My eyes shoot open. I lie on the floor, breathing heavily. I know that time wasn't a dream.

"Hey!" a young high pitched voice says. "Wakey, wakey, Silver! I didn't invite you over here just so you can sleep all night. I wanna talk to you, y'know."

I slowly sit up, not looking at my friend or even blinking. What the hell is wrong with me? I must be going insane. There's no way all of that was just a dream.

"Yoo hoo, Earth to Silver!" Lyra says as she waves her hand in front of my face. "Did you have a nightmare, or something? Why're you spacing out?"

"S-sorry," I say, trying to regain my closure. "I'm fine." I stand up and head outside. "I'm gonna go get a soda."

Passing through the empty dining room, I pull out my cell phone and dial my Mom's number. "I wanna go home!" Something in my voice seems to give her pause.

"Okay," she says, after a moment. "I'll call the sitter and tell her to come pick you up. It'll probably be an hour. Is that okay?"

"Yes, yes, thank you, Mom!"

"Of course," she says, with the hint of a sigh. "I'll call her now, okay? She'll be there in an hour. Be safe."

She hangs up.

"I plan to."

I enter the den to begin packing my things. Lyra doesn't even look up from the TV as I enter. I silently began to pack my things.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm leaving."

"What!?" She stands up, not even bothering to pause her game. "No, you can't leave, it's almost time!"

"I don't wanna be friends with you anymore."

"Wh-"

I raise my voice, losing my grip of my sanity."You're just going to sell me to that- that thing that's coming at midnight! I don't know what the fuck's happening, but I'm leaving now!"

Lyra stares at me. Her eyes are wide, and her pupils are shrunken down to the point where almost all I can see is white.

"A-all right," she says after a moment of silence. "All right, we're not friends anymore. But, just stay the night, please!"

A car honks outside.

"No," I say as I exit.

As I walk to the sitter's car I see my little sister in the back seat, still in her pajamas. The sitter, a high school girl who lives down the street from us, looks incredibly unhappy to be here, but I think I'll be able to handle her.

As I climb into the car I cast one last look over my shoulder, back to the house.

Lyra is standing in the doorway, totally still. Not screaming, not crying, not doing anything.

The car begins to pull away from the house and as I watch, I see her parents appear in the doorway behind her.

They back into the house, the door closing just as everything slides out of view.

Lyra doesn't show up for school Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Eventually, I ask Principal Elm why she's been absent.

"Didn't she tell you?" he asked. "She and her family moved away."

I stop at her house after school. It looks so peaceful, like nothing of what I went through ever happened. I get on my bike and start heading home.

Did I really do the right thing? What if all of that was a dream, and I just left her without an reason? I was the only real friend she had. Would anyone else stand up for her if she got bullied again?

"Oh, child."

My eyes widen, and I feel my blood freeze when I hear that voice.

"You cannot escape child."

I lose all signs of feeling. Without my control, my bike tips over. When I open my eyes, I'm back in the den with Lyra. I hold my head, this can't all just be a coincidence. Something is going on.

I lean back against the wall in silence, trying to regain my closure. Calm down, I tell myself, calm down. Think about something else, none of this is real. More memories of my past return to me.

I got my own Mew, eventually.

Another friend had a GameShark, which I borrowed one day. I spent that entire night unlocking every Pokémon I couldn't obtain in my copy of the game or hadn't yet traded for. Including Mew.

It didn't one-hit KO most enemies. It was incredibly weak, and I shamefully cheated the game further to make it stronger.

It even looked different from Lyra's. My Mew was small, dare I say even a little cute, standing there with its round, cheerful eyes. But when Lyra's had wiped out everyone at school, it had looked completely different, compact, snarling, fierce.

I asked her why.

"What?" she said. That had been here, in the den. "Oh, that thing?" It had been a while since anyone talked about Pokémon. "Well, my uncle got me a special edition Mew, first of all," she said, smirking a little, but not looking away from the PlayStation game she was playing. "That's why mine looked different. Second of all, mine can one-hit KO because it's the real Mew."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just what I said," the tomboy replied. "You cheated, and got a fake Mew. So of course there'd be problems. Glitches and junk."

I felt my cheeks redden.

"But not me," Lyra said again. "I got the real Mew. And only me! My brother was so jealous."

