Okay. Admittedly, this one is short. I mean that. Not my usual "Oh, man, I've got about fifty paragraphs that are maybe four lines each this is short I'm sorry." This chapter might as well just be an introduction. Actually, yeah. It is an introduction.
Enjoy.
Chapter 1: Mistakes
"The time gears!"
The foundation we stand upon quakes violently. Small structures like pillars and slabs of stone start to crumble away like bread in water. The giant time beast roaring and stomping at the unsteady ground isn't really helping our situation either.
"R-Right!" She shouts at me. My partner, that is. She rushes towards the podium, explorer bag slung over her shoulder with the gears tucked away neatly inside.
The temporal Pokémon gives a bellow of anger, pain, and what I assume to be fear. A bright beam of light starts to collect near the metal grille plates it calls a mouth. When it's not for me, my heart nearly comes to a jarring halt.
A reflective blue stream of light flies towards my partner as I scream out, a little too late, "S-Sarah!"
The Buizel turns her head expecting to see me and my worried face– which she does. What she didn't expect, however, was the mass of energy exploding the floor nearby, launching her in the air with a cry.
She hit the ground with enough force to release the latch on her bag, sending the shimmering blue-green trinkets skittering across the cracked tile floor.
And I thought it would have all been okay if not for that one Time Gear that hung precariously close to the Tower's edge, nearly ready to fall over the side and drop into the vast land below.
And I could have chosen to run over and grab it, preventing what could have been the end of the world. I could have, but there was a Buizel hanging over the edge of the tower opposite the little trinket of time.
"A-Alex!" She held herself up by the elbows, but the ground near her shifted, causing her to lose grip and slide downwards. The water-type latched onto the edge with her paws before she could go plummeting straight towards the ground. I could feel the fear in her voice. "H-help!"
I felt like a hero in one of those action movies. The kind in which he had to choose between two things. The vial filled with some concoction that would nullify the toxins which somehow got in his body. Or that super attractive woman who served as the romantic interest and, inevitably, the hero's downfall in the end.
In those cases, the protagonist had only two lives to debate on. His, or the pretty girl's. Here: It's either Sarah, or the entire world. And I didn't know who I should play hero for.
So I decided to play myself instead. Not some actor doped up on his own ego and fame. Like the idiots in the movies that were destined to die due to unnatural causes, I chose to save the girl. Yet, I wouldn't regret this choice for however long to come. The way I see it, the toxins would be kicking in soon. And they're going to hit hard.
A wave of relief flushed over me the moment I pulled Sarah up to safety. Er... however safe a crumbling tower suspended thousands of feet in the air can get.
She jumped up immediately, shouting over the temporal Pokémon's roar, "The Time Gears!" Hearing those words, I launched into action as well.
I looked over at the spot where that one Time Gear would be tipping over the edge. And to my surprise, it still is. I gave it a few seconds at most before it was lost to us, and along with it, our chances of ever pulling off this near impossible mission with time to spare.
I almost laughed at the thought. Time. We're up here, risking our lives to save it, yet there it is only a few yards away: stomping and roaring and trying everything in its corrupted power to prevent us from doing anything of the sort.
The things I'll put up with to save the world...
I find myself dashing towards the object. Sarah focused on those more simple to collect, strewn across the ground like faint green lights on a small Christmas tree in a run-down apartment building: the walls cracked and peeling paint. Yet, that Christmas feeling was still there. Hidden among the dying exterior, there was a hope that things would get better.
They would get better despite the family. A father who came home most nights with the stench of alcohol on his breath and a hardened fist by his side. The father who would roughly deliver beatings to his wife and, occasionally, his kids, blaming them for the consequences of the actions that were all his own.
The mother- a sweet, kind woman who tried her best to support her family, staying out at work on late shifts to earn the extra dollar or two which went wasted on her drunkard of a husband on those hard nights.
The children two boys, one girl. Her name was Susan- the youngest. One boy, the middle child, went by David. Then there's the oldest, stuck somewhere between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. The son who stood up to his abusive step-father when his mother couldn't. The brother that tried to shield his younger siblings from the world at its worst moments. The desperate boy who wished one night that he could somehow get away from that miserable life of his.
The teen who suddenly vanished one day without a trace, and whose name, I'm sure, was all over the news not a few days later. The headline on that news channel running across the top of the flickering T.V. Screen, sitting atop that brown, ripped up carpet in the living room would read: 'Young Teen Gone Missing...' And in the details, you'd see: Last name "Hale". First name-
"Alex!"
