~Gold~
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEP
I flinched.
BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
That damn clock will be the death of me I sware! I thought with aggravation, bringing my hand up and slamming it down on the nightstand next to my bed. I missed at first, hitting the edge of the wood with a groan. Limp and already defeated I knocked it over and rolled. The thing clung for life through the plug behind the small dresser and made a low groaning BEEeeeeeeuuu as it lost energy and came undone. I flipped the covers back over my head and sighed, listening to the sweet silence that engulfed my room.
I always slept with the blinds as shut as they could be because I was not a morning person. I hated how bright the sun looked over New Bark Town when it broke past the mountains and glittered over the nearby ocean. My eyes took forever to adjust, more so than anyone else I knew, so I resorted in tricking myself into thinking it was nighttime longer so that I could save myself a little bit of a bad start.
It was so sinfully comfortable like this that I couldn't stand the thought of ever getting up, so within moments I was asleep again, curled up with my limp pillow tucked under my arms and my head over them. My groggy mind lead me to believe that I hadn't knocked the whole alarm clock off the hook table, and that it would be going off in another three moments like it always did when I rarely his snooze.
It was too comfortable anyways… I didn't care…
Until suddenly something struck me in the side so alarmingly that I nearly flew from the bed. Heart racing I jolted upright and gasped, pushing my mother's shoulder back without realizing yet what her purpose was.
"Gold! You slept in!" her voice was shrill. "Baby come on! Get up! You want your pokemon
right?"
And then it hit me. Oh shit…
I had slept in on perhaps the single most important day of my life.
I yanked the covers off of me and jumped past my mother glancing at the dead clock at the side of my bed. Of course… just my luck, I groaned. "What time is it?"
"Ten thirty." My mother answered, heading down stairs in a rush to let me get dressed. I threw on a pair of shorts quickly and a black t shirt. I scrambled for my gold chain, the one I always wore no matter what, and slipped it on over my neck quickly. My jacket was also over my arm in a second and I whisked my hat from the hook on my door and tucked in on my head before heading out to take the stairs two at a time, slipping on the rug on the bottom floor and nearly falling on my face. A avoided it using the railing and didn't cease a moment.
My shoes came on easily and I simply tucked the laces in the sides rather than tying them (I could do that later). My packed bag was sitting by the door, but I knew I would be home to show my mother my pokemon before I left, so I didn't bother with it.
"Gold!" my mother yelled from the kitchen. "Don't forget your pokegear!"
"Later!" I yelled and was out the door in a second, forgetting all about the device and sprinting across my front lawn.
Summer had not yet set in, so the grass still had morning dew on it, and the flowers were not dead from heat and lack of water. Across the way I knew that the ocean was lapping hungrily at the rough sandy floor and bringing up seashells and slowpoke like regurgitated items. In the earliest days of fall the Seal and Dewgong would make this shore their home, which prevented the kids from swimming in the last few weeks of warm weather.
Here in Johto we had two seasons. Hot and somewhat chilly. It was the exact opposite of our neighboring region Kanto, which was always warm, with little snowfall and a lot of rain in the hot season. The coldest it ever got there was at Mt. Silver, where the elevation was too high to be affected by the warmth. It snowed there all year around.
On most mornings I would have glanced up at the great mountain, wondering if the famous Red was still up there, watching the sunrise like he claimed to do every morning before training. I would have vowed again (just like I did every morning) that one day I would battle him and win, and I would be the new champion, but I was in much too big of a hurry.
Thankfully the pokemon lab was only a couple streets down from me, so I got there quickly, having expected to fight through crowds of young eager trainers, and ornery mothers assuring them they would get theirs and to be patient. But no one was around to my dismay. I slowed to a huffing stop and grasped the door handle with shaky fingers.
Never before had I ever felt so nervous… how could this really be happening to me? Was everyone really already gone?
I peered inside the lab and saw nothing, not even the professor in his usual chair behind his desk. My heart went aflame with worry and I yanked hard on the door… it didn't budge.
"Professor Elm!" I yowled in panic, banging on the glass and clinging to the glass door like it was my life. "PLEASE! I HAVE TO GET A POKEMON!" my throat threatened to close up on me and my tear ducts strained with effort. This wasn't happening… it couldn't be…
I had been waiting for this day for years and suddenly it was slipped from my fingertips so fast I was left horrified and sickened. My hands came down hard on the door as I begged to be let in.
Professor Elm never left the lab! Where could he be? And on a day like today?
"Professor!" I was on the verge of running home and literally crying to my mother. Tears streamed down my face, broken hearted as any kid would be. It wasn't fair!
And then something appeared in front of me.
At first I was positive it was relief that made me gasp. I stopped beating the door and screaming and stared past the glass to the pair of eyes looking back at me. I couldn't catch my breath fast enough to realize what was going on, and then when all of the sudden nothing made sense I took a step back.
"You just wouldn't understand…" the cracked and hoarse voice from beyond the glass door said to me. My heart was racing, the grass now a blur of green and the sky a slowly fading gray. The morning dew was gone, the mountain in the distance, and the sound of the ocean lapping at the shore line. I tried to move, to run home and protect myself, but I couldn't.
