A/N: No, you're not seeing things. This is a new chapter of The Light in the Darkness. I apologize for being late yet again. The last few months of high school and the college selection process were very stressful. But finally, I completed this chapter. Not much happens, but there is a lot of emotional stuff going on. It's probably not the best that I've ever done, but I promise that the next chapter will be more exciting.

As for when to expect a new chapter, I hope again that it won't take this long. However, I'm going down to Virginia Tech for a five week program to prepare for college. The good news is that I'll have a laptop, but I don't know how much I'll be able to work on it. I do want to thank everybody for their patience. After that, I have no idea what's going to happen. Still, with my own laptop coming, I should be able to spend more time writing...I mean, doing school work. Yeah, school work.

Anyway, here's the chapter.

Chapter 10: What is This Feeling?

A strange thing happens when you are in an unfamiliar place. Time seems to pass a lot faster than you realize especially if you can't keep track of it. For a while, I had no idea what the day was. Finally, I managed to catch it on the morning news and was surprised to learn that it was nearly August. I had been Eevee for going on three months. It was hard to believe; I could remember waking up in that cage at Gilroy like it was yesterday.

Not much happened after my reconciliation with Soru. The daily routine remained the same. The only notable change may have been that Soru was a little more open to conversing with me. Otherwise, I spent most of my time lying around the apartment bored out of my mind. It was times like that that I really missed being human.

I missed the freedom that I had as a human, being able to go wherever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. I missed being in my old body and being able to talk to other humans. It was hard for me to listen to people talk. I wanted to express myself, to verbally communicate in some form that they could understand.

Then there was my family. To be honest, I really hadn't thought much about them at first. There were more pressing matters that occupied my mind. But every once in a while, they would cross my mind. I mainly thought about my parents. As a human, I always tried to distance myself from them, like most teenagers would do. I didn't tell them that I had received a letter from Kyle, or that I was going to Gilroy. What a mistake that was.

I could only imagine how much they were worried about me. They didn't know if I was alive or dead. I had thought about sending them a message of some kind, to let them know that I was okay. But my paths of communication were limited. I once thought about using Kirk's laptop, sending them an e-mail message. However, I discovered that there all sorts of passwords protecting his computer, making it almost impossible. Reluctantly, I was forced to give up.

Still, even though there were some nice things about being a Pokemon, I didn't want to remain one. I was born a human, grew up a human, and I had planned out my life as a human. Presented the opportunity, I would become a human again, without a second thought…

…Or maybe not.

As unlikely as it seemed, I was actually getting used to being an Eevee. There were things about being a Pokemon that I kinda liked. I didn't have to worry about all the things that I would think about as a human. I could sleep as long as I wanted to. Kirk made sure that food was always available. Strangely enough, it was almost like I was on vacation.

But I think the biggest reason that I began to enjoy this new life was Soru. When I first met him at the hospital, he seemed so distant from everyone else. But from the moment I started living with Kirk and him, he had done so much to make me feel comfortable in Kirk's home. He had been very patient when I first arrived, answering pretty much every question that I asked him, even if they may have seemed ridiculous to him. He always seemed aware of how I was feeling. There were a few rough spots, disagreements over certain matters, but we always seemed to find a way to solve these problems. I felt that I could go to Soru and tell him almost anything—worries, frustrations, hopes—and he wouldn't shove it off.

I say almost anything because there was still the matter of my true identity. I had often considered telling Soru the truth, that I was once human. Yet every time it would cross my mind, I would shoot the idea down. I would attempt to rationalize my decision. At first, I told myself that he wouldn't understand the complexity of my situation, of how I ended up as an Eevee. He was, after all, a Pokemon. But as I got to know him, I found that he was very intelligent and astute. It wouldn't have surprised me in the least if he did suspect there was something different about me.

I think that the only way I could justify not telling Soru the truth was I was afraid he would think of me differently. The last thing that I wanted to happen was for him to think that I was acting like someone that I wasn't, especially after the Lilith incident. That being the case, I remained silent about my past.

Still, Soru was somebody that I could talk. Well, he was pretty much the only one that I talk to, but I was glad that I was living with him rather than some other Pokemon. He was not only a friend, but he was probably the best friend that I'd ever had, Pokemon or human.

And yet, I had an intuition that there was something else there. I began to have these strange…feelings whenever I thought about Soru. They didn't seem like much at first, perhaps an occasional pang here and there. It was never anything major. But the more time I spent with, the more they stood out. The more…I wanted to be with him.

