So, finally published another installation. Right after starting another year of college too.

…still working on this notes thing. And this writing thing. But who isn't.

Anyways, hope you enjoy this. I don't own Pokemon or anything by Young the Giant, and this disclaimer applies to all future works. Pokemon belongs to the Pokemon Company among others, Young the Giant to themselves and whoever helps them with their official stuff. Here's to a new chapter in what I hope to make a decent story.

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I may not remember much of my past, but I'm pretty sure I would remember going through an entire city and forest.

With my fainted starter in his ball.

With my only other Pokemon injured and in her ball.

With any and all bruises from any encounters of every kind still fresh in my mind.

And apparently at a breakneck sprint I would definitely be agonizingly sore and laboriously panting from.

My two teammates stopped ahead of me and looked back at me, whatever expressions I wore probably being the cause. Dayne had a tinge of worry mixed in, walking back and looking up for a closer look, while Tex tilted her head in curiosity. Within a blink, my starter popped onto my shoulder again, leaning in.

Are you okay?

We couldn't have teleported. I'm pretty sure Dayne would have told me if he'd taken us anywhere, although I doubt he'd ever been to Rustboro before. Tex curled around my leg. We should have been in Petalburg City, if anywhere! You don't just black out a solid few days-worth of travel time to come to covered in blood in what you assume is the nearest center—and the fact that nobody really drew any attention to that before is maybe an issue, right?—you—

Wait.

"Hey guys, do you remember anything weird happening?"

All nuzzling on my ankles froze. The child-like figure on my shoulder soundlessly broke the fabric of space-time yet again, this time into a crouch beside the previously-active source of nuzzles. I didn't think not receiving an action could give me this strong of a numbing, terrifying feeling. A breeze started—well, breezing by, pushing in the scents of the many nearby cafes of this city we logistically and probabilistically could not possibly be in, as if trying to stop my line of thought with the promise of caffeine. Sadly, caffeine couldn't stop my mind. At this point, getting repeatedly run over by a train made entirely of Toxic Spikes and Garbador feces couldn't even come close.

The former nuzzle-machine's face froze into something blank while Dayne telepathically stuttered around in my head while scratching the back horn of his own. Usually it's me doing that, sans the horns.

Um… uh—I swear if that iron smell on me really was blood—well... you really should have known this by now—I didn't do that much damage to another living being. I couldn't! Right?—er… etoo…

"Just spit it out. What did I do?"

My deadpan broke their spell, for the nuzzle-monster decided being the running-monster was a better title, and went off to pursue this newfound dream by way of our room in the Center. I grabbed my starter before she could get through the doors, leading to a quite visible pout.

Now I can't say it's 'cuz I can't talk to you!

The numb feeling spread to the rest of my torso. I didn't want to know what I did wrong, but I needed to know its nature. If someone was actually hurt, I needed to come forward, kill the mystery before too much pain was dealt, I needed I'm sorry okay! It was while you were asleep yesterday and—great, I can kill in my sleep now; how many parts the lady was acting all funny, and there was a weird thing burning in her hands and she said she HAD to give—"Woah, wait."

I leaned down, still holding my grip of his wrist…maybe too tight. Dayne was really struggling to escape my grasp, and it was beyond playful.

"Why are you talking through my thoughts?"

My grip slackened enough for him to tug himself out, immediately popping a few meters away. The Ralts rubbed at his own wrist with a wince before responding, It was hurting a lot. I thought you were angry at me.

Disbelief shoved the numbness scratching away at my corneas back into… well, I don't know; probably some little box where it will never get out or resurface ever again. The realization that I'd harmed my own Pokemon wasn't the issue—I've had to do harm to keep my place before, and Pokemon were no obstacle—but Dayne internalized it, and the betrayal and heartbreak in his thoughts put what I realized was the first crack on my heart. It felt like whatever constituted me in this world had lost something, and that loss would never be made right.

"I'm sorry. Please come here. I won't hurt you again. I promise." That I had to say those words almost made the loss seem justified.

Cradling his wrist, the Ralts slowly trudged, whatever made the gown of his form dragging against the pavement. Crouching down to his eye level, I looked the Pokemon in the eye. He flinched when I moved, but not fast enough to escape my hug. His small form remained rigid in the embrace.

