AN: I'm a huuuge Digimon fan since I was a kid, but I've never actually written any Digimon fanfics! But today I aim to correct this! I got a story mapped out, bullet points and all, I got the characters, and I'm excited to make it a reality! :D I hope others enjoy the ride lol...cause it's gonna be a bit more "mature", cause my favorite series was Tamers lol! And also Tri and the newer movies are going a bit darker for the older cast now too, sooo...it fits with the times!
End of AN!
"Marlene? Can you try to eat, please?"
Marlene glanced over at her aunt. She felt the guilt and shame rising again. She forced herself to pick up a slice of pizza and bite into it.
She loved pizza.
Not so much lately, though. She couldn't find it in herself to enjoy much of anything, lately...
It had been nearly a month now since the car accident.
She'd been in the back seat - her parents up front.
And now...
They weren't here anymore. But she still was.
And she wished she just wasn't.
She liked her aunt - her aunt was nice, cool, even - they even shared an interest in video games and anime. The thirty year old woman was the closest person she even had to a friend these days. But...
Marlene couldn't even form the words in her own head, let alone get them out into the world. These past few weeks, and her brain...it was all just foggy. Since the crash, since waking up in that hospital and being told...Marlene hadn't been able to speak. Not a word, not to anyone.
But that was fine, right? She hadn't wanted to.
She still didn't want to.
She just...
Marlene stood on the bridge - climbed over the bars, to the outer edge.
Right over the open air...down to the waters below.
The river channel that ran alongside the city.
Wide and deep.
Pitch black in the night.
She gazed down at it, for what felt like an eternity.
But she couldn't stand a second more - an eternity of THIS?
No.
She just wanted...
Marlene let go of the railing, and she just...leaned forward.
And she began to fall.
Faster, faster than she could have thought - the darkness was hurtling up toward her - and her brain was screaming and her stomach was turning - she didn't want this, why had she come out here tonight, why had she done this please-
As she hurtled toward the unforgiving water that she would slam into like concrete - she saw a sudden burst of light within the darkness. A bright golden light, a ray that shot up from beneath the water, enveloping her and rising up into the sky beyond her! In the light she felt a sudden rush of...warm air, and she felt herself slowing down...?
And then she hit the water, and she knew no more.
Marlene opened her eyes.
She sat up with a gasp - and she had never been more relieved to be able to do that!
To wake up again, Just one more time, to just- be here!
What had she been thinking?! Why had she gone out there that night? Was she stupid?! God, she should have just given in and talked to her aunt, she should have tried harder, she should have taken the meds, she should have-
She would!
She'd go back to her aunt, she'd talk to her, she'd take those meds, and she'd- she'd do anything, just to never have to feel as stupidly horrified with herself as she had been during that fall toward the dark abyss!
Thud. Thud.
Marlene blinked, finally wrenching herself out of her own mind, and took in her surroundings.
She felt...confused.
She was in a...grassy...clearing? In a forest?
What...?
Thud...
Thud!
Trees shifted and parted, and a monster emerged into the clearing!
Tall and slender, with long white rabbit ears? A rabbity face, with red eyes and a twitchy nose. Lanky arms and legs. Wearing...some kind of tunic? With a scarf attached to its neck. A red, tattered scarf.
Marlene froze, there on the ground, staring up at the creature. It was taller than the trees themselves, standing at full height in the clearing. By about a head or two.
The tall, gangly monster stared down at her. It tilted its head, and made a noise. A noise that sounded suspiciously like, "Huh...?"
Marlene trembled in renewed terror. She had somehow survived her own idiocy - only to be torn apart or eaten by some impossible monster?
No...
Marlene reached for that feeling - the feelings during freefall - the first real feelings that she'd felt in weeks now...
And she jumped to her feet, turned, and ran!
"Wait!" a deep, feminine voice called out from behind her, echoing through the clearing. "I'm not going to hurt you - human?"
Marlene stopped just before reaching the treeline, wobbling on her own two feet. Had she just heard...had it just...? Was this all a dream? Post-death? Or pre-death? Her brain's last fantasies? Or...was this what came after? Slowly, she turned back, and looked across the clearing. The monster was staying where it was - but one of those long arms was raised, outstretched. Fingers splayed.
The monster lowered its arm, and its heart-shaped face shone with relief. "You are a human...aren't you?" the female voice came again - from the creature's moving mouth. Thin and small. But it was...she was...talking, for sure. To Marlene.
Marlene could only nod.
The monster nodded back, and then suddenly lowered it- herself? down into a crouching position. She...rested her long arms on the ground beside her, just staring at Marlene still. And then she smiled. "You're also my partner, it seems."
Huh? Partner?
The- she- whatever she was...raised her arm again, pointing with a long, single digit. "Look down - at your feet."