I tried to dismiss them. I would tell myself that I was just very appreciative for all that he had done for me. Surely, I reasoned, they will level off soon enough. But this explanation only worked for a little while. They remained as strong as when I first noticed them.

Next, I attempted to scoff them. It was such a ridiculous concept after all. I mean, falling in love with a Pokemon? This wasn't some cheesy romance novel that teenage girls fawn over. This was real life. These things don't happen in the real world. It wasn't long, though, before this argument lost its merit as well. After all, according to the reality that I once knew, humans couldn't be transformed into Pokemon, yet there I was. Maybe it wasn't so obscure after all.

After none of my attempts to deny these feelings worked, I tried to figure out what exactly was it that was drawing me to him, just to figure out if these feelings were really genuine. I already mentioned how friendly he was to me. That was probably the biggest factor. But there was something else that attracted me to him. He was also pretty good looking. As a human, I probably never would've thought about a Pokemon in such a way. But having been around him as long as I had, I began to appreciate how handsome a creature he was. His pure white fur, that powerful body…I didn't need to know anything about a Pokemon's anatomy to know that Soru's physique was amazing. He was much larger than I was, but he knew how to carry himself in such a way that it was comfortable to be around him. I found myself openly staring at him at times, sometimes drawing a surprised reaction from him. This left me feeling a little embarrassed and trying to come up with some excuse.

Even though I kept doing this, he never got mad. It was just another example of his patience with me. Most of the time, these awkward encounters ended up turning into conversations. At first, they were pretty awkward, not unlike how the majority of our conversations had been up to that point. But they evolved into something really pleasant. We began to talk about subjects that we hadn't talked about before. I might bring up something that I noticed during our morning walk. He might comment on how he noticed how much fun I was having playing catch with Kirk in the park. It was amazing how much that we had to talk about with each other, even without bringing up my past. And by the end, Soru managed to smile.

I was beginning to accept that these feelings were real, but there was one last hurdle that kept me from confessing my feelings. Even though the odds were becoming slimmer with every day that passed, I still held hope that someday I could be human again. If I were to find an antidote, I couldn't be involved with Soru. It would be difficult for both of us to separate.

But another thought crossed my mind. What if I never found a cure? It wasn't like somebody was going to suddenly come through the door with my saving grace. Returning to Gilroy was also out of the question. There would be no doubt that would recognize me; after all, I was the one that released the test subjects from the cages. Given the number of Pokemon there, it didn't appear that they had a cure at the time.

I knew that if I wanted to tell Soru that I loved him, I would have to tell him about my past as well. There was no way around it. But would he accept me if I did tell him the truth? I wanted to believe that he would, yet there was feeling in the pit of my stomach that, for whatever reason, he wouldn't. There was no reason for me to think he would reject me on such grounds, but that fear was strong and overwhelming.

Humanity and Soru. Two things that were seamlessly intertwined. Two things that were holding me captive. Two things that couldn't possibly coexist. Two things that I wanted, but were difficult to achieve.

Two things…that were tearing me apart.

I found myself surrounded by darkness, unable to see anything around me. Slowly, the scene came into focus. I was in an alley in the city, well out of view of anybody on the streets. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the alley. That was until I heard a whimper.

Startled, I went into a defensive stance. "Who's there?" I called out.

"You did this to me!" a female voice spat vehemently. It was impossible to discern what exactly the voice was referring to, as the speaker was not visible from behind the trashcans.

"I-I'm sorry," I replied, looking down at the ground, disgusted with myself. "I didn't…Please…"

Suddenly, a paw slapped me across the face, disrupting my plea. Not that it would've done any good. There was no soothing this anger.

"You're just like every other male in this city!" she shouted, continuing to berate me. "Cruel. Deceiving. It's…"

She didn't even finish. I heard footsteps running away out of the alley. Toward the street. Toward death.

Desperately, I ran to try and stop her. But it was too late. A skid. A drawn out wail of the horn. And it was all over. I peered out the alley. Her broken body, still and unmoving, lay behind the car. Any pain that she must've felt was gone in an instant. But my pain was only beginning…

I woke up with a start. For a moment, I just looked straight of me at the wall on the opposite side of the room as I tried to calm myself down. When that failed, I let out a frustrated groan and shook my head harshly, trying to drive all thoughts of the nightmare out of my mind. It's bad enough to have a nightmare once, but to keep constantly having the same one over and over, and no way to remedy it was truly frustrating.

