"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you."

-C.S. Lewis

"Just because I'm telling you this story doesn't mean I'm alive at the end of it."

-Savages

I could sense the world around me moving—there was wind in the grass, and lights in the city beyond us, and a taste of rain on the night air. My left fist, a tight ball of flesh, was weeping blood from two torn fingers. My right hand trembled beside me, clutched at loose grass to secure me to the ground.

This was all subconscious observation.

The only things that truly seemed to exist were at a stand still. My throat lay bared to the moon and the snarling, snapping jaws of a beast with luminous yellow eyes.

"And tell me, girl," it spoke, its voice ragged and mocking, "what do you know of death?"

I stared. My lip quivered involuntarily. The beast planted a heavy paw on my chest, pinning me beneath its hungry fangs. I met its eyes, as I had no choice.

They were molten gold, like nothing human—like nothing Pokemon.

"Everything," I said in response, wondering if it was to be my last word.

Ever wonder what it's like on the other side?

I'm sure it's crossed everyone's mind at some point, but this is especially true if you've watched someone die.

What do they see before their life flickers out? Some writers leave us with the impression that it is a light, a vision of purity and holiness.

Some would have us believe that it is our life, condensed into the radio-friendly edit of a thirty-second pop tune. I find that hard to believe—if there are gods, why curse us with the shitty mainstream version of what could be raw, bleeding art?

Maybe that's just me.

Maybe I'm crazy.

Probably am.

It seems to me that you cannot truly appreciate life until you know what lies on the other side.

Life and death are parallels, two sides to a tempestuous coin. Perhaps the gods flip those coins, and whichever side lands face-up is the path you are allowed to walk—for one more day.

Do we live on such an edge, blissfully unaware of the beast at our heels, the knife in the dark, the bullet in the chamber?

Perhaps.

However, how can we understand the gift we hold in our hands if we don't know what it costs to obtain that gift?

My name is Krissy Lejeune. I'd like to say that I'm not morbid by nature, but that'd be a bit of a lie. I've always walked on the stranger side, hoping to see a glimpse of the unknown.

I'm a writer, a thinker. My mind is my only true weapon. I cherish it, hone it like the lone samurai's sword.

What else do I have at my defenses—or my offenses, for that matter? I never imagined, after all, that I'd leave New Bark Town for any reason other than mandatory adulthood rites of passage. All boys leave home, and girls, too. Why, yes—yes they do.

I never believed I'd leave home with a Pokemon, with a mission. Professor Elm sent me from my childhood home, not my mother. He's the one who sparked the consuming fire that is my story.

In fact… for a writer, I believe I've walked closer to fiction in reality than I ever have with a pen on a sheet of notebook paper.

Blood is so much harder to erase than lead—and it stains far longer than ink.

My name is Krissy. And my story is one of life and death—

Of parallels.