E: 8/6/2015

We make a lot of decisions we live with, for better or worse. Sometimes, we regret them. Sometimes, we're proud of them. However, Gray can't remember any of those decisions. What he can tell is that he made some questionable ones. But people aren't sure what Gray should know about himself. However, as the world starts to twist itself towards seemingly inevitable war, Gray becomes involved due to his past. Now, regardless of what he remembers, he's forced to take on the shifting loyalties of those posturing to fight. Without his former battling prowess, knowledge or titles, can he really make an impact when everyone is set on destroying each other?

Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own pokemon.

Welcome to the Unknown Adventures of Gray.

I woke up in a complete haze. It was hard to be coherent after any kind of sleep but I was completely exhausted... I closed my eyes again, figuring I would simply drift back to sleep. However, sleep wasn't forthcoming. After a while, I forced my eyes open to be blinded by the light around me and take in my surrounding.

The room I found myself in seemed to indulge itself in bright and happy colors. Orange and red streams of paint crossed the wall like well-hung fabric, and some abstract warm paintings accented the room to add a 'homey' feeling. It was hell. The orange, after about two minutes, caused sensory overload. You couldn't focus while staring at it. The red itself was like blood because its color was so deep. A nice contrast, some might say, but it was just as distracting. Never a fan of the extreme bright colors, I closed my eyes again as the brightness literally forced them shut. I could still see the orange through my eyelids, it's protrusive invasion uninvited in my private world. It would take a couple of minutes to fully adjust to the light, even with my eyes closed, but I was already functioning. I was lying down… It felt like I was on some kind of spring mattress, a couch or bed… And I wasn't willing to roll off to figure out which.

I eventually opened my eyes and took a good look around. The room was still the same bright ugly color, but I noticed the physical aspects. I was alone, no monitors, no screens, no nurses… No others. There were many other beds to represent that others should've been present. It occurred to me that I might've been dead, but I quickly decided against it. Had I died, I would've gone to heaven and heaven wouldn't be this ugly… or solitary.

Frantically, I looked around, trying to find a door. There were none visible. I got up to manually inspect the room for an exit. Moving slowly from place to place along the wall, I looked for seams that would represent a way out. I would periodically knock on the walls to listen for any hollow spots, even to try and kick my way out. It seemed the room was built with very solid materials, and my hand started to get red far before I finished my inspection. It seemed like there was no way out.

"Am I dead?" I voiced. At least I had that left… And then I saw a small paper on the nightstand next to the small bed I had been laying in.

Dear Subject-192D

The experiment to clear _Terminal Brain Cancer_ was completed at _7:42 p.m._ on _Sunday_. You are clear to leave at some point later when you wake up. The experiment may cause nausea, major and severe headaches, coughing, and temporary to permanent weakness in limbs or response time to movement. Dr. Tortican will be with you shortly after you wake.

Severe Headaches? I thought. I'm fine… And then karma struck me, and I started the most intense headache I could remember. The pain was intense enough that, after grabbing hold of the bed, I placed myself into the pillow and tried hard to erase the pain, but I couldn't stop what was internal. It might've been the most intense headache I could remember, but I couldn't remember anything at that point. It felt like someone had stuck my head in a giant electrical socket and turned the voltage up, the pain racing around my head as if it was orbiting. So intense was it that eventually I started to lose hold of my conscious and drifted in and out of being aware of my surroundings. Sleep and ignorance were a blessing, while the pain and alertness were my punishment.I must've gone into shock at some point. Maybe my body was just physically weak, but the pain was too much. Waking up, I found that my headache was gone, but nothing in the room had changed. There was still no way out.

But fate would just manage to prove me wrong. Soon enough, the center floor area gave way and a small elevator, revealing a small round man in a white lab coat. His bifocals reflected the orange from the wall, disallowing me to see his eyes. His grey hair found itself arranged in a rather odd fashion, in some places sticking out, leaving a rather noticeable bald spot in the middle of his head. In his hands, he held a clipboard and a pen, but he set it down on the elevator and sat in a chair close to my bed alone.

"Dr. Tortican?" I inquired. It didn't feel like anyone else was coming to see me here. And now, what other name would I even remember? I couldn't recall anyone else who might want to visit me, at least.

"Yes. Do you have a name?" He asked. The question came out cold, as if it was simply for recording and nothing else. "We use the number/letter system for categorizing, but I don't really want to address you as Subject 192D." When I shook my head no, he shrugged and continued. "Well, the surgery was… obviously successful, we believe. You show no signs of your body reacting bad to the cells, and they have started to stabilize around the cancer and are destroying it. We'd let you go… But there is one issue."

"I'm the only one who survived and everyone turned into mindless zombies?" I asked sarcastically. A good story, I thought, would always start with someone being the lone survivor of a group turned into zombies. What better way to begin with no memory? "But shouldn't I have given you my name when I registered? I seem to be experiencing amnesia…" I asked, admittedly a little worried.

