I watch as the coffin containing my father, Professor Spencer Hale, is blanketed in soil. I want to scream, cry, flood everything with tears until I am no more, as if never existed. But my body won't allow it. It's forcing me to stand here, motionless.
The funeral came to an end hours ago. Even then I was motionless. At the wake, people covered me with all their cheap pity, so-called "sympathy." They didn't care; I know they didn't.
"Molly, I'm so sorry this happened. Oh, look! Cookies!"
Bastards.
I blink. Strange. I've been motionless for so long I thought I've forgotten how to move. My legs saunter to the freshly-packed soil. My hands drop white lilies. I was holding those? When did that happen?
My body is now functioning again, so why won't I scream?! Why won't I cry?!
To protect you from reliving the pain.
I turn around. Who said that? "Hello?"
That voice… I know that voice… from somewhere… but where?
A strong breeze catches me, my hair flying wildly. I remember.
"Entei? Papa?" I catch myself saying, the Molly I was so long ago.
For more than a decade has he been gone, but not from my heart. Never will he be gone from my heart.
The breeze stops.
When I was little, when Papa had to leave me, I cried so much I thought I'd be waterlogged for eternity. But I didn't care. The pain seemed so essential, so right…
Ash, Misty, Brock, Delia – they all tried to help me. They all thought they understood my pain. They didn't. I don't think anyone has ever felt what I did. The emptiness, the abandonment… even though I knew he had to go and didn't want to, it still felt as if he were abandoning me on purpose… the little girl no longer joyous and carefree, but an orphan, forced to endure life's troubles alone…
Of course I felt the same when my biological father disappeared, but it was many times stronger when Entei did. At that point, everything appeared as hopeless, a dark cloak of misery wrapped around me. Now it was confirmed I'd never again have a parent.
A child without a parent is like a tree without sunlight. Stupid comparison, I know, but it's the truth. Think about it. How can a tree survive without sunlight? How can a child survive without a parent? A parent… one who'd take you into their arms; who'd listen to your problems, even in reality if the problems were nothing; who'd bandage your bloody knees; who'd always greet you with a smile.
Everyone thought loving an illusion was meaningless. After all, an illusion isn't real. Just a false perception of reality.
But Entei was real to me. Very real. I felt his devotion, respect, and pride in me as his daughter. Why couldn't they – Ash, Misty, Brock, Delia - understand something simple as that?
And now my biological father is gone, too. Died of a sudden heart failure. My mother found him, and now she has fallen into some sort of catatonia. I may as well call her dead as well. She's breathing, but not alive. She's in her own world, unable to interact.
The pain is back, the pain my younger self experienced.
And the tears are pouring.
