DAY 1-11:00; Sunny

Tomorrow was shaping up to be the best day of my life. The Professor said he had planned to give us our first partners and set us on our journey of Kanto. I'd be lying if I said the excitement was keeping me up a bit. But it's hard to get a good night's sleep when you know that tomorrow, your entire life will be in an instant. Me and Ren, going out on a journey! I could hardly wait. Even still, it wouldn't really do to be my first day and looking like a total wreck due to no sleep at all, now that I think about it. With a bit of reluctance, I turned off the lights and tried to get some sleep.

That night, the strangest dreams occurred. It was as if I was looking into another world, one that looked similar to Kanto, but much more fertile. It had rolling pastures, massive mountains, and almost everywhere you looked, you could tell it was a land of great diversity. It seemed as though I was alone in this void, and it felt quite dark and depressing. But from the corner of my eye, I noticed something. At first, when I was looking at it, it seemed like a rip of some sort, like you would see in a piece of cloth. But upon further inspection, it was a rip in nothing. Like, it was just floating there. However, before I had time to really think about this, I heard a voice from inside it.

"Do you want to know more?" it said. It seemed like a woman's voice, but all I could see in this…gap, I guess I should call it, was pure black. "Does the world you see intrigue you?"

A little halfheartedly, I nodded. "The World you see before you isn't your own. Would you like to know more?" I was getting a little nervous now, but also even more curious. As I reached my hand to this mysterious gap…

…a piercing noise woke me up. Took me a second to see it was my alarm clock. God, I hate that alarm clock. Even though I know it was all a dream, it all felt so real. I could almost feel the cool breeze on my face. And who was that voice? It had a chilling tone to it that made me the slightest bit nervous just thinking about it. Most dreams that have voices I can't see are usually ones I know, too…

I would have thought about that more, but then I noticed the clocks time.

And then it hit me.

CRAP, I OVERSLEPT!

Oh man, the Professor is gonna kill me for this! As I hurried out of bed and into my clothes, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could. In hindsight, that was a horrible idea, as not past the first step did I trip and tumble down every single step afterwards. If this had been any other day, that would have hurt like hell. But today is a very special day, and I wasn't gonna let massive amounts of pain stop me!

As I hurried out the door, I noticed Mom had a bag lunch ready for me. It's as if she knew I was going to be late. She always leaves for work early, so I guess I owe it to her for planning ahead.

Oh, silly me, I guess I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Maribel Han, but everyone around here calls me Mary. My best friend, Renko Usami (that's Ren for short), and I live here in cozy Pallet town, next to the famed Puppet Professor Oak.

Yesterday, the Professor came to both of us and asked if we wanted to go on a journey for him to help his research. Frankly, I'd been living in this dinky little town for about 3 years now, and I'm sick of it. Ren, however, looked a little nervous about leaving. She was always sort of a shy one, and it always took a lot of effort to get her to simply leave the house, much less going on adventure. But I was always there to protect her, because that's what friends do. Ever since we were both little, I was always watching out for her, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I eventually talked her into it, so we would both head out on our own respective journeys to explore the world. We thought it would be a friendly competition.

The only reason she wanted to really go on this journey was to help her grandfather's research. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, Ren is Professor Oak's granddaughter, and it's probably at least one of the reasons the good Doc decided to let us do this. However, the Professor had sprung this idea on us late last night, after an accident had forced us to use some of the Professor's Puppets to defend ourselves. As a result, he told us that since it was so late, he would wait to give us our partners until the next morning.

And so, here we are, with me heading to the good doc's lab, going to start our amazing adventure. And I plan on writing it all in this diary so that I can keep the experiences forever.

Just out of the corner of my eye, however, I saw something. It looked like the gap…thing I saw in my dream. I only noticed it for a split second, and when I realized I missed it, it was gone. Maybe my eyes were just playing tricks on me. Yeah, that's probably it.

Cmon, Mary, snap out of it! It's the biggest day of your life! There's no time to be worrying about crazy things that aren't there! There's adventure to get to!

As I shook those thoughts out of my head, I took the first steps into the first day of my new life. Not as just some faceless nobody, but as a trainer, an explorer, a whole new me!

From past the gap, a mysterious figure watches Mary carefully. "Hm, she doesn't seem to have awakened yet.", she said to herself. "Well, no matter, the fun is just getting started, it seems."

-Prologue End