Before we get going, I would like to apologize for the short length of this chapter. The next one will be longer; I just feel as though this chapter ended at the right place. You'll understand why when you reach the bottom of the page.

Thank you all for getting me to this point, and here is the fifth chapter!

LUCAS LEAWOOD, 19

It would have been a beautiful morning if not for the fact that the pool of sweat had grown significantly overnight, making me feel distinctly uncomfortable. It was as though I had a fever, but the sweating was worse than any fever I'd ever experienced.

Luckily, I didn't feel ill in any other way. Besides my head throbbing with every beat of my heart, that is.

It appeared to be exactly the type of morning the old Lucas Leawood would have enjoyed, going for a walk outdoors and feeling the sun warm up my body. Of course, I was no longer the old Lucas; I was now the new Lucas.

And I hate the new Lucas.

In the semi-darkness of my bedroom, which was slowly being lit up by the rising sun, I reflected on the events of the past day.

I could hardly believe that it had only been a little over 24 hours since the Big Event. One moment, I had been an ordinary human being, perfectly, blissfully unaware of the mortal hell that awaited the world; the next, I had plunged headlong into said mortal hell.

Everything had changed. Strange days weren't coming for us; they were here.

Even though I was now sitting up, it took some time before I got out of bed. The pool of sweat might have felt disgusting, but I was practically frozen in shock at what I had just witnessed in my dream.

I gave myself a bath in the tub, which, while it was the only drinking water I had, I just couldn't resist. I made a mental note to drain the tub and fill it up again; although that would be a waste of water, I could forgive myself for it just this once.

As I bathed in the cold and increasingly dirty water, I thought more about the nightmare. I felt absolutely horrible for the people of Greece and Japan and what they were going through. And I knew that the United States wouldn't exactly be a bed of roses for the duration of this event, either.

I began to shiver, and not just from the water's temperature. I knew, somehow just knew, that something bad was happening right here, right now.

"Michaela!" I yelled impulsively. To this day, I'm not sure exactly why I shouted her name; I suppose I just needed to be comforted, and was hoping that my sister would be the one to do it.

Nobody came, though. Perhaps she wasn't awake yet, and, to put it one way, was "sleeping the sleep of the fairies." In other words, she was sleeping so deeply that I wouldn't be able to wake her up by yelling.

When I felt as though I were somewhat clean, I began draining the tub. Only once all the water had been removed did I climb out. Now comes the fun part, I thought bitterly.

Much like the water my body had released as sweat, the cold bath water was situated deeply in my fur; a towel would not be sufficient to dry off. I had to figure out some other way.

Fortunately, it didn't take much longer for me to do so. I simply decided to try shaking myself off like a dog does. As much as I hated comparing myself to man's best friend, it worked. Soon all of the water had been ejected from my fur.

Okay...now to find my sister. Actually, you know what? I'll just let her sleep; I'm sure she needs it after yesterday.

As it turned out, Michaela wasn't in her bedroom. I knew this because as soon as I entered the kitchen, I saw the Braixen girl in the TV alcove, just picking up the remote.

"Good morning, Michaela" I told her in as friendly a tone as possible. I was a little ashamed to have yelled for her earlier.

My sister turned to face me. With a grave expression on her face, she replied, "Good morning, Lucas. Did you hear the news?"

My heart fell more sharply than a freight elevator whose chains had been cut. I'd had enough bad news over the last day, and yet Michaela seemed to know something I didn't. Either that, or she wanted to talk about the wildfires in Greece, which I was already aware of.

I shook my head. "Why? What's the news?"

Michaela looked as though she were about to announce the death of a loved one. Indeed, it was reminiscent of the look my parents had given me when my grandfather had passed away, years before.

"Would you like to hear the bad news or the worse news first?" she asked me.

"Bad news" I replied, feeling my heart sink to the middle of the Earth. "Please tell me the less bad news first."

My younger sister took a deep breath before responding. When she finally did, she sounded as though she'd aged five hundred years in the last day.

"Protests are erupting all over the country in spite of the social distancing orders. People are blaming the government for failing to prevent this catastrophe."

"I don't blame them," I said in response. Of course, there's probably no way this could have been prevented, but it's oddly cathartic to have somebody to fault when something bad happens.

"Some of the protests, including the one at the state capitol building in Dungannon City, have turned violent. It's a scene of absolute chaos there; of course, there's chaos almost everywhere."

If that's the less bad news, I'd hate to know what the worse news is. I guess I will soon enough, though.

With a deep sigh, I asked Michaela, "Now the worse news. I think I can handle it."