"I really am sorry, okay. I would never want to hurt you. I just want you to know that."

He eventually leaned into my shoulder, hopefully accepting my apology. He didn't seem as frigid as a second ago. After an even longer moment, Dayne bumped me with his anterior horn.

Do you promise?

"Of course, I promise."

I then got tackled from behind, barely withstanding it especially while still in my cross between a crouch and a hug. My horned, silvery feline did her own form of an apology by sidling into a gap in our embrace to make it even more whole and wholesome, a slight purr emanating from her being. All was forgiven in this embrace, and we were all okay.

But why did I still feel an emptiness where a part of me should've been?

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"That lady was high."

My Absol shook her head matter-of-factly in response. After a quick nod in agreement, the Ralts once again on my shoulder replied for them both, No, she was at ground level!

I mentally facepalmed myself as I tried to figure out how to explain the idea of mind-altering drugs.

"Say you just ate a lot of food." Anything they were going to say got interrupted and continued to do so.

"After that, you feel really lazy right? Well there's some plants that do that to people. If that lady from earlier had red eyes or smelled like weird, burned plants, then she was in that kind of state of mind."

Dayne lagged behind us, deep in thought. Then teleporting back on his trusty steed's saddle, he revealed his epiphany.

So she's sleepy?

I didn't have the willpower to slap myself in the face, nor the heart to try and correct him. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Soool" hummed Tex, approaching her version of a canter to make up for the extra weight and lost velocity.

The sun seemed to set faster than normal. My team tired itself out with their version of playing knight and warhorse, and were already asleep. The headphones were on now, white strips glowing just barely with power. Whatever powered them didn't seem to need to charge, and there wasn't any need to connect to a device or anything. They just worked, I guess. After a bit of fumbling around, I finally did something else to provoke a reaction from the obviously-advanced tech: I pressed the left strip, and it erupted with a perfectly balanced backdraft of sound. Waves of it rocked through my cochlea and sent shivers through the hairs it needed to and the many, much more visible hairs that should have been irrelevant. I was being rocked to sleep without even being physically touched… at least not in the colloquial sense. A weight I'd forgotten condensed above my eyes by the time the first lyric lapped itself into the shores of my subconscience.

Here it goes

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I don't remember when it didn't hurt.

I'm not strapped to a gurney and being waterboarded hourly or anything. Hell, I'm not even strapped for cash! I don't even know what's going on in my head. I just work a white-collar job in a booming city where there's never nothing to do. That's it. There's nothing to unpack here. I just constantly feel terrible, like my being is being shoved into a box that probably would've been a luxury suite for a dust mite.

Maybe it's because I'm alone. I'm not lonely or anything; I talk to some friends from college every now-and-then, I have my work buddies, I get laid often enough. I mean, any of my bar-hopping friends would kill for my life! There's nothing wrong here! I have no reason to feel this crushing isolation every time I get the idea that I should maybe try to reach out to that one girl from McNamara's last week. I mean, we had a good enough night, and even spent the next few days together no problem. She was fun, and she was great to talk to, and was just… great. There wasn't anything wrong with her at all. But I tried to meet up with her again later, and then I just couldn't look at her face again. It felt wrong, like no matter how amazing of a weekend we spent together, there was nothing to justify me meeting her again, or getting to know what exactly she saw in Jane Austin novels, or why she soaps up the entire left side of her body before the right when taking a shower, or just being around for when she sneezes and actually says "ah-choo" in that cute way she does. Or for why I don't reach out to anyone from college or work for anything besides group things. Or why I've never been in any kind of serious relationship. Or why any therapists I see have no clue what to do or say—and I know you're in the exact same boat, you don't fool me with your bullshit.

It just hurts.

When I wake up, when I'm at work, downing a bottle, and every damned minute when it hurts the least, when I'm holding that pistol from my nightstand to my temple waiting for sleep or fear of another day of inexplicable suffering or a strong enough urge to kill myself to give me a long enough gap in my consciousness to know I wasn't hurting for a period of time.

Yeah, I don't remember when I last felt good. I don't think I ever will, really. But if I did, I'd be scared enough to actually pull the trigger this time.

It'd be nice to at least be afraid enough for that.