Age 35
- Somewhere's about.
- Seen Dec 14, 2006
Okay- let's just get right to it; This is a tale of how a trainer inside the Pokemon videogame gradually finds out that she is indeed inside a game. As the title suggests, this is an awakening for her and the people around her. Sound interesting? Read on; otherwise, go read... uhh, the Escapist or something. That's what I'd do. (yay, obscurity! 8D )
note 1: this will NOT be updated often. I suddenly have a busy schedule and an awful internet connection as of late... not a good combo. XD
***
An Awakening- Chapter One
All her life she had a goal. It was one of those things that were practically required where she grew up— everybody had the same task to complete and none of them actually thought about why. It had become a ritual, capturing, battling, collecting badges, and the like. There were the occasional contest, too, and the inevitable secret organization to topple, but even those lost their sparkle after a while and seemed trivial.
She sat down on the quiet lakeside watching the Barboach make tiny ripples in the bluish-green water. A fishing pole in hand, she was prepared to show one of them the topside of a frying pan, but after two hours there was no such luck. By now she had assumed that they were all under there talking amongst themselves and organizing a resistance against her and her bait. Boycott aside, it was a very calming moment compared to the heck that was her week so far.
There is only so far a person can stray from home until they go insane, and she had hit her breaking point. Now instead of wanting that next battle or mastering that new attack her mind yearned for something more meaningful. She desired to set out and meet people. She wanted to see the beautiful scenery that was her home in Johto, nestled in the high mountains where one can touch the clouds. She missed simplicity. She missed just being. She could not help but feel like there was something odd in the world she lived in, something keeping her from living her true life.
Not that those delightful little creatures called Pokemon were part of the problem. Those creatures had served as her best friends and saviors for the last six years, and she was not about to just start ignoring them due to some misguided sense of worthlessness. Her Raichu had been by her side since she could not remember when, and she had only felt pure love for it since its capture. That warm, light brown fur and that whip-like tail brought back memories of wonderful times. But now only the creature really seemed wonderful, and she had begun to doubt that the experiences they shared were worth it in the long run.
That lake was only getting cooler as she sat there. Those Barboach were determined to never leave their posts. And there she was holding the line with a grip looser than the one on her reality. The very thought of fishing for yet another Pokemon now sounded useless, and as she watched the pole slip from her hand into the water with a minute splash, she could not help but grin. The point of the pole was now submerged and the shadowy blur sunk slowly down into a nothingness of blues and greens.
So did her understanding of the life she lived.
***
Small footsteps were heard on the tile as the creature steadily advanced towards its destination. It knew that if there was any time to get some food from its dish without anyone noticing, it was now. As it walked down the hall it gradually moved towards the wall to its right and began creeping alongside it, peeking around the corner when the wall ended.
The creature saw two people sitting in tall stool chairs having a heavy discussion, so it realized that its journey was in vain. Its happy expression turned angry and it snapped its whip-like tail, producing a tiny spark from its lightning bolt-shaped end.
"Did you see a flash from the hall? Either your electricity bill needs paying or that Raichu of yours is out." The speaker was a man with a thick head of black unkempt hair and a pair of glasses that obscured the sarcasm in his eyes. He was sitting across from a woman with a large white sunhat that cast shade on her pale face. Her eyes were clearly the opposite of the man's— they bore a glint of worry.
"It must be the Raichu," the woman muttered quietly. "Lily's got to stop leaving him here every time she wants to get out of the house."
The man looked confused. "It's very odd that a trainer of your daughter's caliber would ignore her Pokemon. Have you talked to her about this?"
She sighed. "No, it just never comes up, I guess. She's so easily put off by things these days that I fear saying much to her… Besides, the little guy seems fine."
The rat-like creature then dashed into the room with a trail of harmless sparks behind it and stopped in front of a clay bowl of food that read "Sam". It drove its head into the bowl and ate the food vigorously. As it emerged, its face was a depiction of complete happiness, and it exited the room with a hop in its step.
The man adjusted his glasses downward. "You need to talk to your daughter, and soon. If this is any indication, all of her Pokemon will become deranged."
