As the World Crumbles from Dust

by It's a PaL

That feeling you get when you have no idea where you are anymore? That feeling you get when you have no idea what's happening to everything you know? That feeling you get when you realize you're powerless to do anything about it? There's only one thing I can do at this point: move on and try to survive in this dead world of mine... (A Platinum Nuzlocke)

1. Chapter One: Ashes to Ashes

Well, hello, readers. This is a nuzlocke story that I've been writing for a while, and I've been toying with the idea of putting it up on here... until now, that is! Below are the rules that I'm following for this run of Platinum Version. More chapters will be added soon.

1. If it faints, it dies-Box it immediately. Too bad, so sad.
2. One catch per route-if it's a dupe, too friggin' bad, you've lost your catch for the route.
3. Notepad Clause-Cannot use boxes except for storing dead Pokemon. (EXCEPTION: If there comes a point in-game where I cannot progress because of HM-HAX, I am allowed to catch an HM-slave for the sole purpose of game progression. If it is the only Pokemon left alive on my team at any point, I still lose.)
4. Starter Clause-I cannot use a starter Pokemon. As soon as I catch my first Pokemon and grind it to Level 5, I permabox the starter.
5. I cannot buy any items from any store until after I receive all eight badges.
6. Game ends when I defeat the Elite Four.
7. Full team wipe = Game Over
8. Nickname all the things.

It's morning when I feel wind on my face. I don't really mind; mother probably opened the window after I went to sleep last night-it was pretty stuffy in here anyway. My bed is comfortable and warm and I don't want to get up. It's a feeling of security, wrapping yourself in blankets like a cocoon and balling up to stay warm.

There's a larger gust of wind that blows through the room. It whistles and moans and sighs and sends a shiver down my arms even though I'm wrapped up tight in my comforter. I feel it blow a lock of my hair around as I taste something... off about the air. It's grainy and tastes like soot. The wind has never tasted like this. There isn't any sort of volcanic activity that the people on the TV have been watching, so why would the air be so different than normal? With a quiet grunt, I slowly open my eyes and stare up toward the ceiling-

Wait... there's supposed to be a ceiling above my head, isn't there? A ceiling made of plaster and drywall and whatever else they make the walls out of, right? Not one made out of churning gray clouds and wind and-

A single raindrop splashes against my cheek. I wipe it off as I sit up in my bed and look around at my room-or, rather, what's left of it. Two of the walls are just gone like they never existed at all. It's just all clouds and wind and gray. The little bit of structure that remains behind me seemed utterly and totally ripped apart. I squint my eyes and turn around to look past my bed. Nothing behind me but the same churning, violent skyscape. Even as I look down to where we should see ground, there's nothing.

Not a mist, not a fog. There is nothing but the sky below me. How do I know? I watch as a loose bit of wood-maybe it's drywall, I have no idea which-blows off the side of what's left of my room and fall.

And it falls past where the ground should be. And it keeps falling until it's barely a speck against the gray around me. I imagine that it's still falling now, if that's even possible.

Why are there clouds everywhere? What happened to the land? How are we staying afloat on this chunk of rock? Why does it seem like we're not falling when we clearly should be?

Wait-could this whole thing have been caused by a hurricane that swept through? I don't remember seeing anything about storms coming from last night, and usually the people on the TV are good about predicting that sort of thing, right? But if that's the case, why does the air taste like that?

The more I think about it, the less I believe that it's a hurricane-something like that just floods the land, not tear up houses and leave them floating in the sky.

I unwrap myself from my chrysalis and place my feet gingerly onto the floor. The floorboards creak like they've been there for a hundred years. Strange that they're still strong enough to support my weight-I fear that the walls below us would have been ripped out just as easily as the ones up here.

And then it hits me-what about mother? Is she OK after all this?

I grab a shirt and throw it on just as the wind picks up once again. There's a sharp chill in the air as inhale the soot and dust. It dries out my mouth and I start coughing. Whatever's floating around, it's scratching at my lungs and my chest like tiny shards of glass. After I finish my bout of hacking, I brought my shirt up over my mouth to help keep the particles from shredding my throat.

