1.

ENTER

THE

VOID

Sacha woke up to the bitter, filthy taste of salt and sand in their mouth.

Quickly, they turned over and started coughing and spitting onto the ground. They could hear the crashing of waves, and the cawing of seagulls above them, and they opened their eyes to see a sprawling beach. For a moment, they marvel at the beauty of their surroundings, before they scramble to their feet.

Where am I, they thought, as their head whipped around, Jesus where the fuck am I? This isn't Busan, like, at all. How could this have happened to me?! I… I woke up, went to work, did like fifteen hours of coding, had some cup noodles for lunch, coded again, had cup noodles for a quick dinner. Then I turned off my computer, grabbed my bag, walked to the door, passed through the threshold and then…

And then?

Sacha groans. There's nothing in their memories between then and now, no hints, nothing. Just an empty white void. No matter how much they concentrate or coax their mind.

At least its warm, Sacha noted, with a nice breeze passing through. It's hot enough to be comfortable, and if there wasn't the taste of saltwater and dirt in my mouth, and I knew where I was, I would be in a better mood. Maybe.

They wandered down the shoreline aimlessly, searching for someone or some thing to help center them, some way back to civilization. All Sacha could see was the ocean, the beach, and a little strip of forest off in the distance. It'd be a long hike up, and their body hurt and their head was swimming so they didn't want to walk up towards it yet.

Eventually, in the distance, Sacha could see the vague outline of a short figure standing by the water. It looked strange, human-like but also not human at all, with almost a purplish skin tone, a spiky haircut (?) and was shirtless, only wearing brown shorts. Sacha was pretty sure this dude was dead, stood up straight by some sick fucker who was gonna chop them up next, but they stil ran towards it, desperately.

As the figure grew closer and clearer, Sacha slid to a stop, nearly falling to the ground. It was a tyrogue, a fucking pokemon! About the size of a small child, and not made of pixels like the one on her DS screen, but still a fucking pokemon. Standing right in front of them.

Looking back at them with terror in it's eyes.

Before Sacha could even get a word in, the Tyrogue is screaming at them.

"Get away from me!" It stumbled back, as if it's legs had failed. "Stay back!"

Sacha obliged, stepping back silently and looking to the side. How is it speaking to me? Aren't pokemon only supposed to say their names, or make noises or whatever? But here it is, speaking to me in English.

They look up, ready to ask where they were, only to see it running away, silhouette disappearing into the forest. Damnit.

Slowly, Sacha sat down on the sand. Alright, they told themselves, logical thinking time. I just saw a pokemon, who screamed at me in at least a language I could understand before it booked it. I could be hallucinating, dead or hallucinating while dying. Maybe their cup noodles were dosed with DMT…

There was a Pokemon game where pokemon talked, right? Yeah… Yeah, that's right, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon! Sacha had played the second one, but never got super far so everything seemed a little blurry. Didn't beat it or anything. But in that, there wasn't any humans, except for the main character, who turned into a pokemon. So that would mean…

Sacha turned around, looking into their reflection in the ocean. A strange dark vaguely human figure looked back at them, the only things that weren't black being a mane of flowing white hair, their eyes which were almost entirely blue, and a bunch of red spikes near their neck, resembling a collar.

Slowly, Sacha blinked, then moved their hand in front of them. The figure in the water blinked, and waved a three-finger claw in front of them.

Oh shit, Sacha thought. A darkrai? A smile came to their face. Fuck yeah, a strong legendary with a busted power set? Somehow, they managed to get out of a shit situation with the best luck possible.

But then again, I don't know how to use them. Thankfully, it isn't uncontrollable, or else tyrogue would be on the ground having the worst sleep of his life right now. And, judging by his reaction, darkrai are pretty much feared in this world.

So no partner for me, they grumbled. No towns, no nothing. Gonna be running around by my lonesome. Fuck.

Slowly, Sacha got to their feet, and trudged north towards the forest. Look at this loser, they thought, can't even float like a normal darkrai, has to walk on their stupid spindly legs. Like a loser.

The forest itself wasn't much to write home about, just the sort of typical scrub forest seen in the real world by sand dunes. There was bushes with what Sacha suspected were oran berries, but they weren't exactly keen on testing that theory.

