another lovely chapter by Rio, written from Sirai's POV! mysteries, mysteries...

the shows briefly mentioned in this chapter belong to their respective owners ^^

enjoy!

The twelve-year-old girl known as Sirai Honnis watched her television attentively. Her favorite program in the whole wide world was on! And a brand new episode too - heck, it seemed like they were marathoning new episodes. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table.

9:56 A.M.

Sirai turned back to the television and paid close attention to the current episode.

On screen, Eevee grumpily marched past a doorway Zorua had gone through just moments ago, and a creaking sound was heard. The Normal-type paused for a moment and glanced around, but dismissed the noise and moved on. The screen zoomed in on the closed doors, and the point of view shifted.

Suddenly, a library was shown, a library with empty shelves. Rows upon rows of desolate bookshelves, the entire room gave off a lonely, empty vibe, even without the eerie music. The tune was a little cheesy, but added greatly to the general feel of the new setting.

Ooh! Sirai leaned forward on her mattress, eagerly awaiting whatever was going to happen next. I never knew there was a library in Team J's base!

Her awful imaginary friend floated next to her on the bed, and Sirai continued ignoring the disturbing hallucination.

Cyndaquil wandered into view on the television screen, and as he walked past a narrow space between two shelves, his head turned to the side and he jumped in surprise. Then, the episode cut out and a commercial for PMD-themed trading cards came on.

Sirai scowled. Great. Of course now's the time for a commercial break.

She grabbed the remote at her side and flipped through other channels randomly. There had to be something decent on somewhere.

-Bzzt!-

A cartoon appeared onscreen.

"Ooooooooh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea-"

-Bzzt!-

A weather report. Oh, joy.

"And now for the weather report with Anna."

"Thank you, Sandy. It's clear skies today, and partly cloudy this afternoon, though that'll clear up again by 8 o'clock tonight. Tomorrow-"

-Bzzt!-

Some BBC show. Oh, was this Doctor Who?

"The main command code."

"It's a little girl! CAL is a little girl plugged into the mainframe of a computer-why wasn't I told about this? I. Needed. To. Know. This!"

Meh, seen it.

-Bzzt!-

Oooh, commercial for the upcoming Mystery Dungeon movie!

"Eevee's story, her history, her life before Team J gained it's new recruits- her mystery. All revealed in 'Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: The Beginning of Rescue Team J', at a theater near you! Coming soon…"

Pfft. Still no release date, of course. Seriously, what was wrong with the co-directors?

-Bwoop.-

She turned the television off, still completely ignoring the Mew floating next to her. She didn't even look in the pokemon's direction. Sirai plopped herself down on her bed, head against the pillow and back flat on the mattress. The girl turned her head to look out the window, and saw clear blue skies outside.

Well, that's boring. she scoffed lazily. It's only nice when there's clouds.

Sirai glanced around the room, still refusing to look in her imaginary friend's direction, before her gaze paused on the staircase leading down from her attic bedroom. Maybe going downstairs would help, forget what her uncle said about staying in her room. And Mew didn't appear as often outside of her bedroom for some reason.

She could get away. Away from that hallucination, that awful mirage, that twistedly innocent-looking figment of her imagination. That evil, wretched image. That despicable, antagonizing fiend. That monster and its poison-spun, rose-tinted, horrible, illogically terrifying words.

And that was the worst part of it all, the part that had convinced her to willingly accept the amnesia treatment. The words… The friendly, silvery, light-as-a-feather words. The illogically terrifying stories they told.

Illogical terror.

That was a horribly accurate way of putting it.

The words, the story, the very idea that they told her each time she heard them was terrifying and horrifying on a level at her core. Against all logic, the venomously kind speeches that might've been a lousy prank terrified Sirai.

Phobia.

That was another accurate way of putting it.

An illogical fear… One that had always been in her heart, but had never been consciously noticed until her imaginary "friend" went from being a playful dream to a mentally disordered reality.

Was it really just three weeks ago? Just three weeks before that the imaginary figment had started appearing at odd intervals? It felt like so much longer.

The doctors and psychologists at the clinic she'd lived in for two and a half weeks didn't have a real name for it. The phobia. Her phobia. Apparently they'd never heard of something like it before. Of course they hadn't, seeing how the idea of it was just something out of science fiction. Something impossible, something that made no sense whatsoever to be afraid of in real life.

But then again, that was the thing. Real life. One of the doctors, a funny, frizzy-haired old man who'd taken Latin in college, had jokingly given a name to her phobia.

Veritaphobia.

Fear of true reality, if you wanted to translate it more literally. But specifically, it was her fear. Her most heart-felt terror. Her fear, that her reality wasn't real. That she wasn't real. And that awful, terrible figment of twisted imagination only aggravated things. The idea that-

Oh. Of course. The devil speaks.

Mew, floating next to her innocently, like it belonged right there side-by-side with her, said kindly. "I'm trying to help you, but you have to let me first."

