Brave New World Chapter 1: Spacial Rend, a pokémon fanfic

I. Spacial Rend

At around four in the afternoon, the quake came. First was the jolt, as if the whole building had suddenly found itself hanging a foot above the ground and fallen back down to fill the space. Then there was the split second of calm, where everyone looked at each other to say what just happened here—

Then the earthquake started.

Those who remembered the drills dove under the tables in panic as books rattled on shelves, chairs skittered across the floor, and lamps wavered dangerously; a crash signaled the point when one actually fell. A few people screamed, while everyone else just held on to something for dear life and waited for it to end—

Which it did, hours later (Okay, probably about thirty seconds, but felt like otherwise at the time.) The quakes stopped, but no one moved—unsure if the whole thing was actually over.

As for me, I peered cautiously out past the legs of the table I'd been studying at. I'd remembered the duck-and-cover drill, but with the way my elbows were stinging I'd probably skinned them in my haste to belly-flop the ground.

"Was… Was that a…?" a tiny voice asked next to me.

Next to me was Lyn, who'd frozen at the start but managed to keep it together enough to follow me under the table. She was shaking, eyes wide with fear, but took a shuddering breath when the silence stretched on and no other quakes followed in order to speak.

"Yes," I said bluntly, saving her the embarrassment of stating the obvious.

"Oh. Um. Should we—"

The crackle of static burst to life in the air.

"Patrons of the library, we have just experienced an earthquake and are now evacuating the building," came the voice of one of the librarians, sounding ridiculously steady given the whole situation. "Please remain calm and make your way to any of the doors or exits. Thank you for your cooperation."

Librarian out.

"Okay. Let's, uh, let's go outside," I said weakly, and together we crawled out from under the table. Around us, others were doing the same, blinking like they were in strong sunlight. To their credit, no one seemed to be outwardly panicking, and instead started making their way to the front doors in a robotic fashion. Ready to follow, I took a moment to sweep my homework into my bag. Lyn suddenly laughed, hand on her laptop.

"Is it weird if I'd rather work on my homework? It's not done."

We stared at each other, then broke out into helpless giggles.

"I mean, earthquake's over, I need to work! Can I stay inside?" she gasped, wiping away tears. We'd joined the steady stream of people trickling outside; most of them giving us looks at our laughing. I tried not to double over, fighting back giggles that threatened to turn into something else.

"Darn earthquake, interrupting us like that," I gasped, and we had to grab on to each other in order to keep walking. The whole thing wasn't really as funny as we were making it out to be, of course, but the mix of nerves and lingering shock made for an interesting combination. Stopping on the steps of the library, smothering the last of the giggles, we could see other equally confused crowds of people spilling from the surrounding buildings to join with bystanders already there. A lone siren from some emergency vehicle wailed in the distance.

All in all, the city skyline still seemed intact. There were no cracks in the streets, or chunks falling out of buildings… it seemed the earthquake hadn't been too bad after all.

"…Sooo, should I count this as the first earthquake I've ever been in?" I said slowly, "When was that last one, like 2001? I think that was first grade or something, I don't know."

"Oh geez, yeah. We're veterans now or something."

We'd come to a stop at the sidewalk, and now stood at the curb, unsure what to do next. A police car was slowly making its way down the street, no doubt checking that everyone was okay.

"Um. So, should we go home?" Lyn ventured tentatively, and I shrugged.

"I have no idea. They don't teach what you should do after an earthquake. Do you think the cops will want a statement, or…?"

"We can ask, that guy's coming over here." The cop car was indeed coming towards us. Lyn raised an arm, intent on waving it down. "Excuse me?" she called, in an attempt to get their attention, "Offi—"

The ground rolled under our feet.

It happened in a second. First I was watching the police car, the cop leaning out the window… Then I was on the ground, feeling the blood rush through my head and hearing the screams fill the air. I must've hit my head falling, since all I could do was lie there, the concrete scraping my cheek. Was I bleeding? I hope I wasn't bleeding. My forehead felt sticky. The ground was shaking again—The earthquake had started back up? But people were screaming, why were they screaming was that just a roar—

Was that just a roar?

A sound was splitting the air, a sound that began as a slow rumble that turned into something else. I'd heard a lion roar at the zoo once, and this sound was both alike and not at all. But what was roaring?

"…sten! Kirsten!"

…Someone was saying my name, tugging at my arm. Who..? Oh. Lyn. Friend. Sounding hysterical.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," I heard myself saying, but my voice sounded far away. Weird…?

