Rain patters sorrowfully against the window pane leaving streaks that blur the view of the forest from Krad's bedroom. The trees loom high above his parents two story house and he looks into the dark void forlornly. It's been raining for three days and Krad was supposed to be delivering medicine to Redbark, a town only a day away with a solid path on the way there. It was one of the only ways to make money while being able to leave Canopy town safely. Krad turned his angular features down, scowling at the thought of being stuck in Canopy forever. He refused outright to be trapped here, the looming forest on one side and his parents inability to let him go on the other. He didn't mind where he went or what he did, although he was always interested in training, as long as he was out of Canopy he didn't care. He scowled even deeper at the thought of all his plans being destroyed by one silly rainstorm and logged onto his computer instead, the keys clicking sharply in his frustration.
"Krad! Get down here the kitchens a mess and since your OBVIOUSLY not going outside right now you need to clean." His mothers shill voice travels easily up the staircase and through his closed and locked door. Krad didn't respond to his mothers yells, instead he continued to log onto his e-mail account figuring it would only be a matter of minutes before she forgot he existed anyway. His father was always in the study down the hall from Krad's room and rarely ever left it coming down stairs only to eat and confirm that Krad was doing the miscellaneous chores around the house that nobody else cared to do. Sometimes his mother would pretend to exert her authority over him by telling him to clean something or do something that he would end up doing anyway.
He found a letter from Tida, his only friend in Canopy, on his e-mail. Her customized electronic envelope bounced blue and green hearts and shells off his monitor as the letter opened with a cheering sound effect.
Krad,
At 2.30 today meet me where the road to Redbark touches the looming forest. I think it's about time we...
Krad's screen went black and all of the lights in his rooms shut off as the power faltered and then died, interrupting Krad's message. He sighed dramatically and looked at his clock. It's hands read 2:26 and it was a ten minute walk to where the road touched the forest.
"Shit!" He leaped from his chair sending it crashing into the wall behind him and flung his brown coat over his shoulders, it wouldn't do much but it would protect him from the wind at least. His floorboards squealed as he ran down his stairs and threw open the door.
"Where do you think YOUR going mister! Those dishes are still sitting in the sink and unless your planning on letting us starve dinner would be nice too. So don't think you can just turn and walk away from your chores young man you have a responsibility and you can't just go wandering out into nothingness like i know your so prone to do. My god if me and your father didn't keep you around i swear you would have already gotten lost and died somewhere in the wilderness like one of those trainers, you should be thankful we brought you into this world then at least one person will be."
"...I have to go meet a friend who is bringing me some nails so i can fix a leak in the upstairs bathroom. Unless you don't want me to fix that, then you can just let it drip down into your bedroom."
"Don't back talk me young man! If your going to go then go already don't stand there with the door open letting all the cold air in and look!..." but the sound of the door slamming shut cut her short. Krad took off at a run he was already going to be at least five minutes late but now with his mothers ranting he was bound to be even worse. The spongy grass folded under his feet as the pounded the ground as fast as he could make them go, sending splashes so high they soaked the front of his jeans instantly.
It took him 15 minutes to trudge through the town and up the road to where it touched the forest. From here the town was silhouetted in grey rain giving it the feel of a ghost town. The only light he could see was the dim flickering from his fathers window. He was still working, but without power he was forced to do it by candle light. Compared to that house the rain felt like freedom to Krad, washing away his bad memories, the dread that he carried with him. His shoulders heaved up and down as he tried to catch his breath, he didn't see Tida when we got there so he scanned around him hoping he hadn't been too late and she had already left.
"You made it!" She revealed herself from behind a tree not ten feet away from him. Dressed in big boots that went up to her knees and a bright blue rain coat she looked nothing less than prepared. In her arms she held up a full green backpack and scowled at Krad disapprovingly. "Where's your bag? and why are you wearing that silly coat your going to get soaked through in that thing." Her eyes sparkled with a dangerous air as she looked him up and down.
"Was i supposed to be more prepared for this!" he laughed and explained how the power had gone out in the middle of reading her message.
"I see." She put her pack around her shoulders and looked up at him smiling. "This is the best it's gonna get i guess, although i hope you can make it with only that as clothes. It's a long walk to Redbark and in this weather it's going to get real miserable at night. Let me call my father and he can meet us halfway with a pack for you. I don't know how your planning on getting anywhere with only that to wear." She gestured to all of him and started off down the path smiling at her own vagueness. "My father has been in Redbark for a few days doing some research with Dr. Oak. Did you know these trees hold more than 20 unregistered species of Pokemon! i find that so cool, I want to run into one of those pokemon and with the poke-balls my father gave me catch it! Don't you..."
"Wait, wait. First of all, why are we going to Redbark without the medicine? Secondly why are we leaving in this horrid weather? Thirdly, WHEN did you get poke-balls! that is so exciting what pokemon are you going to try and catch?" He ran to catch up with her berating himself for not wearing more appropriate shoes as his toes squished through the layer of grime already accumulating in his sneakers.
