Have you ever wondered what it would be like to die?
No, I'm not asking if you've ever wanted to die. That...is a sensitive topic, and we won't go there, but what I am asking is if you've ever pondered about the afterlife. If there is one. What would it be like? So on.
I often imagined that death, or whatever comes after it, would be much like what came before birth. To try and count the number of times I've reached into the depths of my mind to pull out my earliest memories in order to see if I could actually recall pre-life would be impossible. I've been fascinated with knowing the answer to that question ever since I was young, but my trivial tactic never worked. I never even came close.
I could never call upon a memory earlier than when I was four years old, and ah what a sweet memory it was.
It was a simple memory, a fun one. I was at my babysitter's house after kindergarten. She lived across the street from my school and happened to be the aunt of who would become one of my best friends. That best friend, we'll call him Sean, and another best friend at the time, let's say his name is Nigel, were a year and two years older than me respectively. But the age gap didn't matter: because we all played the same video game.
Pokemon.
For some reason it was that memory that I woke up from, but what I woke up to was something incredibly foreign. There was nothing but darkness around me and the air felt heavier than usual. Thick, too. It almost felt like I was underwater, and for a moment that thought brought out a deep panic from within me.
Thankfully, when I discovered that I could breathe with ease, I relaxed.
"Ah yes. Deathly afraid of water, aren't you?"
A voice called out to me; one that sounded neither masculine nor feminine and yet both at the same time. It echoed throughout my mind and throughout the darkness, so it sounded like a hundred different voices spoke to me one after another. With a wince I brought my hands up to my ears to attempt to block out the sound. It was damned irritating.
"Okay, what is this?" I asked loudly, in an attempt to drown out the loud echoes. "Some sort of annoying dream?"
Even as I asked this question I highly doubted that was the case. In any dream or nightmare I can recall I have never questioned if I was in a dream. There was never that moment where I pinched myself and felt nothing. But I had to ask that question, because at least a dream was a reasonable answer. If that wasn't the case...I'd have to do my best to stay calm, and not freak out.
"Well then, genius, if you know it's not a dream then why would you bother asking?" That damned voice taunted me, it's words echoing endlessly throughout the void. I grit my teeth and clenched my fists. It was making me so angry the gravity of my situation actually took second place in my mind.
Also, fun side note, the annoying voice could read my freaking mind! Sick, that's just what I needed.
"Because I had to ask, you jackass!" I shouted out to...no one. There may have been a voice in the darkness, but darkness was still all that I saw. Damn it, now I felt stupid. Getting angry wasn't going to solve anything, just like getting panicked. Yet as my rage began to subside I felt the panic from before rise up in it's place. Damn it!
"Relax, will ya?" The voice didn't echo this time. It spoke straight into my mind, and it snickered obnoxiously before it continued, "You're not in any danger. It's far too late for that."
Those words sent a chill through my spine. Now the panic started to fade and instead it was replaced with...nothing. A hollow, cold, empty feeling. It felt like ice flowed through my veins instead of blood, and the air in my lungs was nothingness.
"Does that mean what I think it means?" I asked after a pause. The voice chuckled now.
"So many emotions in so short of time...it's the best part of what I do." I did my best to ignore the fact that the voice was stalling for time, clearly intent on not giving me a straight answer. "...All right, fine. You're dead, man. You're really dead."
I genuinely didn't know how to react. There was...I mean, I still felt alive, so his words almost felt like a lie. However I was stuck floating in some thick black void, and for all I know the voice that spoke to me was some sort of deity. Could be God, could be Hades, but it didn't really matter, did it? I finally had my answer to the question of the after life...but...how?
"You don't remember dying, right? Yeeeeeah, probably best if it stays that way. Nobody really has the mental fortitude to properly handle seeing their death"
Well, if the anime "Death Parade" was anything to go by, then yeah remembering how you died either gave you an epiphany and almost entirely altered your personality, or it drove you insane. Still...I had to wonder how I met my end. And what came next?
"Tch, you're so boring. Come on! Where's the sorrow! The remorse! Start begging for your life back like the others do!"
"And give you the satisfaction?" I practically spat back. "Hell no. Just tell me what happens next."
It was a farce, a front. I could only imagine my state of mind at that time was stuck in denial. I still felt alive, so it didn't feel like I had really lost anything. I was more annoyed and confused than anything. Once I transitioned on or whatever the hell happened next, then I had no doubt the magnitude of my situation would hit me like a tonne of bricks.
Even if it hit me now, I would be damned if I showed any weakness to this voice.
"Ahh, that's your angle, huh? It's a power thing, a control thing." I shot a glare upwards, as if the voice was there, but all I saw was more stupid blackness. "Yeah, that's you all right. Gotta be in control, don't let anyone in, and even when you're falling apart on the inside you try to show nothing on the outside."
Before I could even get a word in edgewise the voice pressed on, "All right, then. If that's how you're gonna be then I'm just going to get straight to the point."
The blackness before me changed. Twin rectangles of white light appeared before me, lined parallel to each other with one above the other. I stared in shock as a few words appeared in the center of the top-most rectangle. They read "The Pokemon Company" and beneath those words..."Nintendo"
...What the hell was this?
The lights faded to black once again and, as a bright blue star flew across the center of the top rectangle. As it weaved around it became painfully clear what I was staring.