Suddenly, they heard the crunching of leaves, and they quickly hid themselves behind a particularly large rock. As they slid down further, Sacha heard the crunching get closer, then a voice.

"Hhmph. Not very strange here…"

That low, droning voice…! They could recognize it anywhere! It was…

"Boss?" Sacha called out. "Is that you?"

The crunching stopped.

"…Chanthara?" He responded, and it felt like a boulder had been lifted off of their shoulders.

"Boss! You're stuck here too?!" They exclaimed, rushing to their feet. "Are you all right?"

"Mostly," he said with a sigh. "As one could be with these circumstances…"

What pokemon was he turned into? Sacha itched to know, but cowered behind the rock. The memory of the tyrogue screaming was still fresh in their mind, and something within them shivered at the thought of their boss fearing them.

"Where are you Chanthara?" He asked. "I can't see you."

Damnit, I have no choice now. Sacha slowly rose up from the rock, and looked over at where Boss' voice came from.

In the middle of the forest, a very stoic looking clefairy stared up at them. There was a pair of round glasses on it's little nose, the kind that Boss always wore, and it's little claw was adjusting them.

"Ah," the clefairy said with Boss' voice, his hand dropping to his side. "That form suits you rather well."

"I don't know if I can say the same for you," Sacha said, barely holding back laughter. "You're so small and compact. I think I could pick you up."

"There is no need for that." Boss said curtly, glaring up at them. "We don't have time to fool around, Chanthara."

"Right," they sighed, tapping their foot.

"What happened to you?" The boss demanded, adjusting his glasses again. "Tell me everything."

Sacha crossed their arms, and explained the previous events.

"You saw a… pokemon?" Boss questioned, eyebrows furrowing. "These creatures are pokemon? Like the cartoon?"

"Yeah," they said, scratching their face. Sometimes, talking with their boss was like talking to a man fifty years older than them, even though the age difference between the two of them was only in the single digits. "You… you do know you're one right now, right?"

Boss looked down at his body, before looking back at them.

"Oh," he said softly. "I see. I thought I was just some weird pink cat."

"Jesus Christ man," they muttered under their breath, before placing their hands on their hips (could anything they knew about human anatomy be applied to a body like this?). "Well, whatever. What do we do now? I honestly wasn't expecting to see anyone I knew from work here, so I'm all out of ideas."

"You weren't expecting to see anyone?" he parroted, cocking his head.

"Yeah," they said. "Usually its just one guy who gets stuck in the pokemon world in these games."

"'These games'? What are you talking about Chanthara? This is real life. This is really happening."

"I know that!" Sacha hissed, stamping their foot. "But this real-life event currently happening to us is similar to one of the pokemon games. That's what I mean, Boss."

"Mmm," The boss murmured, a claw up to his mouth. "Perhaps that is so. So, what would the protagonist of said game do now?"

"Uhh, well we found our 'partners' I guess, which is each other," they said, looking up at the clear blue sky. "Because I'm not letting you leave my sight. You worry me."

"That is fine. I feel more secure being around you, anyhow."

If Sacha still had eyebrows to raise, they would be raising them right now.

"Oh-kay… So we'd probably have like, a plot event right about now."

"What kind of plot event?" He questioned, and Sacha was about to explain, before a loud scream broke through the forest.

The two of them looked around the forest, trying to find the source. When Boss faced Sacha again, there was a very grim look on his little face. Sure enough, another scream broke through the forest.

"We should see what that is, shouldn't we?" Sacha said, their voice shaking.

"There is no question, Chanthara," Boss said through grit teeth. "I am this team's supervisor. If anything happened to the people I am supposed to look after…"

He shuddered, before regaining his composure.

"There is no time. Follow me."

He quickly ran, which for a clefairy was honestly more of a skip, and looked back at Sacha.

Some fuckin' adventure I'm on, they thought as they jogged behind him.


Notes:

Hello! This is short, as it serves as sort of a test for me. I haven't published anything of mine in a while. Hopefully, next chapter will be longer. If you are confused, 'Sacha' and 'Chanthara' are both the same character, their full name is 'Sacha Chanthara'. Thank you.