"First of all i am not planning on catching any particular pokemon. I think the best way to catch one is when you feel it's right, although i must admit i am more drawn to water types than most any other. The medicine can be delivered by someone else, it's nothing serious, besides it would slow us down and i would rather not have to confront your parents and their cronies about kidnaping you because that is most certainly what they would make it out to be. The poke-balls were given to me as a gift from my father as he knows there is no way i am going to make it in this place and there is no WAY you can go out and do what you want without protection. The fact that Canopy doesn't even have a poke-mart makes me wince". Krad's heart jumped a few beats as she talked. He was finally going to escape and it wasn't even part of his plan. The poke-balls gave him hope that he could make it, maybe even as a trainer. Tida ran ahead of him, her blue raincoat making her a beacon against the dark background of the forest and the grey clouds on the horizon.
After only an hour of walking Krad's prospects of escape began to look pretty glum. The road was muddy and slick making travel slow and the rain was only getting harder. It blew ferociously against their backs and Krad was thankful it wasn't blowing against them. Tida talked continuously the whole way, although from behind it was nearly impossible to hear what saying most of the time. She almost never looked back, only when she thought Krad might have fallen behind. His shoes were now completely brown with thick mud and his pace had started to drop considerably. She noticed that the forest curved away to their left sharply for several meters, thinking that it might provide some shelter against the wind and that the grass would be easier to walk through than the muddy road, she veered left. It was wet, and soggy, but the grass made the ground more stable and your feet rarely fell into mud.
"Oh man, this is so much better than on the road." As the forest trailed away and they followed it the wind came to nearly a dead halt. The rain seemed to be the only noise, falling steadily around them. It white noise felt eery to Krad, as if it's steady rhyme was hiding something just inside the trees. "I feel like were being watched." he said his eyes darting quickly through the tree line.
"Oh i doubt it, the trees give me that feeling all the time. It's probably just your mind playing tricks one you. Father says that fear is usually the consequence of paranoia, taking things to ridiculous and horrifying lengths because your mind is on overdrive. Makes you think a leaf rustling in the wind is the subtle step of a wild Houndoom ready to cook you and eat you while you stand there. Although I have to say, all this talk of being eaten sure makes me hungry, but we can't eat yet. This forest inevitably reconnects with the road so i figure if we stay this way we should hook back up with the road and then we can eat there while we wait for my father. That is a pretty long way though, luckily my mother bakes and made granola bars for us to snack on while we travel, as well as some muffins. We should save the muffins though, father often says that nothing fulfills a man on the road like a muffin, thus we should save them until we are nearly dying of hunger; albeit usually takes me half a day of not eating to die of hunger."
She dug in her pack, making a half pained of face of serious concentration, until finally she pulled two rectangular bars from her pack and handed one to Krad. It was poorly wrapped in plastic and looked like had been through a great struggle since it was put into the pack. However it tasted sweet and nutty and filled his stomach enough to keep it off his mind.
"How long have we been walking?" He said between bites. He slid his feet back and forth on the grass for a few seconds to clear the mud off of them and looked into the forest where a flock of bird pokemon burst out of the top of the trees, made two wide circles and landed somewhere farther away.
"Oh we have only been walking about an hour and half according to my phone; it does feel like it's been a long time but that's because of this dreadful rain. We can be thankful at least there is almost no likeliness of running into your parents. By now they have probably called just about every authority they can think to call i would imagine. It's lucky you don't have a cell phone, i heard you can track them through the computers these days." Tida stopped walking for a moment and looked into the trees, her face in the same expression of deep concentration he had seen before. One eyebrow was raised high above the other and her lips were curved in a painful looking grimace.
"Did you see something." She threw a finger up quickly to shush him and stepped a foot into the tree line, squinting to try and see further than the limited fifteen feet. Krad could see it only became more dense the further in you went and could imagine being trapped in darkness even when the sun was shining. She took a few more steps in and became shadowed by the trees forcing Krad to follow her so he didn't lose sight.
"AAAH!" Tida screamed as she hit the ground making a large crash branches beneath her broke.
"Tida" Krad screamed but before Tida could respond she was being dragged away faster than he could follow. "SHIT!" he yelled and ran after her thinking how foolish she was for stepping into the forest to begin with. Well i guess she got her wish, he thought, she probably DID run into one of those wild unknown pokemon and now she is going to be eaten. The thought made Krad anything but hungry and he put his head down and tried to follow her drag marks with greater vigor.
As the forest began to get thicker Krad lost his sense of direction and the light that used to be such a presence behind him had faded to just another dark wall of trees. The marks left by a struggling Tida were like a trail to him, the only hope of ever finding his way out again. However after a while of walking the trail became more subtle and faint trails of blood could be seen against the bed of the forest. Krad hoped she was still alive and though the blood didn't look like much that fact it was there at all made him uneasy. He figured she had hit her head or at least that whatever was dragging her had probably knocked her out as there were very few signs of struggle.