The woman held back a laugh as she rolled her eyes. "Not deranged, just lonely, I think. It's just like a man who leaves his wife for a few years and the wife's mind slowly deteriorates… not that I would know anything about that sort of situation…" Her voice progressively became quieter.
"That again? You know that by bringing that up you unleashed a can of Wurmple the size of who knows what. I know it's tough to move on, but—"
The woman looked at him sternly. Her brown eyes were like whirlpools which sucked out all the logic in his head piece by piece. He may have known her desire to forget about what had happened with her and her husband, but the fact that she brought it up so often drove him crazy. It is human nature to want to find closure to situations, but he knew that this situation closing was as likely as a door with a broken handle.
All he could do then was sit there and ride the whirlpool in hopes of a safe return.
***
The path home was wide and dusty, lined with dirt about as old as the town itself. Lily walked down it drearily with her hands in her pockets. Her mind was far away from the lake where she had left her fishing pole as well as her former state of confidence.
The sky above her had turned a dark orange since she had last seen it in the reflection of the water. The sun was making its last imprint on the current day. Lily's dark brown hair was lit with the same shade of orange and was a stark contrast to her shady face.
It wasn't that the day hadn't been beautiful; the sunset attested to that. It was that she was sick of her mind developing new ways to make herself upset. She had always been a girl that knew the world around her and drew her confidence and resolve from this awareness. She was a proud person due to this and sixteen years of practice had grown a hard shell around her otherwise frail body. But her mind was ready to crack right through it.
She stopped in the middle of the trail to take in the sunset, as she thought that maybe a clear mind was gained through relaxation once in a while. But what had been a sunset a few minutes beforehand had simply become a horizon of reds with a sun missing.
So much for a clear mind.
The noise of footsteps then rung through her head as someone slowly approached her from behind. A faint cloud of dust from the trail swept up around her as well.
"You're crazy to be out here all alone without a Pokemon, Lily," the figure said.
She turned around to see a young teenage boy in a baseball cap, looking at her with a crooked smile as if he was keeping himself from laughing. Her expression softened; of all the people she could have possibly seen at the moment, he was the most welcome. They approached each other and engaged in a warm hug, the boy's cap rising over Lily's shoulder. As they released each other she finally let out a smile, the first for the entire day.
"I have no need for a Pokemon right now, with my mental state," she said.
"Are you still in that phase where you think there's no reason for anything anymore? There was a time when that was cute, but that was a while ago." The boy now put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sky.
"I actually don't think it's a phase anymore… I'm seriously beginning to doubt about pretty much everything and it isn't going away. Battles? Needless distractions. Badges? Conspiracy to get all of us trainers out of our houses. I used to get mad at people when they acted like idiotic cynics but now I'm one of them."
"All the years I've known you to be so proud of what you do, and here you are denying the reasons why… I came out here because I'm concerned, Lily. I was worried that you were just going to keep going out every night to God knows where and ignoring your Pokemon, me- heck, everybody!"
Lily looked down at the ground. She knew he was right.
"Have you seen your mother?" The boy continued. "Poor Miss Reed is taking it harder than I am back at your house. I mean, she's already torn up about-"
"Is it my fault I can't control my feelings?" She interrupted with a much harsher tone. "You're blaming me for something that is completely out of my control. Look—look at this scrape down here."
Lily gestured towards a scab on her leg, underneath a hole ripped in her black jeans.
"Where did you get that nasty thing from?" The boy asked looking at it carefully.
"I got it when I fell down… while I was trying to do something." She once again trailed off.
"What could you have been doing that caused such an awful scrape? Or do I want to know?"
"It was the strangest thing, too. Have you ever tried to hop up a small ledge? Like a really short step?"
"I guess I haven't. Doesn't seem too tough though," he said confusedly.
"For some reason, I physically wasn't able to hop up. There was some sort of force stopping me from getting up there and it makes no sense! That's why I'm so confused right now, there was no reason why I- I just couldn't…"
Lily stood extremely still and her eyes welled up with tears. The boy watched as circles of water formed on the red dirt below her. At first he could not understand how she could have gone so quickly from delighted to see him to depressed again, but there was now a bigger problem on his hands. She was right; it was something she could not control and could not be explained. He now had to figure out whether she was right or just in need of some attention. Either one, he had to be there for her.