The rectangles were screens. Massive screens for some sort of DS.
"Bravo, you are correct!" The voice cheered obnoxiously. I did my best to ignore the voice and instead focused on the screens. No music played, but judging by the animation before me I was able to recognize that I was watching the opening to either Pokemon Black or White. I'd played through the games enough to easily identify them just off the first few seconds. Hell even the blue star gave it away that it was a generation five game.
"But now you must be wondering 'Oh voice, why are you showing me this game?'" To my chagrin the voice actually nailed a perfect impersonation of my voice. "Well luckily for you it's my job to tell you! See, you're not ACTUALLY dead...but you're close. You're literally teetering on the edge between life and death."
So, what, I was in a coma? An improvement over straight up death but I mean, it wasn't exactly something to be thrilled about.
"Damn but you are snarky," The voice commented with a rude snigger, "Anyway, this is actually a pretty rare occurrence. Your conscience is preserved, immortalized even, for as long as your body remains in this state. But you're locked out of your body, separated from it."
This was starting to sound a lot like Insidious. All we needed was the creep falsetto singing and a funny looking demon and we were set.
The voice chuckled at this thought. Great, I made it laugh with me and not at me...right? Maybe I got to go back to my freaking body now. Regardless I kept my eyes fixed on the screens, as the top screen showed a camera that rotated around a large black dragon Pokemon I recognized as Zekrom, displaying him from different angles. Evidently the game before me was White version, and not Black.
"We like to handle these situations in fitting methods whenever they come. Your time could be now, could be a year from now...or you could stave it off until your time comes in earnest. You could fight for the right to live and earn back your life."
"Okaaaay..." I muttered as the title cinematic for Pokemon White repeated itself. I wasn't even going to bother asking who "we" was. I could only assume it was either just the voice itself, or the voice's apparent friends or colleagues. That wasn't what was important to me. "So what the hell does Pokemon have to do with this?"
"We like to give people like you the best possible odds at getting their life back while still providing a good challenge. For, say, Peyton Manning, it would be to go through a sort of life simulation and win the next Super Bowl. For Columbus, it'd be reaching eastern India and NOT the Americas..."
"For you, who have only so few real talents and skills, we have decided that you must simply complete a successful run of Pokemon White version."
...Really? That was it? Surely this voice knew that plain runs of the Pokemon games were incredibly easy. Were there any conditions, like was I not allowed to lose a single battle or something?
...Oh hell, was this going to be a freaking Nuzlocke challenge?
"Dumbass. The condition is you have to do it within 12 months."
Well, at least I was right about there being conditions. Still this whole situation was...it was too much to handle. I couldn't really keep one constant emotion towards all the information that had been fed to me. After all it could just be bullshit.
"Bouffalant shit, if you please." I could practically feel the grin the voice was wearing when it said those words.
The top screen shifted to a picture of the player characters. The male, dressed in a blue jacket, black pants, red shoes and a matching hat, was Hilbert. Horrible name, sorry to all you Hilberts out there, but I always did like his design.
The female, though...yeah, suffice it to say I liked her design too.
"Pervert."
"Shut up."
She wore an open black shirt over a sleeveless white top, blue jean shorts that somehow showed the pockets through the bottoms of the short legs. Black socks that were shin high, black boots with pink laces, and a pink and white hat.
"Well, I'm not going to let a pervert like you make this choice. Can't be trusted."
Really? Listen, I wasn't about to pick the female character on a playthrough that meant whether I lived or freaking died! I'm not that twisted.
Still, I watched as the icon for Hilbert was clicked, then I watched as his appearance changed before my eyes. His skin darkened to what was known as a mulatto skin tone. His hair darkened as well, to jet black. His eyes, which were already brown, darkened ever so slightly. Was he being customized to better suit what I looked like?
"Tch, you have no idea what's coming for you, do you? But I know all about you, if you can't tell. I know that you're ruled by your avarice. You want and you covet and you want and you covet...you like to claim you have a lot of restraint, but you always give in to your greed in some way. You can never go all for nothing, and going even frustrates you just as much. That's why we're I have faith that you'll survive this challenge."
I watched as the name "Hilbert" was typed into the screen. Wait a minute...I didn't even get to use my own name? I didn't even get to pick my new one!?
The voice whooped and cackled like some sort of rabid hyena. "Even now you're mad that you didn't get what you wanted! Yes, that's what you'll need to survive and get your life back! Greed so strong you'd let it devour this world until there is nothing left! Don't just want, but take! Don't just covet, but steal! Don't just survive, but live!"
The top screen expanded larger and larger until it filled my entire vision. The light which burst forth from it was so bright I had to throw my hands up to cover my eyes. Peering through the cracks in my fingers, I watched in horror as the screen folded around me, my entire vision becoming white.
"Game, start."
This is a very, very experimental thing. I have this entire story pretty much mapped out, but I know that self-inserts tend to be viewed VERY critically and can receive some strong negative backlash...and honestly, it's usually for good reason. It is very, very hard to create a protagonist based either entirely or almost entirely off of yourself but keep any and all bias off of that protagonist. It becomes very hard to write out your flaws into the character and harder still to make the audience emphasize NOT with a character, but with you.
Yet many have risen to this challenge and succeeded spectacularly. And so I have decided that I, too, am up for the challenge.