A Ralts, shivering with cold and alone, was all wrapped up in itself just trying to stay warm through the freezing cold winter by hiding in our attic, behind a stack of boxes.

It must have somehow been seperated from its kind, and because the JDA was a fledgling concept at the time, it probably had no trouble getting past the makeshift barriers that once bordered the city.

I was seven years old at the time, and because I was 'soft', for about a week I would sneak away to the attic just so I could bring it things like blankets, a mug of hot cocoa, and even some toys for us to play with. We were best friends, and it didn't matter that Ralts was a Pokemon and I a human.

However, for all it meant to me, that friendship was woefully short-lived.

One day my brother followed me as I was taking another trip upstairs and Ralts, who had no reason to suspect anything was amiss, jumped out of its hiding place to greet me.

Being that he was older than me and therefore more convinced of the idea that all Pokemon are evil, he of course tattled on me to Sargeant Dad and I never saw that Ralts again.

The memory dissapated and suddenly I was floating, it seemed, in a sparkling light pink- fading to white cosmos.

Faster than I could begin to make sense of it, the air in front of me started to ripple, and I could sense the presence of someone or something emerging into that limitless space.

"What is this place?"

The response was so immediate that it startled me.

"Relax," a female voice said calmly, "you are safer now than one could ever hope to be, for you are within His domain."

So I was safe, huh? Compared to that crazy forest where I had my arm chewed off I thought, most certainly!

Wait a minute...

"My arm doesn't hurt anymore," I expressed aloud, and made a motion to wave it around so as to be sure. Much like how it is sometimes when you dream, my mind's eye could not 'visualize' the movements of my arm nor the presence of the entire rest of my body, but still I had a sense that all the working parts were intact. Could it be that all this was just a dream, too?

"I'm not dead, am I?"

The voice laughed playfully, and the rippling intensified.

"Quite the opposite, Gray. You are about to begin an exciting new chapter of life graced by His unending love."

"Are you talking about...God?" A subject rarely touched upon in polite company nowadays - considering many old world religions told of Pokemon being the center of creation - but what else could she be referring to? And what did she mean by a 'new chapter of life'?

There were so many questions swirling around in my head, and that was even before learning the soothing voice's identity.

"All your questions will soon be answered," she said, as if reading my mind.

Slowly, a head with faded green 'hair' that curved sharply at the back eased its way out of a portal drawn out of thin air, followed by the dainty step of a twiglike porcelain leg, and then by another one draped in the flowing 'dress' indicative of the Gardevoir species.

Once fully emerged, the five foot tall femme Pokemon froze me with an unwavering, very human look in her eyes, and a pleasant smile.

"My name is Pandora."

Along the edges of the portal she had passed through, tiny red flowerbuds began to appear, sprout, grow to maturity, then wither, die and decompose within a matter of seconds.

This, on top of the talking Pokemon who apparently also had a name, and the bizarre dimension I now inexplicably occupied had me stunned beyond words.

Pandora...

"Walk with me, Gray," it said to me, then made an elegant swooping gesture with its hands which caused the portal to expand slightly. Enough for two bodies to pass through at once.

She turned to enter it again and, as if compelled by an invisible force, I followed.

"I have no idea...what's going on."

"You should be happy, Gray," the Gardevoir's words resounded and, as I felt her hand clasp over mine, a blinding white glow enveloped everything.

"You have been granted a second chance."

Where are you taking me?

With those words the light, the flowery gate, the pink dimension and Pandora vanished.

Next thing I knew, I was lying in the grass listening to a flock of chatty Pidgey fluttering through the treetops overhead.

"I'm back in the forest."

Looking around, I could see the bed of overgrowth where my comrades had tended to my wounds, the bloody bullet riddled trees left behind from the fight with Ursaring, where further along sat the same lone clearing by the tree with a Combee hive. The terrain was familiar, but something was distinctly off.

Why is everything so much bigger now?

I held out a hand to touch the fronds of an eye-level bush and, instead of my torn wrist or nothing, this time I was shocked to see a smooth and fingerless, rubbery white appendage extending in its place.

This can't be real I thought to myself, butthe strands of green hair hanging over my eyes and two horns protruding from my head - one in the front, one in the back - said otherwise.

By some twist of fate, cruel irony, or what have you, I had become a Ralts.

"You look lost, stranger."

I looked up in the direction of where I thought the voice was coming from, and there I spotted a Metapod nestled on a high branch. I must have missed it upon first glance because of how well it was camouflaged by the surrounding leaves.

Did that Metapod just...?

"What's the matter, squirt? Can you not see me from all the way down there?"

"I can understand you?"

He grimaced and glared at me, huffing mad.

"Look, don't think you can just walk all over me because I'll be stuck in this tree until the end of the week," he snapped. "You've got some real nerve, squirt."

"That's seriously not what I meant, guy."

He twitched; trying to look as threatening as an immobile pupal form can attempt, I suppose.

"Oh, take a walk already! How am I gonna do my job if you keep bothering me?"

"Bothering you? You're the one who called out to me in the first place!"

Another set of eyes opened and with them, a second Metapod appeared in the same tree, next to the first one.

"Hey, is this kid bothering you?"

...before I could try to defend myself, another Metapod butted in.

"Pipe it down, would ya? Some of us are stuck working the graveyard shift for crying out loud!"

"Shut your yap and go back to sleep," the first Metapod shouted, but I didn't stick around long enough to hear where the bickering went from there, because my attention was fixed elsewhere.

A furry, light brown figure was kneeling in the grass by the ubiquitous Combee tree.

I didn't know why at the time, but as I watched this figure, memories of my mother I didn't even know I had flooded over me.

She died before I was old enough to really get to know her, so the sadness I felt was less about what was, and more about what might have been: she was the smiling face hanging over the walls of my cradle, or a singing pair of hands holding me up to the sun; excrutiatingly nothing more.

It was like an invisible hand had grabbed me by the neck, and was squeezing all the air out of me.

The figure turned around sharply.

"Are you okay?"

It was a Teddiursa, now running toward me.

"I can't...breathe," I gasped, just before falling facefirst into the grass.