Chapter 4: Connection
John sat where he was, thinking, for several more minutes before easing to his feet and heading back home. He made it halfway there, when he suddenly felt… fear? Startled, John looked around, but there was nothing frightening around. The brief moment of fear turned to panic, and John couldn't understand why. Then, he suddenly couldn't breathe. It was like an invisible noose had been placed around his neck. The feeling quickly subsided, but the panic did not. He sped up toward home.
He made it back a few minutes later.
"John! Where have you been! I hope you didn't go to that side of town that I specifically forbade you from going to!"
"Mom, I honestly can't talk right now."
John hurried to his room and found the closet door open and empty.
He hurried back to his mother. "Mom, where's the little guy?"
"Gone. I called animal control and they took it away." Seeing the look on her son's face, she continued. "Son, you don't know what that thing is! It could be poisonous or something! I couldn't risk something happening to you and more than already has!"
John slowly recollected his thoughts and asked, "They were here just a few minutes ago, weren't they? And they put one of those wire loops around his head because they scared him and he tried to get away, didn't they?"
"How did you…?"
"Mom, I might not know exactly what it is, but after talking to Celebi, I know who it is!"
"Talking to whom now?"
"I'll explain it all later, it's too complicated to go into now! The point is that thing is me from some weird parallel dimension!"
John's mother looked at him skeptically.
"I know what happened because I felt what he felt just a minute ago, and I'm guessing that whatever happens to him happens to me, because through some weird technicality, we're the same person! We have to get him back, pronto."
She just looked at him.
"Mom, if you won't help me, then tell me which way they went, because regardless of what you say, I'm gonna make sure he's safe!"
"Fine, get in the car, but tomorrow, you're going for counseling."
"Fine, good, just let's go!"
They got in the car and John's mother started driving toward the animal control center. John couldn't stop himself from tapping his knee nervously.
"How much further?"
"A few more miles."
John felt a sudden sharp pain in his arm and he yelped.
"What is it?"
"I think they just either drew blood or gave him some kind of shot- Owww…"
He had felt another shark stick, this time in his other arm, and suddenly felt drowsy.
"Anf I'm guffing, that one waf the latter," he said drunkenly before passing out, his seatbelt locking and preventing him from falling forward.
Some time later, John was being shaken lightly. He felt warm and sleepy, but forced his eyes open. His mother was mouthing something and had a concerned look on her face, but he couldn't hear her. He grumbled something about cookies and fought off another wave of sleep. With difficulty, he lifted his head and saw that they were parked in from of an official looking building. He clumsily fumbled for the door handle and let himself out. His sense of equilibrium was way off and he barely remained on his feet. His mother grabbed him beneath the arm and helped him inside.
John heard his mother speaking with her voice raised to a man behind the counter who kept saying he was sorry, but he wasn't authorized to do something, saying something about a new species and biologists having been called in from all over.
Though he felt very much disoriented, John spoke up, "Liffen guy, if you did somefink to ma buddy, I'ma gonna drop yo aff righ' here and now!"
The man behind the counter firmly said something about not letting them in, period.
John said, "*hic* you!"
He drunkenly approached a door nearby and pushed his way into it. There were rows of cages full of animals on either side, and a door at the end of the iron hall. He staggered toward the door, reached the end of the hall and pulled open the door. He entered a sterile looking lab where several people in white coats were bustling around excitedly, stirring mixtures of fluids, looking into microscopes, all with childish grins on their faces. In the far corner of the room, there was a small pet crate containing a small blue and black creature, clearly sedated, but safe.
"Woah, woah, you can't be in here!"
"I had to make sure he was safe."
"You can't be in here!" the man repeated.
"You'd better take good care of him."
They pushed John back out of the room, but he remained just outside the door, peering in the window until escorted back to the lobby, where he sat down and quickly fell back to sleep.
After what seemed like a long time, he came to once more. A man in a white coat was sitting nearby.
"You're, um… friend is fine," he said hurriedly.
John nodded, finally himself again.
"He, at least we think it's a he, is cleared to go, but like with all exotic, um… pets, you'll need a permit, but since it's only just been discovered, you shouldn't need one until it's been registered as a species. We only took a little blood for analysis and ran an X-ray or two. It's really quite an amazing creature, I've never even heard of anything close to it before. It's semi-warm blooded, almost like a dinosaur, and its DNA isn't like anything yet discovered on Earth; it doesn't even use all the same nucleotides. We sent a sample off to labs with better equipment. It also looks like its body structure is designed to go under some kind of metamorphosis, but I don't even see how it could, it's just fascinating." The biologist rambled on and on.
John's concentration slipped quickly. "Where is he?" he asked.
"Oh, ah… just in the other room. The sedative should have worn off by now."
"It did."
The biologist frowned a little, but went into the other room and came out carrying pet crate with the creature in it. It hopped around a little, excited as it saw John. The man in the coat placed the box on the ground and stood back.
"We don't have all the results back on this thing, so you might not want to – ah..."
John had already opened the door of the cage and let the animal out. He picked it up and it curled up in his lap again.
"Sorry about what happened, I know what you went through, believe me," John whispered.
The scientist spoke up again, "Oh ah, are you feeling better? They say when you first came in here you were acting very… ill."
"Oh, yeah… I wasn't feeling very well when we first came in, but I'm alright now."
"In any case, how did you find this animal?"
"No idea. Can we go now?"
"Oh, of course go right ahead, just be careful with that thing; it's not poisonous but it still looks like it could have a wicked bite."
"Yeah, sure."
They quickly left, got in the car, and headed home.
John mother was quiet for a while, then asked, "John, you really scared me in there."
"Sorry Mom, but you couldn't understand it, at least not yet. I forgot to tell you that I saw where the monster came from, and two more creatures came through."
The car swerved a little. "What? There are more now?"
"I don't think one of the two will hurt anyone, but the other very well could. The one I'm not worried about said there's probably a lot more coming, too."
"What do you mean it told you?" his mother asked, visibly shaking now.
"A lot's happened today that's going to screw with the world, Mom, the fact that I met something inhuman that was intelligent is the least of it. From what it said, the world's probably gonna go topsy-turvy real fast. Can you pull over? I don't feel secure with you driving while you're shaking like that."
She pulled over and placed one hand on her forehead, the other over her chest, and breathed deep, shaky breathes. John let her relax for a few minutes.
"So there are more fire breathing monsters on the way?"
"No, Celebi, that's the intelligent one, said that there were hundreds of kinds of creatures that could come here. The other one I saw looked like a huge dragonfly, big as a car."
He told his mother everything that had happened, and how he was connected to the creature sleeping in his lap. His mother locked her jaw, and silently drove the rest of the way home. She said she felt a bit woozy as she walked in the door, and promptly collapsed on the couch. John let his mother sleep.
He flipped on the TV, but fell asleep from the fatigue of the day's panic. He closed his eyes and started to snore just as a news story came on about a football player at the local high school being checked by paramedics after allegedly being bitten by a massive insect.