Lily looked up, a tear slowly approaching the corner of her mouth. "Can you… walk me home?" Her voice was quiet, but clear.
He nodded and moved towards her cowering body. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her cold cheek.
"I know you're real, Tom… you're real…"
***
"Paranoia. That's all this is, dear… you're just tired of training and it's worn ya out."
As much as Lily wanted to just accept this answer and end her current confusion about the world around her, it was not enough to calm the storm in her mind. As she sat slouched over in her green cloth couch facing her mother's kind stare, she continued to pet her Raichu—it had been demanding her attention ever since she had came into the house.
"I really doubt this is just me being paranoid, mom," Lily said angrily, "there is absolutely no reason why that ledge was so darn hard to get up!"
"A ledge?" Her mother looked at Lily quizzically. "Is that what started this whole thing? Lily…"
"What?" she stated sharply.
"Lily, you should have known better. It is common knowledge that those things are impossible to get up. You gotta go down them, see. What was the reason you wanted to get up there?"
She attempted to visualize the situation in her head. "Well, I was looking at it thinking if this little ledge is shorter than the grass I walk through every day, then I can hop right over it, right? But no, of course not—apparently what makes sense to Lily doesn't have to make sense to Mother Nature…"
Her mother was jotting down answers to a crossword puzzle at the time she was listening, and after Lily had stopped talking she looked up worriedly.
"Okay…. I guess paranoia isn't going to cut it, then." They both laughed, but the moment was short; Lily saw the clock and somehow knew that it was getting late. Somehow- right then something hit her that hadn't before.
"Mom… why does the clock on the wall always read twelve from far away but not when you look at it up close?"
Her mother stood up and put down her crosswords. She shot a tired glance at her daughter and then walked over to give her a hug. Her face somewhere in her mother's warm shoulder, Lily smiled.
As they separated her mother looked at her kindly. "You are definitely your father's child… always too curious for your own good. Just…"
She paused. Lily sat attentively on the couch and with much better posture than before.
"…just don't drive yourself crazy."
Her mother walked out of the room and switched off the light. Though Lily was left in the darkness, there was a new source of light in the room.
***
end o chap. Reply and complain as you please. ^-^
note 1: this will NOT be updated often. I suddenly have a busy schedule and an awful internet connection as of late... not a good combo. XD
***
An Awakening- Chapter One
All her life she had a goal. It was one of those things that were practically required where she grew up— everybody had the same task to complete and none of them actually thought about why. It had become a ritual, capturing, battling, collecting badges, and the like. There were the occasional contest, too, and the inevitable secret organization to topple, but even those lost their sparkle after a while and seemed trivial.
She sat down on the quiet lakeside watching the Barboach make tiny ripples in the bluish-green water. A fishing pole in hand, she was prepared to show one of them the topside of a frying pan, but after two hours there was no such luck. By now she had assumed that they were all under there talking amongst themselves and organizing a resistance against her and her bait. Boycott aside, it was a very calming moment compared to the heck that was her week so far.
There is only so far a person can stray from home until they go insane, and she had hit her breaking point. Now instead of wanting that next battle or mastering that new attack her mind yearned for something more meaningful. She desired to set out and meet people. She wanted to see the beautiful scenery that was her home in Johto, nestled in the high mountains where one can touch the clouds. She missed simplicity. She missed just being. She could not help but feel like there was something odd in the world she lived in, something keeping her from living her true life.
Not that those delightful little creatures called Pokemon were part of the problem. Those creatures had served as her best friends and saviors for the last six years, and she was not about to just start ignoring them due to some misguided sense of worthlessness. Her Raichu had been by her side since she could not remember when, and she had only felt pure love for it since its capture. That warm, light brown fur and that whip-like tail brought back memories of wonderful times. But now only the creature really seemed wonderful, and she had begun to doubt that the experiences they shared were worth it in the long run.
That lake was only getting cooler as she sat there. Those Barboach were determined to never leave their posts. And there she was holding the line with a grip looser than the one on her reality. The very thought of fishing for yet another Pokemon now sounded useless, and as she watched the pole slip from her hand into the water with a minute splash, she could not help but grin. The point of the pole was now submerged and the shadowy blur sunk slowly down into a nothingness of blues and greens.