"No, no… Quite a few were successful…" Dr Tortican replied, immediately correcting my error on the first question. "We just found an… aftereffect in one of the members… She had lung cancer and, when we applied the pokemon cells, base taken from a Wailord… her lung capacity quadrupled. This may sound like a good thing, but the main point is that the cells are interacting not only with the dying cancerous cells, but your own… Which is unnatural. You're free to go in a few days, but until then, this needs to watched to make sure nothing shows up." He easily answered my first question without hesitation… It almost felt rehearsed. He took his time getting to my second question. It was much more slow and deliberate than the scientific answer he gave previously. "Memory loss is… always a risk when dealing with the brain… No, you didn't give us any name… More than likely, if you had, we wouldn't have recorded anything… It may return, but…"

"So, essentially, I could start attempting to eat without hands out of a bowl, or start flopping like a fish on the ground?" I asked. I tried to completely ignore the fact that I had just been told I had no chance of retaining my memories. My question, though, caused the doctor to chuckle.

"Well… If you do start flopping like a fish, rest assured we won't fry you," Dr. Tortican said. "You probably should get some sleep. Do you need anything?" I had a million questions, but something about Dr. Tortican made it clear that he didn't have any answers for me. I shook my head and the doctor nodded, walking away. "If you need anything, we're always listening. Just speak up and… we'll hear you," Tortican added as he turned back on the elevator. There must've been an outside switch because it didn't seem like he did anything to call the , just as quickly as he appeared, the elevator swallowed him back up.

I sat on the bed and wondered what I could possibly do for two days… Reminisce? Shrugging, I sat down and started to think about my past... to discover I didn't remember anything. All I could do was blink. Staring at the wall, trying to draw some memory, I thought back to events that must've happened… the surgery… the… the… the?! There wasn't anything else I could think of that must've happened to me. This was one hell of an amnesia case if all my memories seemed to be eluding me.

"I guess I could look at myself for clues…" It struck me that I couldn't even remember what I looked like. I tried to find some reflective surface. On the nightstand next to me, there was a small mirror. Reaching for it, I thought about all the implications… I didn't know who I was, and the only thing to judge myself by was my own appearance. Did I really want to see myself? Curiosity quickly overwhelmed any anxieties about seeing my face. I could see my body perfectly well, couldn't I?

So I steeled myself and looked into the old hand mirror. I almost dropped the mirror. Was this a trick? The person staring had black hair, just down past his neck, but it was rough and messy. I would say it was dirty, but though it looked like it should've been, the hair had no visible signs of dirt. The bangs were cut short, showing signs of it having been cut by someone, as the forehead had a mighty scar crossing on the left side where the surgery had taken place. The face was wide with shock. Gray eyes. They were remarkably empty… A nose that looked like it was made for glasses, having a small knock where they could rest easily.

I looked down… my t-shirt was green, just like the man in the mirror. The blue jeans matched as well. That… that shell was me. Empty, even the eyes… MY eyes… showed signs of recognizing nothing. It was too much… I didn't know anything about myself, and here I was, in a strange place with no memory. I felt tears swelling at my eyes, but I wiped them away. If I wasn't going to remember anything about myself, I'd remodel… rather, model… myself to be someone to be looked up to… even when I was looking up to myself. The old me wouldn't have cried…

The surgery… I had brain cancer… how had I ended up there? I closed my eyes and tried to remember. The memories were slow, drawing forth like molasses, but eventually the events washed over me, bringing the full spectrum of senses… More a hallucination than a memory.

The whitewash rooms were impossible barriers to cover. I was supposed to be asleep; they had me under anesthetics. But no… I was awake. I couldn't feel the pain… Couldn't even tell why I was here. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness seemed to wash over me for no reason.

Suddenly, I felt something, like a new presence. It passed as quickly as it came, and I felt even more tired than before… And more hopelessness. The doctor in front of me started to mouth something to those around him, but I couldn't hear anything. I would've strained to hear him if I could bring myself to have that kind of self-awareness, but I did not have the control required to listen.

The first words I heard came from a nurse standing near a monitor, its lines beating rapidly, monitoring my pulse. "Will he survive, Doctor? The cancer is at stage 4. If it so much as spreads at all… He's dead."

"Not now! More anesthetics! He's starting to stir! Anyways, you think I'd let this one die?" A quick nod from the nurse, and my mind started to slip away again.

I awoke in a sweat, realizing I had actually drifted off to sleep. The lights in the room were dark, and it was suggestive that I should be asleep.

