They were an alien race and they took us in.

Happily they lived, united and strong. Carefree, especially. It was like their own heaven on Earth, and the two of us could not distinguish the real from the imaginary. We were still reeling from the fall, the calamity.

She was tall, brunette, beautiful. Dangerously thin, but naturally so. We always accused her of anorexia, jokingly. How much you grow to regret such mere jokes. She would never forgive us for anything. She was headstrong, but held grudges like the spawn of Satan. She did not have a conscience to forget and that may have been what bit us in the end. Her blue eyes sparkled and intrigued anyone whose faces they rested upon. Mine especially.

I seemed to be so much more...affected by her. Harley and Solidad noticed this. They wondered what we were up to. We never told them. They thought of things much worse than reality. They exchanged nervous glances.

"Keep her safe, Drew. Remember that we trust you."

Harley would linger over our love like a hawk. He said he was kidding when he called her "stupid" or "a worthless coordinator." He made fun of her often.

I may have been affected by her, but she was affected by Harley, more so than anything else.

And now we sat on the island, in the cave, and the secrets accumulated on the floor like the dealiest poison. They were there. They were murdering us.

Ring, ring.

"Birch residence, May speaking."

"May? It's Drew. This is urgent."

May sounds uncaring. "What is it?"

"I've lost your daughter."

She springs to life. "You what?" Her voice explodes with fear and confusion. I swallow hard.

"We were at the Ruins of Alph exploring the puzzles and the history and the Unown took her."

"The...Unown?" May demands, disbelievingly.

I explain the legend of the Johto people and everything else Danson told me.

"So she's been taken by the Unown to die alone?"

"Essentially."

"I'm going over there." There's a motherly tone to her voice that I'd never heard before.

I am forceful. "No, you're not. You're going to walk over to your husband, you're going to tell him what happened, and you're going to waltz over to the Ruins of Alph to make sure she's okay."

"What the hell are you blathering on about? I have to save my daughter!"

I make my voice even. "She's your daughter, but she's Brendan's daughter, too. Don't be so selfish."

"She's just as-" She starts to say something, but stops midsentence, thinking better of it.

"What?"

"Never mind. I'll tell Brendan."

"Good. And you're going to greet your daughter upon arriving."

"What do you mean?" Now she sounds angry.

"I'm going in after her and I'm bringing her back out. You may get here and only find her. But it's worth it. She's coming out alive, safe and sound."

"Are you saying-?"

"Maybe history will repeat itself, maybe it won't. I don't care. Amy is too important."

"But, Drew! You can't kill yourself for her! That would be inconceivably stupid! There's got to be another way-"

"No. It would be stupid to a coward like you."

I hang up.

May cluthes her stomach as she enters the living room. Brendan sits on the couch, paging through a copy of the latest Daily GTS News.

"Oh, sweetie, look at this!" Brendan excitedly points at the Advice Column. "Some idiot traded Delcatty for a Weedle." He laughs, amusedly. "Ah, it was a bug maniac. No wonder!"

May doesn't speak immediately, but drags herself over to him and kisses his cheek gently.

"What is it?" Brendan wonders, noticing that May carries herself differently.

She still has yet to talk, and she lowers herself onto his lap, draping his arms around her. The newspaper falls to the floor, no attention being given to it.

"Are you alright, May?"

"No."

"Who do I need to beat up?" He smirks.

"No one." She is numb.

"I thought I heard the phone ring. Who called?"

"Drew."

"Mhm. Did he upset you?"

Brendan had always been skeptical of May and Drew's past relationship. Not that he thought May was lying when she said she no longer had feelings for the arrogant coordinator from LaRousse, but everything between them ended so...abruptly. Like something strange had happened. It isn't his business, he knows, but curiosity often makes a fool of him.

May admits, "Yes." She takes a deep sigh.

"What happened?" Brendan feels like a lawyer during a direct examination.

"It was about Amy."

Brendan stiffens. If there was one thing he loves more in this world besides his beautiful wife, it's his only child. His daughter. Amethyst.