"We've got to go! Kirsten, get up!" Lyn was shrieking, her voice shrill and piercing. My head hurt. I wish she'd stop shouting so loudly… I managed to make it to my feet all the same, wobbling as the sidewalk shook. The motion was making me feel sick, but I swallowed back the bile rising in my mouth because Lyn needed me. Had to get it together—

When I looked up, the scene was chaos. The people who'd emptied into the streets had erupted into terrified crowd, some stampeding in whatever direction they happened to be facing, some pushing and shoving each other in their haste to go back the way they came, back inside. The police car was gone; I heard the sirens going full force somewhere in the distance, where thick black smoke was rising. Something was on fire, somewhere close by.

"Okay, just be calm. We're going to go back in the library," I said rapidly, ignoring my blossoming headache—where'd that come from? I'd hit my head harder than I thought— and trying to snap into some semblance of control. Together we turned and made for the library as if hell were on our heels. The earthquake, or whatever it was, had changed in the time it took for us to get moving; it wasn't a continual quake, like before, now it was alternating between moments of calm, and sudden bouts of shaking, the vibrations reaching up my legs in rattling the bone itself. Earthquakes made seismic waves, but this didn't match what I remembered about P and S waves. This was too consistent, too localized…

Almost like something was pounding against the ground.

The quakes made it hard to run, and all our concentration went to keeping our balance. I had to focus particularly hard, with the way the world kept tilting in front of me from side to side. I kept a firm grip on Lyn's shoulder all the same, propelling her forward towards the doors.

"Oh my god!" Lyn screamed again. My head snapped up as a nearby building suddenly exploded… no, not the whole thing, just a part, glass falling in a deadly rain mixed with metal and stone; something had crashed into it? But there was nothing there. It was nowhere near us, we just had to—

"Just keep going!" I yelled, but the second roar drowned out my voice, tearing at my ears—

I stopped. Not sure why I did, with the crumbling skyscraper and new chorus of screams from those still stuck outside. All I could think of was the strong, dizzying déjà vu clouding my head, making it hard to think—

"What are you doing?" A little ways ahead Lyn had run, not realizing I'd stopped. She was reaching for me now, hand outstretched, so I stepped forward to take it, reaching forward myself…

And reaching…

And… she wasn't that far away was she? Only a few steps. But I couldn't reach her, why couldn't—

I pitched forward when the ground once again quaked, this time more violently. Luckily my hands shot out, and I broke my fall instead of slamming into the concrete. My palms stung from the impact, and I ended up rolling onto my back, blinking up at the sky which was sunny and blue as if nothing was wrong.

Only, there were shadows. I blinked again, feeling my eyes widen, and tried to resist the urge to rub them because there were things in the sky. They were blurry, like I was looking at them through a filter, or a screen that hung between us, but there were there. Somewhere behind me was a scream; Lyn must have seen them too. She was trying to drag me up again, but I could only look stupidly at the blurry images of two… creatures superimposed in the sky, that were launching themselves at each other and crashing… oh, they were fighting. Probably where the roars were coming from, my brain supplied helpfully, and I was kind of worried about how calmly I was taking this.

People were yelling, the earth was still shaking, the tail of one of the shadow creatures had whipped around and smashed into the side of another building despite not actually being physically present, and my ears were ringing something horrible, and it would really be nice if all the sensory overload could just stop—

The air was warping. It was the only explanation my eyes could come up with; the shadow creatures had faded somewhat, nothing more than splotches of color, but as I watched, one of them—dark blue and four-legged, hints of silver flashing in the sun— reared up, front legs rising into the air. The second took the chance and charged forward, ramming its white-and-pink smeared body into the belly of the other. I had no clue was going on, but together they hit the ground with a thunderous crash, cries of pain rending the air… literally. There were little tide pools spinning and fading around me, glass and concrete twisting together in odd spasms. I watched as they stretched like trampolines, rippling out and then back into place as fluid as water.

Meanwhile, I just sat on the concrete and watched as everything spread out in front of me. I didn't think about running; I was too tired and felt like throwing up as it was. I didn't almost notice when Lyn scrambled back, hightailing it out of there when the dark chasms bulged out in place of the ripples.

I did notice when one of them started stretching over the ground. I tried wobbling to my feet to run when it started stretching towards me—cracks spreading over the street and sidewalk that opened into a yawning crevice black as night—but the distance to the library had somehow turned into a mile. I turned, to look behind me, to try and see how far the chasm was away, how fast I had to go…

It was below me.