Unfortunately, I wasn't tired. I never enjoyed going to bed early… How would I know that? It dawned on me that it could be simply a random thought, but I accepted the statement as true. I had nothing else to go on, so I accepted the possibility that it was a truth about me. Perhaps I was just constructing an image of myself. Something I could rely on or believe in. Eventually, I'd have to construct my own identity, right? Maybe I was just subconsciously beginning…

With the extra free time, I explored the darkened room. The lights that had been on when I woke up had all been shut off, leaving only a small source of light from a small lamp. It still seemed to illuminate the whole room, as those ugly orange walls magnified the seemingly meager light to a much larger scale. The lamp cast a dull orange hue, leaving a lot of shadows behind and magnifying my feeling of isolation. I could tell no one was around me, and now I had only the darkness and my own empty thoughts to keep me company. For what could I think about? I walked around the outside of the room a couple of times, and then thought about how the old doctor came in. If only I could get out of here, it was sooo boring pacing in this ugly room.

Moving to the center of the room, I found the faint outline of the lift he had used to enter. Such high-end people, using their expensive technology on lowly me… I couldn't figure out what I was to do. So, I stomped on it, hard enough that a good shot of pain went up my leg. Surprisingly, the ground dropped out beneath me as the lift went down. I found myself on my stomach when the lift suddenly stopped, having not been nimble enough to keep my balance. Oops.

Looking up, it was apparent that I wasn't going to learn much from where I stood. The elevator was apparently placed at the edge of a long corridor, to which I could see no lights placed anywhere. My eyes had adjusted well, but I struggled to make out the walls less than a couple meters away. No art, color or designs seemed to be placed on these walls. In the dark, they appeared completely barren. So, figuring I was in a restricted area for patients, I decided to explore a bit and try to slip past any workers or cameras undetected.

There weren't any twists or turns in this darkened hallway, so I crept slowly towards the end. Very slowly. Three minutes later, I was barely ten meters from where I had started. Every step was loud, echoing far longer than I would have liked. I guess it worked both ways, right? I'd hear them at about the same time they'd heard me. My current pace was only to get me caught, so I readied myself and tried to walk casually. Nevertheless, I was very cautious, and every step became a torturous gamble as I continued down the hall.

I slipped into a dark room at the end of the hall and was greeted by the quiet hum of computers. The soft blue light of the computer screens lit the room ever so slightly, allowing me not to trip over any office chairs. There had been no other doors on my way towards the end, and so I had no choice but to choose this room. I didn't know A THING about computers, but I figured that one of these nasty machines had to be logged into already. As fate would have it, the first one was… Out of the twenty plus machines I could've chosen, the very first computer was logged in. How could I be so lucky? So far, I had activated an elevator with stomping (and tripping) on it, heard from no one at all and found a computer logged in, with no security or human presence in the room. Well, where was the exit sign to the outside…

Yep, it was there. But why did this look so easy? A standard exit sign with a red backlight stood a little to my right… Granted, it probably exited into another room, since so far, I had found this to be a fairly small facility. But even so, wasn't there supposed to be more security?

Or you could just be paranoid… I mean, didn't they say you were free to go in a couple of days? Why would they expect you to run off? It felt like a whole different conscious arguing with me. So, I argued back. Well, an elevator that goes down as soon as you stomp on it, no people around even though he said I was being monitored… Nor any cameras? How stupid… It's asking for me to escape.

I looked at the computer in front of me, and read into what I could find. It was 2:13 a.m., too early for anyone to be up or anyone to be coming to work. I had some time. Should I stay or go? Go! The first voice, the one I didn't seem to control, shouted. Why stay here? There is nothing here for you! But I resisted the temptation to jump out of my seat and run out the exit. I just had cancer! I can't leave. I should stay until they release me, make sure I'm fine. And anyways, if it was this easy, I can get out at any time. This argument wasn't terribly convincing, and the prospect of sitting around quietly for two more days was… irritating. Have you considered, the first voice reasoned, that perhaps you are being lied to? Would you know if you were being lied to? Why trust these random people, you have no reason to believe a word they say!

I focused back at the computer. Somehow while I'd been off thinking to myself, a window popped up, showing layers of script… But the last few lines were different. Traditionally, the lines above had a green checkmark; probably representing they were cleared and operational… The last couple of lines had a yellow squiggle next to them… As I watched, both turned to green checks and two windows popped up. I shook my head… How did that happen? I didn't remember pulling up this window… And it looked like a basic computer when I had arrived...

Both windows seemed to be controls. One was a view of multiple areas of the hospital, supposedly through the cameras. The other was a list of operations of controls for the elevator… Apparently, tapping on the elevator with both feet planted a foot from the edge was set to engage the elevator to activate. Easy, controllable, and perfectly understandable… But why?

Unfortunately… They weren't quite as easy to operate as I expected. Within twenty second, I hit my first stroke of bad luck. I managed to set off an alarm. Some window popped up on the computer telling me to enter the access code or in thirty seconds an alarm would sound. So, the alarm was definitely about to blow. Time to move.

