For Pikachu Fan Number Nine for Serebii Yuletide Fic Exchange

Alzheimer's

Ash felt that he had been ten years old for a long time when he opened his eyes to the horrific truth of not knowing where he was. He looked all around the bedroom and saw various pictures of him on his Pokémon journey around the world. He had made so many friends over the years, but he could only remember Misty. There was something about the girl that seemed special, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

Distorted noise rang through his ears. It had been driving him mad for days, but only he was able to hear it. Whenever he asked Pikachu if he could hear it, Pikachu never responded. He had noticed that Pikachu had been very sleepy lately. There was nobody to battle nowadays, but he couldn't remember why he hadn't been very well.

He slapped his own forehead. He hated the fact that he couldn't remember anything. He hopped out of bed and got himself washed and dressed, but when he looked into the mirror he screamed. He glanced closer to the mirror and could see an old man in the mirror but not himself. His lips trembled as searched for an old man in his room.

"Hey!" Ash cried out. "Who are you? What have you done to my mirror?"

"Ash Ketchum!" The door to his room swung open and as a nurse entered his room. "Keep the noise down. You are waking up the other patients."

"Patients?" Ash raised an eyebrow. He was intimidated by the stern voice of the woman. She was unpleasant to look at, but even more painful to hear. The way she looked down on Ash, intimidated him greatly, but he didn't want to show it. This was his house, and this nurse had no right to be here as far as he was concerned. "How did you get into my house? You better not have harmed Misty."

"Misty is at home," the nurse explained to him. "Now go back to bed."

"What about that old man that keeps coming in my room?" Ash yelled.

The nurse shook her head as she resisted the urge not to laugh. "Nobody has been in your room, Ash. Now stop playing games with me."

"I'm not playing games!" Ash dropped his draw as he showed the nurse the old man he found in the mirror. "Here he is!"

"That's you!" cried out the nurse.

Ash gasped. "No way! I'm only ten years old!"

The nurse leaned over to Ash's ear and told him, "Ash, you're eighty-two."
The nurse quickly left the room in a huff and slammed the door behind him. Ash took another look in the mirror and saw his young self again. He didn't understand why the nurses wouldn't tell him where he was and why the old man was in the mirror?

Maybe they didn't know anything.

Ash left his room and decided to go for a walk. Suddenly he remembered somebody: his Pikachu. He picked Pikachu up and held it on his shoulder. "Let's go, Pikachu!"

Ash noticed lately there were a lot of nurses in the murky street nowadays. He wondered why they weren't in the hospital. He found two nurses outside his door. For some reason, all their faces appeared to be worn out and nothing like the Nurse Joys that Ash used to know.

"Ash has gotten worse since the fall," one nurse said to the other nurse.

"Bless him with his Pikachu toy though," the other nurse said, giggling away.

Ash clenched his fists as he charged at both nurses. "HOW DARE YOU!" Ash yelled. "I'm going to be a Pokémon master one day!"

"You're too late!" the tall nurse said. That nurse was punched so hard by Ash that it hurt.

"Ash," the small nurse said. He spoke to Ash like a teacher. "You shouldn't hit staff. Now go back to bed at once!"

"You can't tell me what to do!" Ash yelled. "Let's have a match!"

"No," the small nurse said.

"Screw you then!" Ash hissed as he walked away. He found an armchair to sit on and he drifted off to sleep again.

"Good morning Ash!"

Ash slowly opened his eyes. He recognised the sweet voice from somewhere, but he just couldn't remember where he heard it from. In front of him was an old lady in a wheelchair.

"It's Misty," the lady said to him. She reached her arms out and kissed him on the cheek. "Your wife!"

Ash pushed Misty away and shook his head. "No!" he barked. "You're not Misty! She's a young lady with red hair."

"You must believe me!" Misty begged. "I really am who I say I am. I'm the one you married and we had children together. And now they've got their own children."

Ash twirled at the old lady and sneered at her. He couldn't understand how he could have any children when he was just a child himself. Who was this woman and why was she pretending to be Misty? "But you're just an old lady!"

"And you're an old man!"

"I AM TEN YEARS OLD!" Ash had never felt so insulted in his life.

"You're eighty-two!" Misty reminded him.

"None of this makes any sense," Ash moaned. He looked over at Pikachu. "What do you think about all of this?" Pikachu said nothing, which only added to the confusion. "What's wrong Pikachu? Why aren't you saying anything?"

"You don't know do you..." Misty sighed. "That's not Pikachu, that's just a doll."

"Well if this isn't my Pikachu, then where is he?"

"He's gone," Misty said, sadly. "He died twenty years ago when you were first diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. That's why we bought you the doll, but since then your condition's been getting worse and we had to move you here."