"Okay then" my sister responded. With a deep breath of her own, she barely wasted a second before continuing with five words that had the power of defibrillator paddles.

"Mayor Jeremy Almaty has disappeared."

Once more, it felt as though my heart were dropping on the Tower of Terror. The news was simply so shocking that I could hardly comprehend it. Indeed, part of me didn't believe my own ears at first, although that may have been wishful thinking on my part.

"WHAT?" I shouted, hoping against hope that I'd heard Michaela wrong.

"Mayor Almaty hasn't been seen in his home since around midnight. Reportedly he told his wife that he'd be going for a bike ride and hasn't been seen since."

That sounds oddly suspicious.

"Are you sure?"

Michaela nodded frantically. "I don't care what you want to believe, Lucas. The mayor has gone missing, and nobody knows where he is. They're offering a million-dollar reward for information leading to his discovery."

I hate to admit this, but when my sister mentioned the million dollars, the song about feeling like a millionaire whenever "she" came around ran through my head. Of course, since this wasn't a lighthearted situation in the slightest, I knew better than to belt it out.

"A million dollars. They must be really determined to find him."

My sister clicked the remote, thereby turning on the TV. A reporter stood in front of Mayor Almaty's private residence, a rather large home overlooking a small pond. Much like the reporters who had covered the wildfire in my dream last night, this woman had a relatively neutral expression on her face.

Now, for reasons I've already discussed, I wasn't the biggest fan of Jeremy Almaty. However, something told me that he hadn't disappeared of his own accord, and that worried me to no small degree. He certainly didn't deserve to meet his end at the hands of some brutal gangsters or whatever.

Anyway, the reporter began with, "Here I am outside the home of Jeremy Almaty, mayor of Wildebush. According to his wife Natalie, he told her that he'd be going for a bike ride around midnight. But he never returned, and so his fate is still unlearned."

"The city of Wildebush is offering a reward of two million dollars for any information that helps detectives locate the mayor. This reward was initially one million, but has been doubled due to the urgency of the matter."

I turned to my sister and grimaced. This didn't sound good.

"As of right now, it is not believed that foul play was involved in his disappearance, although this may change as more details come to light. In view of the current Great Transformation Crisis, it is advised that the public stay vigilant."

My father appeared in the kitchen all of a sudden. Even though he was a big man, he had an uncanny ability to blend in with the background, almost like a chameleon. That's why I hadn't noticed him earlier.

"Michaela, Lucas, you both look really nervous about something. May I ask why?"

In response, my sister pointed at the TV, where the reporter was interviewing Natalie Almaty. The mayor's wife didn't seem to know any more than the general public, but she pleaded for her husband to be found and released.

My father genuinely looked like he was going to faint. "That's...horrible. I can't believe they would do such a thing...Mayor Almaty...they will pay."

"Don't do anything stupid!" Michaela insisted, but she had evidently forgotten that Dad couldn't understand our physical voices. Instead, to him, it would have sounded something like, "Bray! Bray!"

My father looked confused for a moment, and then he appeared to get the message. There were only a limited number of things Michaela could plausibly be saying, after all.

"Okay, I won't be rash. But I'm telling you, we really need to catch these people. We need to have strong local leadership in a time of crisis like this."

I couldn't agree more.

Turning to the camera, the mayor's wife said, "Whoever did this, whoever was responsible for my husband's disappearance, even if it was what some might call an act of God...how dare you? My husband has been leading this city well, and to kidnap him right now when he's needed the most...you disgust me!"

Natalie Almaty then burst into tears, and the reporter began comforting her with a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Mrs. Almaty. They'll find your husband soon enough."

Tearfully, the mayor's wife responded by asking, "What if they don't? What if they find him, but he's been murdered by some thugs who kidnapped him?"

Michaela turned the TV off after that; neither of us could stand to watch this woman cry any longer. My sister then took out her computer and opened the same document we'd been using to communicate with my parents.

After breakfast, Lucas and I are going to City Hall to investigate.

My father raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? My inclination would be to let the police handle it. That is their job, after all."

Michaela shook her head before typing the following: It's hard for me to trust the police right now. What if they had something to do with the mayor's disappearance?

I turned to my sister; it was now my turn to chastise her. "You're being paranoid, Michaela."

I had another objection to her plan as well, besides the fact that she hadn't consulted me first. We were two siblings in their late teens, not Wildebush's vigilante force. We couldn't just take matters into our own hands.

If you say so. But we can't just hide away from the world forever. I don't care if you don't come to City Hall, but I am going to.

Now, you can call me "traditional" if you want to, but that did it for me. If there truly was no way that Michaela wasn't going there, then I was coming with her, no matter what. I felt a brotherly duty to protect my sister.