"I can't leave yet… I had cancer… But, then again, that's what they're telling me. For all I know, I never had anything. I can just explain this as a mistake!" I exclaimed, finally getting ready to go back. Twenty five seconds left. Then a thought occurred to me, the argument I kept avoiding. "Why is it so easy if it wasn't some disease? Doctors aren't here to kill you off, generally. And if they were, there would be higher security… Or I could've just died from this cancer." Fifteen seconds left!

There wasn't any time for making a decision anymore. Before I could finish weighing my options, my legs started moving for me and I rushed towards the door. I stopped for a moment, and started searching through a medical cabinet, grabbing medicine that I thought could be useful. I didn't know the use for all of it, but that could be solved later.

"What are you, slow? We're leaving, now!" I didn't exactly recognize the pitch of my own voice. It was raspy, and the vowels all sounded like long 'A's. I felt like I was growling at myself. "This place isn't here to help you! They haven't helped you yet, we're leaving, now."

The alarm sounded, a high pitch screeching going through the whole hospital. I bolted, hoping to find a way out. This was no time to overstay my welcome.

The one thing that anyone should know about mysterious facilities owned by people in lab coats: Expect alarms everywhere. The alarm was a high-pitched buzzing that screeched out through the long corridors. It must've triggered some lights, because the hallways were really bright and easy to see down. They were a cream color, unlike the room I had previously inhabited. At this point, I was racing down hallways on adrenaline, not even sure the way out. Each hallway led to another one, and eventually, they started to look the same. I had to stop and think something out, but my body was on overdrive, running like crazy, in no particular direction. I was just along for the ride

A lot of doors I tried had locked themselves. Or maybe they had been previously locked. But while I was stuck in these hallways, I felt like I was being funneled a bit.

More or less, I knew some part of me was running on an almost instinctive fear. Alarms, being loud noises, are something to be avoided. There seemed to be no more reason for me to freak out and run, and surprisingly, that was fine with me. Run until something good happened. Like the smell of rain. For some reason, I could smell the fresh scent of soaked soil that always announced rain. I ran towards the smell, running into more dead ends. I backtracked many times, eventually realizing that the air ducts above were carrying the smell. It had probably been four minutes; If someone was coming to check the alarms, I was running out of time.

The air ducts. They were the obvious answer. Though the entrance was covered and screwed down, I figured I could drag the down simply by my weight. The roof wasn't that high up, so I calmed myself and readied myself to jump. Using the wall for a quick boost, I grabbed the duct's metal covering easily enough, but that was the easy part. Well, would've been easy, but I wasn't able to catch myself as I fell to the floor with the air duct panel. A small drop, but the second time in probably less than an hour that I had lost my balance. The noise also would draw the attention of anyone already in this facility, and so I hastened my efforts to leave.

I needed to get in the air ducts, and preferably quickly. This part was made tricky by the fact that I was probably not going to simply pull myself up. I didn't have enough upper body strength to simply lift myself into the air duct. Luckily, there was a handrail made of thick plastic for disabled patients. Boosting myself up on the little surface area available for me, I was able to get a much better angle into the air duct. At this height, I could reach my hand into the duct itself, so I wasn't all that far away. The smooth metal didn't offer a great amount of handholds, so I jumped. I jumped high enough that my waist was inside the air duct, and so it was a simple task to plant my arms down on either side and hoist myself up.

The inside of these metal air ducts weren't very large. I had to crawl to move through. I wasn't claustrophobic, but the crawling would slow me down. By now, voices could be heard entering the hospital, but there didn't seem to be any specific idea of what was going on. I continued on my relatively flat journey towards the scent of rain. Eventually, the ducts turned upwards steeply. I though my escape had ended. Instead, I came face to face with another metal screen when I stood up. Bracing my legs against the back wall, I pushed this screen out of the way. It was much more difficult, but these grates weren't really built to withstand human force prying them out and kicking the corners. The noise was more than I wanted, but there was quite a bit of mechanical noise coming from outside the vent anyways.

I stood six floors above the ground on the ceiling of a building. To my back, a large unit was running, which had supplied some noise to cover my constant kicking and crawling. Looking over the edge, I tried to take in my surroundings to plan my escape. Interestingly enough, there were some large metal spikes adorned on the sides. The building overlooked a small town, but this wasn't terribly concerning at the moment. I could see flashing red and blue lights below and people milling about. These people, though, seemed to be in no hurry. Still, I couldn't go into the town. Looking around, I saw the mountains looming to my left and a large forest to my right. The forest was much closer, and so I decided to head that way.

The service ladder was placed behind the building to make the building appear more presentable. Carefully looking down, I was relieved to find no one had cared to check the back of the 'hospital'. I mean, who would expect a hospital patient be climbing through your air ducts?

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