Marlene obeyed, cautious. She saw a glinting, strange little device at her feet. She stooped down to pick it up, looking it over. It was large in her hand, looking like some kind of walky-talky or a radio or something. It had two black buttons on the side, next to a small screen, and a large white button beneath the screen. The white button had four directional buttons surrounding its outer ring. There was a short, stubby antennae sticking out of the top left of the device. The grips on the edge were rubber, and colored blue. She moved her thumb across it, and she frowned. She tapped the big white button.
The screen switched on, showing a neat and tidy, cool blue menu screen. There were options on a list: Scan, Absorb, and...something that just said, Digital Gate?
Marlene looked up at the- at her, questioning.
She...the creature, she slowly stood up again, and she took steps forward. She glided across the clearing, hardly making a noise, like she was on her tip-toes. She crouched down again, right in front of Marlene now. A slow, steady arm came in, and a long finger came forward to touch the device. To touch Marlene's hand! It was soft, and warm, and...fluffy. White fur. "That device is called a Digivice - and that makes you my Tamer. And I, Antylamon, am now your Partner Digimon."
Digivice...? Tamer? Partner...Digimon?
And her...this...Digimon - she was called Antylamon?
"You've been chosen, human - chosen to save the world: yours and mine. We both have."
Marlene shook her head, stumbling back from- Antylamon. She had to get home, she had to get to her aunt, she had to...take some meds. She had to- wake up. Wake up...in the water, maybe in an ambulance. She'd been saved, she'd lived. And she couldn't waste it. This was just a dream, just some crazy...
"I know it's overwhelming, but it's what we-"
Marlene scrolled through the Digivice's list, tapping the scan option.
The screen turned into a camera - an incredibly crystal clear camera. With a blinking green reticule in the center. The reticule flickered and turned red, and suddenly a bright light shot out of the back of the device. A green light that flashed, causing Antylamon to gasp and raise an arm, as green cubes swirled around her.
The cubes streamed back into the device in nearly an instant, and on the screen something new was there now.
A still image of Antylamon, whole body and all, against a black background with a grid of green lines. To the right of her image were...a list of stats? And beneath the image and stats was a whole...running paragraph of words!
It looked like some kind of video game character page: there was Health, Energy, Experience, Attack and Defense, Critical Hit, Speed...
What was this?
Marlene backed out of the Scanned menu, back to the main one, and went down to "Absorb" instead. She clicked it.
A loud blaring noise erupted from the Digivice - the screen turned crimson red, with a black X flashing repeatedly to fill it.
Marlene stared at it; it reverted back to the main menu all on its own, after about five seconds.
Okay, well, whatever that was, I can't do anything with it.
She tapped down the menu one more time - to the bottommost option: Digital Gate.
Was this one her way out? The word "gate" gave her hope...
Marlene selected the option, praying.
A golden pillar of light erupted in the clearing, shooting up into the sky, green cubes of light swirling around it.
Marlene gasped at the same time as Antylamon (who whirled around swiftly to stare at the light).
The light...
Just like the one...before she hit the water...?
That had to be it!
Even if this was all a dream, or if it was real, it didn't matter to her. She just wanted to get back home - awake and alive again.
She wanted to see her aunt, she wanted pizza and video games and she wanted to get better. She wanted to get past this.
And she never wanted to experience that fall again.
Marlene ran into the golden light.
"Wait, what are you doing-!" Antylamon called out after her, shock in her voice.
Marlene didn't even know. She just hoped.
As she stepped into warmth and brightness again...the world changed around her.
She wasn't unconscious this time.
Or dead. Or whatever this really all was.
She saw green cubes swirling around her, she saw an endless expanse of a grid-like plane, she saw a swirling vortex of purple and red and yellow...
And then it all just- fell apart around her, revealing the world to her.
The real world.
Her world.
Reality itself!
She was in the air - hanging in mid-air - not a foot above the river's surface.
For a long moment - a good three seconds - she just hung there like that, in some strange stasis...
And then she was moving again, and fell straight down into the water with a thwump.
She gasped as freezing cold surrounded her, chilling her to the bone almost instantly! She kicked her feet and moved her arms as fast and powerful as she could, twisting and heading for the river bank. She kept fighting, pushing, clawing at it - until she found herself sliding up onto muddy land again! She grasped at the weeds and bushes, pulling herself out onto shore! She climbed up from the water, onto the grass of the bank. She trembled and shivered, and she rolled over onto her backside, gasping and retching.
But for the first time in a long time...
Marlene found a small smile on her lips.
As she lay there, staring up at the night sky, she heard a faint beeping noise nearby. It took her a minute to realize it was coming from her own body. Her clothes. She searched inside her pockets, and pulled out...
The strange device...from the weird dream?
The Digivice...?
It held a faint glow to it that faded after she took it in hand, leaving a black screen reflecting under starlight.
It was as real in her palm as the rest of the world around her.
Which meant...that that creature, that- female- lady- whatever she was...Antylamon...
Was also real?