Chapter One:
Mara glared down at the egg on her bed, wondering what had possessed her to bring the cursed thing home. On any other day, she wouldn't have found it at all, but today of all days, her parents decided to argue. So Mara was where she always went when they started: the wall.
Mara walked, trailing one hand along the ragged stone wall, gazing off into space. Her footsteps echoed across the empty alleyway, just one more reminder that she was alone in her tiny little world. She sighed. Her parents probably had her best interests in mind, but a part of her wondered how they had ever fallen in love in the first place. She turned back to the city, staring through the streets in the direction of her house and slumped against the wall.
Or at least, she tried to lean against the wall. Instead, she hit the ground with a thud, gasping as the air was knocked from her lungs. When she sat up, she gaped in amazement at the alley she had been walking down only moments earlier. There was a hole in the wall, and she had just fallen through it. It was jagged and chipped, as though the person who made it had been having a little too much fun with a sledgehammer. Masonry littered the grass outside the wall, and everything was dusted with a thin covering of white powder. Mara couldn't help but wonder who could have been so desperate to sneak out of the city that they would make such a violent escape. After all, the walls were there to keep danger out of the city, not to keep people in.
Pokémon were the reason for the high walls and steel gates that enclosed the city. Pokemon were wild monsters that wielded powerful elemental attacks. Although some were reclusive and harmless, many were hostile and could be deadly to humans. Once, a strong-willed few had been able to control the beasts, but training Pokemon for domestic use had been strictly forbidden. In order to protect the city, the government had surrounded the cities of Sinnoh in supposedly impenetrable walls, preventing anything from coming in.
Or going out, thought Mara, and she was surprised that she had never thought about it that way before. Nor had she even considered breaking out, remembering the warnings that they had been given in school. Apparently, the escapee hadn't bothered to listen to the administration or the government, because he had gone right ahead and broken their unbreakable wall. And now Mara could see why.
The forest grew strong, green and wild, vines and ivy coating their branches and stubborn brush tangled the roots of the mighty trees. The forest was wild and beautiful, and Mara couldn't help but compare it to the weak and stunted trees in the city. She felt drawn to the forest, in spite of her parents' warnings about its dangers. Mara hesitated for a moment, cautionary tales niggling at the back of her mind. But in the end, curiosity won out, and she tramped off into the woods.
Twenty minutes later, Mara finally had to admit that she was completely lost. Everywhere she turned, the trees looked exactly the same. The once beautiful forest now seemed ominous and foreboding. She jumped at every creak and shuffle and snapped twig, swinging at imaginary enemies. Fear crept up her spine and she whirled around, trying to remember which way she had come. Soon, a frenzied panic took hold of her, and she began to run, hopelessly searching for the path that she had taken. Tripping on rocks and roots, she crashed through the underbrush. Branches grabbed at her hair and thorns slashed her legs, as though the forest despised her intrusion.
But her panic began to ebb as her breathing became harsh and ragged, a burning pain shot up her legs and she slowed to a trot. Brushing away a final branch, she came to an exhausted stop in a grassy clearing. The panic was replaced by an overwhelming dread, as she realized that she would probably be lost forever.