Catherine poured herself another glass of booze from the bottle and nervously sipped it. She was well aware of the health consequences of drinking alcohol but she didn't really care right now. She just wanted to know whether her son was safe or not.
It had started out pretty normally. Lizzie had come over and Catherine had let her and Kevin get on with it, although she did try to keep a close eye on things. However, she wasn't too concerned about them. After all, the gate was locked pretty tightly, they were old enough to require constant human supervision, and there was no way they could have gotten themselves free and gone missing anyway?
Right?
Unfortunately, this proved to not be the case. At one point, she needed to go to the toilet and dashed it. She didn't think that she would take too long, but it turned out to have been a fatal moment, for when she had gone back, she had found that there was neither hair nor tail of them in the backyard. She had gone around asking the other parents in the town whether they had seen them but they didn't know either.
It was at this point that she had called the police. Despite this, though, they hadn't been able to find any evidence of the children yet. There was an attempt to look into the Slumbering Wealms but she and everyone else knew that by the time the investigation got to that point, it would be a dead body search, not a missing child report. Besides, the fog was capable of consuming adults as well.
Despite their failure to locate the children, however, the police did appreciate her, doing some small chats with her from time to time to help her get her mind off of things. Indeed, only recently had she led a policeman out of her house with biscuits and tea.
Now that she was alone, however, her negative thoughts held back to higher priorities had bubbled to the surface, preying on her like Mandibuzzes do when they hunted for their prey.
Why didn't you check the gate more often? Why did you go to the toilet? You're an unfit mother for letting your son play outside without proper supervision!
She struggled to hold back her tears as she let these thoughts make attempts to swoop in for the kill. She deserved it after all.
A distraction came however in the form of the doorbell ringing.
Kevin?
Immediately, her hopes began to rise for what felt like the first time in a while as she went to open the door.
It will be Kevin and I can apologize to him and I will keep him close to me and please God he won't leave me again…
Unfortunately, what she found at the door was not what she had hoped. What was there instead was a Pokemon. It was a young wisp-like Pokemon that had a tree stump for ahead, and it was staring at her with a look of curiosity on its face.
Immediately, Catherine's hopes faded. In its place was a new feeling as she recognized the Pokemon.
Dread.
She had heard the rumors of this Pokemon. Old folk tales of young children who would get lost in the woods and become reincarnated as young Phantump. She had ignored them at the time as untrue tales, created from the minds of people so swamped with grief that they would become convinced that any regular Pokemon could be their reincarnated child. Just the other day, she had someone convinced that their pet Pidove was their grandmother come back to life.
At the same time, however, she wondered if those rumors had any merit to them. This minute she had set her eyes on the Phantump, there was just this feeling of…recognition that she got from the Pokemon, and then there was the fact that it looked a lot like him. For instance, she could see a mark on its face which looked a lot like a scar that Kevin got whilst biking the previous year.
She felt physically sickened by this idea. After all, he could have only become a Pokemon if he had died. But she wanted to test her theory out.
"Do you want to come in?"
"Phan!" replied the Phantump. It floated off through the doorway and into the living room. With an air of casualness to it, it plopped itself down on the sofa, grabbing the remote and turning on the tv.
Yikes, Pokemon are quite intelligent, aren't they. noted Catherine as she watched him casually watch the TV, clearly engrossed in whatever was on it.
Before she could mull this in any more detail however, the Phantump's stomach growled. In response, the Phantump had turned to her and started giving her Growlithe dog eyes.
Catherine sighed as she went into the kitchen.
I suppose that's Pokemon for you. They do like to eat, after all.
Along the way, she passed by their pet Budew, currently tucked up at the corner of the kitchen.
"Sorry, Budew," she said absentmindedly as she opened the cupboard and pulled out the Pokemon food that she had bought earlier for him. "We've got guests, and I think they're hungry."
In response, the Budew woke up, giving her a look of curiosity before leaving the kitchen and hopping into the living room. Evidently, the Budew had picked up on the Phantump's presence because it had gone up to it and started talking to it.
The minute it began speaking in the universal language of the Pokemon however, the Phantump seemed to recoil, freaking out by clambering over the seat and right behind the sofa.
As she watched the poor Phantump cower behind the seats, Catherine's heart began to sink even further.
This poor Phantump must be just a young baby if other Pokemon communicating with it is surprising to it. Kevin only disappeared a few days ago. Therefore…
No, it can't be him. It must have been another baby Phantump.
Slowly, she crept up to the Phantump. Then, she took out a handful of the Pokemon food.
"You must be hungry." She said as she did so. "Do you want some of this?"
