Author's Note:
Hello again, dearest readers! Great to (hypothetically) see you again!
… Man, I need to come up with something to say besides phrases along the lines of "Good to see you again!" Hmm.
Ah, well. You need only know that the second chapter is here, and ready for your reading enjoyment!
Shout-outs to Anonymous1O1, and Openminded15, November Red Angel, and Ginger the Espeon for their Favorites! An additional shout-out to those last two for the Follows! Much appreciated!
Disclaimer:
Pokémon and any other referential materials found in this story do not belong to me. They belong to their respective owners and subsidiaries, and I claim no ownership of them.
Of Children, Men, and Monsters
Chapter One: Surprises, Big and Small
Another painfully average day in school had, done with. Or, at least, in the young girl's eyes.
'Most days are like that, really. It's really just a matter of how average they are which determines their amount of pain.'
She sighed in melancholy boredom, with nothing but a book in her hands as she rode the bus back home.
'I've already finished reading this thing. The story was good and all, but there's nothing to really think on in terms of theme or morals…'
A second sigh.
'Almost surprised that the boys in the back aren't rough-housing like usual…'
A backpack was promptly sent flying, landing right in the pre-teen's lap.
'Aaaand there we go.'
One of the boys ran up the narrow center hall of the vehicle (despite the driver's shouting at him not to) and plucked it off its position on her body, running back to his place with a mocking jeer.
"Good thing you never join us, grumpy, 'cause you are no fun at all!" he spoke as he went, but the girl hardly seemed to even pay attention or even notice to his actions. He growled at bit, aggravated at her apparent difference, before finally sitting down next to his pals.
'Good thing I'm good at acting, and that I'm almost home. Hopefully enough, these last six-ish hours of the day'll be more interesting than usual.'
She scoffed, herself.
'I really need to stop kidding myself. The days have never ceased being boring ever since I matured a couple years back…'
Perhaps it's needless to say, but she really ought to learn to be careful of what she wishes for.
Upon walking into the door of her house, she came face-to-chest with her father, who greeted her like she did nearly every day:
"Hello, Marza. Have a good day at school?"
"You ought to know the answer to that by this point, Dad," she responded dismissively, already taking her shoes off and going up the nearby flight of stairs.
"'Just fine", is it?" he asked again, a small smile present on his face. He didn't really mind his daughter's attitude. He was both used to it and hardly minded it; she took after her mother, after all. Not that he particularly minded that aspect of her, either. Speaking of which…
"Honey. Would you mind at least coming up with an alternate way to say that your day was fine? Such as, per say: "Oh, it was decent enough."?"
Marza glanced at her mother from the corner made from the intersection of the stairwell and the wall.
"I don't really see why I need to. It gets the point across, however short and dull the phrase may be."
"That may be so, but it has gotten rather stagnant. Isn't that so, Julius?"
"Must I get involved in this, Erise?" he whined over-exaggeratingly.
"Don't make me order you, dear," she retorted, a touch of humor present in her voice.
"Fine, fine," he responded without any real amount of seriousness. "Honey, would you mind at least saying something a bit different tomorrow? Even the difference made with a single word'll do."
The raven-haired girl huffed. "All right. It'll probably be a single word like you said, though." With that said, she finally finished her climb up the stairs, which had been extended from two seconds to five times that amount. 'Not that either of those is a huge amount of time, but time wasted is still time wasted,' she thought grumpily.
Julius waited a few seconds, as to make certain that Marza was in her room, before saying to his wife: "Sometimes, I worry for that girl. I know that her Autism makes it difficult to make and maintain friendships, and, even though she seems fine with it for now, I know that this'll handicap her later in her life…" He sighed in a worried manner.
"Oh, don't you worry. I powered through my own disability, and look at what I've gotten as a result: a loving husband, and a fantastic daughter," assured Erise. "All that she needs is a push here and there, and she'll be just fine. Her Autism, as well as mine, is hardly the worst I've seen. Trust me when I say that, as a nurse, I've seen some significantly worse stuff." Her spouse smiled at her words.
"You're right. Let's just hope that we push her in the right direction, then, hmm?" He leaned in for a smooch, and his wife gladly complied. The couple giggled afterward, and they turned on the TV, putting their arms over each other's shoulders as they started up a movie.
Unfortunately for them, their daughter had, in fact, heard their dialogue. Autistic people do tend towards having a more sensitive sense of hearing than average, after all. "Well, that was cheesy as all heck," she spoke, letting out an exhale as she flopped into her bed. "Almost made me want to choke. Ah, well. Maybe they're right. I don't think that I particularly need friends, though, especially when most of the people at school are so dissimilar to me." A few minutes passed of her merely sitting there on the bed, contemplating, until she began to get bored of that train of thought. Getting up, she walked over to the computer on the opposite side of the room.
