As the door opened and I stepped outside, my jaw immediately dropped. We were in the suburbs, houses on lots all around us. Roads, trees, people walking down the sidewalks, even a park. However, none of that fully registered to what else I saw. Some of the people walking...had Pokémon! Skitty, Growlithe, Zigzagoon, Poochyena...just walking along with people. There were Caterpie, Ledyba, and Wurmples in the trees. I looked up to see a small flock of Pidgeys and Taillows flying by.
"I...uh...what...". I literally couldn't speak. My parents looked at me with concern, as if I was about to pass out.
"Alex?" My "dad" said. "Are you ok?"
"Honey, what's wrong?" Said my "mom."
"Those...are...Pokemon!" Was all I could muster. There was no way this was real.
"Well, yeah. They've always been here." Said my dad with a bit of a scoff.
"John". My mom said, scolding him. "What if he doesn't remember that Pokémon are a part of our world?"
"Oh, right. Sorry Alex". My dad said apologetically. "Do you remember anything about Pokémon?" I looked at my dad.
"Where are we?" I said with a straight face.
"We live in Littleroot Town," He responded.
"In the Hoenn Region?" I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of mental break.
"Yeah" he said with enthusiasm. "So you do have some memories. That's a good sign". He may have continued talking, but I wasn't even paying attention. I began to walk toward the sidewalk, towards a younger girl who was walking with her Skitty. As I approached, she looked at me and smiled.
"Hiiiiii. How are you today?" She beamed with energy.
I did my best to smile back. "Good. Thank you for asking." I looked down at her Pokémon, which was looking at me cutely. "May...may I pet your Skitty?"
She smiled back. "Absolutely. Serena is the softest Skitty in the whole wide world." Serena smiling at this "Skit" she chirped.
I kneeled down and reached my hand out, but stopped apprehensively. "Is this an honest to life Pokemon? Like right in front of me? And I can pet it? I can't believe this." All these thoughts were going through my head. Serena seemed to pick up my hesitation and walked right up and began rubbing against my hand. The sudden contact broke me out of my stupor. "She's so soft" I said as I began to pet her like a normal house cat. I must have been there playing with her for nearly 10 minutes. She was so happy and playful, it was a dream come true for me.
I soon heard a voice yell out "Janie, time for lunch." The girl looked over at me..
"Sorry, I have to get home. It was nice meeting you." Serena beamed a big smile and shook her head as well.
"Thank you so much, it was nice to meet you as well." As I looked down at Serena. "Of course you too Serena". Serena smiled as her and her owner began to walk away. My parents came up to me as I stood up, still in a bit of a daze from what happened.
"Well, you haven't lost your touch with Pokémon." Said my mom.
"Oh, yeah. It was just...really nice." I said, unable to think of anything else.
"Well, we should get going". Said my dad. It'll only take about 10 minutes to drive to Dr. Pine's office."
The drive to the doctor's office was fairly uneventful. The car resembled a modern car, but didn't really have any marks for a manufacturer. As we drove, I looked around and took in the sights of the town. Littleroot Town was a lot bigger than any of the games portrayed in, but that's kind of to be expected with game limitations and such. Before I knew it, we had pulled up to the doctor's office. The building looked like a normal small office, masonry with open windows in front. As we walked up to the counter, the receptionist looked up to me.
"Ah, Alex Pyrite, correct? Dr. Pine is waiting for you. I'll show you guys back." She said with a smile as she led us back the hallway to an examination room at the end. She ushered us in and said he would be here momentarily.
As we waited, I tried to run through my head what I could expect and what answers I could have ready. I looked over to see my parents looking nervous, but trying to smile supportively. I know my mind was racing, but this couldn't be easy on them either. I don't even know them, but I still felt bad they were going through this as well. A moment later, the door opened and a man I assumed to be Dr. Pine walked in. He was fairly average in most respects, but was clearly advancing in age, as the silver in his hair and bifocals showed.
"Well, well, well. It's good to see you again Alex, though I wish it was for a better reason." I nodded, but remained silent.
"Dr. Pine has been your doctor all your life". My father said. I nodded in acknowledgement, but my face still showed some confusion.
"Well Alex, let's get started. I wanna begin with a normal check up to make sure you have not suffered any physical side effects from this." I nodded again as he got up and began his examination. Normal things, like pulse, breathing, reflexes, ears, eyes, nose, and the like. He looked at the slight bruise on my head and asked a few questions, nothing I could really give much of an answer to. After concluding the basic exam and determining everything seemed normal, he began to ask me some questions.
"So Alex, what do you remember?
"Not much. I woke up on the floor with my head hurting. I looked around and didn't recognize anything. I had no idea where I was or who I was."
"I see. Did you have any strange dreams before waking up?"
I lied. "Nothing I can recall, but there must have been something to make me fall out of bed the way I did."
"Ok...Is there anything you do remember?"
"I seem to remember things about Pokémon and some of the world around us, like the local towns and some other regions, but nothing about me,". I looked over to the couple sitting anxiously," my parents, or myself."
"Hmm...". Dr. Pine took a moment to ponder. "This is mostly in line with standard amnesia, but remembering about the region and Pokémon is more unusual. Normally amnesia causes the loss of all memory about oneself and the world around them. Basic habits like walking, eating, and speaking aren't normally affected. Attained skills like additional languages, riding a bike, or playing a musical instrument can be hit or miss." He stood back up and came over, focusing on the bruise on my head. "This bruise doesn't even seem bad enough to cause such an event...but if you landed on your head like you said, there could be additional trauma not visible without more advanced diagnostics."
My mother spoke up after hearing this. "So what should we do? Should we travel to Rustboro or even Lilycove for more advanced diagnostics? How long is this gonna last? Can he even function in the world because of this?" You could see the tears forming in her eyes as she was saying all of this, my father trying to calm her.
"Well, to answer your questions: maybe, no telling, and absolutely. You could get another opinion, but I really doubt they can tell much more. They may be able to find an additional injury, but that won't really help with the recovery. As for recovery, it could be a matter of days, weeks, years, it may never come back. Functioning though, is absolutely possible. Other people have suffered amnesia and lived fulfilling lives. Knowing how smart Alex is, I'm certain he can still have a good life even if his memories don't return."
My parents seemed relieved to hear this, but I could tell they were still worried. My dad turned to me. "Alex, what do you want to do?"
I took a moment to think. "What can I even say? I'm not a doctor, and I know almost nothing about this world and how it works...almost nothing...except Pokémon." I said to myself as a lightbulb went off. "Can we go see Professor Birch?" I asked.
My parents seemed confused, but agreed. "Dr. Pine, is Alex ok to function outside for now?" My mom asked.
"Yes, I believe so. I will sign that he has no restrictions at this point, but I would recommend he take some time to learn about some aspects of the world so he doesn't make any mistakes that could get him in trouble." We all nodded in agreement and he showed us back up to the front desk. "If anything else comes up or you need to come back just give me a call and I can get you in quickly. We thanked him for the help and left. He waved us goodbye and we headed back to the car so we could go meet with Professor Birch.