I usually don't have any trouble getting to sleep, even with the threat of nightmares. Ever since I began living with Kirk, I found myself becoming lazier, since I didn't get as much exercise as I used to. It was easy to become bored lying around the apartment all day, especially since I had little use for all the facilities that Kirk used on a daily basis.

At first, it seemed that my most restless nights were a direct result of my premeditative senses. Often times, if a storm were approaching, they would awaken me. This was nothing new. I've experienced that all my life.

But there were a few instances that they picked up on something much more morbid. I remember getting up one morning after a particular grueling night and learning that one of the other occupants of the complex had a heart attack. Unfortunately, he passed on before anybody could reach him. I was left in a state of shock. I knew that I had powers of premonition, but never of that kind.

Perhaps because of the nature of my powers, I was also more prone to having bad dreams. Yet there was a lot that it didn't explain, such as the patterns or subject matter. For a while, after I first moved in with Kirk, I had these harsh, emotional dreams like the one that awoke this particular night. Only after I finally settled in did they not haunt me anymore. Even after Amber moved in and disrupted the flow I still hadn't had a bad dream in a while.

However, not long after Amber and I resolved our differences in the Lilith feud, I started having the nightmares again. At first, it was the same dreams as before. However, a few new dreams began to interject itself into the cycle. One dream in particular stood out in my mind. It was very different from the others. At this time, I can only vaguely remember the details. In it, I was in a cage somewhere, locked up. I could recall that there was a crushing sense of dread that suffocated me. The only other thing that I remember was a human appearing before my cage, a human with icy blue eyes.

I had no clue as to what this particular dream was depicting. Was it a dream about the future? It seemed possible, but I found a number of flaws in that idea. The cage in the dream would've been way too small to hold a creature of my size and the human would've been much too large. Perhaps it was just a bad dream, nothing more, nothing less. If that were the case, why was it repeating? And why were the other dreams back?

I got up out of my bed and began to pace around the living room, being careful to not wake anybody else up. I continued to try and discern the purpose of the dreams and their pattern. They wouldn't keep happening if there weren't a reason, I thought to myself. But why? Why must they continue to haunt me?

My eyes fell on Amber. Her bed was located in such a spot that the glow of the city lights shown through the window on her. Her figure stood out distinctly in the soft radiance. It was if someone, or something, wanted me to notice her.

That's when I was struck by an idea. Maybe it was because of Amber that my nightmares have persisted. But it wasn't just her. No, it was also how I felt toward her, feelings that had only continued to grow into something more.

This wasn't the first time that these feelings presented themselves in the presence of Amber. However, it was the first time that Amber seemed to return them. She wasn't very open about it, but she seemed to be giving me hints. I began to notice her glancing over at me more often during the day when we were alone. I wasn't mad at her, but I did have to question her on why she kept doing it.

This always elicited an embarrassed reply from her that somehow would lead to more extensive conversations, conversations which, much to my surprise, turned out to be fun and interesting. She started to move away from talking about the weather or training and began talking about more personal things. It was so different from what I was used to when I would talk to her that I couldn't help but enjoy it. In fact, I began to look forward to catching Amber peeking at me.

All the while, my feelings toward her increased to new levels. As they did, so did the nightmares. There had to be a connection. Those feelings must have left me more prone to nightmares than ever before. So if these dreams were associated with my feelings toward Amber, what were they trying to tell me? Were they a warning, trying to keep me from making the same mistakes that I made in the past?

My past…the thought of it made me stop in my tracks. I wasn't proud of my past at all. I did many things that I regret. How I wished that I could go back and change it all. How I wished that I never came upon that cursed city, that urban fortress.

Slowly, I walked back over to my bed. Standing around was going to do nothing to help me get back to sleep. Quietly, I fluffed up my bed and lay down. As I drifted off to sleep, lingering thoughts still bothered me.

Does Amber actually like me like I think she does? I had some doubts, but I was somewhat confident that this might be true. Everything that she was showing through her actions and words seemed to indicate that perhaps she really does like me.

Could I really leave behind my past? Have I truly changed for the better? This is where I was worried. I had tried so hard to forget about everything that happened before I met Kirk. But it always haunted me. And worse, I felt those pangs trying to drag me back in. I was lucky that I was able to prevent myself from being taken over. Perhaps it was even luckier that I was able to repair my bonds with Amber. If I let myself lose control again, even for a little bit, I could kiss any chance of being with Amber behind.

I buried my head in my pillow. I couldn't afford to screw up anymore. I had to make sure that I never put myself in any kind of situation where I could be tempted again. Nothing was going to come between Amber and I.

Absolutely nothing…