Help her. Yeah, right. She needed the hallucination's help like she needed a memory wipe.

Sirai acted as though Mew wasn't there. She turned her head to look out the window, first at her friends's houses, and then at the blank, sunny-as-sunshine blue sky. Then, she looked at the empty shelf where her video games had once been. From a psychologist's standpoint, she supposed she could see the idea. Her imaginary "friend" came from the video game series she so adored, so, logically, taking them away might prevent a relapse.

That was crap. All it did was make her bored. At least they hadn't thought to take away her television.

Her worst enemy, her own imaginary character, continued. "I know it's hard for you to accept. But you really have to understand. The dreams, the games, everything. It's real, all of it. This world is fake, this world is wrong. The imaginary is real. The world is wrong!"

At those last words, Sirai snapped and her grasp on sanity teetered. "No, it's not! It's not! It isn't-It isn't true! Stop it!" Her face was scrunched up, and a few fearful tears dripped down her cheeks.

When Sirai started crying, Mew floated backwards, and slowly disappeared. It was a frizzy sort of disappearance, like a television getting static. Or if she wanted to stick with the PMD theme, a holoscreen flickering out.

Sirai quietly sobbed to herself, wrapping her arms around her knees for any measure of comfort she could find.

"Not true… Not right…" she whispered, trying to counsel herself. "I know I'm real… I'm happy here… The world is real…"

Of course… sometimes, she imagined things. Wondered what would happen next in her video games or the PMD anime. And then, those things would come true. Like how she had joked over the phone with her friends about Eevee having a diary, and then that quiet little season finale came around the next day. The one with Eevee muttering to herself and writing in a book in her room. What was written wasn't shown clearly, but the implications of the normal-type having a log were plenty clear enough.

Just like she'd talked about. It was just a silly coincidence though, wasn't it? A twelve-year-old fangirl had no power over what a massive company decided to do with its franchise. It was just the most recent in a strange series of coincidences.

Heck, she thought. Maybe Buizel's got a log too. It'd suit him, I guess.

She took a deep breath in, and breathed out again. In. Out. In. Out. Sirai was nearly calm again. The doctors had said listing facts might help her. Along with keeping a journal. Picking up a notebook and pencil on her bedside table, Sirai decided she could start with both.

Journal Entry 1 - May 22

First off, this is not a diary. Those are stupid. This is a journal, or a log, like Eevee's.

My name is Sirai Honnis. I'm twelve years old. I have a mental disorder who named itself 'Mew'. It looks like the pokemon too. I don't like it. I hate it. No, bad Sirai, stop thinking about it.

My uncle Devon is staying with me right now, since my parents can't. I was just released from the T.D. Hospital. A lot of the doctors there… were not kind. No, don't think about them either.

I'm supposed to write down what I think, honestly, in here. It's supposed to help me, I guess. But now that I'm done with the fact-listing, I dunno what I'm supposed to write.

Sirai Honnis, signing off

Journal Entry 2 - May 22

It's only been twenty minutes since the last one, but I feel like this should be a completely separate entry. I finally figured out that the first thing I should write about in this log is my family.

My uncle's here with me right now, but I have a mom. She's with my dad. Well, my step-dad at any rate. I don't like to think of my other dad. Anyways, back to my step-dad.

He's a scatter-brained guy who works with technology. Always losing his glasses and forgetting where he left his notes. They're usually in his pockets. I love him, I suppose, even though… even though he's never there. Always busy with his work. Never any time for me, not since he got that promotion five years ago. I only seem to see him on weekends. I hate him, I suppose, for that. We're still family though. Or, we were, at least.

My mom is hard-core. She's awesome, but she's there to listen to me even less than dad is. Mom is smart, and sarcastic, and… well, I can compare her to the character River Song really easily. Smooth-talking, not afraid of danger, almost always smiling, and just a little psycho in a nice way. I look up to her. Well, I looked up to her.

They were two people I could imagine Sinnoh Home's Sirai being programmed by. My friends are always saying I act like her, so I figure her creators would've been like the two people who raised me. I wish they weren't dead.

Uncle Devon is really nice. He comes off as a little dominating, and all-business, but he sets time aside for me. That's nice, and more than I've gotten from most adults. Besides that, I don't really know him all that well yet.

My parents never talked about him, but then again, they never talked to me about anything anyways. I've been told both that I'm too bitter about it to be healthy, and that I'm unhealthily distant from it all. Sometimes I hate both of them, and sometimes I wouldn't care if they died. Well, that's what they wound up doing anyways.

I hate them for leaving me. I don't care either way that they're dead. The psychologists said I'm lying to myself on one of those statements, but they can't figure out which. Neither can I.

Geez, my life is messed up. No wonder I'm hallucinating that Mew.

I'm gonna head downstairs for a snack. Be back later.

Sirai Honnis, signing off.

AN: Hey, Rio here! :) I just want to say that you should expect more journal entries when Sirai's POV comes up from now on.