Journal entry: August 4th, 2002
My mom gave me this journal today. I turn ten tomorrow, which means I get to leave on my own pokémon journey, and she thought it would be a good thing for me to have. I also got my first pokémon today, though I'm not allowed to open its pokéball until tomorrow.
That wouldn't be a problem if I could sleep. I'm not an insomniac or anything, I'm just way too excited to sleep.
I probably sound like every other ten-year-old kid out there. I mean, I know I'm not special or anything. I don't come from a distinguished line of trainers; my dad was an electrician here in the city and my mom is a pokémon breeder. The only famous person in my family is my mom's mom, Bertha, and I hate her with all the one hundred and nineteen pounds of my body. In that way I guess I don't really have any great aspirations for myself, but I do have one thing: a love for pokémon. That's why I've decided to go through with this journey.
It's not like I didn't have other options; when I was eight I was offered a full scholarship to Oakley Academy, the second-highest rated private school in Sinnoh. I was good in mathematics but excelled in English, a trait they seemed to pick up on. My mom pushed me to go. She insisted that I didn't have to go out on an adventure like all of the other kids – that I could have a perfectly fulfilling life as professor or a researcher, though I wouldn't even consider it; I'm sure I won't be the best trainer out there, but I can certainly be one of the best. It's that belief that's gotten me here. And I think it's that belief that's earned my mom's disappointment.
Well, I can't say for sure she's disappointed, but her eyes certainly convey that message. Who really knows? She might just be scared of letting me go.
I can't really blame her – we lost my dad three years ago, something that shook us both up, but more her than me. I loved my dad, but his death devastated Mom – she wouldn't leave the house for an entire month after that (I remember because I had to do all the shopping). I'm not sure why it affected her so much more than it did me; maybe it's because I only knew the guy for seven years while my mom had been married to him since they got out of high school? Don't get me wrong, I loved Dad, but, well... there's no "nice" way to put this, so I'll just say it: I guess his death just wasn't that great of a loss.
I wish I had been writing with a pencil so I could erase that.
I'm not even the least bit tired. I keep yawning here and there, but I'm pretty sure that's just due to boredom. It's kind of a good thing my mom gave me this to write in, even if I only end up using it this once, at least it's helped me pass the time.
Which has been... ten minutes. Great.
I'm never going to make it to the Pokémon League at this rate!
I think I'm most excited to see the pokémon I got. I wonder what kind it'll be? Maybe an eevee; that way, I could potentially fill any gaps in my team later on. Then again, those are kind of expensive and rare...
What about a bulbasaur? They're really friendly and perfect for beginners, or so I've read. Come to think of it, most of my knowledge of pokémon is based off of things I've read or seen on television. We have a pet pokémon around the house, Skitty, but other than her I don't think I've ever known another pokémon.
Way to dig myself into a hole, huh?
I guess I don't really "love" pokémon, then. Maybe I'm just fascinated by them.
Fascinated... yeah, I think that's the word.
Hey, what do you know? I feel kind of tired now. I think I'll try to go to sleep.
Well, I'm not quite sure how to end this... goodnight, self.
–Sirius
Movement I
Awakening
In the back of the Pokémon Center a man had just awakened; though young, his eyes and face were lined with experience. When one such eye opened, so did a story begin.
He had no idea how he'd gotten to lay in that bed or how he even came to be in the first place. The room around him was sterile and white, the air was brisk and clear. Frost covered the window to the man's room, something he recognized as "snow".
A crippling wave of nausea hit him as he began to understand that he was alive and breathing, existing somehow in this somewhere when all he had ever known was nothing and nowhere. He could remember only blackness, as if his entire life up until that point was spent locked in a windowless room.
And, figuratively speaking, he wasn't far off.
He sat back in the bed, pillow against his back, feeling the warmth of the body heat he had transferred to the sheets when he previously laid in them. He slowly came to realize that this reality – this state of consciousness – was real.
Overwhelmed, he fell back to sleep.
When he again woke, he was in his original position. This stirred some feelings of stress within him, though he tried calming his nerves by reassuring himself it must have just been the work of a nurse or doctor. He was surprised he even knew what those two things were, having had no luck with himself.