The Phantump sniffed the food, then flinched back, its face taking on a look of disgust as it did so.
"So, you're not a Pokemon food eater, huh." She said dejectedly as she returned the food to its bag. "So what do you like then? Berries I presume?"
However, the Phantump shook its head at that as well. It floated past Catherine and went into the kitchen, where it opened up and started rummaging through the fridge. Eventually, it pulled out something that just made Catherine's heart plummet into the depths of sadness.
It was one of those Chatot Snackables biscuits.
….Kevin always loved that food product. He would always ask for it whilst she was going away shopping and would always request that she pack it in for lunch.
Tears began to brim at Catherine's eyes.
Please. No. It can't be…
The Phantump seemed to have realized that she was beginning to cry, because it had turned to face her, frowning as it did so. Then, it continued to move, floating into Kevin's bedroom, which she hadn't touched since his disappearance. It was your typical room of a preteen, perpetually messy and with stuff that looked like it could become a Pokemon if left any longer. Despite the state of the room, however, the Phantump seemed to somehow know the layout of the room, rummaging through a pile of clothing before picking up a picture of Kevin that had been left haphazardly on the floor. It was an unremarkable picture of him, but the Phantump clearly saw it as grave importance, as it had the picture right up against her face.
Although she didn't want to face the truth, she realized that the coin had dropped when Kevin started pointing at the picture and then at himself.
She didn't know what had happened in those woods but she now knew one thing that was crystal clear.
Her son is dead and this is all that remained of him.
Slowly, she tried to put her hand around the Phantump.
"Kevin, is that really you?"
The Phantump stared at her before his face lit up as if to say You figured it out, Mum.
Then, she embraced the Phantump, tears streaming down her face as she did so. Under her, she could feel the Phantump – no, Kevin – visibly flinch under her before returning the hug.
"Kevin, I'm so sorry." She sobbed, hoping that this moment would never end. "I let my eyes off you for one minute and it almost led to me losing you…."
"Phantummpp…" said Kevin, tightening his hug on his mother. Underneath her tears, Catherine noticed that Kevin seemed to be holding back a choked sob as he did so. The hug held in place for several minutes as mother and son embraced the fact that they were together again. Then, Catherine heard her son sobbing, the tears flowing freely down his now-wooden face. She tried to comfort the Phantump.
"It's okay. It's gonna be okay." She said as she soothed him by rubbing against his back.
Kevin continued sobbing for a few moments, Catherine rocking him gently as he did so. Then, Catherine could hear the sound of snoring as he curled up within her arms.
Slowly and gently, Catherine laid Kevin into his bed, tucking up the blankets around him so that he wouldn't get cold through the night.
She went to leave the room, but not before giving him a final look in his bed.
Her first thought was how small and fragile he looked. Seeing him tucked there, Catherine swore that even a stray gust of wind could have pulled Kevin out of his bed and out of the window, where he would be forever lost in the sky.
Her second thought, however, was a new matter that was of extreme importance to her now that he had been returned to her, albeit in a changed form.
First of all, does he still remember his previous life?
Although that had been a concern, the way he had looked at her made her suspect that he still had all of his memories. He even still had the same food interests as prior, which did help resolve the issue of having to either try to jog his memory or accept that she was never going to truly have her son back.
However, the third thought of even greater importance made a surprise appearance on the scene, drowning out the now solved other two in a bid for attention.
Where do we go from here?
She faced the facts. Her son was now a Pokemon. He would have new needs, and there was the fact that he was likely going to have difficulty communicating with her properly. She knew this based on the fact that if he were able to speak human language, he would have talked to her quite clearly by now.
And then, there were his hopes and dreams. She had known for a fact that he had really wanted to become a Pokemon trainer. She knew, up until recently, he had wanted to do nothing but hold mock Pokemon fights with Lizzie.
The name Lizzie made her recoil mentally.
Once she figured out a way to communicate with Kevin, the first thing she was going to do was ask about her whereabouts.
But there was nothing that she could do at the minute. For now, there was the Donphan in the room. There was no way the Pokemon League would allow him to go on to start a Pokemon Journey now that he was no longer human now. Oh, sure, there had been rumors about Pokemon disguising themselves as humans to go on Pokemon journeys but they were just that – rumors. And then, there was the fact that the Pokemon League usually barred Pokemon from being trainers. Something to do with it being confusing for trainers and other Pokemon.
Is it impossible though?
As she watched her formerly human children doze off in bed, his head branches twitching as he slept, she made a private oath to herself.
She was going to see to it that her Phantump would get the same opportunities and dreams that human children his age would get.
After all, it was worth a shot.