Before she could sit herself down again, however, she noticed something that was certainly not there the previous time she had been in her room. "What's this…?" she mumbled, heading over to whatever was in the corner. A few seconds of examination revealed that it was apparently an egg of some sort. What kind of creature laid an egg that was nearly a foot tall with a green coloration and the occasional black spot escaped her, and justly so. "What in the…!?"
She initially thought that this was some sort of prank from the delinquents in her neighborhood, but picking it up revealed that it was actually quite warm, indicating that it was likely hosting some sort of creature, and that said creature was most definitely alive. "Unless someone put a heater of some sort in this thing, but I doubt that someone would make something so elaborate just for a prank…" Deciding that this was, indeed, not a prank, she fulfilled her original goal of sitting down on the chair of her desk and browsing the Internet. What she was looking for was changed from what she would have done otherwise, however; she was now looking for a list of the world's birds and reptiles, and from there, she would take a peek at the appearances of their respective eggs. It took nearly twenty minutes, but she eventually found the page she was looking for.
Another twenty minutes of browsing content revealed to her that the egg matched none of the entirety of the known world's species eggs. "So, I either have some sort of freakish mutant on my hands, or… well, I can't even guess as to what else it could possibly be." She chuckled, if only for a moment. "Well, I suppose that you've alleviated some of the pain that is averageness, hmm?" She held it out in front of her face, examining it closely again, before having a bout of logic; if it was an egg, then, like any other egg, it probably needed warmth. She tugged it underneath the blankets of her bed, setting it near a corner to hide it from the potential view of her parents. She had no idea why, but they liked to occasionally pop in and check the room out. 'They know I always keep this room clean, so why is it that they insist on doing that?'
After she deemed that she had both hidden it and covered it well enough, she got back up and sat back down on the desk's corresponding chair. The problem for her at the moment was that she had forgot what she was about to browse for - again, justly so - and a solid minute of attempting to remember later, she still could not remember what she was going to do. She sighed, instead electing to go on YouTube and watch a few videos.
An hour and a half later, and she was completely and thoroughly bored. Nothing she could think of would slake her thirst for something exciting, aside from that egg she had discovered. So, to alleviate this problem, she rested her bum down on the bed and thought about this enigmatic egg. 'This thing is a complete and utter mystery. It shows up here, in my room, even though I'm hardly anything special.' A brief, mental pause. 'Well, aside from my minor Autism. Plenty of other people have it in some variation or another, though…' She shook her head. 'I'm getting off track. Where did this thing come from, and, more importantly, what'll it hatch into if whatever inside is truly alive?' Just when she began to think of the possibilities, her father announced: "Time for dinner, hon'! It's your second favorite meal: steak, with thoroughly sauced-covered noodles!" She glanced at the concealed form of the egg for a second before heading downstairs. 'Not like it'll just spontaneously - and inconveniently - decide to hatch the half-hour that I'm gone…'
And indeed, it had not hatched whilst she was downstairs. She once again glanced at the egg under her covers before figuring that there was more than one way to give it warmth. Plucking it out of the cover of her blankets, she walked back to her computer, setting down on her lap like the backpack that those unruly boys had chucked onto her a few hours ago. Her ideas for video-watching now refreshed from her thirty minute break, she resumed her session of Internet-oriented entertainment.
Another chunk of time passed, and it was now nearly nine o' clock. Deciding that she was just about out of ideas again for entertainment again, she called it a day, switching the lights off and trading her current apparel in for a set of purple pajamas. She tugged the blankets over herself, and, figuring that it would be fine, held the mysterious egg close to her body. Marza felt tempted to bid the egg a good night, but then corrected that thought; eggs couldn't hear a thing, not until the creature inside hatched. Closing her eyes with an accompanying yawn, her last thoughts of the day were of what manner of creature this egg hosted, and when it would hatch…
Not an after her last, drowsy thoughts before unconsciousness took her, the egg wiggled.
A crack ran down it, and the being inside, a small, green thing with symmetrical black spots and a diamond-shaped patch of red on its front, was finally birthed into existence. Its horn, somewhat short at the moment, prodded at something soft.
It briefly wondered where it was and what was holding it, but it elected to not care at the moment, deciding that the feelings of warmth emanating from the being and the blankets covering it were simply… wonderful.
It, too, fell asleep a few moments later.