Broken Doll – chapter 1
By: DarkTaoAngel
Rated: T for shounen-ai and violence
Genres: Drama, Romance, Tragedy, Mystery
Dedicated to: All the Palletshippers out there who love this stuff
The setting sun cast a pale glow against the fog that was settling in on the city, the newly fallen rain creating a musty smell that fit perfectly with the thick scenery. Satoshi sniffled, fighting back the urge to let fall his held-back tears, but a few of them had already escaped his partially closed eyelids. The hand that he was clutching so tightly in his own was already slightly wet with the saline substance, its owner not even moving as another tear fell onto his palm. His face was a ghostly pale, his eyes closed peacefully, but his breathing was anything but serene. With each quivering, shaky breath he gasped out of his tired lungs he grew a little bit weaker, the rough, painful sounds coming from his throat sending more salty tears from Satoshi's bloodshot eyes. Shigeru couldn't help it; he'd been out of consciousness for days.
"'Geru…" Satoshi could feel how cold his hand was, and see how pale his face was becoming, but he still didn't want to have to tell himself that he was in fact dying. It was still a difficult thing to believe. After all, Shigeru was the strongest person he knew, and seeing him in such a condition terrified him. What would he have if Shigeru died? Who would be there for him then?
Satoshi's eyes swept over Shigeru's sleeping form, his beaten body wrapped gently in smooth, white hospital sheets. Satoshi presumed that underneath them was a heavily bandaged 16-year-old, but he didn't dare look. He didn't think that he could deal with the pain of seeing blood-soaked cloth wrapped around the person he loved so much.
In truth, Satoshi didn't dare admit to anyone that he and Shigeru had been dating for months now. Not that their reactions would have made the pair break up, but he knew that it would be an awkward conversation to say the least.
Satoshi snuck a glance at the heart monitor hooked up in the corner of the room, beeping slowly in tune with Shigeru's heart. It was getting steadily slower with each passing minute, and Satoshi feared for the time when it would eventually cease to beat out the rhythm. He tried to pretend that nothing had happened, that Shigeru was still perfectly alright, but he couldn't. How could something this horrible happen so quickly?
(Flashback)
It was a cold night; the freezing wind blew harshly, sending shivers down Satoshi's spine. He pulled his trademark hat down a little more, shielding his eyes, and hugged his thin, blue jacket tightly against himself, shoving his right hand roughly back into his pocket at the same time. Shigeru had invited him out bowling, though Satoshi had absolutely no idea where the place he was supposed to meet him was. He'd taken to wondering aimlessly for the past ten minutes, and still hadn't seen any sign of Shigeru.
A speck of rain hit Satoshi's cheek, another thing to go wrong on this unbearably cold day. It took a few moments in which at least a dozen more small water droplets fell from the sky before there were millions, darkening the ground and soaking Satoshi's clothing all through. He sneered and thought for a minute about turning around and going home, when an electrifying sound penetrated the silence.
It hit like lightning bolts, a scream so terrifying that it sounded like death in itself. It filled the air, resounding off of every wall of every building, echoing through the blinding rain. It choked back for a second, becoming nearly silent again, and then it stopped altogether.
Satoshi thought that his heart might have ceased beating in that small bit of time. He knew exactly who that scream had come from, that voice he could easily tell, even with rain splashing against his face, making it extremely difficult for him to hear anything. It was Shigeru.
Satoshi ran as fast as he could, his shoes slippery with the splashing puddles of water underfoot. He turned down numerous alleyways, trying to recall in his mind what direction he had heard that yell coming from. Shigeru, please be alright. He only prayed that he wasn't too late.
And then he spotted it. Blood. It was seeping slowly into vision right outside of a darkened alley, its rich red color streaming away down the street with the rain.
"Shigeru!" Satoshi screamed, nearly tripping as he ran, being sprayed with water he managed to kick up in his hurry. He reached Shigeru quickly, allowing himself to fall next to his body, not caring about the blood that would certainly destroy his new jeans. "Shigeru, are you okay?" Of course he wasn't, anyone could see that.
