Hello world!~ My first fanfiction—kind of nervous, but hopefully it's not TOO bad. I'm not so confident in my abilities yet, but..I pray that you all like it very much! Let me know if it's good enough for me to add more chapters. :33
1
"Death isn't temporary," began the Gym Leader. "Please remember this, children."
"Sensei," a small girl began, "Where did the man go when he died?"
Cheren closed the storybook, filled with morbid images of Pokemon and humans decapitated as well as slain. "You don't know where you go until you get there," the boy replied, eyes filled with a blank sort of expression. "You just don't know. It could be anyone that it happens to when the time is right.
And even so, we'll all be stuck in a void.
The same void…"
Kyouhei awoke in a cold sweat. Arceus… he mumbled. He tried to replay the entire dream, its contents, in the deep hollows of his mind.
Pokemon can't die…not any that I know of, anyway. We all have to go—a man dying in my dream isn't anything to worry about…it's totally normal.
But one thing left him curious—what was this 'void'? Was it Heaven they'd all be stuck in? Hell?
"Evil exists," his mother once said. "Ghetsis, Team Plasma, the villainous groups of other regions…they all exist. They're evil, Kyouhei, and it's very real."
The boy quickly dressed, grabbed his Bag and rushed down the stairs of his familiar home to eat his breakfast. The smell of air freshener still lingered in the air, inching its way up his nose—his mother always used air fresheners.
"Morning, Oka-san," the teen greeted his mother.
"Morning, sweetie," his mother beamed. "You look pale. What happened? Another bad dream of yours?"
Kyouhei had a reputation as a child to have nightmares. Ever since his father had left his mother, he'd begun to have them—his brain's way of being scared.
Frightened.
Fearful.
A frightened little boy.
"Kind of," he replied, an acute shaking in his voice. "Mom, can I ask you something?"
"Swing it at me," she turned back to the frying pan in which she was making eggs.
"What if some people don't go to Heaven, but they don't go to Hell either? Is there a middle? Where do they go?"
She chuckled at his remark. "Must have been some nightmare."
"Mom, I'm serious!" the boy whined.
"Sweetie," she said, handing him his plate, and then sitting at the table. "I don't know where they go. I'm pretty sure that's why Arceus made it this way—so that people don't wander about grieving or pondering things."
"But," he began, "Isn't that what spirits are for?"
She shrugged. "Spirits tend to cling to the Earth because it's the only thing keeping them from passing on. They have unfinished business to take care of—see, you pretty much answered your own question by yourself!"
"So being a spirit is being trapped in the middle then?" he stared blankly.
"I wouldn't say trapped—some of them don't want to leave because they enjoy it here—whether it's torturing human beings, or watching their families and trying to contact them…to them, it's probably the middle." She dug her fork into the eggs.
"…Is it a void, mom?" his voice grew hoarse at the thought of his earlier encounter.
She held the fork still and exchanged eye contact with him. Her face wrinkled in concern, eyebrows raised. "…A what, son?"
"A void," he replied. "Do we all suffer in Hell, mom? Or is Heaven like Hell—us being trapped against our will, being 'praised' for pleasing Him?"
She sighed, concern still evident in her voice. "When did you begin to think so deeply? You sound like a wiser person thinking for you, a prophet—not my son," she laughed.
"Sorry," he laughed nervously. "I just heard it from my dream…I still don't know what it means."
"Maybe we could be trapped, although I don't think Arceus would have any reason to trap us." She kissed him on the forehead. "Go," she softly shoved him forward. "You've got a journey to pursue!"
He smiled, then opened the screen door, summer breezes greeting his face, and walked down the narrow cobblestone paths of Aspertia City.