Enperuto
Lurking Connoisseur
- 72
- Posts
- 17
- Years
- Age 31
- Western Michigan
- Seen Dec 21, 2008
Jump
Author's Notes: This four page fic (12 pt. Verdana) was inspired by playing Emerald and talking to a girl in the pokemon center. Actually, that quote is what begins the piece. Rated PG, for suicidal thoughts. I posted this here because I remembered that I hadn't posted it here, and that a person that read Ash's Tears asked for some other of my works. (This is rather less morbid than that one, but still involves someone contemplating (and attempting) suicide. Remember, kiddies, live your life to the fullest and let God / Allah / Karma (insert religion of choice here), or just plain fate decide when you should die, not yourself.)
Jump
"We've made it this far. What other choice is there but to go on?" asked a girl at the Ever Grande pokemon center, the very hour I jumped off that hundred foot high cliff.
"You have a point," I said glumly. I leaned against the brick wall of the pokemon center. An air of calmness spread before me, and all I could hear was the roar of the pokemon healer and the occasional click of a few trainers surfing the web at the PC corner.
"Derek Tyreson, your pokemon have been healed!" said the cheerful voice of Nurse Joy.
I slowly trudged forward, my mind a swarm with conflict. This journey was SO stupid!
"Thank you," I said smoothly, emotionlessly.
Like I wanted the nurse to heal my pokemon. How about she take 'em away instead? Then I could truly finish this journey the way I wanted. With a plunge into the icy cold painless depths.
"Your welcome," said the nurse. "Good luck to you, Derek, on your remaining trials. I wish you good tidings for Victory Road!"
"Whatever," I said quickly. Yeah, right. Like I even had a chance of entering the Hoenn League, if I even made it that far. Like I even wanted to. Like those hordes of expert trainers lining the long rode north would have mercy on me! I sucked! I mean, since when as the worst trainer taken thirteen stupid matches to beat a gym? Since when? Since me, that's when. And as if that hadn't been enough, it had taken another twenty-some to finish the dang Hoenn region.
I exited the pokemon center and was met by the roar of a waterfall. A river chortled past me, bubbling in its anticipation for its icy dive into the dark-blue sea.
The sun loomed to the west, and sent long, illuminating rays across the sea. They bounced off of the cliff to the east of me, and it couldn't have been hotter. Sea mist sprayed up at me, lapping against the warm red sandstone cliffs. I inhaled the sultry air and sighed.
I sat down amongst the wild green grass. It swayed in the gentle breeze to the tune of the rhythmic waves.
I dangled my feet over the edge. Mud, baked on from years of travel, fluttered down some hundred feet to the sea as I swung them back and forth; the faded crinkles in my ripped blue jeans folded and creased.
I sighed again.
How long it had been since that hell-ridden journey had begun! How long ago it had been, when my dear mother had handed me a Spinarak and said, "Honey, go out and see the world. Dream as big as you want. Do how you please!" How long ago it had been, five years, that I hadn't seen her. That I hadn't seen her tan face illuminated in the Cerulean sun with two bright emerald eyes, framed with sandy-brown locks.
Oh how I missed her!
I guess that was one of the reasons I jumped, that hour.
She was dead.
~ ~ ~
Of course I hadn't known that the day she died. I had been traveling from Oldale to Petalburg at that time. But when I had arrived at Petalburg and did the usual call home and check up routine, a woman unlike my mother answered.
"Um, where's Mom?" I had asked.
"Oh, Derek," she began. "I'm so sorry."
"Misty?" I asked, noticing the curly orange hair and the blue bikini.
She nodded sadly. "I hate to tell you this, Derek, I really do," she continued.
I frowned. Something bad had happened, that was obvious. "What do you mean?" I asked softly.
"You see," she had said slowly, carefully, as if searching for the right way to say it. She paused, and then stated bluntly, "your mother's dead."
~ ~ ~
And somehow, my journey wasn't worth it after that. My mother had been the one that had encouraged me the whole way. She was the one that had rekindled the spark inside of me when my fervor for training had grown cold.