I was glued to the porch of the pokemon lab looking into the building. Standing with narrow, colorless eyes was a boy, on the inside, looking out at me. He held no expression, and showed no sign of further explaining himself. I held my breath as his hand came, a thick red liquid dripping from his fingers. I could not move my hand from the glass that it had fallen on, and so his four fingers and thumb lined up perfectly with mine.
My eyes were huge, my head swimming with fright, and my ears ringing with the shallow pound of my heartbeat. A droplet of red slithered down the length of the boy's wrist and past the glass of the door. It was only then, when my mind caught up with my panic, did I realized who was standing in front of me.
"Silver?" I whispered, my nerves working again. A numbness faded from my hand and I felt a hot moisture. The glass disappeared between us, and his crimson stained hand was touching mine. I couldn't move, I couldn't even breathe.
Ever so slowly Silver slid his fingers between mine and gripped my knuckles tightly, sharing the blood between us. It burned on my skin like a hot iron, and the smell was of rust and something else metallic. Gritty as salt and as vibrant as the upper half of a pokeball the red smeared over my hand. And still I could not pull away.
"You just wouldn't understand." He spoke again, but this time it was not his voice I heard, but the voice of someone older. Pain etched its way past the words and stung like needles in my heart. He squeezed my hand softly.
"You will never understand."
And then he shoved me, will all his force he dethatched his bloody hand from mine and shouldered me as hard as he could. Fury shot through his glinting silver eyes and like the rest of him, they were cold.
I hit the ground with the thud in the same instant that my eyes snapped open.
I lay awake in a chilly pokemon center bed, sweating despite the cold and gasping for air. The ceiling looked miles away, and the light from the moon too faint. My heart pounded in shock.
"It was just a dream…" I whispered to myself, swallowing my hoarse voice down. All the blankets were strewn around the floor and the foot of the bed, and it looked as if I had attacked a now lumpy pillow. My hair was tangled, I discovered when I went to run my hand through it, and when I sat up I realized that a very worried pokemon was perched at the end of the bed. I almost yelped in surprise.
"Skarmory?" I squinted in the darkness to see the large metallic bird in front of me. "What are you doing out of your ball?" I reached my hand forward and rubbed my fingers over its neck. The metal plating didn't full cover her sleek feathers so I knew where to pet her. She crooned in response and nudged me gently.
"I'm fine." I said moving to get off the bed. This wasn't the first time she had broken out of her ball when I was in panic. I had gotten quite used to it actually. "Just a nightmare."
She squawked and hopped alongside the railing of the bed as I fumbled around in the dark for my shoes. I needed some air…
A few short hours ago I had come across Silver in the Viridian Forest, and our conversation had shaken me like a leaf in the autumn winds. So violently that I decided the only rational thing to do was get a pokemon center room and sleep off the anxiety. I couldn't explain it, but I was feeling absolutely miserable over the whole thing. And now this dream…
"Who is he to say I won't understand?" I muttered, unlocking the balcony door and sliding it open to reveal the very faint flickering of snowflakes. I barely registered the fact that this was the first snow fall of the season, and it was nearly morning, with the sun just managing to show in the distance past Mt. Silver, so it wouldn't last long. I stepped out, ignoring the pins and needles in on my skin and embraced the cold.
Silver never gave anyone the chance to understand him… so how could he be so sure that I never would? I shook my head. He wasn't the only one with secrets to be kept and trust issues, but that had never stopped me from confiding in people. I knew for a fact that if there was anyone in this world that absolutely WOULD understand Silver, it was me.
Or at least I wanted to believe so…
Barely ten hours ago I was most worried about going to see my depressed and lonely mother, but now it all seemed to change. My mind was on Silver and all the things he had ever done wrong, plus all the things he could have done right. The guilt was eating him alive, I could see it! And yet… he wouldn't dare do anything to make right what he did wrong.
I leaned against the railing and shivered, listening to the metal clinking of Skarmory's talons next to me. She made a gentle squeaking sound and pushed her hard face against my shoulder.
Skarmory was one of my closest pokemon, having been the first one I ever actually caught. We got along well and never once did she defy my orders, but that wasn't why I loved her so much. She was careful and strategic, and gentle with everyone as if she was afraid she would break anything and everything she touched (which I had to admit, could be a possibility). And yet I had seen this pokemon crack the plating of a wild Ryhorn's shoulder in attempts to defend me.
I brought my hand up and ruffled the red feathers under her sharp wings. She wove her face into my neck and brushed back the tufts of hair that stuck out everywhere, plucking playfully in attempts to cheer me up.
I sighed and pulled back slightly to look her in the dull yellow eyes. "Do you think Silver is bad?" I whispered, and then looked past her at the sleeping town below. No one was awake this early, so I could still hear the sounds of night pokemon rushing back to their homes to sleep off the daylight hours. The sewer ratatta would be scurrying back to the alleyways between the largest buildings and the hoothoot would be flying back to their nests.