He again sat up and this time swung his legs around the side of the bed, letting his feet dangle inches above the floor. The room contained a rusted sink, a door presumably leading to a bathroom, his bed, a flat-screen television suspended on the wall and a curtain with a floral pattern.
As he exhaled his breath became slightly visible between the temperature of the room and the light pouring through the window. When he saw that he realized how cold he really was, and tried layering up in the two cloth hospital sheets on his bed. They did nothing to help, so he stood to go in search for warmth.
As soon as he stood he almost fell over; he had to at first sit back down and then gently lift himself onto his feet until he once again got the hang of balancing on two legs. With that obstacle overcome, he proceeded forward only to be halted by a second trial: he was intravenously connected to an extensive amount of machines and bags of colored fluids.
He at once ripped these cords from his arms leaving tiny crimson spots where the needles had previously been. He was further surprised to recognize the red substance as "blood".
Having known blood and snow, he decided he hadn't just been born – no, instead he must have had no memories of himself. He searched the back of his head, fingers combing through matted auburn hair, for any signs of trauma; there were none. Defeated, he sat back on the bed.
He wasn't suffering from amnesia as he didn't appear to have been hurt or even bandaged anywhere. His head felt fine as did the rest of his body, aside from his freezing feet and an empty stomach. He briefly toyed with the idea that his whole life had been spent asleep and he had just woke up for the first time; he dismissed this idea when he realized he couldn't have recognized snow or blood unless he had previous experience with such things, experience unattainable through sleep.
Where there had once spouted an overwhelming nausea now grew an equally intense frustration: if he wasn't suffering from amnesia and he hadn't been asleep in his entire life, who was he?
Suddenly the flowered gray curtain opened, the rings suspending it to the bar above rattling as it did so, giving the man a tremendous shock – though perhaps not as great as the surprise painted across the face of the woman who had entered.
"My nurse told me you finally woke up but I had to see it for myself," the brunette in the white lab coat remarked, approaching her patient.
He desperately wanted to speak, to ask all the questions racing through his mind, but he couldn't find the words. He instead found his mouth hanging agape like that of a slowpoke.
"Take it easy, sit back – are you cold? I can have some more blankets brought in – no wonder you're freezing, this room is an ice box!" The doctor rambled on without stopping to take a breath, circling the bed the man had been laid up in.
"I–"
The doctor whipped back around, hearing her patient's voice for the first time. "Yes?" she bid him to continue.
"...W–Who am I?"
The doctor pursed her plump lips in thought, scratching the back of her head. "We were kind of hoping you could tell us that," she replied.
Heartbroken, the young man slid back into his original position on the bed and watched the snow fall outside.
"Wait here, I'll go get you some blankets." And just like that, the first person he had ever met – or remembered meeting – left.
She left the curtain open, allowing the man a view into the rest of the facility: there were many other beds like his, but their occupants were almost exclusively pokémon.
Pokémon was another word he recognized; though he wasn't exactly sure what it meant, it triggered many emotions when thought of.
"Pokémon..." he repeated out loud, mining the rich vein of feelings he'd just unearthed in hopes of finding clues as to his own identity.
The doctor in white returned with three sets of toasty-looking blankets, much to her patient's delight. A short, oblong pokémon followed her into the room. He recognized this shapely creature as a chansey.
"Here you go – just what the doctor ordered," she chirped happily, giggling at her own joke. The young man couldn't understand why she was laughing but graciously accepted the blankets, piling them on top of his frozen figure.
The doctor looked through the clipboard in her right hand, flipping through pages of paper while whistling. This action made her patient nervous, though the chansey moved over and tried to comfort him by rubbing his arm.
"Oh, that's right!" Suddenly, the doctor remembered something, "We still have your clothes and bag in storage. Perhaps your things will jog your memory?"
"My... things?" he queried, weakly studying the robust pokémon beside him. He soon connected the meaning of her use of the word 'things' to belongings, something that perked him up instantly. "I've got things here?"