Somehow the stairs are still standing despite everything else around me having been torn to shreds. I'm glad that I don't have to jump down to the main floor. The wood groans under my feet despite the fact it still feels sturdy. I hope the place doesn't collapse while I'm still inside-

My hand is clenching something. I don't realize this until right now. It's my necklace-the one father supposedly left for me. How I have it in my hand for so long without realizing, I have no idea. In fact, I have no idea how it left my drawer without my knowledge. Why is this thing even out? I remember putting this away years ago-after mother gave it to me and said that it was hidden away until she was ready for me to have it. Without even thinking, I loop it over my head and glance at it as it centers itself on my chest. It's nothing spectacular-a bit of some red crystal set into a small golden hexagon. I'm not sure why mother held onto it for so long at all, to be honest.

Now I walk down the stairs and find that the walls are not as resilient as the floor above betrays them to be. One of the walls has a massive gaping hole torn out of it. The nearby clouds-or are they off in the distance? I really can't tell-swirl and churn, agitated by something but unable to do anything about it.

I turn my head and stare as I see something standing in the corner. It's a human-that much I can see clearly. A gust of wind blows through the tear in the wall. I feel my hair blow in the sudden puff. The other figure doesn't move.

Something is wrong. Is this... stone? When did it get here? How did this happen?

A shaft of dull gray sunlight falls through the window-well, what's left of it. I know I can get a good look at it-even though I don't want to, even though I know who's going to stare right back at me.

I bite my tongue as I look up into her face.

She doesn't even look panicked.

Mother...?

Please... answer me...

***

Minutes pass. Hours pass. Days seem to fly by as I stand by this statue, slack-jawed and teary-eyed. She can't be, and yet... I rap my knuckles against her shoulder and it's solid rock. It stings, too. I see the skin peeling away from my hand and there's blood slowly seeping through the tears in the flesh.

Maybe it's just a dream, I tell myself. Some sort of sick and twisted night terror that I'll wake up from and have a good laugh at in the morning. Fingers crossed with one hand, I reach for the back of my leg with the other and pinch.

It hurts.

I laugh. It's half from disbelief, half from pure shock. At first, it's slow. Then it grows louder and faster and wilder till it bursts from my chest and it mixes flawlessly with a coughing fit that's been brewing for a while. The chuckling soon dies down and paves the way for tears. They race down my cheeks and onto the dusty floor. I can see where they hit the floor in the little bit of light that's left. My throat is hoarse and sore and knotted.

There's nobody else around here. I am alone on a floating rock in the wreckage of my home. It's just a vast wilderness of empty space and clouds and this dust that keeps floating in the air. My eyes are starting to get itchy from the tears-or maybe it's the stuff in the air too. If it hurts my lungs that bad, imagine what the stuff could do to my eyes if I didn't find a pair of goggles or something to protect them.

I slowly walk up the stairs, returning to the remnants of what used to be my room. My stomach is doing backflips and frontflips and cartwheels and any other sort of flips as it can possibly think of. I clutch at my head with one hand and my stomach with the other as I scream and cry as loud as I can. No one's around to tell me not to, so I just let loose.

My mirror somehow survived all of this craziness. I deflate as I see the reflection of a confused, frightened girl; white hair falls over my eyes and sticks to my face where tears trailed down, almost blending with my pale skin. I brush the bangs back behind my ears and wipe my eyes. I can see the dark purple of my eyes nearly bulging out of my head, I've been crying so much. Mother says that my eyes are the prettiest she's ever seen and everyone should know that they are mine.

There isn't anyone to appreciate them now except for me.

And then the thoughts. The horrible nagging thoughts that tell me that I can't survive here on a floating chunk of rock in the sky forever. That eventually I'll run out of food and water and I'll starve to death. That I'll misstep and I'll fall out of the sky and into whatever's left of the world below me. That I may somehow end up like mother, frozen in place and covered in stone. The tears start to flow again as I wonder how long I would fall if I jumped. I remember hearing talk that death from a bottomless pit comes from starvation, not from landing on the ground or anything. I shake my head as I close my eyes and grimace. There's no reason for me to think about any of this! None at all!