Lyra's brother. What about him? Why does remembering that comment make me feel uneasy?

I look up at the water pouring against the window.

"Do you think this storm will be as bad as the last one?"

"You remember the storm?"

"Yeah."

"But, no one remembers the storm."

I laugh.

"Come on, Lyra, quit messing with me."

Lyra shakes her head. "No, no, you don't understand. Please, I'm not messing with you, but this is important. But this- this is different, something's different, he said no one would remember the storm."

"Who?"

"He- he came out of the storm. I was home alone," Lyra begins, her eyes growing distant. "Mom was at work. Dad was- Dad was out at the bar."

"Your brother was here, wasn't he?"

"You remember him, too?" Lyra asks. "He saw it first. The flash. From his bedroom window." She pauses. "But I was the one who answered the door. We fought sometimes," she continues, "but I wonder, you know, if he'd answered the door instead of me, would he have eventually done what I did? What I did to him?"

"What're you talking about?"

"We got in a fight," she explains. "It was a fight over how I was getting all the cool stuff from my uncle. I think he was... starting to remember. Like you." Lyra chews her lip. "He said that I couldn't appreciate all this since I was a girl."

"What did you do?"

Lyra won't look at me.

"I told my uncle to get rid of him, and he did."

The numbness returns.

"I want to go home."

"No," Lyra snaps, "you can't leave, Silver! He's already on his way-"

"No!"

There it is. Like a voice, not something I hear, exactly, but still somewhere in the back of my head.

"See?" the brunette asks. "You hear that? He's almost here."

"I'm calling my mom."

I run into the dining room and dial my Mom.

"I want to go home!"

"Really?"

"Yes!"

She sighs heavily. "Of course," she says. "I'll call the sitter. She'll probably be there in an hour. Now, really, I have to go."

She hangs up.

Lyra's sitting in the den when I return, staring at the floor.

"I should have known it'd be different," she says, "you were remembering too much."

"If your uncle is so powerful, why can't he just keep me here?"

"He-" She pauses. "-gets weak." She slightly looks up, as if thinking quietly to herself. "Is that is that why things have been different? Because he's weaker?" The younger girl I used to consider my best friend hugs me from behind as I pack my things. "I've already protected you enough as I can, just please don't go!"

A car honks outside. I pull away from her grip, leaving her arms out in the air.

I get into the car and look back at the house. The lights in the den are still burning. The door is closed. Did I do that?

As the sitter pulls away from the house, I stare out the window at Sarah's house, the lights blurred and magnified by the rain streaming down the glass. Eventually, it all slides out of view.

I find out the next afternoon about the fire. It started in the den, say the papers, where there was known to be a fireplace. Apparently it was left smoldering in the night.

There were no survivors.

Arson is suspected, since an accelerant would have helped the flames overcome the night's heavy rains, but nothing definitive is ever publicly released on this account.

One day after school I ride my bike by to check it out.

Parts of the house still stand, walls and beams blackened by the flames. Yellow caution tape has been looped around the outside, and the rubble hasn't yet been totally cleared out by the city. I decide to wander into the front yard.

The second floor has either mostly burned away or fallen through, but standing in what used to be the den you look up to the hole that would have been Lyra's room.

The broken glass and charred drywall crunch beneath my feet, until I step on something that isn't glass.

I look down. There, in the mess, is what looks like a Gameboy. It's a Gameboy Color, not at all scuffed or damaged. In the back is a single cartridge, is an old copy of Pokémon Blue.

Looking from side to side, as if anyone might actually be watching, I pick up the Gameboy and flick on the power switch. After clicking through the Pokémon intro screens, I find there is no saved game on the cart. It's like a brand new copy.

I turn off the Gameboy and, stuffing it in my pocket, return home.

My Mom is standing in the kitchen when I arrive, doing dishes, and my little sister is watching some annoying cartoon.

"Remember to take a bath and get dressed before seven," Mom calls.

Remember? When did she tell me to do that?

"Why do I need to do all that?"

"Silly," she says.

My Mom turns from the sink to smile at me, and my throat tightens when I see how glassy and empty her eyes are.

"Don't you remember?" she asks. "Your uncle is coming over for dinner to celebrate his new job."