Falling… I've always used to have dreams of falling, and waking up right before I land. I'm told that if you die in a dream, you die in real life. But I know that this isn't a dream, and that this is real life. I'm falling, and I have no idea when I'm going to hit the ground. But that doesn't really matter, because eventually – I don't know how long – the sensation abruptly stops and I'm still.

It's pitch black. Now, that's probably because my eyes are still shut, but even when I try to open them it's still pitch black. I'm not sure if it's because it's actually black, or because I can't open my eyes… but I hope it's the first reason. Because if I can't open my eyes… then I'm worried. Actually, I'm worried if it's because this place is pitch black as well, because then that'd mean that I can't see! So, either way, I'm worried. Really, really worried… But… Red told me that we'd be going to Kanto. So, if we were going to Kanto when we joined hands…

Where am I now?

And if it's not bad enough that I can't see anything for some reason, I can't feel anything either. Or hear anything. Or smell anything. Or taste anything. Well, that last one sounds a bit weird, but it's as if all five of my senses are shut off. I'm like this for who-knows how long, but eventually I begin to hear a faint humming sound. A humming sound that has some tune to it, but it's nothing I've heard of before. It's calming… a calming sound. I think that any sound in my situation would be calming, because it meant that my senses were slowly returning, but… it's calming. And the longer I heard the humming, the louder it became, and the more that my senses returned to me. I could begin feeling a little; I'm on something soft. I could begin smelling a little; although, there isn't anything there to smell. I still couldn't see. At least now I can tell that it's because I can't open my eyes; that doesn't calm me, though. That just makes me even more worried.

After another period of time, I began seeing red instead of pitch-blackness. Not Red, but red. As in, light is getting through my eyelids. I try to open them, and they do, but I quickly shut them again due to the brightness in wherever I am. I begin to open them again, more slowly this time, and eventually, when my eyes get adjusted to the light, I open them completely and look around.

Pink. That's all I can see. The room's pink. Absolutely pink. Every single thing in the room is pink. The walls are pink, the ceiling is pink, the bed – that's what I'm laying on – is pink, and the floor is pink. All the furniture is pink.

"So? What do you think?" I nearly jump out of the bed from the suddenness of the voice.

"W-wha…" I begin, only to stop due to the sound of laughter.

"I didn't ask for questions. I asked what you thought of this place!"

"What's going on…" I start, my voice shaking a little. Not because I'm scared – although, I am a little... – but because I haven't spoken in a while. How long, I'm not sure; my sense of time is screwed up without any of my senses.

"Why are you scared? There's nothing to be scared of! In fact, you should be the opposite of scared! This is literally the safest place you can be right now!" I finally turn towards the voice to see a little girl, one that looks to be only ten or eleven years old, and no older. Although, I always do horribly with estimating and guessing ages, so I could be two or three years off. The girl's pretty normal, her clothes matching the room in being a pink color, but the one thing that I noticed about her, the one thing that made her weird, is her hair.

Her hair matched the room and her clothes. It is the same shade of pink as everything else in here. I'm used to people dyeing their hair purple, green, red, and blue, but I've never actually seen anyone with pink hair.

"How would you like it if you just woke up from having no senses, to slowly regaining them, to having someone speak up out of nowhere and beginning a conversation with you?" I respond. I'm guessing she's not dangerous… Although, with how weird things have been the past few hours of me being conscious, I can never be too sure.

"Well, that may be the truth… I don't know how I'd like it, because it's never happened to me, and it never will happen to me! And besides, you weren't scared when you bumped into Red!" She knows I bumped into Red? Well, obviously… maybe. If she was the one who brought Red and I here when we were "teleported" here, she should.

"That's because I still had all of my senses at the time; I felt when I bumped into him, I could see him, and I could hear him. Also, I live in one of the safest places that I know of; there was no reason to be scared."

"You should always be scared. You never know what's going to happen, right? Like this! I'm positive that this doesn't normally happen, right?" She says.

"Why are you asking it in the form of a question if you're positive about it? Shouldn't I be the one asking you questions? Like, for example, why am I here?" I ask.

"So I'm able to examine you and prep you for your journey!" Examine… and prep me… for my journey?

"What do you mean, 'examine and prep me?' And what journey?"

"Well, you didn't think you'd be able to get to Kanto just like that, now, did you? Your world and our world are two completely different worlds, obviously. There's bound to be different diseases and different laws of nature between the two; your body has to be adjusted to the changes before it actually experiences said changes, or else you'd probably die right after arriving! So, you were sent here so I could examine your body and make the necessary changes to make sure you won't die!"