There's nothing more for me to do upstairs. I can't look at mother as I walk down to the main floor again. My chest is heaving as I force my head to turn away from her. In the movies, the hero's always able to revive their loved one with something like tears. Let me tell you that it doesn't work. As stupid and childish as I felt for trying, I still thought it might work-nothing else is anymore.

The front door is missing. This is the first time I've noticed it. Something outside catches my eye-it's a tiny bit of green that stands out against the churning and bubbling of the clouds. A few blades of grass are still growing next to the door frame. They're dusted in the same stuff that's in the air.

I take a step toward the grass. The wind picks up as if it's trying to push me back from this new discovery. For each step I try to take forward, the wind seems to double its efforts to keep me inside. It's almost as if the wind knows some secret I'm not supposed to learn. The dust is stinging at my eyes now. I really need to find a pair of goggles soon.

I leap forward and I land on my stomach. My arm stretches out and I can feel the grass in my hand. It's brittle like thin glass. I watch in shock as it snaps and shatters easily between my fingers. There's more of the dust on my fingers-I imagine that it's from the grass. I hope that it doesn't do anything bad to my skin.

There's suddenly a small patch of land out here. More of that green-gray dusty grass is here. I can see the faint outline of a dirt path-it looks the same as the one that leads from our house toward the center of the town.

How is this happening? Land can't just spontaneously appear out of thin air, can it? These clouds are not supposed to be fog, are they? Or are they something else entirely? I remember watching that bit of clutter fall off the face of the earth-why all of a sudden is there solid ground under my feet again?

My eyes are burning as I pick myself up off the ground and dust my shirt off. The soot-ash-dust-whatever-that-stuff-is clings to everything. I cough and sputter, trying to get it out of my mouth and throat. My mouth slacks as my eyes open. When I wipe away the tears, I'm dumbfounded as I watch pieces of the earth form around me and clump back together with my little patch. There's even more grass as I can see bits and pieces of a shattered wooden post form at the edge of the path.

Our mailbox. Doesn't do anyone any good now, considering as far as I know I'm the only one left alive.

On shaky legs, I take another step forward. The ground is solid under my feet. My shoes kick up more of the dust into the air. I can hear the grass shatter with each step. I step onto the dirt and stare as another small chunk of land bursts forth and continues the path forward. It's almost as if it's anticipating me, trying to catch me before I fall off this floating rock.

I wonder...

I follow the dirt path; turning where it turns and watching the winding trail lead me toward another. I can see my broken home when I look back. The road is still there-a tightrope stretched over a giant pit, except I can't fall off. It won't let me fall off.

Up ahead I can see the ground reforming and molding from the soot. There's another dense clump of land I can see when I shield my eyes. I can make out the shapes of assorted chunks of materials torn away from a frame-a wall. More holes in the wall that's slowly forming in the wreckage of my neighbor's house. The door is unlocked-I finally muster the courage to push it open and see what's left.

It's more of the same from what I remember from my own home. Parts of the wall are ripped open, revealing even more of this whirling angry cloudmass that surrounds me. The ceiling also has some holes in it-I can look up through them and see that the roof has also been torn away. Another gust of wind moans through the openings and sends a shiver down my spine.

And then I see her: Missus Kingsburg searching for food in her cupboard. She's got a recipe card in her hand, like she always does whenever I see her. She's got her hair back in that bun like always. The only thing out of the ordinary is that layer of dust and stone encasing her. She looks exactly like mother-completely at ease as she petrifies, her dead eyes scanning the scrap of paper wiggling in the breeze.

