I finished writing this in the car with my father. Don't worry, I wasn't the one driving (in fact, I don't even have a license). I'd like to thank all of you who rated and/or reviewed the first chapter of this story, because your support means the world to me.
The title of this chapter is based off the song "Just a Dream" by Nelly.
If you enjoy this story, make sure to leave a comment down below to tell me what you thought, because that really helps out. With that out of the way, here is Chapter 2 of Snowbound: Volume 1!
Sometimes I closed my eyes out of satisfaction, but it usually didn't result in me falling asleep. However, this was one of those times.
I'm not entirely sure how long I slept, but I opened my eyes to see that there was sunlight streaming through the windows of my kitchen. I knew then that it must have been at least two hours, because, this time of year, the sun didn't set until well after eight in the evening. It must have been at least six.
As soon as I processed that, I realized exactly why I had woken up. And that was because my mother had gotten home from work.
My mother was an average-sized woman with a fairly average appearance. There's nothing else that can really be said about what she looks like, but, as they say, it all depends on what she cooks like. And I can assure you that she's a very good cook, but that's beside the point.
"Good evening, Lucas" my mother said as she shut the creaking door behind her. She then walked over to me and grabbed my hand.
"Hey" I said, a little quieter than I had meant to, most likely because I'd been sleeping.
"Are you okay?" she asked me. "You seem quieter than normal. I hope you're not losing your voice...".
I shook my head. "I'm not losing my voice" I replied, more firmly this time. "Believe me, if I had lost my voice, you would know. I think a lot of people can vouch for the fact that I often never stop talking".
"Okay then" she said. "I picked up pizza on the way home from work, so as soon as I finish taking a shower, we can eat together".
"Ooh, what kind?" I asked her.
"Pepperoni and pineapple" she replied, and I could practically feel my eyes light up. I don't know about you guys, but pineapple on pizza is pretty much the best thing ever. When paired with pepperoni, it's my favorite kind of pizza.
"Sweet!" I exclaimed. It was a little forced, though, because, while I'd been contemplating the fact that I'd be having pizza for dinner, I had been wondering exactly why I was worried about something. It was just the feeling you have when you feel like you've forgotten something important.
And then it hit me. It hit me like a ton of bricks slamming against my skull.
I must have started to look worried, because my mother said, "I can tell that there is something on your mind. Why don't we discuss it over dinner after I take my shower?"
I had no problem with that, so I watched as she retreated back up the stairs in order to wash up. It was then that I reaffirmed my decision to tell her everything that was happening, even though I figured she'd probably heard by now of the blizzards in the Coronet Range.
It wasn't much longer before she came downstairs again, this time in her pajamas. "Okay, now we can eat".
After setting the pizza boxes on the table, we started having small talk about our days. I didn't want to tell her just how much my internship had sucked, because she'd probably either be pissed at me for hating the internship or disappointed in herself for making me do it. After all, she was the one who had told me that I should do my high school's summer internship program.
"Can I tell you something, Mom?" I asked her.
She nodded, which didn't surprise me. After all, what parent is just going to shut down their child's request to confide in them? "Go for it" she said.
I decided to cut straight to the point. "Did you hear about the blizzard that's happening in the Coronet Range right about now?"
"Yeah, I did" my mother replied after swallowing a bite of her pizza, a barbecue chicken one. "It's quite strange, isn't it? It's not usually supposed to snow in July".
Now it was my turn to nod. "I really don't see why this would happen. Except...".
I dropped the piece of pizza I had been digging into with my teeth. Fortunately, there was a plate below my hand.
"What is it, Lucas?"
"Right after hearing on the news about the blizzard, my chest started hurting. Like a spike was trying to jut out of it". I tried to keep my voice steady and not to raise it, but it was very difficult. Somehow, however, I managed it.
My mother put a hand up to her mouth. "That's definitely a little worrisome. If you were my age, we might have thought that it was a heart attack. That's not likely, given that you are only eighteen. And yet...".
I waited for her to finish the sentence. I did not take another bite of pizza, because I wanted to be ready to respond whenever she wanted me to.
