Postwick. A town that was smack dang in the bottom of the region most widely known as Galar. A town that was considered so small and unremarkable that it was voted for "Dullest Pokemon Town" in The Daily Fletchling newspaper's annual ranking of the Pokemon towns. Although historically known as the settlement closest to the final resting place of the two legendary heroes of the region, this was of little interest to those who visited the town, due to said resting place's….difficulty navigating making it a pain to make any tourist traps out of it.
The town did come up in conversation from time to time. However, it usually concerned the somewhat tragic tale of a boy which had stumbled into said resting place by mistake and had come out able to talk Pokemon speech. This was nice and all if it weren't for the fact that the incident also robbed him of human speech, which led to a bit of a dead-end in both media interest and research, although he still cropped up in the tabloids from time to time.
But that's a tale for later on. For now, this turn of events was of little concern to two young 10 year old children – a boy and a girl each - who lived in this sleepy village, for today, in this fine sunny day, there were more pressing matters to get on with.
"Sobble, I choose you." said the female girl, mimicking the battle throw which she had watched so many times on TV.
The young boy frowned.
"Awwwwww, I was hoping to have that Pokemon."
The girl's face took on a triumphant and smug look. "Well tough. I got here first so I get to pick. You can still get a Scorbunny. I thought you liked Scorbunny."
"Yeah, but only for a little while. I don't like Scorbunny anymore. I think they're boring now and that Sobble is way cooler. I mean, they can squirt out of their fingers when they get older, which is so much better than kicking stuff. Pew! Pew!" said the boy, punctuating his sentences with finger guns.
"Well, you're going to have to pick a new starter then, Kevin," said the girl, her tongue sticking out.
"Well fine then Lizzie, I think I'll try Grookey, even though they're so boring."
Lizzie took on a look of horror. "You think Grookey sucks? Grookeys are cool. They can play music and everything!"
"Yeah, but they look stupid. Anyway, why didn't you pick it."
"I like Sobble."
Kevin sighed. "Fine, but I'm picking Sobble for our next game."
For a few minutes, both participated in a play fight. Kevin got his imaginary Grookey to attack using Razor Leaf and Tackle, whilst Lizzie used her imaginary Sobble to counter with Bubble.
Soon, however…
"Well, your Pokemon is down," said Kevin triumphantly.
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yeah."
"Nooooo!" argued Lizzie, her feet stomping on the ground in agitation. "my Pokemon is not down for the count. You just decided that it was defeated on an arbitrary basis!"
"Yeah, well. It's my game, so yours is down!"
"Yeah, but what's stopping me from saying your Pokemon are defeated?!"
"Me,obviously, because I am the runner of this game."
This displeased Lizzie immensely. "Kevin, if you're going to do this, I don't want to play this game anymore."
"Sorry Liz, but even if I did somehow decide to just knock out your Pokemon without reason, I have the type advantage and would have defeated you anyway."
Lizzie's face pouted as she realized that he had a point.
"Well, now that I've lost," she said, "I don't feel up to playing anymore. Can we stop playing and do something else?"
Kevin gave a slight nod. "Fair enough. I'm starting to get bored playing the same game over and over again anyway."
There was a brief lull as the friends considered what they were going to play next. The sun was still halfway across the sky after all, and they still had loads of time.
Then…
"Do you want to go to Slumbering Weald?" asked Kevin out of the blue.
Lizzie's eyes widened like a Buneary. "That place? You know what they say about children who go in there. I mean, look what happened to Hop! He hasn't been able to talk like us since he explored there several months ago."
Kevin just had a smug grin on his face. "Yeah, but that's probably because he went too far in. We'll be fine. Besides…." He said as he jiggled and eventually unlocked the not well-locked gates blocking them from the main path. "being able to talk to Pokemon sounds pretty awesome!"
Lizzie was concerned but swallowed her fears. "Yeah, but…"
"Come on." said Kevin as he wandered over to the entrance to the woods, "we'll have a brief look in, see what is up with the place, and then we'll leave, okay?"
Lizzie nervously nodded, then followed, trailing behind Kevin as she did.
The entrance to the woods was locked with an extremely foreboding gate. A heavy-looking lock was attached to it and barbed wire wreathed around it like an Ekans.
"Kevin…" Lizzie said as she took in the barbed fencing. "It doesn't look like we can get in. Maybe we should come back another…"
"It may seem like a gate to you, Liz." said Kevin, "but no gate is a match for me!"
He immediately started climbing over the barricade, avoiding any particularly spikey-looking areas. Soon, he had made it to the top of the barricade. He held out his hand.
"Hold my hand. I'll lift you up."
Liz nodded in fear as Kevin pulled her up, assisting him by gripping onto the wall to make it easier for him to do so.