I turn at the sound of my name. Sarah stands by the pedestal, time gears placed into their respective slots. Their pale, Christmas green color radiating throughout every indentation but one. My partner seemed afraid. She couldn't find the last time gear. I didn't want to worry her by mentioning it was ready to topple over the lip of the tower.
Without hesitating, I reached down and snatched up said gear, grabbing it before it fell and was lost to us forever. The look of relief on the Buizel's face at the sight of the item clamped between my jaws almost eased my nerves. Almost. We were running out of time, and the sooner we set the gears, the better.
Walking on four legs... running on four legs still feels strange to me. Foreign, even though I had told myself since the first day that I'd get used to it in time. There isn't much of that left now, is there? Funny how I was able to toss around a word like that with such ease. Time... I'm starting to get sick of it.
Sarah grasped the gear from my maw as I reached her, trying not to touch the traces of saliva around the edge of it and making a face at me. I had wanted to laugh. It was kind of cute how the Buizel unconsciously avoided any icky substances in those very last, dire moments of saving the world.
She jammed the time gear into the final slot as Dialga continues to stop at the ground and bellow its frustration. It roars once again, emitting every last ounce of its pure, blind rage.
Fear started to run through me. Something, anything should have happened by now. The time gears could have started glowing... the tower could stop crumbling away... Dialga could stop screaming its head off so I could think straight for at least thirty seconds! Hell, I'd almost settle for having time stop that very moment!
Sarah turns to me and shouts over the time beast's roars. "Nothing's happening! D-Did we do something wrong?"
She stuttered...
"I don't know! Maybe?" I tried to limit the amount of fear that snuck into my voice. If anything, I didn't want to spread it. As long as one of us stays level-headed, we'll make it out okay. I hope...
Just then, Sarah's eyes widened. She spoke with heavy traces of dread in her voice. And if Sarah was afraid, I had reason to be as well.
"No..."
"No? No what?"
"No!" She cried. "No... No! No! No!" She turned back to the pedestal where the Time Gears rested and started to rip the m out, piecing them back into the slots and repeating the process. Each time a different gear was placed into another slot. Through it all, my partner shook her head and cried even harder with each failed combination.
"Sarah?"
"No... please! Please... Please, no..."
"Sarah!"
She fell down on her knees, dropping a gear. It rolled away on its side and clattered to the floor like a broken piece of a beloved toy.
I watched her stare at the ground by the podium of gears. Tears streamed down her blank face, paws by her side left limp. She looked defeated, and that broke me.
She whispered something.
I walked closer to her and bent down, leaning my head in to hear. "W...what?"
She spoke up again, slightly louder, the words came out as a haunted whisper.
"We ran out of time..."
I had heard, but I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to accept it as face. "W-wh... what?"
"We ran out of time!" She shouted out, as if I didn't hear. The tears flowed more freely as she buried her face in her paws and slumped over, her shoulders shaking, her head bobbing with her sniffles and hiccups and coughs.
I had to get my bearings. This couldn't be. No, the Grovyle from the future said we had enough time to finish the job. We had more than enough time. This couldn't be possible.
"But... t-the Grovyle said"
"I know what Grovyle said!" She stood up and screamed at me, her voice cracking with strain and frustration. Sarah has never screamed at anyone in our time together. She had always kept a nice temper. I figured something inside her must have snapped. The ultimate failure of saving the world would serve as a perfect shift in personality and character, after all. It would break anyone.
Sarah's voice dropped to a pained whimper, her eyes showing how scared she was. We had seen what the future would look like if we failed. I'm scared, too, but it seems as if I'm going to have to be the strong one here for a change. I'm not allowed to be afraid from this point on, for her sake.
"I know what Grovyle said..." She sobbed once more, gesturing to the pedestal with a mix of furious anger and defeat. "But we failed, Alex. We ran out of time... we couldn't place the gears fast enough." She dropped to her knees and wrapped her paws around my neck. She cried into my shoulder, hugging me close enough to her that I nearly lost balance and fell over.
"We ran out of time... w-we ran out of t... time..."
Time... I'm starting to get sick of the concept. The tower we stood upon kept crumbling away, leaving a gap between us, the pedestal, and Dialga on the other side of the broken platform. It was more than enough evidence of our failure.
Through all this time, the temporal Pokémon had kept up its bellowing and stomping and thrashing as the sky above it started to grow darker with an unnatural sense of foreboding.