Skarmory snuffled at me and cocked her head to the side in confusion. I wasn't sure she understood fully, but I wished she could answer me. A pokemon like that would know what to say… she would be able to give me the pros and cons of Silver, simply because she was capable of simplicity.
Silver was all closed up, he wouldn't let anyone on the inside of him and that made it extremely hard to judge. I had known him for three years and yet I still felt like a stranger when I saw him. It was like every battle, every conversation, everything we had in general back in Johto was just a stepping stone to that moment up in the forest a few hours ago.
He was flighty, I decided as the first touches of dawn made me screw up my eyes at the sky. Clouds were rolling in, so by midday we wouldn't be seeing the sun at all. I hated Kanto for being so bipolar in its weather.
Skarmory nudged me again. "Scrraaaaooo…."
"Don't worry girl, it's not as bad as it seems." I tried to smile, but it felt like my face was twisting inside out. My teeth felt too small beneath my lips, which meant I wasn't wearing a grin nearly as big as I normally did. "I'm fine." I assured her when her eyes narrows suspiciously. Sometimes I felt as though this pokemon was trying to mother me.
And the fact that she indeed knew I was not fine didn't help. She plucked at the tiny flips of hair on the back of my neck gently and made a sound nearly like purring. I rolled my eyes and shooed her aside. "Skarmory…"
She drew back, mockingly ashamed. Had her expression read anything other than honest worry I would have scolded her gently, but my heart wasn't in it.
I turned back to look out across the railing at the sleeping city. Street lights would be turning off any second now, and the fiery sun in the distance made it hard to feel as exhausted as before. The dream still haunted behind my eyes though, as I leaned and waiting with Skarmory at my side.
What could Silver possibly think of me? Why wouldn't I understand? The questions kept ringing in my ears, like the sound of a distant clock tower from the outskirts of this town. And more importantly, what had that dream meant?
Silver had gripped my hand so tightly that I couldn't move even if I had tried to. His hand had left blood over mine, perhaps a subconscious message; to one who would believe in all that nonsense I found it strangely accurate. Silver and I both had a target on our backs from the secret we shared. Silver had stolen a pokemon, a precious being that once belonged to one of the smartest men in the world. Professor Elm could have him arrested so fast it would make your head whirl.
And me, well I was keeping that secret… in a sense I had been covering Silver's footsteps and wiping away the trail of blood that lead to him for the last three years. Police had talked to me countless times, and even caught me staring in the eyes of a wanted poster once. They were suspicious, but never prying. I figured if they knew that I knew, they were only waiting for me to make a move first, so that they wouldn't have to take me down with their criminal.
Was that dream trying to tell me that no matter how much I "wouldn't understand" I was still a part of this whole thing? That no matter how innocent I was my hands were still bathed in blood?
I shook my head and buried my face in my arms on the cold railing, which wet with frost. My hair was wet and my hair stuck to my forehead. My face would have been flushed- it tended to do that easily in the cold.
I shook myself to clear my head, thinking that it wasn't as if Silver had actually killed anyone. Why should blood be a concern anyways? I wasn't protecting him against a murder; I was protecting him against a stolen pokemon… He was a thief not a killer.
And yet that dream seemed to be life or death for me.
With a heavy sigh I lifted my head to look up at my loyal metallic bird. She was eyeing me carefully, with her strong face patient and careful. I blinked as kindly as I could.
"You remember Silver right?" I whispered to her, knowing she did from the countless battles we had together.
She agreed with a tight little chirp.
I pushed myself up and looked out across the city. People were just now starting to emerge from the darkness of their houses. I saw the lights of the pokemart flicker on, and the sound of generators as the gym with the ridicules amount of neon and trickery came to life. The streetlights did just turn off, and just like that the world was changed into something of excitement rather than peace.
"Go find Silver." I whispered under my breath, thinking that maybe this was a stupid idea and that if she didn't hear I wouldn't repeat myself. Wasn't it stupid of me to be so concerned? What did it matter anyways? Silver obviously wanted nothing to do with his past or with me. He had made that perfectly clear…
But Skarmory was sharp, and her acute hearing was far beyond my soft whisper. She heard, and she heard clearly. I couldn't bring myself to look over at her as she prodded my shoulder again, as reassurance once more before ruffling up her feathers beneath her metal plating and jumping from the railing into the crisp dawn air.
For a fraction of a second I wondered if this was just some huge mistake that wasn't meant to happen.
But then I reassured myself that if Silver and I had met up again after a year of not seeing each other…
Then this all had to be for something.
…
Hey guys~ artist comments here! I would like to share with you some artwork I have done for this story (and I promise its pretty good). Here is a link to the drawing for the first chapter
http:/w0lf-61(dot)deviantart(dot)com/#/d50iu17
replace those (dot)s with real periods and then put in it your search bar!
Here is a link to a picture for chapter 3 too (this one is my favorite)
http:/w0lf-61(dot)deviantart(dot)com/#/d50v6iw
thanks again!
