In The Shadow Of War - Chapter 1 - Cold
It was winter. A boy trudged along in the blistering cold, knee-deep in snow. The icy wind was turning his skin blue.
"I have to find shelter," he thought to himself, "or I'll freeze."
His partner, Poochyena, was to weak to carry on by itself, so the boy carried him.
Ahead the boy noticed a small shed, half buried by the blizzard. Luckily, it seemed abandoned. So he made his way over to it, and began to dig snow away from the door.
Hands already numb from the cold, he risked frostbite pushing his arms into the snowdrift against the building. After several minutes of intensely painful digging, the boy was able to pull open the door just wide enough to squeeze himself and his pokemon inside.
He collapsed into the corner, pulled a rotten blanket out of his pack, and laid it over his beloved Poochyena. Shivering in the dark of the shed, he tried to sleep.
His dream was the same dream he's had every night for the last eight months. His mother, baking a Lum Berry Pie, Pidgeys chirping outside, and his best friend sprawled out on the sofa watching a football game.
"Isaac, pie's done!" His mom sang.
"Yo, Danny, food." He told his friend.
"Thanks for the pie, Ms. Abraham." Danny said.
Isaac's first bite was interrupted by a rattling of the whole house. Then an odd noise. He stood and walked to the window. In the sky were airplanes. Hundreds of them! Like nothing he'd ever seen.
The brightest light he'd ever witnessed appeared on the horizon. A cloud shaped like a mushroom was visible rising from behind Mount Pyre.
He turned on his Pokegear and tuned the Radio.
"...stay indoors! I repeat. All citizens lock your doors and stay inside!" Cackled over the radio, "We are under attack by unknown forces, do not leave your homes, the HDF has been mobil-"
He awakened at a thump. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. He sensed danger. He reached for his M-16, and approached a small hole in the wall, in an attempt to see what's outside.
What he saw got his heart pumping harder than before. A group of soldiers, escorted by a tank, forcing a contingent of POWs to march barefoot over the frozen landscape. A trail of bloody footprints followed them.
Having not been noticed, he returned to his sleeping pokemon. Poochyena had been sick for weeks. It's getting better, but was still weak. Isaac grabbed the last can of beans from the bag and placed them on the floor.
He cut a strip off of the roll of cloth he kept in his bag, doused it in lighter fluid, and started a fire.
Some scrap pieces of wood in the shed provided enough fuel for a small fire. He warmed the beans over the fire, and awakened his partner to eat.