Then, they successfully made it over the fence, taking a moment to catch their breath as they did so.
"Come on," said Kevin as they wandered into the Slumbering Weald, Lizzie walking in single file behind Kevin as they did.
If only either knew of what fate would befall them….
The first thing that Kevin noticed was how…cold it had become. The temperature seemed to have suddenly just…plummeted off a cliff, and he was left shivering and fearing that he would turn into a giant block of ice at any moment.
The next thing he noticed was the visibility of the woods. Or, to be more specific, the lack of it. There seemed to be fog lingering everywhere, like an obnoxious Rattata which refused to leave no matter how many attacks you used on it. In fact, it was so dense that even the numerous trees which dotted the place seemed to only appear as blurry, nondescript blobs.
This all combined to create a haunting landscape that severely scared Kevin, although he didn't want to show it in front of Lizzie. He was the one who suggested heading into these woods after all. Still….
Why was there so much fog?
To calm himself down, he turned to what he hoped was Lizzie trailing behind him. If he knew that he was right behind her, he would have at least some comfort knowing that they were still together and could comfort each other.
But she was nowhere to be found.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
Kevin began to hyperventilate. What was he going to do? Where was Lizzie? She couldn't have gone that far, she was only trailing behind him. What if she…
No, couldn't think about that now. He had to find her.
To his horror, he found that the fog was becoming denser and denser by the minute, evidently on a mission to swallow everywhere in its path.
Including him, if he couldn't find Lizzie.
He turned to return home, hoping that as she was trailing behind him, she would have just taken the opportunity to head back home.
But the entrance had vanished, apparently taken from sight by the fog.
Clearly, he had no other choice. If he wanted to find Lizzie, then he would have to dash into the fog and hope that it didn't swallow him whole.
Closing his eyes, he made a wild dash towards the fog…
…and went tripping down a cliff.
It was the most painful experience of his life, and that was considering the fact that he once fell off a bicycle.
The pain just kept coming and coming as his body made contact numerous times with the evidently quite sharp points of the cliff.
To his relief, Kevin's body finally made contact with the ground, although it did so with a disturbing crunch sound. For a second, he laid there, giving his body a few seconds to heal. Then, he tried to move.
Nothing.
No matter what he did, his body seemed to have stopped responding to his commands. A rising wave of dread began to wash over him.
I can't move. I can't move.
No sooner had this wave washed over him, however, than another bigger wave came crashing onto the scene.
The wave of unconsciousness.
Soon, he felt darkness cloud his vision.
His final lucid thought before this blackness engulfed his vision however involved seeing an odd but blurry figure in the distance.
A large blue Arcanine-like figure which was carrying a sword in its mouth.
The first thing that came to Kevin as he returned to consciousness was the quiet rustling of the leaves. Oddly enough, they sounded sharper, like he had gained better hearing out of nowhere.
That's weird he thought as he blinked his eyes several times, taking in the opportunity to look at his surroundings as he did so.
The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer in the forest. In fact, he seemed to have almost unceremoniously dumped into the outside of the forest. On the downside, however, there was still no sign of Lizzie.
Slowly, he turned onto the other side, hoping that she was there and that he just didn't pick up her presence there.
No sign there either.
It was at this point that he realized that there was something…different about him.
He felt…..lighter…..as if he would detach from the ground and float into deep space at any minute.
Although it was a strange feeling, Kevin thought nothing of it as he picked himself up and started to float towards his home.
Wait. Floated?
Kevin finally took the opportunity to look down onto the ground. The most noticeable thing about it was the fact that he was not stood firmly upon it. In fact, he seemed to floating several metres from it.
It was at this moment that Kevin actually bothered to take a look at his body. What he saw was so bad, he had to suppress a scream.
There wasn't much of him left below the chest. It just seemed to all taper off in a faint wisp. He also seemed to have gotten much smaller, his body having adapted a grim black coloration that looked unnatural in comparison to anything that was alive.
Well, anything that was alive at least.
Panicking, he whipped around the place.
He needed a mirror. Now. Even a window reflection will do.
Thankfully, he remembered that his house was nearby. Making sure that no one saw him, he floated right up to one of his house's windows.
What he saw just gave him so much regret that it could form into a boulder and crush him right then and there.
What was staring back at him was not human or anything that even looked human. If he could define it, he now looked like a tree stump that had a ghost stuck to it. He now had small tree branches which stuck out of his head and he had a weird hair-like tuft that was on his head. This tree stump in particular seems to have openings for eyes that reflected at him with a blood-moon red, and he noticed that there was a small line on the tree stump which was turned downwards.
Almost like a horrified frown.
Only one thought came to Kevin as he lamely floated there.
He had just made the stupidest mistake in his entire life.
