MORNING

It might have been morning. She might have been awake for an hour. Summer may have crossed into autumn. The only thing Martha knew for certain, was that the room was almost completely dark, barring the light that escaped from the hallway. It relieffed the door, a yellow-edged shape with illegible writing on it, a shape that by now stayed in her vision whenever she closed her eyes. She had counted the number of words. Fifty-five of them, too small to discern in the murk, but fifty-five of them, black words on white paper.

She had counted the number of people who had walked past, outside. There had been eleven of them. Two had talked to each other, the rest had passed by one and one, in silence. Every time, she had tried to count their steps, from the first she heard to the last. She had a tally in her head. The first had taken sixty-eight, heavily, the echoes deep and solid. Louder in the stairs; they all were, and the echoes had gone on for longer, stretching the steps into cones of sound that stretched on until eventually, they dissolved. He may have taken more steps, or less. She had heard sixty-eight.

Most of them had taken sixty-something steps. She thought they must all be kids, or the number would have varied more. The two that had talked to each other were definitely kids. Two boys, both below puberty. She didn't know the gender of any of the others. She imagined they were mostly boys. Most of the kids she had sent off to Samuel had been boys.

The tenth person who had passed by had taken slow, methodic steps. His steps had clacked on the linoleum floor, as though his shoes were soled with wood. Martha thought he must have very long legs, because she only counted forty-five steps for him. His steps were deliberate, as though he was walking on a timer. The steps had clicked along with the clock on Martha's wall, going click, clock, click, clack, tick, tock, tick, tack, and she had mouthed the seconds that she imagined to pass with him, going one, two, three, four, five, six, sev'n, eight until he was gone, and with him, time itself. The clock kept ticking, but more dully then.

Martha had tried to remember the words on the door. She had read them several times before turning off the lights, in case they could come in useful. In case of fire, she remembered those four words. They could come in useful, in case of fire. If the fire alarm goes off, everyone must evacuate their rooms. Something about possessions, which she hadn't paid much attention to, because leaving your possessions behind during a fire was the sensible thing to do. The rest was hazy, but she remembered the names. Corner of Gio Road and Scoonesbury Avenue. Martha had thought about those names. She thought that maybe that was where the Pokémon centre was located. Maybe that was where the fire station was. Martha didn't know. There hadn't been a fire, so she didn't need to know.

There were no windows. That would probably have caused a problem in case of fire, Martha thought. There were no windows, and the light switch was on the wall next to the door. She could just make it out through the darkness, because of the rectangle of light leaking through the gaps around the door. She tried to close her eyes. The bright outline of the door still showed up on her eyelids. The light switch did not. Only the yellow outline, which blurred and moved, first to the left, then to the right.

When Martha opened her eyes again, the room was no brighter. She could only just make out her feet through the bed covers, dark grey set against darker grey still. She traced the line of her legs with her gaze, until she hit her side, and…

… and Mer. The Pokémon she'd carried in from the streets yesterday. It lay next to her, still asleep, its breath steady but irregular, far out of time with the clock. If not for Mer, she might have got out of bed a long time ago.

Later, when Mer was awake, Martha would have to take it downstairs, and hand it over to the Pokémon centre so they could find its proper owner.

Whenever she thought about that, she found herself wanting to think about something else.

Maybe the owner would be waiting downstairs, worrying themself sick.

Maybe he's violent, and Mer doesn't want to go back –

The tortoise made a noise, then stirred. Martha stiffened, and shut her lips.

"… Swker?" mumbled Mer eventually.

She didn't reply.

Mer went silent; Martha couldn't feel it move. The room went back to dull, dummied dusk, pressuring down on her –

– lay still, lay still, be quiet, the bed creaked as her arm twitched, she breathed, the whole world was clamour and then Mer spoke again.

"Skwer!" it said, and rubbed its arm against her side. She sighed.

"Good morning," she said.

She couldn't remember having said that to someone before. She couldn't remember ever being able to. Nor could she remember anyone else saying it to her, either. They were perfectly normal, simple words, and on the television they said them all the time. 'Good morning' was just perfectly normal, stimulating, human conversation.

"Skwer," said Mer, and Martha briefly hated it for not speaking human.

She got up, felt her way towards the door, and flicked the light on. The room blinked in and out of view for a few seconds, then settled into a doleful yellow. It was just as sparse now as it had been the night before – a wooden dresser, a messy bed, a clock on the wall, and dust underfoot. A green lamp hanging from the ceiling, which wasn't as far up as she was used to. A square mirror on the wall, at head height.

When she went to bed, it hadn't occurred to her to be especially modest. After all, Mer wasn't human, and only humans cared about being seen in their underwear. She went to fetch her clothes from the dresser, pulled them on, made the necessary adjustments. The turtle in the bed remained silent.

And then, finally, she – hesitated.

"Come," she muttered, turning around to pick Mer up. "We'd better – get you looked at. And then you can go." The clock showed twenty minutes to nine. It was time.

They went downstairs. There were a few people around already, waiting in chairs, standing in line in front of the reception desk. When Martha let go of the bannister, the receptionist called out "Next!"

The queue was only three persons long. She became the fourth. Somehow, the foyer felt warmer than the bedrooms upstairs, even though it was a lot bigger. She glanced around – a young woman was sitting by a table near the exit, reading a magazine over her folded legs. On the other side of the door sat an elderly woman, with a cane in her hand and a pensive expression on her face. She didn't seem to notice Martha. A short while later, the old lady got up and walked out of the building.