He tries to keep his voice calm and collected. He doesn't want to upset May. "And...?"

May changes the subject, suddenly. "Remember when we took Amy to the Ruins of Alph five years ago? She probably doesn't remember it."

Brendan narrows his eyes. "Yeah, why?"

"You know how, when we were there, she'd look at the hieroglyphics written on the cave walls and tell us she knew what the codes were saying?"

"Okay. What about it?"

May laughs without humor. "That seemed so long ago. Having a five year old in tow made everything and everyone seem to innocent. Well, anyway, I remember completely dismissing what she used to say. She was five years old, for Arceus' sake! She used to say that she could look at a person and know what they were feeling..."

"She had the worst temper tantrums, too," Brendan recalls.

"Yes, she did. But she kept pointing to the hieroglyphics and saying 'It was the Pokemon. They were here! They're so nice!' I thought nothing of it."

Brendan presses on. "What happened, May?"

May's eyes start to water. "I thought nothing of it, Brendan! It was no big deal, having a child spew absolute nonsense as long as I could think of myself as a good parent, a good person! And she was always such a...special child, you know?" She-she..."

May is full-on crying and cannot complete her sentence. She gulps air like a life-line.

Brendan repeats himself one last time. "What happened, May?"

"I think she did know something we didn't. I think she really could read the codes."

May sniffles. Brendan's eyes widen with curiosity out of fear.

I kneel before the central slab, my shivers not caused by the cold or the wind. I run a hand through my hair, not in the arrogant way I used to, but merely to keep it out of my eyes.

"Hello, Unown. I understand you have something of mine deep within the Ruins."

The wind howls through the Ruins more rapidly. Perhaps in repsonse?

My teeth chatter. I fight to keep them silent. "I used to love a girl, Unown. I don't know why this is relevant, but something is telling me to tell you what I know and how I feel, so I will.

"We were young, too young to understand the world. Her name was May. We traveled together, sometimes in a larger group, sometimes just the two of us. We both were coordinators, using our Pokemon to achieve higher and higher levels of vanity. Maybe that's why things got ugly. We really were monsters when we were competitive.

"I seemed haughty on the outside, but inside I was shy. I fell in love with her at first sight. We were rivals, though. You couldn't fall in love with your rival. I'd tell myself this every night. 'Get this out of your head, Drew,' I'd say to myself. 'Focus on what matters. Eye on the prize.' I dreamed of being the world's greatest coordinator. May did as well. Unfortunately, neither of us ever achieved our goals. We went far in national tournaments, but we could never topple the honor from Hoenn's own Wallace.

"I couldn't tell her my true feelings. I hid under a shell of deceit, but I'd try to clue her in. I'd hand her a rose when my feelings for her were particularly overwhelming. She'd graciously accept them. She'd try to talk to me, but I'd flee. I feared two things at the time: failure and public humiliation. Unsurprisingly, the two seemed to come to me often, hand-in-hand. My fears haunted me, and when worse came to worst, I left May to travel alone.

"That was when I was ten. When we were eleven we traveled Johto with Harley, a Hoenn coordinator, and Solidad, a Kanto coordinator. They were our most prominent rivals at time. Our competition. Our downfall.

"When I was fifteen, my feelings for May seemed to intensify: something I thought impossible. I asked her if she would accompany me to the Orre region. She agreed. While exploring Agate Village, we entered Celebi's sacred forest. A kid named Wes and his girlfriend Rui were purifying the heart of a Quilava. As they left, I was overcome with jealousy at what a perfect couple they were and I confessed my love to May. She was shocked, and she fled to Pyrite Town. I followed her.

"We stayed in the Pokemon Center that night. She said that things had become simply too awkward for us to travel together. I disagreed. Now that things were out in the open, everything would be natural. No secrets, no hidden messages, no deceit. I handed her a white rose. She smelled it and told me it was heaven. She finally admitted that she loved me. We became a couple that night. I'll never forget it."