So did her understanding of the life she lived.
***
Small footsteps were heard on the tile as the creature steadily advanced towards its destination. It knew that if there was any time to get some food from its dish without anyone noticing, it was now. As it walked down the hall it gradually moved towards the wall to its right and began creeping alongside it, peeking around the corner when the wall ended.
The creature saw two people sitting in tall stool chairs having a heavy discussion, so it realized that its journey was in vain. Its happy expression turned angry and it snapped its whip-like tail, producing a tiny spark from its lightning bolt-shaped end.
"Did you see a flash from the hall? Either your electricity bill needs paying or that Raichu of yours is out." The speaker was a man with a thick head of black unkempt hair and a pair of glasses that obscured the sarcasm in his eyes. He was sitting across from a woman with a large white sunhat that cast shade on her pale face. Her eyes were clearly the opposite of the man's— they bore a glint of worry.
"It must be the Raichu," the woman muttered quietly. "Lily's got to stop leaving him here every time she wants to get out of the house."
The man looked confused. "It's very odd that a trainer of your daughter's caliber would ignore her Pokemon. Have you talked to her about this?"
She sighed. "No, it just never comes up, I guess. She's so easily put off by things these days that I fear saying much to her… Besides, the little guy seems fine."
The rat-like creature then dashed into the room with a trail of harmless sparks behind it and stopped in front of a clay bowl of food that read "Sam". It drove its head into the bowl and ate the food vigorously. As it emerged, its face was a depiction of complete happiness, and it exited the room with a hop in its step.
The man adjusted his glasses downward. "You need to talk to your daughter, and soon. If this is any indication, all of her Pokemon will become deranged."
The woman held back a laugh as she rolled her eyes. "Not deranged, just lonely, I think. It's just like a man who leaves his wife for a few years and the wife's mind slowly deteriorates… not that I would know anything about that sort of situation…" Her voice progressively became quieter.
"That again? You know that by bringing that up you unleashed a can of Wurmple the size of who knows what. I know it's tough to move on, but—"
The woman looked at him sternly. Her brown eyes were like whirlpools which sucked out all the logic in his head piece by piece. He may have known her desire to forget about what had happened with her and her husband, but the fact that she brought it up so often drove him crazy. It is human nature to want to find closure to situations, but he knew that this situation closing was as likely as a door with a broken handle.
All he could do then was sit there and ride the whirlpool in hopes of a safe return.
***
The path home was wide and dusty, lined with dirt about as old as the town itself. Lily walked down it drearily with her hands in her pockets. Her mind was far away from the lake where she had left her fishing pole as well as her former state of confidence.
The sky above her had turned a dark orange since she had last seen it in the reflection of the water. The sun was making its last imprint on the current day. Lily's dark brown hair was lit with the same shade of orange and was a stark contrast to her shady face.
It wasn't that the day hadn't been beautiful; the sunset attested to that. It was that she was sick of her mind developing new ways to make herself upset. She had always been a girl that knew the world around her and drew her confidence and resolve from this awareness. She was a proud person due to this and sixteen years of practice had grown a hard shell around her otherwise frail body. But her mind was ready to crack right through it.
She stopped in the middle of the trail to take in the sunset, as she thought that maybe a clear mind was gained through relaxation once in a while. But what had been a sunset a few minutes beforehand had simply become a horizon of reds with a sun missing.
So much for a clear mind.
The noise of footsteps then rung through her head as someone slowly approached her from behind. A faint cloud of dust from the trail swept up around her as well.
"You're crazy to be out here all alone without a Pokemon, Lily," the figure said.
She turned around to see a young teenage boy in a baseball cap, looking at her with a crooked smile as if he was keeping himself from laughing. Her expression softened; of all the people she could have possibly seen at the moment, he was the most welcome. They approached each other and engaged in a warm hug, the boy's cap rising over Lily's shoulder. As they released each other she finally let out a smile, the first for the entire day.
"I have no need for a Pokemon right now, with my mental state," she said.