"You're lying," Ash muttered. "Get out!"

Misty stormed off in tears.

"Hello Ash," Misty said as she came into the room. She hugged her husband and gave him a kiss.

"Misty!" Ash cried out. "I'm so happy that it's you."

"What's the matter?" Misty quickly asked him. Before Misty had arrived, he was curled up into a ball on his bed.

"I found a book about me," Ash explained to Misty. "And people go in and write all these lies about me."

Misty raised an eyebrow. "They do? What do you mean by that?"

"They say I walk around the corridors in my underwear," Ash shrieked. "Then they say I scream, shout and attack nurses. I would never do things like this."

"Maybe you did, but you've forgotten." Ash glared at Misty, causing her to quickly shake her head and change her tone. "Oh, of course you wouldn't do a thing like that, not my Ash."

"I want to go home," Ash demanded out of the blue. "I want to go back to Russia."

"You mean Pallet Town?"

Ash nodded. Of course he meant Pallet Town. Russia came out of nowhere. He had no idea why he said Russia because it was so random. He felt ashamed of himself. "I want to see Professor Oak!" Ash told Misty as he held tighter into her hand. It was extremely frustrating, he knew that Professor Oak had passed away, but he couldn't control what he said. He couldn't stop the noises in his head nor his tainted vision or weakening joints. He was trying to say that his legs ached, but the words were stuck. "I want to..."

"What do you want?"

"I want to see my mother," Ash spat out. His hands began to shake along with his head. "Oh no, I keep falling through the glass. Always change your underwear everyday she says."

"Don't rush your words out," Misty told him. "You'll only get yourself in a state again."

A man and a woman tiptoed into his room. The man's head almost reached the ceiling and his arms were as bulky as an ox. He had black hair that made Ash think of Murkrow.

The man also reminded Ash of himself. He also had a Pikachu on his shoulder and had the same zigzag marks under his eyes. Ash wondered what if the man was his future-self. The woman was a lot younger and twice the man's height. She had red hair in pigtails just like Misty. Perhaps this was their daughter from the future. Ash threw himself on the bed, it was all too much for a ten year old such as himself.

"Dad!" the man cried out. "It's me: Bob."

"Bob?"

"I'm your son!" Bob cried out. "This is Rui: you're granddaughter."

"But I'm only ten years old," Ash cried out. "There's no way I can be a dad or a grandfather."

"You've been ten for seventy-two years," Bob shouted in his ear.

"Well I thought I was ten for a long time," Ash admitted. "Anyway have you seen Misty?" Bob and Rui remained silent as they both ran to Ash and hugged him tight. "Is she not coming?"

"Should we tell him?" Rui whispered to her father. "I think he should know the truth."

Bob shook his head. "Mom isn't coming today. She's not very well."

"Grandma died!" Rui's voice was muffled in tears.

"Why is she crying?" Ash asked Bob.

"Her grandma passed away," Bob explained to Ash. "They were very close."
"Bless her," Ash cried out. He patted Rui's head and even though he quickly forgotten why Rui was crying or even for the fact that Bob and Rui were his son and granddaughter, he tried to make the girl smile with his Pikachu.

"BROCK!"

The clocks said it was ten o'clock in the morning, but Ash wondered why everything was so dark and noisy Ash didn't know any of the worn out faces in the building, he felt as if he was in prison. He scurried to the bottom of the lounge and then ran up to the top, panting harder with every step he took. There was no sign of Brock, when Ash suddenly remembered that he was no longer in this world.

"MISTY!"

His wife, Misty used to visit him everyday since he was admitted into the nursing home. Even when he was at his worst, Misty still faithfully visited him. Ash thought that she bound to be here, somehow... looking for him. Misty normally walked into the home at ten o'clock exactly. It was now 10:05 AM, Misty was running late.

"PIKACHU!"

He couldn't see Pikachu anywhere. He kept wondering around the corridor once more. He savaged every room he could find to see Pikachu, but the closest he could find were dolls and plushies galore He had felt defeated, but there was only a small glimmer of hope that he would find his friends again. He decided to go into the reception area and wait for Pikachu and his friends.
The hours zoomed by by the wink of Ash's eye. He wondered what Brock had planned to cook tonight. Brock was an amazing cook, Ash enjoyed his beef stew and most of all the jelly filled doughnuts covered in rice.

"Are you alright there Ash?" asked a lady over in reception.

"I'm fine," Ash lied. "I'm waiting for my friends to meet me here?"

It would take hours before Ash had concluded that nobody would visit him that day. Because all of his friends were dead, and his family were busy. He wanted to die.