The Alakazam introduced himself here, though I somehow already knew what he was. Instincts, I guessed. I was porbably going to need to get used to it, for how long I didn't know. The Blissey was elsewhere for some reason, I was asked a few questions by the Alakazam while we waited. They were fairly basic questions such as "what is my name," but a few did cause some problems. After a few questions he would write something down, though I rarely got to see what he wrote.
"Where are you currently?" The Alakazam asked
"A hospital, being asked questions by someone with a mustache." I responded.
"No, sorry. That was on me. I meant, what town are you in?" The Alakazam stated, somewhat flustered, or perhaps annoyed by my sarcasm.
"I'm not really from around here, so I don't entirely know." I responded.
"Hmm? Then where are you from?" Alakazam responded. I thought back a moment, attempting to think of a name or place that wouldn't sound too impossible.
When my creativity failed I responded, "Pretty far away. I'm not entirely sure how far or in what direction."
"And the name of that place?" He asked. Honestly I was hoping he wasn't going to follow up on that. I responded with the name of the town I grew up in.
He looked confused, stating "That's a bit odd."
"I didn't name it." I said with a shrug. He nodded and wrote something down on the board floating by his head.
I leaned towards it and saw that it said "Spirited, but defiant." Was that good?
"Do you know how you ended up being injured?" He asked.
"No. I do know I should be hurt worse, but everything about how I got there is a mystery, even to me." I stated.
"Amnesia? Shock? Hmm..." He quietly questioned to himself, stroking his mustache. He clearly didn't mean to speak that out loud, or maybe he did. I'm not certain, nor did I really mind. He probably didn't mean to be thinking with his facial hair, I think that was just a weird habit he accidentally picked up.
"I don't know, maybe? A lot of things are fuzzy to me." I responded, staring at him. He looked up, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. It was here the Blissey returned with a large bottle of deep green goo.
"These should help you recover your energy. You need to drink all of this by tomorrow." She stated. I blinked and fell back in surprise, almost landing on my injured tail.
Sitting back up, I said "I think my stomach will burst if I do that."
"You'll be fine." Was her response. She opened the bottle handed it to me. The contents didn't smell horrible, but it was notably disgusting to look at. I shook the bottle, and the contents jiggled about, congealed and coagulated to an evergreen mystery mass. While this was concerning, it was also kind of funny. I audibly laughed until I noticed the doctor looking at me sternly.
"If this kills me I'm going to haunt you." I said with a big grin. I couldn't really help but smile, I guess I was just nervous and confused at the time. I wasn't intentionally smiling as it probably made me look a bit like a lunatic. I took a bite of the strange goop and immediately hated everything in my life. Against all logic, it tasted even worse than it looked. I was expecting the worst tasting thing I would ever have put into my mouth; that I would vomit uncontrollably the moment it touched my tongue. It defied even the lowest bar I could ever conceive. Yes, I did in fact vomit as well. The taste was more bitter than anything I could ever imagine, which wasn't even the worst part. The texture was like eating barely room temperature vomit. It was extremely slimy, but soft and hard chunks occasionally floated by on this green sea of nausea.
"What did you expect? Oran juice?" The Blissey asked.
"I expected to be able to keep it down. I can't do this." I stated.
"You have to if you want to survive." Blissey responded.
"I'm starting to rethink the whole 'living' thing now..." I said. My face was contorted into a strange smile, but I was certainly not happy. The Blissey rolled her eyes and left to help other patients.
"So, uh, do you have any tips to endure this?" I asked.
"Drink a lot of water, and drink the medicine fast. That makes it harder to taste." He responded. I nodded, dreading the next twenty four hours. A full day passed by, and the monstrous green liquid was finally conquered. I did vomit several times in my attempts to swallow the liquid I will forever refer to as "Satan's Spew", but I did somehow manage to drink it all. A fresh bandage was wrapped around my tail a while after I had finished the last gulp, and I was told to not exert myself.
Being a "spirited, but defiant" 14 year old, I promptly ignored them and started wandering. I got a better look at the area I was in, at least. It was more like a fortress than a building, high walls surrounded an otherwise normal open field. The occasional creature wandered in and out of huts of various sizes where the sick and injured were located. Doctors were distinguished by a sash they had on their chests, and guests had a pass on a chain that was always stuck somewhere visible. The sun was shining almost directly above, so it was probably about noon. The stone hut I was in had a symbol on it. I didn't recognize what it was. Looking over to other "rooms", I noted that there were a couple signs with symbols. I thought about it and figured it was to show different ailments or something. There were probably signs for things like "Infectious disease", "Non-infectious disease", even "Rough Patient" I imagined.
