"Je, it's time to get up." It was my mother's soft voice.
"You can't make me," I grunted, rolling over in my bed of soft moss.
"Je, I'm your mother and you've got to listen to me." I remained in bed, staring at the wall of our underground den. I could wait her out for hours. Finally, Mom sighed and turned around, padding out of the room. Our den had three rooms, the main room, the sleeping room, and the food storage room, as well as two exits, the front and emergency exits.
My long, keen ears twitched as I heard her whispering to Dad. "How long will he stay this way?" Even for an eevee, I've always had exceptional hearing - it's just the way I am.
"It's his choice how long he will," Dad replied softly. "He has to make his own decision that life will go on." Yeah, right. Was I really supposed to enjoy life anymore, when my sister and best friend had both been captured by those piece-of-crap trainers? I don't usually swear, but times like these call for swearing.
Mom dropped her voice. I could hear the word "friend ball". My ears pricked. What was a... friend ball? I rolled out of bed and crept forward silently, straining to hear at the mouth of the room. "At least it wasn't a friend ball," Mom was saying, her fish-like tail wrapped around her paws.
"It could have been worse," Dad agreed heavily.
It just came out before I could stop it, and I found myself saying impusively, "What's a friend ball, and what's so bad about it?"
Mom and Dad both turned to look at me, surprised looks plastered on their faces. Dad beckoned me over, and I pressed myself against his warm body. The flareon spoke darkly to me, a shadow passing over his face. "As you know, trainers capture pokemon in poke balls, but there is more than just the standard type of poke ball," he explained. "One such type is what they call a friend ball. When caught by one of those, your personality, your will for freedom, is completely erased and destroyed." My eyes widened. "You are like a slave, and that is why they have come to be known as slave balls to many pokemon."
"That's horrible!" I exclaimed, bristling with rage as I imagined if my little sister had been caught in one of those. Dad nodded with a sigh.
As if to change the subject and thus erase the dark mood in the room, Mom announced, "The moss in our beds is getting pretty old. Will you go get some new moss, Em?" she asked my dad. His full name was Ember, but Mom usually just called him Em.
Before he could say anything, I volunteered. "I will."
Mom turned to look at me and shook her head firmly. "No way. There have been way too many trainers in the woods lately."
"I'm not a little child," I huffed, and I was gone before they could stop me. I don't know why exactly I did that. I had just been in an angry, stressed mood all day long, and Mew knows I have a good reason for it!
Finally, I stopped at the base of a tree. It was covered with slightly moist, but soft and springy moss. Using my claws, I hurriedly sliced swathes of moss from the roots. I suddenly felt paranoid. My little sister and best friend had both been captured in just under a month.
My best friend had been a fiesty but loyal vulpix named Lunan. There was something special about him - he was alternately colored. I still remember watching from the bushes, Mom's tail whipped over my mouth, as he was taken down by water pokemon twice his level. Later, Mom had explained she wouldn't let me yell or help him, for fear I would be caught, too.
Lunan's family moved away that week.
As I piled scraps of moss on top of each other, I wanted to just scream from the unfairness of it all. Why did it have to be me, of all pokemon, who had to have this fate? I angrily tossed another piece of moss on the pile, my claws already aching.
Suddenly, my neck fur raised. I got a strange feeling, as if... as if someone was watching me? I whirled around, eyes flashing. "Who's there?" I felt ready to take on even a trainer. I'd destroy them and leave them in the forest, for what they'd done, for how much I hated them.
"Arcanine," a deep voice chuckled darkly.
A/N: The agony of cliffhangers, eh? I know I'm on two story alerts, but I don't have any reviews yet and it's rather depressing. Please review if you like or even don't like the story! Constructive criticism is welcomed!