Satoshi pulled Shigeru up onto his lap, looking for the source of all the bleeding, which he found rather quickly. A knife, laying on the ground right where Shigeru had been, was rusted and covered in blood… Shigeru's blood. Satoshi spotted a rather large rip in the front of Shigeru's shirt, covering only slightly a stab wound.
Satoshi could feel himself crying, a steady stream of tears mingling with the heavy rainfall as he fought blindly to see past the water in his eyes. He couldn't. He had barely realized up until that point how cold Shigeru was, not even wearing a jacket. Satoshi removed his own, placing it on top of the pale boy he was cradling lifelessly in his arms, and used it at the same time to stop the bleeding from getting any worse.
Shigeru's eyes were clamped tightly together from the pain, his bottom lip coated with crimson splashes from the blood he'd coughed up. The wound on his chest was more than an inch thick, the blood and water mixture causing an unpleasant chill to come over Shigeru, his whole body shivering against Satoshi, his clothing sticking to his skin and his auburn hair hanging limply over his closed eyelids.
Satoshi pressed his jacket against Shigeru's wound harder, careful not to hurt him more than he already was, and noticed a slight bump on his chest, where his ribs were. It didn't occur to him at first, but after running his right hand smoothly over the bump, he could feel the bone of one of Shigeru's ribs, clearly broken out of place. Who had done this to him? Who could have hated him so much?
Shigeru groaned at feeling his rib being touched, his mouth barely opening as a painful whimper escaped his lips. Satoshi quickly drew his hand away, muttering countless apologies to the beaten boy, trying to think of any way that he could help him.
Satoshi knew that he had to go get help from the ambulance or something, but he didn't want to leave Shigeru all alone. What if whoever had done this to him returned to finish the job? It obviously hadn't been an accident. Who could accidentally stab someone and break one of their ribs, and then proceed to pull out the knife and walk away casually as though nothing had happened?
The answer to Satoshi's problem presented itself almost right away in the form of a white ambulance, followed by two backup fire trucks, all of which had lights blazing on them which made them stand out visibly, even against the lashing rain. One of people who lived near where Shigeru had been hurt had probably called them out of worry because of the painful scream, and Satoshi was glad that they had.
The three automobiles turned the corner right beside the alleyway, the ambulance predominately first in the line, followed by the larger of the two bright red fire trucks. They stopped just outside the thin gap between the two apartment buildings. Two men stepped out of the ambulance, carrying a white cloth stretcher and pulling Shigeru from Satoshi's unyielding grasp to load him into the back of their towering, white car, leaving Satoshi shivering and alone in the alley, still sobbing out the first of his tears as he clutched his jacket, soaked with splashes of Shigeru's blood, and watched them leave.
(End flashback)
Satoshi's grip tightened on Shigeru's nearly lifeless hand as he recalled the event. All that blood, seeing Shigeru's face contorted in pain as he fought to breathe, his body shaking as the freezing rain washed buckets of blood from his clothing, flowing with the water down the alley where it collected in a puddle at the side of street, almost mocking Satoshi for not getting there sooner. He might have been able to save Shigeru if he had.
Satoshi turned his glare back to the heart monitor, as though daring it to make some change in its tempo, hopefully for the better. He wished more than anything that the roles could be switched; that he could be the one in the hospital bed, on the verge of death, with Shigeru beside him, waiting out his last breath, but at least he would be alive. Satoshi would rather die himself than watch Shigeru slowly die before his very eyes.
(Page breaker)
Satoshi had left the hospital not long after, tears spilling from his eyes as he fought to keep his breath straight. He had known for days the sort of condition that Shigeru had been in, but nothing could have prepared him to actually face that horrible reality.
