Author's Note: Well. Some of you may remember the original version of this story, The Other Side. Regrettably, I started that without a real idea of where I was going with it, and, well... it was not bad exactly, but it dragged on without really getting very far. I decided it would be easier to simply start over from the beginning rather than continue from where I left off.
This version is rather different, although the basic plot is the same.
Updates will be slow, but I will make every effort to eventually finish this. Please have patience with me.
I hope you enjoy the story.
Look Not Into The Eyes
What now is called tomorrow will soon be yesterday.
Time rushes past and memory slowly fades away.
Chapter One
"Wake up!"
The plea came alternately in barks and keening whines.
"Wake up..."
An Umbreon nuzzled a boy lying in the snow. The boy gave no response.
"You're not supposed to sleep in the snow. So wake up!"
There was still no response.
The Umbreon did the only thing he could think of: he took the boy's collar in his teeth and started trying to drag him through the snow.
Suddenly the Umbreon's ears pricked up, and he left his task a moment to look up and back.
A Glaceon emerged from the whirling snow that fell everywhere in that place.
"Your trainer collapsed?" she asked.
"He's not my trainer," the Umbreon explained. "He's my friend."
The Glaceon nodded to show she understood, and moved to look at the boy.
"Has he been asleep a long time?" she asked.
"I don't know how long is a long time. About the time to run to the mountains and back again, I think."
"Not too long, then, but we should hurry."
The Glaceon threw back her head and let out a wordless cry.
Other Glaceon gradually emerged from the snowstorm as well, along with two Eevee.
"My siblings," the first Glaceon explained quickly, "and my children, who should not have come." In the manner of all parents, human or Pokémon, this last was said with a glare in the direction of disobedient progeny.
"We want to help!" one Eevee objected.
"There's no time to argue," another Glaceon put in. "That human doesn't look well."
The first Glaceon nodded.
"We're carrying the human to the house near here, where the two nice old humans live. You children, run ahead and give them what warning you can."
"Right!" The two Eevee immediately rushed off, turning their task into a race to get there first.
Their mother turned to the Umbreon.
"Now, we have to carry him. We've done this a few times before, so this is what you need to do..."
The Umbreon was proud and did not like to take orders from strangers. But worry for his friend overrode such concerns, and though he was annoyed, he submitted to the Glaceon's directions.