You

by Farla

Experimental.

You wake up in a room.

You're not sure if "wake up" is the right phase for it, as you're not in bed. You're standing in the middle of a room. You're staring at a wall. The floor appears wooden. You front of you is a purplish box. Looking closer, you see it says "Gamecube" on it. You don't remember if you were playing it before. You don't remember if you've ever seen this room before. You don't remember if this is something that should worry you.

There is a computer in the left hand corner of the room. It's on a small table and there is a chair in front of it.

You step to the right experimentally. Your legs move automatically beneath you, as if you've done it a million times before, and you stop somewhat jerkily at the thought. You walk several steps, amused by the novelty and unnerved by the sense it should not be novel. You turn, and find that, too, is easy, so you turn back and forth as you walk, going across the wooden floor in a tight, jerky circle.

You stop, satisfied that you've familiarized (refamiliarized?) yourself with walking. You see stairs in the righthand corner of the room, leading down. More confidently, you walk to them and start down.

There is a woman sitting at a table. A TV is on to some program. You don't recognize either. You walk over to talk to her.

When you speak to her, she calls you by a name. She seems to know you, and sees nothing odd about you being in the house. She's your mother, you realize. The room you came from must be your room.

You could say this to her, but you don't remember if it's important. She tells you someone is looking for you. She calls them Professor Oak and doesn't say more, so you think he or she is someone you know. Knew. Know?

Your mother tells you to go see him. You nod agreeably, not knowing what else to do. You should probably leave now, you think. You look around and for a moment or three are not sure how you leave, exactly, and for a second you almost panic, but then your eyes find the door. You walk toward it, stepping over the mat and through.

Outside you discover you are in a small town. Flowers bob in the wind. There are some other people walking about.

You walk up to the nearest one, a fat man years older than you, probably in his mid-twenties, and say hello. He might be Professor Oak, or know who he is, but you aren't sure how to ask.

He greets you with a broad smile, and you wonder if he knows you. You ask why he is so happy instead. "It just struck me how amazing technology is. You probably don't even remember life before item storage. It's changed life so much."

You don't. "Item storage?" you ask.

For a second, he gives you an odd look, but it disappears as he says, "You know, the way we digitize items these days, so they can be moved through computers."

You don't know this either, but can guess you should know it, so you don't ask anything else. You wonder if the computer you saw in the room can do this, and if there is anything inside it now. He doesn't say anything about wanting to see you, so you think he is not Professor Oak. You walk to the next person.

You aren't sure if you can go into the other houses. You were in one, but that was your home, you think, and you don't know if that would still be true if you enter other houses.

You realize, looking about, that you have another option besides the houses. There's a large building a little ways off, one that dwarfs the houses and carries a sense of importance somehow to your eyes.

You're not sure what the building is (should you be?)

But, you think, perhaps that's where the Professor Oak you're supposed to find is. More purposefully, you stride over, feeling pleased with your smooth, mastered walking ability. You reach the door without problem and enter.

You take in your surroundings. The floor here looks tiled, not wooden like in your room and house, and there are large bookshelves packed through with books. There's a computer like the one in your room by the back wall and other, less identifiable machinery everywhere else (or should you be able to identify it?) There's also someone else here, dressed in a white lab coat.

You hesitate. Is this the professor you're supposed to meet, or have you made a mistake? It's awkward, trying to find someone when you're not sure who they are, or even sure if you're supposed to know in the first place. You walk over and they introduce themselves (so you don't know them, you gather, except in the process of finding that out, you do) as Professor Oak's aide. They tell you he isn't here, but seem to think it was a reasonable assumption to check. You're not sure if you should be pleased by the fact your guess was correct, or frustrated that, apparently, no one knows where you're supposed to look. You settle for nodding and thanking them before heading outside again to resume your search.

A bit further is an inlet of water, and beyond that is simply more water. There seems to be a wall of some sort blocking either side. For a moment you wonder if the Professor you're supposed to find is somewhere beyond there, and you walk up to the edge.

You stop, realizing that even at the edge you can't see any ground under the water, and that you can't swim.

It's an impediment, but you feel slightly pleased at the discovery all the same. You've found out something about yourself.

But now what? Progress here is blocked.

Considering, you decide it's unlikely the Professor Oak who asked for you would be beyond there. He presumably knows you, or at least talked to your mother who knows you, and your mother would know that you can't swim, so you wouldn't be sent out and told to meet him if swimming was a prerequisite to meeting with him.