Sarah removed herself from me to scream at Dialga with every ounce of being she had. "Shut up! Just shut up!"
And surprisingly, the Time Beast yielded. It stopped screaming and stomping, but instead started directly at us two. It looked at me straight in the eyes. The red tinge of its pupils seemed to darken and cloud over with pure hatred as I locked onto them. Behind the storm of billowing anger I could see a glimmer of sadistic glee. Victory. Those were probably the most horrifying seconds of my life.
Dialga stepped back, reared down, and brought its head up to scream at the darkening sky. This roar seemed different, though. It felt different. The tower just collapsed at that point, tired of crumbling away and eager to hit the ground and get it over with. Dialga started to float, rising into the darkening sky, surrounded by a bluish hue as the tower completely gave way and fell; along with it: Sarah and I.
Falling through the air is strange. You feel light, yet aware of your weight at the same time. Different people react differently to different situations. When it comes to falling hundreds of thousands of feet to your death, I'd be among those falling silently, my body seized up in a grip of terror, accepting whatever was to come.
Sarah is the kind to scream her pretty little head off all the way down.
I felt numb. Everything started slowing down. Literally.
Time began to stop. Cracked pieces of the tower descended as if they were submerged in syrup or honey. I felt the air around me compress and it suddenly became difficult to breathe. Somewhere below me, Sarah's screams had come to a stop.
I tried to move my head to look around for her, and that was a task. The air was solidifying around me like concrete, locking me into place. I managed to do it, though, squirming myself forwards and downwards so that I saw here there, suspended mid-air a few yards or so below me. Her paw was out-stretched, reaching for me. The tears on her cheeks were frozen still, some flying off and freezing a few inches away from her delicate cheeks; they were clear and perfect, those droplets suspended in time. Her features were a mix of sadness, regret, and fear. I saw a message in her soft blue eyes, clear as day.
"Help."
Then she vanished. Just like that. There was no warning; there was no predetermined signs of disappearance. Simply put, she was there, then she wasn't, as if she simply stopped existing entirely.
I had wanted to cry out for her; I so desperately wanted to call her name, to hear it on my lips... to hear anything. The complete silence was mind shattering. It was an abyss of absolute nothingness that threatened to consume me. Sarah just disappeared before my very eyes, and I can't do anything about it but hang here, suspended by time. Or... lack of time, thereof. It was agony.
Can you get to eternity if you don't have minutes, seconds to count by? Can you tell how many days have passed if the sky is thrust into a complete darkness and you don't have the comfort of the sun or moon to ease that lonely feeling you get deep on the inside? I could say I was there for a second... a few minutes... days, a year... two. But I would be lying, because I didn't really know.
I was just... there. Stopped. Still. Frozen. Alive, but not in every sense of the word.
I could say it was instantly, a few minutes, hours later that Primal Dialga roared once again, breaking the silence eating away at my sanity. I could say... but again, I would be lying.
Dialga simply did. It roared. How long? Impossible to tell. But I do know it happened. While the roar persisted, I felt myself loosening from the frozen air's grip. I could blink now, could bend my paw now. I could move.
Then I felt myself getting lighter, as if I wasn't... complete. I was moving, but... not really moving. Floating in place, able to move my limbs, but moving through something else. Something I couldn't quite see or perceive.
I heard Dialga scream once more as a voice of a barren landscape opened up before me. I gasped in my surprise and fear, knowing what was happening. I tried to struggle and break free of the ethereal grip placed on my being. Then, feeling as if hearing it, saying it, would somehow help me, I screamed out for the one person in this world I only truly cared for in hopes she would hear and know that I'm okay. For now.
"S-Sarah!"
An invisible force thrust me into the void, and I yelled in terror as I tumbled through the schisms of time. My voice didn't make a sound, but I could feel my throat straining and the air leaving my lungs as I cried for her, screamed what should have been my partner's name.
Without a noise, I was unwillingly carried along this tunnel, this portal, to a time long after mine. To a world of the future paralyzed, empty, and dead. A future I helped create.
For seemingly no reason what-so-ever, my eyes get heavy and I start to feel exhausted. I hit the ground, tumble across it, and scrape my body along its rough surface. Even with the rolling and sliding across patchy dirt, I don't feel anything. My eyes are shut. My body is limp. My mind is slowing down, and I think that, for now, sleep is a blessing.
The real nightmare would begin when I woke up.