I feel sick to my stomach again as I make my way to the back of the home, never taking my eyes off of the statue. Wooden planks form from nothing and create the hardwood floor that Missus Kingsburg prizes so much. They lead me to the stairs as I pass by a strangely-calm scene in their kitchen. The air is still as I step over a broken table, almost as if she's trying to listen in and see if I scuff her broken floors with my dirty feet.

The stairs lead up to a broken bedroom. The bed is gone, lost over the side of the missing wall in the back. The other three are split wide open-almost like my room. In fact, I can see it off in the distance. I even spy mother through one of the holes in our wall. She doesn't wave back to me-I shouldn't expect her to.

Where's her son? Isn't he supposed to be here too? Unless he...

I turn and leave, not wanting to even entertain the thought. My mouth is dry once again-not from the dust this time. I say goodbye to Missus Kingsburg and leave her to her search. She doesn't respond. That's no way to treat a guest, Missus Kingsburg-isn't that what you always tell me?

I step out onto the snaking path and realize that the others in the town are just like mother and Missus Kingsburg. There's no other option for them-if there was another person still alive, I imagine that they could make the land rise around them and form paths and reshape the earth to something that resembles what we know. Or they could be trapped on a floating island like I was.

And then it hits me-I am utterly alone. Everyone else is turned into one of those statues. I spend the next eternity combing the negative space as it erupts back into the town I used to know.

Nice Mister Jenkins, I find him standing over the fence on the east part of town watching a sunrise that never comes. The Percival brothers, they're playing the world's longest game of Hide'n'Seek and waiting for their mother to finish counting. Mister McCoy, he's sleeping on his couch-I wonder what he did to upset Missus McCoy this time.

All of them so close. Why am I so alone in this sea of people?

It's now that I realize that there's nothing left for me here. I know that there's a path leading to Sandgem to the northeast of the town, but I've got nothing to help me get there now. Against my will, I make my way back toward my home. I have some packing to do.

My collar is stained with tears and airborne dirt. There's still a dresser with some of my clothes in it next to my bed. I figure that it might be a good time to pick something else to wear. Maybe something a bit darker to hide the mess I'm sure to make on myself as I continue forward. I settle on a few plain shirts along with my favorite jacket. There's also a black sweatshirt and a few pairs of jeans-and I can't forget my favorite hat, a black beanie that I won at a carnival long ago. It's worn but it reminds me of my old home, before all of... this.

I manage to stuff everything into my knapsack-clothes, a few pairs of sneakers, a bit of food, some water. I even fasten a sleeping bag on top of everything, much to my surprise. I lift my bag onto my shoulders and feel the weight dig in. There's that feeling of dread where I fear I haven't packed enough. I'm sure that if I come across any other supplies on my travels that no one would mind if I take a few morsels of food or some water. It's not like they need it anyway.

I walk down the stairs once again. Mother's been awfully quiet, almost like she's watching her programs on the TV. I hear the crackle of static for the first time. I don't know why I didn't notice it earlier. It's soothing, listening to something besides the wind.

Mother...

The word slips from my mouth effortlessly despite my burning throat and aching chest. I place my hand on one of hers. It's cold to the touch. More of the gray stuff clings to my sweaty palms. I'm trying to hold back tears but it's difficult.

You always say that I have to leave some day. Start a life on my own somewhere. Make you and Father proud. I guess... today's that day. I'm sorry-it's just that my throat is sore and I'm just as scared for me as you are. I... I don't want you worry while I'm gone, OK? I'll be fine. I'm gonna travel the land, see everything there is to see, take lots of pictures for you too. And the people I'm gonna meet-

My voice catches on the back of my throat. I almost choke on the words-they're jagged and bloody.

The people are gonna be nice to me, mother. I'm gonna do my best at whatever I do, and if I need any help I'm sure they'd be more than happy to offer help to a kid like me. I'll write to you every so often while I'm gone, OK? I'm sure you'd like to hear from me and how I'm doing out in the big world, right? I don't want you worrying about me-I want to take care of myself if I can.

My mouth is dry again. My eyes, however, are dripping with tears.

Goodbye, mother. I'm leaving. I hope to see you again...