A couple days later, in the middle of the night, I snuck out to the laboratories. James had managed to con some extra vitamin supplements out of the nursing staff, which he had given to me and I now had hidden safely in my pocket. The laboratory was locked down, and though I had a key to get in, there was a verification system—the security staff would know someone had come in. So, instead, I climbed up one of the large floral trees near the building, snuck onto the roof, and silently slipped into one of the vents leading to the mezzanine. I found where the staff kept the pokemon food, and right nearby there was an emergency door. I knelt down to open it up, and just as I had hoped, it led to the store-room right by the Pokemon housing wing. I slipped down into the hole and after dangling for a moment, let myself drop the 25 or so feet onto the hard cement floor. The land was jarring, and I had to pause a moment to let my bones stop tingling. But otherwise I had gotten in, and I was unharmed.

I stood up and had to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I walked out of the storage room and made my way slowly down the hall of cages. My presence made some of the pokemon wake up and stir inside their containments but otherwise the wing was entirely silent. I walked over to where the ponyta was held, again laying on its scant pile of straw. With both hands, I grabbed hold of the fence and hoisted myself over the top, straddling the highest rung, and then dropping onto the concrete floor next to the ponyta. When I entered his containment he lifted his head and looked at me with his weak black eyes. He caught my scent and let out a little nicker.

"Hey there, buddy…How are you doing?" I whispered gently, kneeling down next to the pokemon. I stroked his neck as he sniffed my hand, his breath weak and lukewarm at most. He had to have been only about a year and a half, he was not old at all. And it pained me so much to see a baby in this much pain.

"Here, bud, I brought you a little something." I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the couple of vitamin capsules. I held them flat in my hand for him. "These should make you start feeling a lot better."

The ponyta sniffed the capsules, rolling them around in my palm with his nose, but didn't show much other interest in them.

"Come on, little one, I don't want to have to force feed you these." I coaxed. But still the ponyta didn't show any interest in eating the pills. "Alright, then. You asked for it." I put one arm over the ponyta's neck and clamped him close to me, holding gently to the bridge of his nose. Using my fingers, I pulled up one side of his lip and quickly slid the pills into his mouth through the space between his incisors and molars. He whinnied and tried to toss his head, but I took a firm grip on his jaw and forced his head up, gently stroking his throat to try to get him to swallow. The ponyta spooked and blasted me with flash fire, throwing me back a couple feet and singeing my jumpsuit. I sat up quickly and tried to pat out the smoldering flames. The ponyta was up on his feet now, thrashing his head and trying to spit out the bitter tasting substance. I hadn't been able to bring anything sweet to make the medicine taste better. I wish I had. But what's done was done.

I turned over and knelt on the hard floor and began to hum a song that my mom used to sing to the orphaned ponyta that she would have to bottle-feed. I don't know where it came from, don't really even know the words, but it was short and sweet and always seemed to make the pokemon calm. Ponyta too stopped thrashing when he heard my humming and stopped and stood for a while looking at me with perked up ears. After a few minutes of listening, he walked around his pen and knelt down next to me, resting his head on my lap. The lapping flames of his mane had calmed down now and no longer burned me to touch. I sat there with him, stroking his forehead and neck for probably close to two hours.

Gradually, I felt myself getting tired. I stirred, waking the sleeping pokemon in my lap. "I need to go now," I whispered. "If the other scientists find me here, I will get in a lot of trouble. But I promise, I will see you in the morning." I stood up and made my way over to the fence. The ponyta whinnied weakly at me, begging me not to go. "I have to." I replied. "But I promise, I'll be back to see you in the morning." I blew the ponyta a kiss, before climbing the fence again and dropping onto the other side. Then I headed back to the storage room, climbed onto the piles of unused equipment and crawled back the way I'd come.

The next morning, I was up and dressed and hurried out the door, anxious to see my new friend. The lab coat, fortunately, hid the scorch marks on my uniform so Professor Conifer didn't even notice them when I met with her in the lobby.

"Alright," She said as she guided me down the hall I had snuck into only hours before. "Today will be the first day you will really get hands on. You're going to assist some of the other scientists with an experiment."

I was listening, but I was also excitedly searching for the ponyta's containment. Finally, I saw the fence up in the distance, and tried to purse my lips together to hide my grin of anticipation. But when we came up on it, I was confused to see the pen empty and completely swept out. The card showing Ponyta's information had been torn from the fencepost, a small corner of the paper still tied there—the only proof that it had ever existed in the first place.

Against my better judgement, I stopped. "Where is the ponyta?" I asked, my voice sounding like a confused child.

"Oh…" Professor Conifer started, stopping next to me. "He passed away early this morning."

Everything around me stopped. Seconds ticked by for what felt like hours. "W-what…?" I managed to mouth after I had regained some control over my functions.

"He was found lying in the straw when the first few staff members came in." Professor Conifer continued. "They will be performing an autopsy later on to determine the cause."

I was numb. I had just seen him that night; mere hours before! I had just given him the medicine that was supposed to help make him better and now he was….

"But, that is just a part of life, isn't it? Sad as it is." The professor went on, breaking me from my trance. "Come, we have a lot of work to get to." She walked over to the door, pushing the crossbar open. She stopped when I didn't follow. "Jess." She called again. "Come along."

I swallowed hard. I had no words. I wanted to cry and say, 'but I just saw him last night!' but no words came. Finally I forced myself to take a long shaky breath, looked up to the ceiling to try to dissipate my tears, and turned to follow my teacher back into the laboratory.