He ran for a while, then stopped to vomit. Nothing much came out but the remains of some thin, watery gruel he'd eaten the night before. Mew, did his stomach hurt. It was all twisted up inside of him, a burning, sour knot. Dry-heaving, he shouldered his way through the branches blocking his path - they scraped along his face and left thin, white cuts.
Behind him, he could hear his brother yelling.
Reaching into his grimy backpack, he fumbled around until he found Whistler's Pokeball. As he pulled it out, he dropped it twice, his fingers were shaking for lack of purchase on the cold, shiny metal. A puff of wind ruffled his hair, and he could make out a thin spire of smoke coming from the east, the place he'd left behind.
The yelling came a bit louder.
Whistler appeared beside him in a burst of light, studying its surroundings with its trademark serpentine arrogance. He'd been annoyed with his grovyle's attitude after it first evolved from its original form as a treecko, had even resented it for a while, having to contend with the lizard's stubborn will when he was so used to just giving it orders and having it follow without much question. Now, he couldn't have cared less. Whistler would keep him safe - it had to, or it would be jeopardizing its life as well.
"Scout," he whispered. "See if Pete's still back there."
Whistler fixed him with a gaze that reeked of condescension as much as miltank dung reeked of, well, cowshit. It hissed, crossed its arms, and looked pointedly away from him.
"Please, I just need to see if Pete's okay, alright? Come on, are you hungry? I'll give you my rations if you just look around." A lie. His rations were gone. The fucking lizard knew it, too, and he swore he saw its lips curve in the shape of a very human, very prominent sneer.
"Goddammit, Whistler!" He raised a fist, not really meaning to strike it, just put a bit of fear into its head, but the grovyle's eyes widened and it darted away, scampering up the side of a tree and disappearing into the thick clumps of browning autumn leaves.
The fight just went out of him and left him feeling hollow. He slumped against the base of some massive, gnarled chestnut tree, his breath steaming up the air in front of him. A thought formed and skittered round the rooms of his brain that he could sit here and let the cold just take him, silently, into the night that surely waited ahead at some point down the road. He was tired. So tired of walking. Of moving.
He made his wish at the very moment that he heard the sound of leaves crunching and saw Pete.
x
A boy and a girl. Her mightyena tore a big chunk of meat from his right thigh, and he could feel every second of it - the teeth puncturing his skin, closing down, the workings of the dog's jaws, the easy way he lost a part of his body like it was nothing. Like fog.
They took more of him away, disassembled him. In that narrow valley between the mindless raving of the too-bright sun and the uneasy touch of the dark, he wished he had never wished to die. He wished to live, but then the girl laughed and he saw his arm lying propped up by a stump like an absurd pink prop and he wished it all away. The terrible thing was that he didn't know if he wanted to live or die. The terrible thing was Petey's face, and the teeth, and Whistler high above in the clouds peering down at him, writhing on a bed of his own blood, guts, and dirt. A face that mocked him and gave him a last bit of strength to curse everything. This forest. Pete. Whistler. Himself.
The trees loomed over his body, frightened. He saw what was left of him floating, the leaves dancing around his crudeness, his ugliness. They lifted him high enough until he could spit in the faces of the gods who had made the paths that had led him to here, this awful place.
Every part of him was an affront to them. I hate you, he said. Far off in the distance, he saw Pete tossed on the ground like a sack of flour, the boy rummaging through his pack. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
He tried to say something else, but his lips were gone.