After she had died, I simply gave up. I no longer cared whether I won or lost, and my battling suffered because of it. But somehow, perhaps for my mother's sake, I had made it to the pokemon center by the waterfall upon Ever Grande Island, just before Victory Road.
Not like my mother matters much anymore! She has passed, and I am still here. Not like being the Champion of Orange Archipelago or the Indigo League matters. For Hoenn is much tougher, of a different caliber. The people of Hoenn are rough-skinned and brutal to outsiders. Not like raising a cruel, misunderstood Growlithe to a full-fledged, powerful Arcanine matters. Everyone said I would anyway!
And I realized something right then. I sucked.
The sun is low in the sky now, and it sends rays of goldenrod, coral pink, and brick red above the glossy blue-gold sea. I look to the rocky beach below me. The sea is retreating as high tide passes.
It would be a simple jump.
It would be over. All this pain, this suffering inside of me. This fear, this exhaustion, it would all be gone. And it would only take a simple jump.
But no, I couldn't do such a thing! Not to my six pokemon – or well the three pokemon I currently had with me. They had fought too long, too hard to see me pass this way! For the past two years in Hoenn, they had worked their butts off, to be left in their pokeballs as their trainer jumped off a cliff?
No, that wouldn't be right.
I had to say good bye.
The first I let out was the pokemon I had most recently captured. I called his name, Samone, and stroked his furry maize and blue mane.
"I love you, Samone. You make me laugh every time you battle," I said seriously. I stifled a chuckle. No, this certainly wasn't a time for laughs.
The Manectric sent a tickle of sparks my way.
"Good bye, Samone," I said slowly. I embraced Manectric one last time, and he stepped away, somehow knowing that his turn had passed.
"Wyvern!" I said softly, raising a second pokeball. A large bird appeared, and he cawed cheerfully, flapping his wings and swooping into the waning daylight.
"Come down here, buddy," I whispered up at him. He swooped down with his blue wings at me, raising his red-feathered head and softly nuzzling his beak against my cheek.
"Good bye, pal. Your grace and beauty I will always…" Well, that didn't exactly fit the situation. "Anyway, good bye." The bird flapped away, glancing back at me one last time as it spun back and forth in the air, waiting for something to happen.
I removed the link chain from my neck and slowly unhooked the pokeball that hung from it.
I read the name that was scrawled on the top of it in my messy ten year old hand writing. "Hyro," I said reverently. My first pokemon immerged.
Though many of my opponents had called him hideous, Hyro didn't look like that to me. His six long, gold and purple striped legs shuffled back and forth as the red-faced spider looked up at me with his pearly purple eyes. He bobbed his silver spiked head and quivered his two silver feeders.
"Hyro," I began. I wiped back tears. "You were my first pokemon. And, I've grown fond of you in every way."
The red and black spotted spider nodded, as if it understood.
"And, as much as I love you and know you, I have to say good bye." I silently hugged my spider, and though many had said it was gross, I had found it quite comforting.
"Good bye, Hyro," I whispered into his spider ear.
Hyro hissed in acceptance. He looked up at me with innocent, purple eyes.
It was time.
I shivered in the dusk breeze. White clouds churned past me in their darkening skyward paths. The sky was tinted purple in the twilight.
I stepped to the edge, and my toes curved over the cliff edge. I raised my hands straight out and leaned forward.
I could feel the wind tearing past me, going upwards to the top of the cliff. I closed my eyes and tucked my arms to my side. I could feel a small, silky string wrap around me. I could hear the caw of a bird. It grew louder. I could feel a tingling all around me.
I passed out.
When I once again was conscious, I could feel soft earth around me.
Was this where people went after they died?
I opened my eyes. My three pokemon looked down urgently at me. Their eyes were emotionless, thoughtless, heartless.
I looked at them, and their eyes were alive and glowed with happiness.
I slowly got up.
Perhaps I was bad at pokemon training, but that wasn't a reason to quit. Oh no, that was a reason to try harder.