"And you didn't bother to ask me first?" I feel somewhat violated, having this girl… "examine" me, in whatever way she did.

"Well, I didn't think you'd mind if I made changes to make sure you'd live in the Pokémon world. I thought you'd want me to make sure you'd survive." That is true… but it's still completely rude to do something to someone without asking first!

"It'd still have been better if you had asked me first." I comment.

"Well, I had no idea how long you'd be out for, so I decided to get to work as soon as possible. You have no idea how long it takes to get a body ready for something like this." She laughs.

"And you do?"

"Well… sorta. You see, I've been hoping to have this chance for a long time, so I've been going over and over what I need to do to make sure that nothing wrong happens." She explains.

"Um… I have a question." I say randomly.

"Alright, ask away!"

"Red was saying that someone told him that he needed to get to me and bring me here so I could 'save him' from himself… are you that person?" Even though she looks to be only ten or eleven… in reality she could be much older than that.

"No, I'm sorry, I'm not. I actually don't know who that person… I just know that she told Red everything he needed to know to get him to go find you. That's it. I'm sorry I don't know anything else."

"Alright… Well, if you don't know that, could you please tell me what you do know?" I ask.

"Sure! Let me explain everything from start: You see, if you're going to be with Red and helping him on his journey, then I'm going to have to change your body and alter everything that needs to be altered to make sure you survive. And there's one little cosmetic change that I have to make as well, just so people don't get suspicious. You're going back to when Red started his journey, right before he met Mew for the first time, right?" I nod.

"Well, if you're going that far back, Red's eleven at the time. And you're sixteen. See where I'm headed?" I nod again.

"So, to make things less… awkward, I have to change your physical appearance to that of a ten year old. Ten years old is better than eleven, because that way you'll have an excuse as to why you don't have any Pokémon yet." Wait… she can actually change my body… to make me look like I'm ten? And not completely screw up my mind?

"How is that even possible?" I ask.

"You just met Red before this, and you're asking me if that's possible? Honestly, I think you should be thinking by now that anything is possible! You met Red, he told you you'd be going to Kanto; honestly! Anything is possible!"

"I know that I should be thinking that, because of what happened, but it's still weird… that all of this is happening, you know? Yesterday I would've never believed myself if I told myself that this was going to happen!" The girl sighs.

"Yes, I know. Nothing like this has ever happened in your life, and it's never happened in your history before, either; it's not expected." She explains.

"Anyways… let's stop being all melodramatic and let's get on with the exciting part! I've told you already that I have to change your body to that of a ten year old's so it won't be awkward when you're travelling with Red, right?" I nod.

"Well… that means that I have to change your physical appearance entirely. And I don't mean just reset your age back to ten, I mean completely change it! And I'm going to let you change it yourself! Think of it as a 'character creator' or something. I know that you've hated how you look for most of your life. And don't give me that look! I know all about you from when I examined you." That sounds… creepy.

I think about the option she's given me, and it's weird that it's taking me a while to think. Normally, I would be screaming "Yes!" and taking the chance right away, but now that the opportunity has present itself to me… I don't really know. I've always wanted to keep my physical appearance until I finally found a boyfriend, because then I'd know that he liked me for me, and not for how I looked. And then after I got together with him, then I'd start trying to change my body. So, now that the option to change my body to what I want it to be has presented itself to me… I'm not really sure what I should do.

"I don't really think that that'd be such a good idea…" I tell the girl.

"Why not? Don't you want to change how you look?" She asks, confused.

"Well… yes, I do, but I've been thinking… if I change how I look, then how will I know if someone likes me for me, or how I look? The only thing that I like about how I look now is that I know that if someone falls in love with me the way I am right now, that they've fallen in love with me for me, and no other reason."

"You're weird. Most people would never think like that and take the chance immediately! So… you were talking about someone falling in love with you for you. Do you have anyone in mind?" Well, obviously…

"You do! So, who is it?" She asks excitedly.

"It should be obvious." I say.

"Is it Red?" I blush at the fact that she got it right on her first try.

"It is!"

"Yes, it is…" I say softly, blushing even more.

"You must really like him, don't you?" I nod.

"If it's not too awkward, could you tell me why you like him so much? I mean, you just met him not too long ago, and even then that him won't know you exist, and you'll be meeting him all over again!"

