Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the creativity and storyline. All rights and characters go to original owners.
23rd July 1997
Dear Diary,
Today was slow. Work had nothing going on for me, and of course the manager was being his usual self again. I wish I could say that things picked up with Pearl in my office today, but it just stayed the same.
You know, diary, that I'd never wanted a desk job anyway. I don't even know why I chose to write this down on my college applications. I suppose it was because everyone else was writing down-to-earth job suggestions; I guess I just wanted to fit in. My dream was to be a Pokémon master and I ended up in Pokémon soliciting? Wow.
I still hadn't heard from...
No, I don't want to write it. It's too sad. Change of subject, please.
As you know, diary, from your calendar page, it's my birthday next week and I'm really not looking forward to it. Who wants to turn twenty-one anyway? Even on my eighteenth I didn't feel like celebrating without–
As you can expect, my Mom is being over-reactive about this whole thing. I think it's safe to say she's acting even worse than on my sixteenth – and eighteenth, too. Blubbering about how her little boy's all grown up and blah, blah.
But even she knows I won't be able to enjoy it without them.
Don't tell me if I'm dyin'
'Cause I don't wanna know.
If I can't see the sun,
Maybe I should go.
Don't wake me 'cause I'm dreamin'
Of angels on the moon,
Where everyone you know
Never leaves too soon...
So, I guess that's it, diary. Same time again tomorrow.
Ash.
Ash dropped his pen absently onto the desk and let his head flop onto his folded arms, closing his eyes in relief.
He hated talking about them. Ever since that time back in his hometown of Pallet – his dreaded fifteenth birthday – he'd agonised about seeing them. He missed them so.
He'd never admit it aloud, of course. Or even in his diary. Whenever thoughts like this crossed his mind, he would block it out by drinking or eating or exercising. But sometimes, there was just no avoiding that huge hole missing from the middle of his chest.
He hadn't seen them for six years – and yet there wasn't a second of the day when he didn't think of them.
"Ash? What's wrong? You're not eating your breakfast."
24th July, 1997
Dear Diary,
I sat down to breakfast with Mom this morning, for the first time in way too long.
"I'm not hungry."
"But, Ash, honey–,"
I suppose I could have been a bit nicer to her... She was just trying to help. Mothers are mothers, I suppose.
"Look, Mom! I'm not a little kid anymore, alright? I'm almost twenty-one for crying out loud! I'm moving house! You can't fuss over me all the time, OK? You're just going to have to get used to the fact that your little Ashy won't be here anymore!"
I still can't process the look on her face. It was mangled of shock and... hurt. I didn't want to have to say it but...
No one wants to make their Mom's faces look like that.
She didn't say anything back, though. In fact, she didn't have time to, because I'd already stood up (well, I say stood, but I didn't really. I just got up so fast from the chair my cereal bowl fell from the table and smashed, and the chair I'd been sat on flew right across the room) and dashed outside, slamming the door loudly behind me.
I hope she forgives me, diary. Really, I do. I don't want to cast her away too.
*sigh*
That feeling I get in my chest is back again. That hollow, empty feeling. The feeling that felt as if someone knocked hard enough on my chest there'd hear the vacant ringing inside. The same ringing I get in my ears whenever I think of them.
...
I passed a mirror on my way out. Outside the house, I mean. After my temper tantrum (seriously, I was acting like a little kid. The kid I'd just said I wasn't!).
I didn't know where I was going to go, actually. I just stormed out – you know me; my dramatic exit. Maybe if I wasn't so famous for those I wouldn't push everyone away.
Urgh. I really wish I hadn't said that.
Anyway, the mirror I passed. Yeah. I have to say, I looked really awful. Like homeless awful.
My hair was sticking up all over the place – more than usual, I mean. It was about eight in the morning, and I hadn't had chance to run a comb through it yet. My hair's been unmanageable ever since I was a ten year old and I wore that silly cap...
Ah, my cap. Where is that thing, anyway?
I was in nothing but my sweats that I'd thrown on in the morning. I go to bed in nothing but my underwear now, and I wasn't going to go down to breakfast half-naked in front of my Mom now, was I? I actually had nothing on my feet.
Yeah.
So, I decided I needed to go somewhere subdued before I got pulled over by one of the Jenny's (the identical and funnily enough, related police officers).
And then it hit me.
Yes, that's right.
Where hadn't I been since I was fifteen years old?
"Pallet Park," Ash breathed beneath his breath, not far from his house now. As the memory of it came into his mind, he let it overcome him like a wild raging storm, swirling around him and tugging in tendrils at his clothes, pushing him back with its force and knocking him off his feet.
He began picking up speed as a single tear ran down his cheek, and he didn't care at that moment in time who was staring at him (bearing in mind it was early morning, so not many people were outdoors).
By the time he'd reached his destination, the tears were all backed up in his eyelids, making it blurry to see his way, but no more fell. It was easy for him to blink them away, but the memory still remained – haunting him.
It didn't take him any time at all to find the exact spot; the spot he hadn't visited in six years.
He was stood in Pallet Park, yes. But he was in the wildest part of it. Where there was nothing around you but trees for at least a five minute walk. Where the leaves crunched beneath your feet and twigs always caught on your clothing and scratched at your exposed skin. And if you weren't alert, a bug or two would crawl onto – and into – your clothes.
You'd think because everything about a wood looks exactly the same (tree here, tree there...) but Ash knew it so well, remembered it like it was just yesterday, considering the imprint just refused to leave his mind, lacing the edges of his dreams and the fog in his mind; forbidden to remember, terrified to forget.
Once he stood directly above it, he wasted no time in unveiling it.
He dived to the floor, to his knees, and began clawing at the soil, unravelling the earth, disturbing the unmoved leaves. He didn't care for bugs, spiders or worms. And he didn't care that the damp soil beneath the ground was coating his fingers, his hands, turning them black. He didn't care. He didn't care for anything right then. He was too far gone. Way too far.
Then finally, his fingers touched it. His heart sped up, radiating its heat through his whole system, and his breath caught in his throat.
He raked desperately at the ground now, eyes wide and wild with anticipation.
Then, he saw it. Laying there, still looking brand new – yet covered in mud.
He slowly reached in, afraid that if he went for it too quickly, it would leap up and bite him – and he didn't know, maybe it would – and sighed in satisfaction as his whole hand curled round its form.
After so long... far too long... it was his again.
He didn't even know what had caused him to act so suddenly to get this. The only time he'd been this desperate to hold it once more was the first week he'd been without it – the first week he'd buried it. He'd distracted himself from it, then; that week afterwards.
Whenever thoughts like this crossed his mind, he would block it out by drinking or eating or exercising.
He held it up – presenting it like a trophy – and just stared at it for a very long period of time.
Then, closing his eyes, he let his finger slip to the white circular button in the centre of it, and watched the insides of his eyelids turn red with the bright light it was emitting.
The glow died down quickly, but he still didn't open his eyes. He didn't even move – didn't even breathe. He waited. And waited oh so longingly, to hear the one thing he'd waited six whole years to hear...
"Pikachu?"
A/N: Short for now. Will get longer, I promise :) And much, MUCH more exciting! *squeal* Next update hopefully within twenty-four hours :P ..
Song in Ash's diary at the beginning is 'Angels on the Moon' by Thriving Ivory.
Reviewers get to dig up their long lost Pokéball and open it up to see the Pokémon of their choice! :D