"...I think that we should maybe make an appointment with Dr. Donnelly over this. Are there any other symptoms you are experiencing?"
"Okay, now you do sound like Dr. Donnelly" I replied. I couldn't help myself, even if that had been a rather impulsive thing to respond with.
She laughed, before saying, "Please answer my question. Are there any other symptoms you're experiencing?"
I nodded. "I've also been a lot hungrier than usual today. Right after my lunch break at Cadillac Jack's, I started feeling really hungry again. I don't know why".
My mother looked a bit nervous now, and that scared me. When you're young, you often think of your parents as invincible, unbeatable titans, able to solve any problem that comes in their way. I might have been eighteen now, but I still harbored a small amount of that philosophy.
"That's definitely not normal. I'll see if we can get an early appointment with Dr. Donnelly. I think that he'll want to know about it".
I stood up from the table, pushing my chair back in towards said table. "I'm not so hungry anymore".
"Are you worried, Lucas?" she asked me. "You sure sound that way".
Normally, I would have been a lot more careful about opening up to someone that way. However, I knew that since this was my mother, I could trust her, so I said "Yes".
"I think that it's probably nothing, but we'll see if you can see him early tomorrow morning, before you go to the diner".
The thought of going back to the diner was absolutely repulsive to me. The food might have been good, but I wouldn't get to eat any of it. Instead, I'd be the one working there, wiping down tables and washing dishes. I wasn't looking forward to it, to say the very least.
Then again, if it was something relatively simple and boring, maybe that was for the best. I wouldn't have to reckon with the chills running down my spine, and I also wouldn't have to reckon with the odd thoughts I was having about what might end up being the cause of the blizzard.
You don't know that your symptoms are related to the blizzard, though. It could be anything. Please, don't worry yourself out too much. What is there to worry about?
"I'm going back upstairs" I said. "Going to continue my summer reading project for school". And yes, in addition to working as an intern at the diner, I also had summer reading to complete. My life was really sucking right about now.
"Okay" my mother replied. "See you later, Lucas".
I wish I could tell you that this was the end of the saga of my worries. I wish I could tell you that, after confirming with Dr. Donnelly that I didn't have some kind of serious illness, I went back to my normal life. I wish I could tell you that the blizzards in the Coronet Range, and, indeed, in all of Sinnoh stopped then. I wish I could tell you all of that.
But it wouldn't be true.
At about 9:30 PM, I had finished brushing my teeth. Now dressed in my green plaid pajamas, I got into bed. That might have seemed like an early time to go to bed, but I was bushed from a hard day of work. Plus, I'm the kind of guy who believes that early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. You see, I keep reasonable hours.
I wrapped my blankets around myself and eventually managed to fall asleep. It took a little longer than I would have expected at first, given how tired I was. Once I finally was able to sleep, I sank right into a nightmare.
In my dream, I was somewhere else.
More specifically, I was falling from the sky at terminal velocity, towards a large lake. That in itself caused me some consternation, because I knew that hitting water from a certain height was just like hitting concrete, only that, when hitting concrete, your newly crippled body wasn't forced to swim to safety.
Eventually, I hit the water. The landing wasn't as hard as I had expected; it seemed like the water had broken my fall.
I instinctively held my breath so as not to inhale water, and I began sinking. I wasn't too worried about this, though; I was always able to get back to the surface after jumping into the deep end of the local town pool, and I didn't see why this would be any different.
But in the biggest "Fuck you" from Arceus that I'd ever experienced, I found that I couldn't swim back to the surface, and I continued to sink like a brick towards the bottom of the lake.
I was now fifteen feet below the surface of the lake. No, make that twenty. But it's only just a dream, I thought. It's only just a dream.
Eventually, by which point I was probably anywhere between thirty and fifty feet below the surface, I heard a sound that sounded like something was freezing over. Sure enough, I looked back up, and found that the top of the lake was iced over.
Okay, now I'm going to drown.
I'd heard accounts from people who had almost drowned, and it sounded absolutely terrifying. It was now that I started to panic in earnest. I took a small amount of solace in the fact that I was just dreaming, but that didn't make it feel any more real.
Wait a minute...I can breathe here.