"Fine" I replied, a little ashamed of myself for caving so easily. "I'll go there with you."

Later, while we were eating breakfast, once more with my parents and sister at the table and me on the floor, my sister ran the idea by my parents, and they told us that it was okay with them if we went.

Michaela would drive. She had her learner's permit, so she could drive with adult supervision, and I was legally an adult. It would have been me, but I highly doubted I could operate a motor vehicle in my current state.

Unlike many people her age, Michaela wasn't exactly comfortable behind the wheel. To her, driving was a necessary evil as opposed to an exciting privilege. She'd only gotten her permit because everyone else her age was doing it and she'd started to feel left out.

Fortunately, we were lucky at first. The drive to City Hall, which usually took about ten minutes thanks to traffic, only took seven minutes despite my sister driving very conservatively.

The key words in the above paragraph are at first.

For when we arrived at the town green in front of Wildebush City Hall, there were about a million cars parked along the road. This both shocked and infuriated me; why were so many people on the road right now?

And yes, I suppose we were hypocrites for driving when advised not to. But, just like most people guilty of hypocrisy, I rationalized this by saying that in our case, it was justified. We were special.

As it turns out, however, everyone thinks they're special. However, in reality, you're just like everybody else. Nothing makes you inherently better or luckier than any other person in this world; these are just the lies we tell ourselves, for a variety of reasons or no reason at all.

Michaela gripped the wheel tightly, clearly frightened at just how crowded it was. She wasn't used to driving on busy roads like this one.

"Why the hell are there so many parked cars? I swear, parked cars are my worst nightmare!"

It didn't take much longer to figure out the answer to that question.

Having had a hard time putting my seat belt on in the first place, I was easily able to look over it at the scene in front of City Hall. Let's just say that it wasn't pretty.

Pokemon of various types and species were gathered in a massive crowd on the lawn, despite the social distancing guidelines. All of them were chanting something with their fists in the air, or, in some cases, what passed for fists.

There were also a number of humans in the crowd, and I began to appreciate the asymmetric dynamic with regards to humans and Pokemon understanding each other. Those who had transformed, such as Michaela and I, could hear everything humans said, and not the other way around.

Why was this important? Well, there didn't seem to be a unified message among the protesters. A tall, young human man (who looked similarly to how I'd looked before the Big Event) was holding a sign that read, HOW COULD YOU FAIL US? Another sign, held by a species my sister told me was a Zoroark, said, 8/21/19, NEVER FORGET.

There were also counter-protesters in the area, holding up various signs saying things like FTP (presumably an acronym for something unsavory that I hadn't heard of) and 4:43 AM, which almost certainly referred to the time of day the event had occurred that would rock the world.

All in all, it was a scene of total disarray, without rhyme or reason. If this were a movie, I might have considered it almost funny, but not when it was happening right here in Wildebush.

"Where do I park?" Michaela asked me, snapping my mind right back to the present. We still had to find a place to park before we could go inside; that was the harsh reality of driving.

We ended up circling around City Hall until we found a suitable spot, a process that took a couple of minutes. My sister was anxious to parallel park, but I insisted on her doing it. Given the unrest all around us, I feared that we might get carjacked. Whether this fear was rational or not can be debated.

Finally, we had parked across from a side entrance to the building. The American flag, as well as the municipal flag of Wildebush and the state flag of wherever I lived (something that's not important for you to know), flew from three different flagpoles in front of this entrance.

The building itself was rather grandiose, and I found it impressive under normal circumstances. Right now, however, I was too intensely focused on the reason we were here to fully appreciate it.

Michaela wants to figure out what happened to Mayor Almaty, and so do I!

Somehow, we were able to push through the crowd. This wasn't an easy task, for they were packed together like sardines at a rock concert. Since Michaela, normally a good seven inches shorter than me, was now taller than I was, she walked in front of me to scout out a path.

"Stop the steal! Stop the steal!" a small, cute, fox-like Pokemon chanted. I didn't have the slightest clue what that meant, so I just ignored the chant, as hilarious as it may have been.

"What the hell are they talking about?" Michaela asked me. At least, I thought she was asking me at the time, but in hindsight, she was probably just talking to herself.

I didn't care. Eventually, we were able to make it inside City Hall. That was when the real fun began.

Yeah, it was short. As of right now, though, Chapter 6 is already written, and it's a good thousand words longer than this one.

I would like to thank all of you once again, and if you want to talk with me about the story, or just hang out, add me on Discord at Lucas Whitefur#7822. I'll see you next time.