The heart monitor had slowed like crazy, its beating steadying to an even line. Satoshi had run out of the room, not even bothering to talk to anyone else, when it had stopped beeping; when Shigeru had stopped breathing. Tears ran down his face as he tried to find some escape from reality. This was all just too awful.
He was back at his house now, trying to focus his mind on something other than Shigeru's death. It wasn't his house really, he had shared it with Professor Ookiddo and Shigeru. Shigeru was really the only reason that he'd come to live there; after the Pokemon league had ended, and he had no place to stay, he'd been warmly accepted into their home. They had moved away from Pallet, and Satoshi had reasons as to why he had no desire to go back home. He hoped that he was at least still welcome there, even if Shigeru wasn't alive.
Rain pelted the windows, running down their glass and to the ground. Satoshi wished his tears were like that, like the rain. They could stop and go and never hurt when they did come.
Lightning and thunder filled the skies, the dreary weather mingling with Satoshi's sadness. The professor, Shigeru's grandfather, wasn't home yet. He rarely ever was, always off on another adventure. Satoshi didn't mind it when he was gone, in fact, he loved the alone time with Shigeru. But being completely alone was a different story. This was a bitter sort of loneliness.
Satoshi thought for a moment that he heard something, footsteps of some kind, but after calling Professor Ookiddo's name multiple times, he shook it off as a feeling of shock or that he was merely hearing the thunder resounding off of something outside.
Satoshi resolved that he'd have to get used to living alone, which also meant admitting to himself that Shigeru would never come back. There would be no more hugs, no more quite nights alone when the two would settle on watching a movie, merely being in each others' presence was satisfying enough, but that would never happen again. Satoshi knew that he'd have to force himself to move on with life, even if it meant leaving Shigeru's life behind, which would be the most difficult thing Satoshi knew he would ever do. And it wasn't as though Satoshi simply enjoyed Shigeru's company, but he really loved him.
The sound came again, along with the eerie feeling of being watched. Satoshi could have sworn he saw something out of the corner of his eye, but he dismissed it as his unfamiliarity with being this alone. He shrugged off the feeling and returned to thinking of something to occupy his mind long enough to keep it off of Shigeru's death for a while.
Satoshi rubbed his bloodshot eyes as he slunk back into the couch, watching the blinking television screen with a feigned, distant interest. He wasn't even really aware of what was on that channel, but at least it was something. But try as he might to focus his tired eyes on the multi-colored screen, Satoshi found his mind once again turning back the pages of his memories of Shigeru, unwillingly searching for those choice moments that would tear his heart out thinking of them. When he had first met Shigeru, or when they had first kissed; it was those times, the happiest ones, that hurt Satoshi most knowing that they would never happen again.
The rain was coming down thicker now, running down the windows like a flood against a dam, rushing against it in an attempt to break the fine glass preventing its entrance. The gentle rolling of thunder and rain and the occasional strike of powerful and colorful lightning illuminated the skies and filled the air with sounds much like those from a snare drum, beating at everything in its path. The air outside, had it been visible, was a murky grey, filled with large, dark clouds that covered the atmosphere, adding a dismal effect to the already blackened night air.
Satoshi sniffled, burying his face in a pillow beside him as the tears poured from his eyes, much like the rain lashing down from the heavens, unrelentless and uncontrollable. How could he have known that Shigeru's death would have affected him this profoundly? He had often been told that he was too young to fall in love, that him caring for Shigeru this much was only part of them being friends for so long. But Satoshi knew better, even though he was only sixteen. Shigeru was the only person he'd ever loved this much.
Satoshi nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the door swing open, the sound of rushing water and sharp thunder hitting his ears harshly. He could blindly make out a figure in the doorway, but in the pitch black night, with the lights all off not to mention, it was difficult to see anything more than a shadow. Satoshi fought past the impenetrable darkness to see who it was, but he could see no one.
"Professor Ookiddo? Is it you?" Satoshi choked out past his sobs, his voice cracking from the little speaking he'd been doing for the past two days mixed with the fear that began settling in once he realized that the professor wasn't answering him back, "Hello? Who's there?" But there was still no answer.