I slipped on nothing, and fell.

The darkness swallowed me with no resistance, the bright blue patch of sky above shrinking into a tiny line that finally melded together and left me all alone, in pitch black shadow that turned into a canvas awash with stars and galaxies then shadow again, and I saw—

I struck rock.

Ow.

There were rocks digging into my back. A particularly sharp one was grinding at my hip, and with a moan, I tried to wiggle off of it… igniting the mass of aches and pains that was currently my body. As if realizing I was awake and more or less functioning, my head threw in a fresh stab of pain, and the first thing I did was curl into a ball and try not to cry, riding out the wave as best I could. When the worst of it died down, I felt around the ground in a feeble attempt to sit up, which was a mistake when I discovered my sense of direction was shot. Not entirely sure which way was up and which was down, I went with lying on my back, trying to reorient myself and taking in the utter silence all around.

I panicked for a moment when I opened my eyes— oh shit oh shit I've gone blind— until I realized that wherever I was, it was just dark. So I listened.

Nothing.

No… there was a faint pressure to the air, like when you hold a shell up to your ear and listen to the 'wind' inside it. I heard stones slip when I moved, the shuffle echoing off into an unknown distance. I heard my breathing, whistling over my lips and dispersing. I drew in air, then broke into a violent coughing fit; there was dust coated on my tongue, clogging up my nose, and I hacked and spat trying to get rid of it all.

My coughing disturbed something, and I froze when the whispering scrape of wings filtered in the silence. The idea of being alone in the dark with strange things was frightening, though this particular sound reminded me a bit like… bats?

I could do bats. As long as none of them flew at me.

Only, along with the wings was a slight buzz, not unlike bees… buzzing bats. Sure. I'd seen weirder in the world.

…Weirder?

At that thought, my mind threw up fuzzy images of all the events that had led up to this, but they were just that: fuzzy. For some reason it was hard to think, and the fantastical images of shadow creatures and mysterious chasms was beyond me. It was probably for the better; if I thought about it all too hard, I was afraid I'd lose it, down here in this dark, silent, bat infested…

Cave. I was in a cave. The crack in the street… I'd fallen through it? And into some kind of pocket cave. Yeah, that had to be it, though I would have thought I'd fall into a sewer system of some kind instead… maybe the chasm had gone deeper than that. Maybe I was trapped forever in this secret cave miles underground where no one would find me because the crack had closed back up and—No, I was started to freak out again, and I abandoned that particular thought in order to squash the rising panic attack that was making it hard to breathe. Deep breathes… deep breathes…

There was the odd shuffling sound again. I took one last, deep lungful of air, and sat up. If there were bats here, then there was a way out. I couldn't see a thing, but if I went slowly, I should be able to make progress… right?

Ignoring the nasty little whispers that I'd probably use up all my energy running into walls, or end up going the wrong way, or… or… so many worst case scenarios that weren't helpful, I managed to get my legs underneath me and stood, only shaking slightly. Beyond the deep bruising I knew was there, everything seemed okay. Sure, my legs felt a little off, but a few cautious steps proved that I could walk… providing I didn't trip over rocks or something.

One step at a time.

…Naturally the first step I took was off some kind of indent, and with a choice curse I stumbled, falling back into a half-crouch with my hands on the ground to steady myself. Wow. Yes, perfect. Totally had this walking in the dark thing down. Now I just felt like crying again, but swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to stand once more.

As I did, my hand bumped into something stuck in the ground. I would have ignored it… had the object not been perfectly smooth. Somewhat curiously (and cautiously) I felt around until my hand closed around the mystery object, prying it from the ground. The thing was cool to the touch, and felt nice on my battered hands. It was also perfectly round, with etchings I couldn't quite picture after some careful probing with my fingers. Somehow, having an assumedly man-made metal ball to hold was comforting, and it fitted quite nicely in my palm anyway… so I hung on to it.

My second step in the pitch-black cave was more careful; by sliding my feet instead of blindly taking steps I couldn't see, I could hopefully avoid any other surprise pitfalls or tricky stones.

It would be slow going.

Very, very slow going.

Now I just had to hope that the combination of silence and darkness wouldn't get to me.

How about some Pokemon insert fic? Because who doesn't imagine themselves with a Pokemon team at least once who's with me

(started this a bit ago but decided to rework a bit for some better flow haha. Not too many changes for the first chapter though.)