I had accidentally opened my mouth, as I'd heard was one's instinct, even if they're surrounded by water on all sides. I found that the water didn't rush into my mouth and begin filling my lungs. Instead, I was able to respirate underneath the lake, meaning that my only danger was hypothermia.
No sooner did I think of hypothermia than I started shivering. It really was cold underneath the ice, and it was only getting colder the deeper I sank.
Finally, I touched the bottom. It had felt like an eternity, but my feet scraped up against the mud. I tried to walk around, and found that I could. It was almost like walking on the moon - gravity seemed to be much lower here than it was on the surface.
I looked up at the icy surface of the lake, two hundred feet above. It was clear to me that escape was impossible. I would die of hypothermia, or else drown if somehow the magic causing me to be able to breathe ran out. Right now, I didn't know which would be worse.
"Ah...Lucas Enfield...welcome to my domain".
It wasn't too difficult to find the source of the voice. There were seemingly no other beings around me, at least none that I could see, and the voice seemed to be coming from behind my current position.
Looking around, I saw what appeared to be a ghost.
He was a tall man who looked rather like a surfer dude, maybe about fifty years old. He looked rather like my uncle, except for one small difference. His eyes were deep, dark, and clearly cruel.
"Follow me" he said, turning around in a shimmer of icy blue light and floating slowly through the air at a relatively slow speed, not faster than I could walk.
Am I going to follow him?, I wondered. It sounded to me like a stupid decision, and yet there was the urge to simply do so. At the same time, I knew somehow that it wouldn't be good if I did.
What's the worst that can happen, though? It's only just a dream.
I began walking, almost against my own will. It seemed that I could barely control my own movements, and I wondered if this spirit, if that's indeed what it was, was using his dark magic on me, much like the Pied Piper.
I followed the spirit into what looked like a tunnel that had been cut into the rock wall of the deep lake. Said tunnel was very dark, only illuminated by a few torches into the wall in which burned weak yellow flames.
The spirit continued floating through the tunnel, and I followed him for what seemed like an eternity, even though in reality it was probably less than five minutes. The whole time, a seed of dread was in my stomach. What could be waiting for me there?
At the end of the tunnel, there was what appeared to be an enormous well that was at least thirty feet in diameter. The surface, roughly twenty feet above, was bathed in a pale green light.
It was then that the magic that had been enabling me to breathe underwater, or whatever it was, ran out, and I found that I had to hold my breath again in order to avoid swallowing water.
I pushed up from the bottom of the well and began floating towards the top. That wasn't getting me there fast enough, and I started to feel like I would black out from the pressure and lack of oxygen. I added my own arm movements in order to make it back up.
Breaching the surface, I began gasping for air. Using the last of my strength, I was able to climb out of the water onto a sandy surface. From there, I surveyed my surroundings, looking around for the spirit that had led me here.
It was gone.
Rather than wrack my brain and try to figure out where he could possibly be, I decided to try and figure out where I was.
I found myself in a cavern with walls in a minty green color, roughly the size of a church sanctuary. There were several stalagmites sticking out of the ground, roughly ten feet tall to the ceiling's height of thirty or forty feet. The entire floor of the cave was sandy.
That's when I saw him.
He was a Lucario, standing roughly five foot six. He was staring right at me with a facial expression that signalled pure hatred.
Even if his face hadn't been in that contortion, he looked dangerous enough thanks to the scythe in his hands.
"Lucas Enfield, you'll be one of us soon!" the Lucario bellowed, beating his chest like a gorilla. He gracefully tossed his scythe in the air, transferring it from his left hand to his right.
Catching it effortlessly in his right hand, he stabbed the air and pointed said scythe directly at my heart. "Everyone, GET HIM!"
That's when I noticed that there were four other Lucario in the cavern, each of which stepped out from behind a stalagmite. One was red, one was green, one was purple, and one was white.
Each of them was holding their very own scythe, a weapon almost as long as I was tall. All of them were pointed at me.
I ran back towards the well, reminding myself that because it was only just a dream, they wouldn't be able to hurt me. That didn't decrease my fear, though.
I leaped into the water and sank like a stone.