I don't know if I can tell her. I've never told anyone how I felt about Red before, ever. I've told people how I felt about the guy in my class, but I've never felt this strongly for him. I've never felt as strong as I feel towards Red, towards him.

"Well, if you really want to know… alright. I think it's because… he's Red. Not because he's the protagonist of the story, or because he's famous or anything, but because… he's him. He's himself. Red is Red, and that's it. He's true to himself, and he never lets what anyone else say get him off track. He's nice to people because he wants to be nice, not because he thinks it'll get him somewhere. Even if that's only him in the manga, and not him in real life, I've fallen in love with that Red. The Red I know he is. He told me that he did something he'd regret if he ever remembered what it was, and that I was the only thing that could stop him from doing it again. He told me that I'd have to go back to the beginning and steer him away from that destiny. That means that I'm the one who has the ability to make sure that he ends up the way that he does in the story. That he ends up the Red I know he is. " I begin to explain. The girl simply nods.

"You see… I've been telling myself every night that I love Red, and that I know that it's stupid of me to love him, because he's a fictional character and that even if he's real, he might not even be like that! But I also told myself that I didn't care; I told myself that I love him, and that I will always love him. I told myself that no matter what, I would always love him. That I would never betray him, even if he doesn't know that I exist. I don't care that he doesn't acknowledge my existence, I don't care if he doesn't love me the way I love him. All that I do care about is that I know that I'll never betray him, and that I'll never hurt him. Yes, it'd be nice if he knew that I existed, and yes, it'd be even nicer if I knew that he existed, but the only thing that I really care about… is if he knew that I would be faithful to him, always." I continue.

"I think that all of this started… when I first met him. Not 'met' him, but… when he first came into my life. Whenever I played Pokémon when I was a kid, I played, thinking about the characters I was playing as and thinking about the people I was interacting with. My first Pokémon game was Pokémon Red, with Red as the main character, obviously. I was thinking of myself as Red, and was thinking about how he felt during his entire journey. I kept thinking about what it would be like if I was in his place, and if I had to do everything he had to do. He made me think about life in that way, in a different way. And whenever I had doubts about anything, or whenever I was scared about anything, I always just thought, 'What would he do?' And that would help me. Even though I never knew it… Red was always there for me. Even though I never really appreciated him… Red was there for me, for my entire life. Even when the second, third, and future generations came out and I forgot about him when I was playing as Gold and Ruby and Diamond… he was still there for me. He was always there…" I'm crying at this point, and the girl can obviously notice, for her face becomes much more caring than it was before.

"When I finally realized that I loved him, I thought that since I had forgotten about him when the first generation had died out, I had blown my chance. That I'd never get another to be able to tell him how I felt, that I would never get another chance at being with him, if fate would allow it. I believe in one chances, and never getting another chance. Never getting a second chance. So I thought that I had completely blown my chance with him. And I cried about it. But, when I saw Red… when I saw him in flesh and blood… even though I didn't show it, I was dying on the inside. I was dying because of all of the emotions that were going through my body… I didn't know if fate was mocking me, or if fate was truly giving me a second chance. I didn't know… And I still don't know! I could just be here to save Red from himself, and that's it. After that, I go home, and it'd be like none of this ever happened! Even though I did meet Red, I could still end up not having any chance at all to be with him!" I'm practically yelling and crying at this point. I guess people are right… if you let things build up within yourself, they'll eventually all come flooding out.

"Philippe… you truly are special. There was a reason that you were the one who could see Red, and… I think this is it. You truly care for him. You care for him much more than most people care about others, including boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, and any other pairings I've heard of. You truly love him, don't you? Philippe, I don't think you need to worry about fate not giving you a second chance, or fate playing a trick on you. I don't think you need to worry about blowing your first chance, and being unfaithful to Red. Because by what you just said, I know that Red is the one that you truly love, and that you never truly forgot about him." The girl explains.

"Philippe, you're weak. From both my examination, and your emotional distress. I think you should get some rest for now. But, before you go back to bed, I have to ask again: Do you want to change your body?" Funny how she'd ask that at a time like this… but I see how it's necessary.

"You know what? Just do what I've been thinking of saying if I ever got this opportunity: Read my heart. Look through my heart, and look through my true wants. I don't want to mess up and say something I don't mean. So… let my heart pick for me, not my brain." She nods and tucks me back into the bed that I was sitting on, and the humming begins again.

I guess it she's the girl who was humming the noise that I heard before.

Heh… I find it funny. She knew my name without me telling her, but I never even got her's.