My sign probably meant "Major injury and/or a lot of blood." I wandered over to the nearest hut. I noticed the lack of symbols and peered in. It was a red turtle with smoke coming out of it. I was standing in the doorframe, not quite inside but not quite outside either.
"You're not the doctor." He said. He was clearly quite old, but I wasn't going to comment on it.
"No. I was just wondering who was here, if anyone." I responded.
"Heh, don't you know anything about privacy? What if I was horribly hurt, or naked?" He asked. He wasn't wearing any clothes anyway, but I decided not to bring that up.
"Uh, I'm sorry?" I responded. I didn't really think about anything like that before wandering to the door, to be honest
"It's alright. It's nice to have someone to talk to besides the doctor." He said. I had to agree. The doctors couldn't exactly stay for very long periods of time, always rushing off to deal with an emergency of some kind. They were clearly always busy. Are these creatures always getting hurt?
"So... Why are you here? If that's alright, I mean." I asked.
"Just a standard check up. I can see your tail's been badly hurt. Luckily I've heard that some grass types can regrow limbs, and Treecko can regrow their tails if they're cut off." He responded.
"So I've heard, guess I'm lucky." I said.
"Hmm? Lucky? Didn't you know about that?" The Torkoal asked.
"I don't make it a habit of chopping off limbs or letting them be cut off." I responded.
"Hmm." He hummed with a nod.
"Well, I've probably got to get back before the doctors get angry." I said.
"Alright. Be careful, I hope you'll do well." He said. He would have been smiling ear to ear, if he had ears.
"Same to you." I responded, also smiling. I walked back to my room, and waited. Another two days passed uneventfully. I hoped I was almost done. Around noon, the Alakazam, Blissey, and a new creature walked in, who I knew as a Drowzee.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Don't worry, this is just so you aren't in pain during the procedure." Alakazam responded. Now I was concerned.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"In order for your tail to properly regrow, the rest of it needs to be removed." Blissey stated. I didn't know what to think. It would certainly hurt, I knew that. What was I going to do, though? I couldn't do much else besides let them do what they needed. I sighed and relented.
"Will I need to drink any more of that sludge?" I asked, legitimately worried.
"No, you will need to take some nutrients, but they're no where near as bad." Alakazam stated. This eased that fear. I couldn't bear to drink anymore of Satan's Spew. The Drowzee told me to look at him and count to 10. I did and became sleepy when I counted to around 3. The last thing I remember clearly was mentally counting the number 4. When I had woken up, it was somewhat dark. I thought I had been asleep until dusk. However, as time passed, more and more light shone through the thatch roof. After about half an hour the sun was clearly shining bright. It was already morning. My body ached and pounded with each heartbeat. I was feeling immense pain in places that weren't even touched. Confident in my inability to sleep, I sat up and looked around. Nothing had changed in the room. I looked behind me, noticing the lack of tail. This world was interesting, but the charm was beginning to wear off. A nurse walked in, noting I was awake, grabbed a notepad and asked a few questions. When they were satisfied, they left. I laid back, still very tired and confused.
Where am I? Why do I have to save the world saving heroes? How was I going to save them? When's breakfast? What's breakfast? What kind of food is there, and will I enjoy it? Will I fit in or will I make a fool of myself. That wasn't too big of an issue to me. If I was particularly weird, then so be it. In any case, there were too many questions and not enough answers, and not enough people to ask. Maybe the voice would return and give me a bit of insight on what to expect? I could only hope. My mind was racing, but processing everything far more slowly. It was a feeling you only have when you're really tired. My mind was a race to nothing, but nothing substantial was sticking around to be raced. Every thought stuck around for half a second before fading into another, nothing being focused on and nothing making any sense. One thought to the next, to the next, it was the worst mental noise I had ever experienced before. Sighing, I turned onto my side and closed my eyes, somehow relaxing but never truly falling asleep.
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It's been a while since I've written anything on this account for a story of mine. I actually wrote a 50k word novel thing at some point in the past several years, though it isn't very good and will remain unpublished probably forever. Digressing aside, it's thanks to Bird Keeper Toby and his Pokémon Tempest videos which reminded me of how fun it is to write. I know I'm not amazing at it, but I hope I have improved at least a tiny bit from almost 10 years previously. Always remember to do your best, and always remember to have fun.
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