The nurse looked back at her clipboard a second time, her eyes moving from right to left along a single line of text. "Yep," she replied, "looks like you were brought in along with some clothes and a bag; the contents of the bag were never checked."
Excited, he sat up instantly. "Can I see them?"
The doctor nodded and directed her helpful assistant, to retrieve the man's belongings. When the chansey left the doctor began with her questioning.
"So, you have no memory of who you are?"
"N–No," he replied, eagerly awaiting the arrival of his things.
The nurse began writing something on a fresh leaf of paper attached the face of the clipboard.
"I see," she started, her pen still moving rapidly across the paper, "...and is there anything you can remember?"
"I... I can remember things. I don't know how to explain it, really, but I remembered words like blood and pokémon. I can remember what these things are but not what they mean to me or what part they've played in my life," he replied, displaying rapid improvement through his lucid speech.
The doctor was silent for at least another two minutes, writing down everything her patient was saying. When she was finished, she dropped her right arm to her side and tapped her chin with the end of her blue pen, "Well, this is no regular case of amnesia – at least, no amnesia I'm familiar with. Then again, I am a pokémon doctor, not a people doctor."
Before he could release a discouraged sigh the chansey had returned, struggling under the weight of the man's clothes and backpack. He hopped up almost immediately and took them from the helpful pokémon, placing them on the bed.
"I'll give you some time alone. I have some patients to check up on so I'll get back to you in a little bit," she announced, spinning on her heel almost exactly 180 degrees and walking back out of the room. Her chansey followed, closing the curtain as they left.
Alone with these things they said belonged to him, he began digging through the bag. He found mostly changes of underwear and socks, a few empty plastic balls that were dually red and white, and at the very bottom a notebook. He hurriedly fished it out and sat on the bed while placing it on his lap.
It was a plain, suede-covered black journal with a bronze clasp. He removed the clasp and opened it to the first page, where but a single word was written: "Sirius".
"That helps..." he muttered to himself sarcastically, turning the book to the next page. It is upon these next few pages he found a very sloppily written journal entry for the date August 4th, 2002.
He ripped the curtain open and pulled a nurse aside who was walking by innocently, "What's the date today?"
"Ah, erm, I believe it's the..." she stopped to check a peculiar mechanic watch on her wrist, then replied, "yep, the 17th."
"Of?"
"February..." the nurse replied skeptically.
"What year?"
"Look, is this a joke? Because I–"
"WHAT YEAR!" he repeated, exasperated.
"...I-It's 2010..." she answered, eyes wide and glassy. She turned and quickly hurried off to the far end of the center, as far away from the man who had just assailed her as possible.
He sat back down in disbelief.
"2010... this was written eight years ago? By me?"
Momentarily pushing away the thoughts rushing through his head, he read the entire entry to himself – then again aloud. He stopped at certain lines that caught his interest, pieces of information that might help him to find out who he was. He learned that he was born and raised in a city and lost his father rather young, and that he had a famous grandmother (that bit would definitely be pertinent, if she was still alive) that he wasn't fond of. He also had a mother that was still alive (as of eight years ago) and a fascination with pokémon.
He turned the page that completed the entry, hoping to find more – but that was the only entry in the entire journal.
"Have I been asleep all this time?" He stared at the journal before him, it shook between his nervous palms. He jumped up and tossed it to the ground, refusing the truth it held.
Eight years! One couldn't possibly sleep that long, if he had in fact been sleeping at all. And what about the years before that? What memories allotted themselves that span of time?
He fell back on the bed and muffled intense screams with his pillow. When his throat burned too much to even speak he let up, removing the pillow from his face and taking a deep breath.
Eight years – no, eighteen years – spent and forgotten. How?
He retrieved the book from under the radiator it slid beneath, dusting its cover off almost ritualistically. Again, he opened it and stared at the word Sirius written on the first page.
No, not a word.
A name.
And the only name he had.
He toyed with the idea that the name truly belonged to someone else, if it was a name, and the owner of that name would come and beat him for taking it. A few more silly thoughts ran through his mind before he drifted off, once again, to sleep.