The Candle
Ash awoke from the makeshift tent him,Iris,and Cilan had set up outside the woods with a start. He had awoken from a nightmare involving something about a house in a wooded area, with a mysterious light coming from the window in the attic. When he entered the house he had gone straight up to the attic to investigate. Something about it had interested him, the way it seemed to sway without a breeze blowing how it had started off as a small flicker, but soon grew to a full on flame. When he opened the door to the attic, the darkness was heavy and seemed unnatural for even though a candle was burning it only illuminated an area of about 3 feet. Worse yet was that it was held by a hand. No body, no face, no legs, just a hand. The door swung shut behind him, and in doing so blew out the candle leaving only him, the hand, and the unnatural darkness his eyes struggled to adjust to the newfound darkness, a lightning streaked across the sky illuminating the room for a few seconds. but that few seconds was all he needed to make out a figure in a tuxedo, holding what appeared to be burnt candle wax.
'One hell of a dream' he thought.
Ash quickly undressed from his pajamas, and began to dress in his usual outfit of tattered blue jeans, a jacket, and his trademark cap. He stepped out of the tent to the smell of fresh soup being made over the fire.
" 'Morning." Celin said.
"Good Morning Ash!" Iris yelled from atop a tree. Iris preferred to sleep in the treetops, (something Ash never understood.) than to sleep on the ground in a sleeping bag. She said that the ground was, "just to icky." for her to sleep on. Ash gave a quick nod to both of them, then sat down by the fire. His dream still disturbed him. He remembered reading something in one of Shauntal's books that read,"Some dreams carry an accurate representation of what the future holds for the dreamer."
"Wait, so every time you dream something, it comes true?" he had asked her.
"No silly,only the most vivid of dreams ever even have a chance of being turned into reality." She had replied. "Otherwise, the world would be full of psychics, and lets face it it's no fun when you know what's going to happen."
She was very much right. Ash preferred to not know what was coming next. He liked to jump right into situations and watch how different scenarios played out. Cilan snapped him back to reality.
"You O.K Ash? You seem a little distracted."
"I'm fine really! It's just I had a nightmare last night and it's kind of getting on my nerves."
"Aw, do you wanna talk about it?" Iris called from her tree.
"No, I really just don't want to think about it. So anyways," he said getting up, "we should probably get moving towards Opelucid City. I mean, Celin and I are challenging the gym right?"
"That's right!" Celin said. "This will be my first gym leader battle!"
"Don't you think you have an unfair advantage?" Iris said FINALLY coming down from her tree. "I mean, you are a gym leader yourself."
"You don;t have much room to talk." Celin retaliated. "You're the GYM LEADER."
Iris shrugged.
"Yeah but I got Drayden to cover my shift while I was gone, so you'll be fighting him."
Thunder rumbled over head.
"Well I guess we should keep moving." Cilen said.
"Yeah, I bet you're right." Ash replied. They had just started moving when the first droplets of rain began to fall.