"Are you still in that phase where you think there's no reason for anything anymore? There was a time when that was cute, but that was a while ago." The boy now put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sky.
"I actually don't think it's a phase anymore… I'm seriously beginning to doubt about pretty much everything and it isn't going away. Battles? Needless distractions. Badges? Conspiracy to get all of us trainers out of our houses. I used to get mad at people when they acted like idiotic cynics but now I'm one of them."
"All the years I've known you to be so proud of what you do, and here you are denying the reasons why… I came out here because I'm concerned, Lily. I was worried that you were just going to keep going out every night to God knows where and ignoring your Pokemon, me- heck, everybody!"
Lily looked down at the ground. She knew he was right.
"Have you seen your mother?" The boy continued. "Poor Miss Reed is taking it harder than I am back at your house. I mean, she's already torn up about-"
"Is it my fault I can't control my feelings?" She interrupted with a much harsher tone. "You're blaming me for something that is completely out of my control. Look—look at this scrape down here."
Lily gestured towards a scab on her leg, underneath a hole ripped in her black jeans.
"Where did you get that nasty thing from?" The boy asked looking at it carefully.
"I got it when I fell down… while I was trying to do something." She once again trailed off.
"What could you have been doing that caused such an awful scrape? Or do I want to know?"
"It was the strangest thing, too. Have you ever tried to hop up a small ledge? Like a really short step?"
"I guess I haven't. Doesn't seem too tough though," he said confusedly.
"For some reason, I physically wasn't able to hop up. There was some sort of force stopping me from getting up there and it makes no sense! That's why I'm so confused right now, there was no reason why I- I just couldn't…"
Lily stood extremely still and her eyes welled up with tears. The boy watched as circles of water formed on the red dirt below her. At first he could not understand how she could have gone so quickly from delighted to see him to depressed again, but there was now a bigger problem on his hands. She was right; it was something she could not control and could not be explained. He now had to figure out whether she was right or just in need of some attention. Either one, he had to be there for her.
Lily looked up, a tear slowly approaching the corner of her mouth. "Can you… walk me home?" Her voice was quiet, but clear.
He nodded and moved towards her cowering body. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her cold cheek.
"I know you're real, Tom… you're real…"
***
"Paranoia. That's all this is, dear… you're just tired of training and it's worn ya out."
As much as Lily wanted to just accept this answer and end her current confusion about the world around her, it was not enough to calm the storm in her mind. As she sat slouched over in her green cloth couch facing her mother's kind stare, she continued to pet her Raichu—it had been demanding her attention ever since she had came into the house.
"I really doubt this is just me being paranoid, mom," Lily said angrily, "there is absolutely no reason why that ledge was so darn hard to get up!"
"A ledge?" Her mother looked at Lily quizzically. "Is that what started this whole thing? Lily…"
"What?" she stated sharply.
"Lily, you should have known better. It is common knowledge that those things are impossible to get up. You gotta go down them, see. What was the reason you wanted to get up there?"
She attempted to visualize the situation in her head. "Well, I was looking at it thinking if this little ledge is shorter than the grass I walk through every day, then I can hop right over it, right? But no, of course not—apparently what makes sense to Lily doesn't have to make sense to Mother Nature…"
Her mother was jotting down answers to a crossword puzzle at the time she was listening, and after Lily had stopped talking she looked up worriedly.
"Okay…. I guess paranoia isn't going to cut it, then." They both laughed, but the moment was short; Lily saw the clock and somehow knew that it was getting late. Somehow- right then something hit her that hadn't before.
"Mom… why does the clock on the wall always read twelve from far away but not when you look at it up close?"
Her mother stood up and put down her crosswords. She shot a tired glance at her daughter and then walked over to give her a hug. Her face somewhere in her mother's warm shoulder, Lily smiled.
As they separated her mother looked at her kindly. "You are definitely your father's child… always too curious for your own good. Just…"
She paused. Lily sat attentively on the couch and with much better posture than before.
"…just don't drive yourself crazy."
Her mother walked out of the room and switched off the light. Though Lily was left in the darkness, there was a new source of light in the room.
***
end o chap. Reply and complain as you please. ^-^