Soon the line was just Martha, and the boy in front, who was getting some Poké Balls back from the nurse on duty. He said "Thanks", turned around, nearly ran into Martha in his hurry to get out, and then the nurse –

– glanced up –

– and past and then called out to the girl near the door: "Hey, you back there need anything?"

"No thanks, just waitin' for someone!"

"Good to know, thanks…"

… and that was it. The receptionist hadn't even looked at Martha. She just went back to watching the computer screen in front of her.

Martha walked a bit closer.

Nothing.

Martha cleared her throat.

Still nothing.

She hit the bell on the counter.

The nurse looked up, blinking. "… Yes?"

"Hi, uh, I found this Pokémon y-"

"Who's playing silly buggers?" said the nurse suddenly, getting up – she grabbed the counter, leaned over the edge and peered down at Martha's shoes, before peering suspiciously over Martha's shoulder. "Was that you?"

"Excuse me –" started Martha, but she got interrupted by the girl at the back, who went "Me what?"

"… Probably nothing," said the nurse. "I thought someone rang the bell..."

"I did!" To demonstrate, Martha hit the bell one more time, but the nurse jumped sideways with a scream.

"Lord in heaven!" she shouted, eyes on Martha's hand. "It just – what's going on?"

"I'm going on!" said Martha. "Look, I have this Pokémon here…"

But the nurse simply grabbed her own head, and went, "Maybe I didn't get enough sleep last night…"

"Look at me!" Martha yelled, and she could feel her voice break apart into atoms, and this had got to be a joke, someone would be hiding behind those doors at the back, or behind a potted plant, and they'd all jump out and shout "Surprise!" but nobody did, nobody did, it was just the nurse staring at Martha's ear and nothing happened, nothing nothing nothing…

"Please…" she said. "Please look at me?"

But she didn't.

Martha walked to the back of the room, up to the girl with the magazine, stopped in front of her – and ripped the magazine straight out of her hands, threw it onto the floor, put her foot on top of the glossy front page, glared a challenge to the girl, a challenge to notice me or I won't let go –

But she didn't. The girl just flew out of the chair, shouted "The hell's goin' on?" and ran and Martha stood there, feeling like the air she was breathing, feeling like the noise in the room –

She pulled her foot back, ripping the cover apart. "If this – if this, if this is a joke," she said, but nobody jumped out, nobody shouted "Surprise!" and nobody, nobody produced an explanation so she ran and the city was cold in the morning light and she ran and the pavement echoed her every footstep back at her and she ran clutching Mer to her chest, Mer the only one that had paid any notice to her, Mer that got hit by a car yesterd-

– she should run into the road, she must run into the road, because the drivers would notice her, the drivers must notice her, and then they'd bring out the camera and everything will be all right –

– and she felt the lorry hit her before she entered the road, and she fell backwards, and they hadn't noticed her, which meant she didn't exist, which meant it didn't matter what happened, and she found it curious how human the lorry had felt as they collided –

– and she landed hard on the sidewalk. She hadn't been run over by a car, she'd crashed into – her eyes and head took some time to readjust to the upright figure in front of her – the old woman from the Pokémon centre.

"Sorry," she muttered, and got to her feet –

"No, no, that was my faul- wait a minnit," said the woman. "How come you can see me?"

She spoke to you. She spoke to you... "You can see me?"

"Of course I can, do you think I'd have this job if I couldn't?"

"But… But…" But she didn't say anything else, because the old lady had frozen, fastened her eyes on the ground next to Martha, at – at Mer.

"Wait up, lady," said the unknown woman. "This Squirtle right here" – Squirtle? – "you wouldn't have happened upon it by chance yesterday, would you?"

"I, um, yes?"

"Ah! Things are coming together. And you? You are…"

Martha wavered. Is this a joke they're waiting around that corner there aren't they or hiding in that bush "I'm… Martha?"

And the old lady just… put a hand to her mouth, and went "Oh…"

"… Oh?"

"Yes, 'oh'. You're damn right it's 'oh' – Martha, from Pallet? Oak's girl?"

'Oak'. She recoiled a little bit at the name, and a lot at the woman's characteristic of her. All this time, in Pallet, and she was somehow just a – a girl…

Nonetheless, she replied "Yes."

"Whoa. I'd… never expected that, to be honest. Still, it's good I caught you so soon, or who knows what might have happened…"

… who knows, you may have been killed in traffic, or just flat out stopped existing altogether…

"… you'd best come with me. Pick up the Squirtle, please, and take it with you."

The old woman walked over to a drainpipe lid, slotted her cane in the small gap, and levered it open. "Come, come come," she said.

"Come where?" said Martha, lifting Mer up off the ground and cradling it.

"To the Blood King," came the reply – the woman had already started to climb.

"To the… Blood King? Look, why should I trust you? I don't even know your name!" cried Martha.

"The name's Agatha," said – well, Agatha. She sighed, and looked Martha straight in the eyes – with a gaze that was far more ancient than the body it came from, a gaze so grey it felt like the essence of mountains. "And the reason you should trust me," she went on, "is that as of right now, nobody up here even knows you exist."