I smile, nostalgically, but then the storm returns with twice the fire power. The wind tears at my unfeeling face. I take no notice and go on.

"We spent the next couple of days as most teenage couples do. We were alone and reckless. We were in the honeymoon period. Nothing could go wrong in our eyes. We could get to know one another later. We wanted happiness, and those two or three months were as blissful as blissful could be, for me at least. May's smile always seemed so distant, far off. She stopped looking at me in the eyes. I had a feeling she was keeping secrets from me.

"One day, we visited Harley and Solidad. They lived together in Oldale Town as roomates and friends with benefits. May said she felt sick and did not want to go, but I told her we should go, and if she felt worse, we could go home. Looking back on it, forcing her to go was the stupidest mistake of my life. May likes to hold grudges. Lots and lots of grudges. I still don't think she's forgiven me for taking her to Oldale Town that one day. I'll regret it for the rest of my life.

"Now, she held a special vendetta against Harley. I have a feeling she never forgave him for blackmailing her when we were ten. Still, it was an intense dislike. The guy was competitive, but it seemed that every part of May's being detested Harley. Solidad and I took little notice. Halry occasionally glanced at May but said nothing to her. When May and I returned to the Oldale Pokemon Center, she told me she was going to leave for a while. We weren't breaking up. We were merely taking a break.

"Neither Solidad nor Harley knew what that was about, so I decided not to worry about it. I stayed with them until I got a call from May inviting me to visit her in Petalburg, so I traveled over there. We were both seventeen. We greeted each other as long-lost lovers do. It had been a year and a half and we missed one another physically and psychologically. I think we helped each other perform better in contests.

"For another two years, we were a couple. Once again, it was a long period of time filled with little fighting and great happiness. I considered proposing, and then the worst thing happened.

"One December, she said she was going to visit Harley. I thought it was nothing more than a little strange. I knew they hated each other strongly, but they were rivals. Maybe they were talking contests, maybe May was giving Harley advice about girls. I didn't know. I never saw May after that.

"She sent me a note saying things were over between us three days after she disappeared. I was worried sick and I searched for her. I asked Harley and Solidad, and every other person I had ever met including May's parents and brother, but no one had seen her. The handwriting on the letter appeared to be hers so I gave up on the search.

"It had been more than a decade before I saw her again, but she doesn't look like May, she doesn't act like May. Now she is married and she has a kid. And, Unown, you've taken that kid. I promised May and I promised her lucky husband Brendan that I would keep that child safe and secure. It was selfish of me to want to travel with Amethyst. She resembled her mother so much that I was in disbelief. I thought that traveling with Amy would be just like the old days when we were happy. I could listen to Amy talk and we could have these amazing conversations and adventures and it would be just like old times. And it started off that way..."

The wind stops suddenly. A mirage appears.

"Drew?"

The mirage speaks to me and takes a familiar shape.

"Drew, can you hear me?"

It is Amy, but she speaks with May's voice.

"Drew, can you save me?"

"Yes! May, I love you!" I shout at the mirage.

"Wrong answer." The mirage turns a dead black and dissolves. A beam of light hits me on the forehead and I feel my feet lift from the ground.

I am in the air, spinning around uncontrollably. "May? Amy? What is this?"

"I am not May!" A high-pitched shriek informs me.

"No, you're the Unown! I want Amy back!" I struggle against the light that holds me airborne.

The spell breaks and I fall. Not to the hard ground by the Central Slab, but elsewhere, in the inky blackness that smells of mildew and rotten food.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

I close my eyes. I must be dreaming. I try to pinch myself.

Is that Amy's voice? I'm dead. The Unown have killed me.

"Drew. Oh, my Arceus!"

I open my eyes again and get to my feet.

"Amy?"

"Yes, it's me."

I feel a hand grab mine and intertwine the fingers. "It's okay, Drew. The Unown aren't ugly or cruel. They're trying to teach us something!"

Teach me a story, Creator. I'm ready for anything.