Chapter 10

Heya!

I'm really sorry about last chapter, I accidentally posted the wrong chapter, not the revised and much better one that took me so long to write. I'm actually not really sure how that happened, but it should be fixed by now. On a side note, many of you have been saying that you have no idea what's going on in this fictional universe. To this, I say that you'll find out soon enough, and that all will be explained eventually. In the meantime, I would love to hear your theories about what you think is going to happen next! The person who guesses closest in a review gets a cookie and a snarky response! (Actually, anyone who reviews gets a snarky response, but in a good way.) Enjoy!

Light.

Sharp, piercing, insistent light that was shooting dull spikes of pain through my aching head, like someone was trying to hammer my skull open from the inside.

"Ugggh, Triki, make it stop..." I muttered blearily to myself, trying desperately not to wake up any more than I already was, so I wouldn't have to face whatever new horror was waiting there for me. Unsurprisingly, there was no answer and the pain continued unabated.

(God, please let this be a dream, please let this be a dream, a psycho, whacked out dream brought on by to much Anime before bed and let Triki be standing right there beside me on the couch eating some buttered toast meant for me from the breakfast buffet in the freakn' Eterna City Pokemon Center, please!) I thought desperately, all the while trying to forcibly block the sound and vision of the dark creatures burning in the light from my mind. I tentatively opened my eyes to find myself alone (For the time being anyways.) in a small bed with a couple of chairs on either side, inside what looked like a hospital room, mostly decorated in drab grays and whites. The only real color came from the light streaming from a window that opened up onto a small sculpture garden surrounded by a wall of white marble.

My hopes sank. It hadn't been a dream, I didn't know where I was, Triki was still dead and those things... (Was that...real... too?) I thought in a dead voice, staring at the ceiling and noticing that my forehead was covered by a mass of thick white bandages. (Did I actually ...kill... them?) At the word 'kill' I broke down, trying to curl up into a little ball on the bed, screw the crumpled sheets, but I was impeded by sharp protests from the numerous bandaged cuts and abrasions on my arms and torso and the thick cast on my leg. So I settled for the next best thing, shutting my eyes tightly and turning my body away from the lighted window into the fluffy mattress. I immediately felt a stabbing sensation of pain as a sharp piece of what felt like metal poked into of the bandages on my chest, slicing through and drawing a bit of blood.

I quickly jerked up into a sitting position, feeling the spurts of pain from my various wounds and casting angrily around for the offending object in an abrupt mood swing.

"Alright, what the hell did that?" I asked angrily, feeling distinctly ticked off. There was nothing on the mattress that was even remotely sharp or pointy, just creamy white fabric. I involuntarily clenched my left hand into a fist and froze, because as my wrist flexed, I felt a warm band of metal lying against it, and another mood swing kicked in, this time of slight fear and panic. I flopped back onto the solitary pillow, a bad idea, as I felt another jolt of pain when I smacked my head against the bed's metal railing, but didn't really register it. My attention was more focused on my left wrist, where as I turned it to reflect the sunlight, the same, glittering, golden, gem-studded wheel that I had seen in my dream/psychotic hallucination sparkled in the now-bright sunlight. I looked over at my right wrist sitting on the covers and sure enough, it too bore an emblem of the same kind.

"Oh God." I said, my voice sounding small and faraway. "It wasn't a dream after all, I really did... did... kill them... In absolute cold blood." The weight of everything came crashing down on me again, how alone and insignificant I was in this other Here and Now, and images leapt unbidden from the stark truth atop the Spear Pillar and the hidden line that that defined illusion and reality that I had so closely toed in the nightmare. The shock of his death was wearing off now, something had held back the grief and tears for my partner for a while, but that barrier had finally collapsed and the tears came rushing through the gap. I cried for a long while, but eventually, with tear tracks still glistening on my face, I slowly drifted towards thankfully dreamless sleep.

After a long while, I awoke with half-opened eyes to the sound of someone with a gentle voice speaking to me.

"Hello? Can you hear me? Rallen, I think she's waking up."

For a moment, I felt my eyelashes flutter on my face as I blearily opened my eyes the rest of the way.

I was still in the hospital room, but judging by the amber light streaming out of the window, several hours seemed to have passed and it was getting on towards sunset. The speaker was a young woman with bubblegum-pink, waist-length hair and startlingly blue eyes who was leaning very slightly over me from a chair next to the bed. A man stood behind her, around the same age with spiky red hair and auburn eyes. He was wearing what looked like a protective suit of a white, armored plastic-like material covering some kind of black cloth in plates all over both the shirt and pants of the outfit. What the woman was wearing wasn't nearly as functional looking, black yoga pants and a tight-fitting, bright blue shirt with a white jacket seemingly made out of the same armor elements as the man's outfit laid over it.

What's more, they were both staring intently at me, the man pulling up a second chair and sitting down next to the woman. Now that I was a bit more awake, he looked slightly familiar, although I was drawing a blank on who the woman might be.

(Where have I seen this guy before? C'mon Kate, think for once!)

I didn't get a chance to speculate for much longer though, because at that moment, the man broke the slightly awkward silence with a question.

"Are you okay?" There was a concerned edge in his voice.

I sat up straighter in the uncomfortable bed, once again, ignoring the sharp protests from the scrapes and abrasions on my torso and arms and trying to break through the major brain-deadness that I was currently suffering from.

"Yeah... I think so anyways.." I muttered quietly, unsure if I could trust these people and still failing to place where I had seen the guy.

"Where... Where am I?"

The pink haired woman had a response ready. I vaguely wondered for a moment how she had gotten her hair that unnatural hue. Seriously, how much dye would that take? "You're in a hospital on the planet Kollin, Naniero system. We picked you up on Fons." She indicated herself and the man sitting beside her as she said this. There was a slight hesitance in her next words, as if she was unsure of what to say. After a moment, she added: "Who are you?"

I quickly thought over my options. These people had apparently gotten me medical attention and saved my hide from the Black Horseman out there, but I was still unsure if I could trust them. (Then again,) I thought. (They could know what that pseudo-dream was about and explain what those black vortex thingies were doing too.) Suddenly, a burst of understanding flooded my mind like a lightbulb in my head, that was where I had seen him! He had been that person who killed the vortex, the Trainer that had probably saved my life without even knowing it. But where were his Pokemon?

I had made up my mind. "My name is Kate." I said confidently. "And I'm a Pokemon Trainer."

See, I did update faster this time! If this chapter seems a bit redundant, keep in mind that I'm writing at 11:00 PM on a school night, after hours of tedious homework.

As always, please review!