Satoshi was beginning to get worried; Professor Ookiddo never ignored Satoshi, and he should have known how awful Satoshi would be feeling anyway after Shigeru's death. No, this couldn't be the professor.
Satoshi sunk back into the corner of the room, abandoning the couch entirely so as to put a fair bit of distance between himself and whoever this intruder was. Fear clouded his mind as he recalled an event from his childhood in which a burglar had actually made it into his home, and his whole family was there. His mother and himself had both been badly injured, him with a broken leg and her with only a fracture. His father had been killed.
(Flashback)
Satoshi's large eyes widened as he heard his mother's shouts of protest. He slunk himself back into a corner and watched in fear as the man brought the knife above his head, slamming it down painfully against his mother's arm. Tears brimmed in Satoshi's eyes as the intruder brought the bloodstained knife up once again, slicing through her already torn, bleeding flesh. A cry of pain resounded as his father fought to protect then both, only to have the knife taken to his own body.
Satoshi's whimpers were heard by the masked man, who lumbered drunkenly over to the quivering, eight year old boy. He hid his face with his legs, curled up against his body, his long, jet-black hair whipping across his face, soaking up the tears that his sleeves had failed to.
"Well, what have we here?" The man smiled through his ski mask, his yellowing teeth and gruesome smirk showing plainly, even in the darkness of the night.
Satoshi cowered, sinking back farther into the corner of the room. The man noticed this and brought out his knife again. Satoshi stopped moving.
The burglar chuckled to himself as he noticed the terrified look plastered all over Satoshi's face. He kicked the small boy's arm away from his huddled form, stomping on it until he was satisfied that it was broken. Satoshi screamed as tears rolled down his face, clutching his bent arm to his chest protectively and rocking back and forth as he tried to stop the pain and bleeding.
Satoshi's mother, Hanako, fought past the pain in her bloodied arm and attempted to stand, punching the masked man with all the might she could muster. The man turned his attention away from Satoshi and onto her instead, delivering a quick blow to her forehead with the knife, a steady stream of blood flowing from the large gash that had appeared.
The intruder turned his full attention to the sounds of sirens from outside, making an attempt to escape before he got caught. Satoshi's father stumbled forward, grabbing the man by the arm to retrain him long enough for the law enforcement vehicles to arrive. But by the time they did the man had already escaped, leaving only a bullet hole in the skull of Satoshi's father as proof that he had ever been there.
(End flashback)
The figure was moving closer to Satoshi now, the flashes of lightning occasionally illuminating parts of his body, but not enough to tell who he was. Satoshi strained his eyes in an attempt to recognize anything about the intruder, while still watching to make sure that he was at least a fair distance away from any lethal attack.
It was then that a perfect bolt of lightning was cast, striking against the rich darkness and resounding off of the still lashing rain. The light coming from it was pale and distant, but it was enough, as the shadow of the figure momentarily disappeared, the silhouette of a boy around Satoshi's age replacing it. And if that wasn't enough to shock Satoshi, then the light as it struck against the face of the boy would be.
How can it be? Shigeru?
Author's notes: Okay, DarkTaoAngel needs to do some explaining. First of all, I'm using Japanese names, so Satoshi is Ash, Shigeru is Gary, Hanako is Ash's mom, and so on. I'll keep up updated on future names as they come up. And yes, this is my first Pokemon fanfiction, but certainly not my first ever. I'm a big-time writer, but I only like to think that I'm good. And to spare you from future embarrassment, this is a shounen-ai fanfiction, and it has tons of ShiShi moments, so I suggest you look them up before proceeding. Yes, this is a short chapter, but I finished it, didn't I? So that should be enough for you. And this time, I do have a precise plot, though the ending is a bit rocky, but expect some regular updates here. And check out some of my other fanfictions when you get the chance!