You nod to yourself, pleased at working something out. Clearly, the water is not the direction to go in. Besides, you think, your mother said that Professor Oak was looking for you, and so he wouldn't be sitting around in some out of the way place expecting you to find him.

(You brush aside the question of why you seem to be looking for him anyway, or how he could be looking for you without finding you when you were standing in your room before. You brush aside the question of if you were standing in your room before. You brush aside the question of before.)

You look about again, with your back to the water, but see only the large building and the houses you aren't sure if you should investigate or not. You seem to have exhausted everything in the area, and the Professor Oak who's supposed to be looking for you is nowhere to be found. Now what? Surely he couldn't have left - you find you don't know the name of the place, although this, you feel, you should know. You try for a second, but it remains just out of reach, like something you'd read in a book a little while ago but hadn't been really paying attention to. What book? You don't remember that either. You're just sure you know, or should know, or knew, if you'd just been paying a little more attention to remembering it in the first place.

After a few seconds of futile groping for the place's name, you return to the issue of finding the unfindable Professor Oak. You look back to your house again, wondering if you should try returning and asking if your mother knows where he is, though you think that if she knew, she would have told you in the first place.

(You brush aside the question of why she wouldn't know.)

Beyond, the strange walls of the town come in and the ground narrows to a path, covering in a thick, smothering bunch of green plants.

It doesn't look like a promising option, exactly - you don't see any sign of the professor there, and you think it may lead out of...the town, whatever it's called, where you think the professor wouldn't be. But it looks interesting, at least, and anyway, you aren't sure what else to do.

You walk up to it and walk into the plants, discovering that it comes up past your knees and rustles loudly at your step, so you start to take another.

"Wait!" someone shouts from behind you, and obediently you pause.

You turn to see a new person, dressed a bit similarly to the aide you saw earlier and with a long tuft of white hair atop his head that swings back and forth with each step. You wonder if it's another of Professor Oak's aides, and why he would need so many. What kind of a professor was he, anyway?

"What are you doing?!" the aide? demands upon reaching you. "Don't you realize that a wild pokemon could attack at any time when you're standing in tall grass!" Tall grass. That's what the plant is, you realize. It doesn't jog your memory, just as the rest hasn't, but you're pleased to have added another bit to your understanding all the same.

"Come with me," orders the man, and you smile suddenly. This must be Professor Oak. You've managed to find him.

You know that, strictly, he found you, but you still feel you've accomplished something. And now you know who he is, and next, you're sure, you'll discover why he's been looking for you. He starts away and you follow closely, almost right behind him. He turns into the building - Professor Oak's Lab, you think to yourself, wanting to be sure you remember the few names for things you've managed to learn so far.

There's someone else inside, though you're not quite sure if he was there before or if he's just arrived. He's a boy who looks like he's about your size (about your age?) He's the first person like that you've seen. You're excited, but you feel a little uncertain, not sure if you're supposed to know who he is already. The excitement fades as you see him scowl at you and demand to know why you're there. You want to ask him if you've been unpleasant to him in the past, but can't quite figure out how to say something like that, so you're just quiet and a little timid-feeling.

Professor Oak starts talking. Then he just keeps talking, and talking, and talking, and you're trying to hang on every word for scraps of information while at the same time you've feeling overwhelmed by it all and you feel sudden boredom and impatience at the effort and your head is spinning at all the sentences and he's still talking and now you're simply lost.

And...Pokemon. He's going to give you a pokemon. You see three...pokeballs. They're on the table, and you can pick any of them. The other boy is complaining, asking why he doesn't get to go first and for a moment you aren't even sure if you wouldn't rather that too, because you have no idea what to pick, but at the same time you don't know what you want to pick and what if he ended up taking it and - You realize there's been this simmering anticipation in you, for what will happen, and this is what it was leading you to, and you want that choice.

So you walk past the scowling boy - Gary, Gary-Maybe-Oak since this man is his grandfather and it depends on if it was a daughter or a son - to the table where the three red and white balls sit. You hesitate. Is the first one you touch yours? Is there some way of telling what it is, or are you, was the you you were a person who already knew, does everyone but you know these things? You don't know what to do, so after a second you reach out and grab. You'll find out one way or another.