Good ol' Roger McKay couldn't sleep. He'd woken up in the night with an absolute masterpiece of a headache, as if his very brain was desperately trying to tell him something was wrong. Unfortunately for the young man whose migraines worked harder than he did, this was not an unusual state of affairs. What was unusual was the stiffness of his joints, but he chalked that up to having spent a good portion of the afternoon helping to clean up the apartment, making it a more liveable space for the bird that would be staying with them for the time being. All messes were addressed, even the bathroom sink and its colony of fruit flies that poured out of the drain every time they ran the water. They also found an old sleeping bag in the closet that Nova could curl up in. Jay reasoned that if Nova was going to be alone while her human roommates went off to class and work the next day, then she might as well be somewhere that was clean and comfortable. Roger even showed her how to work the television remote with her talons, which Nova seemed to appreciate far more than she let on, but Roger let that slide. He had to, considering Jay had scolded him on being a bit too biting in his attempts at wit over the last couple days.
Why he was so agreeable to providing Nova these amenities, he wasn't sure. His independence was important to him, and wasn't one to drift in whatever direction other people wanted him to. In fact, right now his independence demanded that he pop an aspirin. He was supposed to go to work tomorrow afternoon. The restaurant didn't need a dying young man on the floor.
In the room next door, Jason Dubilier was suffering himself. He didn't know what a heart attack felt like. He was only twenty, for God's sake, he wasn't ready to even consider not drinking three lattes every morning. The pain in his chest, though, was nothing compared to the blistering headache. He'd heard Roger complain about migraines before, but Jay'd bet a billion dollars that it was nothing compared to his brain trying to drill itself out of his skull. Was this finally it? Had he looked at too many stale, old memes? Had he gotten so dumb that his own mind was going to seek stimulation without him?
Maybe he was just dying. He wasn't sure which was better.
He pulled out his phone, flipping the camera to see himself in selfie mode. Not that he was about to take a picture, as exhausted and confused as he looked. His eyes were so bloodshot, it was as if his own irises were red. Ridiculous notion, a trick of the light coming from his phone mixed with the dark of his room, but he'd be damned if it didn't look convincing.
Roger was looking himself over in his own bathroom mirror. A splash of water to the face did nothing to quell the tremendous pain, but it gave him a chance to see himself clearly.
Awful, horrible. He had a huge pimple on his forehead, yellowed with pus. Roger didn't think a pimple could cause this much pain, but what did he know?
The pimple was so prominent, it practically sparkled in the dim, yellow light of the room. Genuinely curious, the young man brought a pair of fingers to its surface.
And there it was. Cold to the touch, hard like stone.
It wasn't a pimple at all, was it?
Probably a stupid question.
Roger's eyes went wide, but he didn't say a word, his thoughts stopped up like a cork in a wine bottle.
In the living area, as a muted reality cooking show played in the background (human cooking sure was fascinating, and so much more elaborate too), Nova was catching her breath on her sleeping bag on the carpet as she stood in front of Jay's laptop screen. She was glad he'd left it on his charger, although she was none too pleased with the ten minute process of trying to get the screen flipped open with her talons, her beak, and eventually the sheer strength of her neck muscles. Why these humans didn't bother designing their machines with other species in mind was anyone's guess. Then came the typing. The terrible, talon-tearing process of it all. One letter at a time just to find what she was looking for.
What she'd find, she wasn't sure, but these humans knew a few things about her kind, and she wasn't about to miss out on all the finer details they might have discovered.
She looked up pidgies and found a wondrous array of results, but it was the wiki articles on them that drew her in. The biological details seemed accurate enough, and the humans seemed to know a thing or two about pokémon types. Still, it all came from the perspective of her species as an animal with no mind of its own, as if it needed to be taught the most basic details of existence. That was hardly the case.
Then she remembered earlier that day, when that crazy human with his wild theories mentioned mystery dungeons. That could be interesting…
The two minutes Nova spent typing out 'pokémon mystery dungeons' were the most suspenseful of her life.
There it was! Finally, some information she needed. It was more video game crap, but at least it was something.
Then she started searching some more, actually reading the information. It was nothing at all.
All these games were about humans becoming pokémon. Of course. It had to be all about the humans again. And turning into pokémon? How stupid was that?
At that moment, Roger was rocking on his bathroom floor. He didn't know what hurt more, the throbbing pain in his skill or the emotional turmoil of discovering he had a huge gemstone embedded in his head that was only getting bigger with each passing minute. He held himself in his arms as he tried to think about how exactly this could be happening, or what he could do to make it stop.
For reasons obvious, thinking wasn't his greatest strength at the moment.
Then Nova remembered earlier that day, when she found out that there were people online roleplaying as pokémon. The mixture of how funny and weird that was made her smile. These humans sure had a lot of time to work with.
