The Impossible Depths: Part Two

The man opened his eyes.

Everything was fuzzy and undefined.

Lacking clarity.

Unreal.

Is this it? Am I dead? If not- then how on earth did I survive?

Suddenly, a searing red-hot pain surged throughout the man's entire body. His head felt like it was on fire. It was like he had slighted God, who had in turn clocked him around the ear. Damn hard.

Well, guess I'm not that numb- I do feel pain after all.

And, then, a blurred shape danced in front of his eyes. It had an otherworldly, spiritual quality. Indeed, the man was convinced it was a ghost.

So, I am dead.

After a minute, however, he realised what it was.

It was a Pokemon.

He saw why he had mistaken it for a ghost- the Pokemon had an ill-defined, shadowy quality, most likely because it was looked so hollow and thin. It wasn't particularly scary, though- perhaps because it was, to the man's relief, so small.

The man had never seen a Pokemon like it before. He'd been travelling for so long that he'd seen almost every Pokemon out there, and yet never seen one quite like this. Whatever it was, it was one of the oddest looking things the man had ever laid his eyes on. Grey and tattered and skeletal. Like a ghost-type, but, then again, not quite. Alive but not living, somehow. What on earth was it?

Suddenly, the man sighed. In the olden days, he'd have used his trusty Pokedex, checked out what type of Pokemon it was, made a mental note. His curiosity, however, had long since died. Even if he had discovered a new Pokemon, he just wasn't that interested.

Then, for seemingly no reason, the man fell to his knees. He stomach growled menacingly, like Charybdis herself was inside him, and the man realised that he was overcome with a crazed hunger. He felt saliva building in his mouth, gallons and gallons of it. There was a smell in air, a glorious scent! One that he had not experienced in a long time. One, realised the man, that was provoking his insane pangs of hunger, that made him realise how desperately he needed to eat some proper food, more than just a paltry handful of berries. The smell was like crisp, well-done chicken, the sort his mother used to make, the sort he simply used to long for after he had first left home, all those years ago.

What on earth could it possibly be? Was the smell even real? Or was he imagining it? Could you even imagine smells?

The man rapidly turned his head from side to side, looking desperately for the source, craving it. And, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something. Something very strange indeed. And the man realised where the smell was coming from.

On the floor, surrounding him was a flock of crispy, well-done… Spearow.

But then…

How…
Oh my.

It must have been…

The man stared at the funny-looking, grey ghost in front of him.

It was him.

The Pokemon had saved his life.

For a moment, the man sat there in awe, his depression alleviated for a brief moment. How had the Pokemon done it? There were hundreds of them! And they were so strong! How in God's name could he…

The man had no answers. He could only stare at the Pokemon, with a furrowed some berries out of his backpack, and put them into the paws of the funny-looking creature.

'Here you go', said the man. 'Thanks, buddy. I don't know how you did what you did, but I'm sure grateful…'

The sentence petered out. The man left the funny-looking Pokemon in peace and moved on, although not before he had shoved in as many of the Spearow into his backpack as he could fit in. They should sustain him for a good while.

He hadn't shuffled very far, however, when he heard a sound behind him.

The crunching of a twig.

He turned around, and couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at what he saw.

How curious.

The Pokemon appeared to be following him.

When the man looked closer, he saw that the Pokemon- if that is indeed what it was- had only one leg. If it planned on following him, it didn't look like it was gonna get very far. Why it would follow him, God only knows.

'You know', said the man, more to himself than the Pokemon. 'You'll get nothing from me. No food. No affection. Nothing. But fine. Whatever. Follow me. I can't stop you. It's a free country. Or, rather, it's a free 'uninhabited forest in the middle of nowhere'. You know…'

And so, for some days the hop-along of a Pokemon followed him. It walked where he walked, slept when he slept, ate when he ate. In silence. Always in silence. The two bizarre misfits were bonded only by silence, and that necessity to survive.

One night, however, the Pokemon broke the silence.

It was strangest sound the man had ever heard. It sounded like the dustiest, scratchiest record, one that had been left in the attic for years and years. So much so that you almost wanted to grab the needle off the record and snap it in two, just to make sure the record never played again.

The sound was SO scratchy that the man couldn't figure out exactly what the Pokemon had said, which was irritating because it may have given him some indication as to the species of the Pokemon. Again, the man had never seen a Pokemon anything like this one before.

But, hidden beneath the years of dust, was a song. A song of delicate beauty, one that had been popular and sung-along-to, in happier times, so many years ago.

For some reason, the beauty behind the Pokemon's cry cast the man's memory back, back to the fact that this funny, crippled Pokemon had saved him. This Pokemon seemed to have hidden depths. Impossible depths. Depths of strength and beauty, unseeable to the human eye.

It had saved him from a flock of battle-hardened, cold-blooded Spearow. How?

And- more importantly- why?

Now, the man thought back to yet another one of his more remarkable memories. Way back, when another flock of Spearow had attacked… no, he couldn't think of that. It was still too painful. It would always be too painful.

But now he had- for the first time in such a long time- let the pain fade away, just a little. His entire mind, his entire being, was fixated on the Pokemon in front of him.

And, for the first time, he REALLY looked at the Pokemon. He looked past the grey. Past the stump of a leg. Past the hollow cheeks and boney spine. Past the tatty, ruined fur.

He looked into the Pokemon's eyes.

And now the Spearow memory was thrust into his mind's eye, front and centre.

Could it be… really…

Then the Pokemon opened his mouth again. And made the sound. The sound. It was soft, so quiet it was barely audible. But tough as steel.

This time, the man recognised the sound.

It was the best sound in the whole world.

His eyes filled with tears and he fell to his knees. Because it was. It really was.

'Pika'.