Rash woke up in his room, hands clutching his SNES controller.
Had all that been a dream?
It seemed so vivid, and Rash didn't remember nodding off, didn't remember feeling drowsy while playing his SNES... but it had to be a dream. What else could explain it?
Rash let go of the controller and wandered over to his desk, quickly checking things on his computer.
There was a Potion stored there for him.
Rash didn't remember ever putting a Potion inside (Rash was beginning to realize that there was a great deal he didn't remember that nonetheless seemed to be the case), and he would have had no reason to do so, as he didn't have his own Pokemon... but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Rash tossed the Potion into his bag and walked downstairs.
He gave his mother a perfunctory greeting before slipping out the door.
If his Pokemon legend really was about to begin, as Professor Oak had said in that dream of his... well, there was only one way to start it.
Rash headed north, eager to find and capture his first Pokemon in the tall grass that covered the route to Viridian City.
He made it all of one step into the grass before Professor Oak came running over, yelling about the dangers of wild Pokemon and practically forcing Rash into his lab.
Professor Oak looked the same as he had in Rash's dream, down to the book he was holding. And was he imagining that glimmer of excitement in the professor's eye as they entered the lab together?
Another person burst forth- it was the other boy he'd seen in the dream, Glue.
Rash and Glue... what a pair they made.
But while Glue had stood still in the dream, here he was bursting with motion, tapping his foot impatiently as the professor explained that he was going to give each of them a Pokemon of their very own.
For whatever reason, instead of letting his grandson get first pick, he gave that privilege to Rash instead.
Rash really would have liked for it to be the other way around- he had too much on his mind, couldn't fully focus on the decision he needed to make- and judging by the glare Glue was shooting him, the other boy would have preferred the opposite arrangement as well.
But it was not meant to be.
Rash paused, taking a step back from the table on which three Poke Balls sat. "Can I go think about this for a bit, maybe do some research-"
He had already turned around and taken several steps towards the door before the professor responded.
"No."
Something in Professor Oak's voice resonated in Rash's mind, made him face the professor again and take a tentative step forward.
"Are you sure? I should probably tell my mother I'll be getting a Pokemon, maybe she'll have some advice for-"
"No."
A shiver ran down Rash's spine as he took another step forward.
Rash blinked.
For a split second, it looked as if the professor were gone, nothing but thin air present where he had been standing mere moments ago. The middle Poke Ball on the table was gone, too, with no sign that it had ever been resting there. Glue was still there, though, waiting as (im)patiently as ever, and the professor's assistants continued to wander the lab.
He blinked again, and he could swear the walls were screaming, soft wails assailing him from all sides.
He blinked again, and the world was normal once more, with both Professor Oak and Glue staring at him, silently awaiting his decision.
Rash shook his head as if to shake away what he had seen, what he had heard, but one thing was certain:
Whatever strangeness was going on here, it hadn't ended with his dream.