"How'd you get that working?"
Nova was pulled from her article reviewing one of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon video games with a rather poor score to see Jay standing in front of his bedroom door, delicate hand on his forehead. Still in his robe, he was certainly sleepy looking. Humans' eyes must turn red when they're exhausted, she figured.
Finished her thought, Nova tilted her head, then realized what Jay was talking about. "Oh, the laptop?" She nodded at the machine. "A lot of effort."
Jay smirked. "Just don't wear out my battery, okay? I need that thing for school."
He headed for the bathroom, yawning as he opened the door. He was able to find a couple of aspirin in the medicine cabinet, thank goodness. Hopefully that'd help. Before he could take them, though, he realized he'd need to get a clean glass from the kitchen to get some water.
"So how's it going?" he asked Nova on the way there. Weird, he needed to stretch a bit to reach the cabinet where they kept the glasses…
If there was any bird out there who could shrug, it was Nova. "Just passing the time," she said, nonchalant.
"By the way," Jay said as he walked back into the living area, pausing to take his pills. "I don't think I ever asked, but if there's anything you'd like to eat, let me know. I'm not much of a chef, but maybe I can convince Roger to cook us a real meal tomorrow when he gets out of work."
"You can make him do anything, huh?" Nova giggled, rustling the sleeping bag.
The question caught Jay off guard, but he recovered with a sip of his water. Man, he needed it. His throat was so dry.
"He's a nice guy when he's not grumpy," Jay reasoned, sitting down on the couch to see a contestant on the cooking show get eliminated for burning his precious souffle. The judges weren't pleased with that at all!
"What's he got to be grumpy about?" Nova asked as she unmuted the show, making sure it was quiet enough to continue the conversation.
Roger crawled along his bedroom floor, the pain spreading across his limbs as he climbed onto his bed. If he was going to suffer, he was stubborn enough to suffer on a mattress instead of on the bathroom tile.
Throughout his very being was a new pain now, one he couldn't describe, but one that I'm happy to.
Have you ever felt your own blood flowing through your body? Probably not, because you're usually lucky enough to have it all where it needs to be. Roger wasn't getting that luxury right now. His body was in the process of rejecting his blood, each cell screaming in the highest voice it could muster as it all turned from a luscious red to a deep, twilight purple. Roger couldn't see this, of course. He could only feel it, feel every part of the process as the pain demanded that he cry out, but the poor boy couldn't, the sensation so powerful that all he could do was lie there in agony, writhing on his bed as his body shifted and contorted against the feeling of incredible loss, then rebirth.
What was he becoming? Go ahead, you can guess.
They'd watched the show earlier. You know the name of the game.
Say it with me now.
Who's That Pokémon?!
And just when he thought it couldn't hurt any worse, just when he felt like he was about to white out, the pain stopped, and he lay there, breathing harshly, but not enough for his roommates to hear.
He was alone.
Just outside Roger's bedroom, Jay and Nova chatted on about nothing in particular as someone lamely explained how to make a croque monsieur.
"I'm just glad you're taking this all so well," Jay noted, his glass empty now, sitting on the coffee table as he smiled down at Nova.
She thought for a moment, not quite sure what to say. She just nodded.
"Yep. I'm fine," she said.
Jay gave a cheesy thumbs up. "Glad to hear it."
Yep, Nova was doing great. She was sure glad she had the television and the laptop to keep her preoccupied. They were exactly what she needed right now, different ways to focus her mind on anything at all.
The pain in Jay had subsided for the time being. It was nice to be able to focus again, even if it was on something as foreign as keeping a pokémon company. Unfortunately, the pain going away gave presence to the fact that the young man felt unseasonably warm in his robe. If he was going to go back to bed, he'd have to do so in a change of outfit.
Speaking of which, sleep sounded like a great idea.
Jay stood up, yawned, stretched, and said, "You have a goodnight, okay, Nova? We're all gonna have a good day tomorrow."
Nova very much doubted that, but she wasn't about to argue the point. She just said, "Sleep tight," and went back to reading about children's video games and watching food get made.
As Jay stepped into his bedroom, he disrobed. He didn't realize just how much he'd sweated over the past hour. He'd shower in the morning, but for now, he'd settle for a new shirt to sleep in.
As he took off his tank top, he felt a strange sensation as his hand grazed his chest. It was like a rock got stuck to his skin, so sweaty was he. What a silly thought. Still, not sure what to make of it, Jay turned on his bedroom light.
That was when Jay caught sight of himself in the mirror that hung above his dresser, his first full view of himself all night. He saw it all. His red eyes, the patches of hair on his skin that'd made him so warm.
The yellow gemstone in the middle of his chest.
The ensuing scream caught everyone's attention.
Including the neighbor, who pounded the wall again.
