At first, there is only a great wave of light, and an all-encompassing roar. Bright forms waver and pulse, shifting endlessly from color to color.

We are in an impossibly large space. Iridescent pearls the size of mountains are suspended in the void. There are no walls. There is neither up nor down. Just shining structures receding into eternity. As if we were particles of dust in the midst of a rainstorm.

Watch the forms shimmer like opal, listen to the expectant hum that resounds from everywhere at once.

. . .

It's hard to notice, but we are moving, accelerating towards one glowing structure. We can now see that the surface is a tapestry of landscapes. Sprawling before us are red rolling hills, dense pink forests, and teal seas.

Throughout all of this, there is the same underlying vibration, crescendoing as we draw near. The rumble of rockslides, the drone of insects, the crash of waves.

Closer and closer, we lose sight of the whole, yet the scenes become more vivid. Yellow roads murmur with footsteps and blue towns clamor with voices and violet spires collapse into the rising scream!

The light clarifies into a brilliant disk on a field of blue.

Sunlight. He was lying on his back under a cloudless sky, and the dull roaring was only the wind.

He closed his eyes reflexively, but the stinging afterimage of the noonday sun was still there. Hard earth pressed against the back of his head.

… Sleeping outside? Why?

His drowsy brain found no answer. When he tried to stand up, his legs collided unexpectedly with the ground. A rhythm thudded in his ears. Tutumtutumtutumtutum. Was that his heartbeat? It sounded unnaturally fast, with almost no breaks. More thoughts began to fall into place.

Where am I? Did I pass out?

He started to panic a little, imagining strokes, heart attacks, and worse, unknown dangers. It shouldn't have been so uncomfortably warm at this time of year. He felt like his limbs had been cut off and reattached incorrectly, like his arms were swathed in nets.

Am I OK? I was just -

There had been landscapes, noise, and the sense of moving through a vast space. But before that?

…

What's my name?

For the first time, he thought to call for help.

"CEEEEK!" A ghastly screech escaped his throat and rattled his skull. He fell into a shocked silence.

What happened to me?!

He didn't feel hurt, but howling like a banshee couldn't be healthy. All of this was deeply wrong. For a few minutes, he didn't dare to move.

Then he shifted slightly, testing his control over his muscles. There was no eruption of pain or grip of paralysis. Just the lowing of the wind and the beating of his heart. With a careful wriggling motion, he twisted onto his chest. Leathery wings tipped with talons appeared where his hands should have been.

If anyone had been around to watch, they would have seen a creature in the throes of some terrible illness. He craned his neck, snapped his fanged mouth open and shut, and raked at the fur which covered his upper body and haunches. All signs pointed to one baffling conclusion. He cradled his head in his hands, claws grasping at the large, pointed ears which he knew must be on top of his scalp.

I'm… a bat? A Noibat? A Pokémon?!

This perspective was totally alien, yet it was hard to deny the evidence. He was himself, whoever that was, only in the body of a Noibat. He tried to stand up again, but instantly lost his balance. Instead, he pressed his face to the ground and shut his eyes.

The human-turned-Noibat struggled to wrap his head around his situation. People walked on two legs. Pokémon flew, galloped, and swam. Humans lived in cities, houses, apartments. Pokémon either lived in the wilderness or with their trainers. He was a human, and humans didn't just turn into Pokémon.

And for that matter, Pokémon weren't real.

This is insane! I'm dreaming, or hallucinating, or… something! I'm comatose because I slipped in the shower and cracked my head. Or I'm on some serious drugs.

Didn't they say that you could look at a clock or read a book to check if you're dreaming? He opened his eyes and considered his surroundings. The stony plain and cloudless sky were so mind-numbingly featureless that they hadn't even registered until now. No help there.

Maybe I was always a Noibat, and forgot somehow? That can't be right. Wild Pokémon wouldn't know about books or clocks.

He pivoted around on his taloned arms, taking in the barren plain again. There were no traces of an accident, no injured people, or signs of rescue. In fact, the plain was devoid of all life. It was completely flat in all directions, with no refuge for plants or soil from the scouring winds.

I must have an awful imagination.

Then again, the illusion of being a Noibat was extremely detailed. He put one talon to his mouth and tapped it against his fangs. He scrunched up the patagia of his wings. They were covered in fine hair and felt disturbingly sensitive.

Gross! I'm like a kite made of skin.

A strong gust ruffled his ears, biting cold in spite of the sunshine.

Even if this is fake, I wish I weren't in the middle of nowhere.

With the sun directly overhead and no landmarks on the horizon, he might as well head in a random direction. Apropos of nothing, he decided to walk with his back to the wind.

OK, Here I go. Anywhere has to be better than here.

Although he tried to be confident in his decision, the fact that he was half-convinced that he was a Pokémon sort of undermined that.

Walking on all fours as a Noibat was a lot like crawling as a human. That is to say, it was very awkward for any significant distance. It was nice that his forearms were long enough that he didn't have to bend his neck to look forwards, but he kept stumbling over his short legs. He was moving at a frustratingly slow pace. An ordinary Noibat probably couldn't cover much ground anyways.

Wait, how tall am I? Am I a human-sized Noibat? A bat-sized Noibat?

He might have screamed out loud if he weren't afraid of hearing his voice again.

The wind whipped around his ears as he trudged along. Either it had changed direction since he set out, or he was walking in circles. With nothing better to do, he puzzled over his situation.

Say I got hit by a truck and fell into a coma. I guess it's plausible that I'd forget my entire history up to that point. I'm not totally sure amnesia works like that, though.

He decided that he'd only had a pop-culture understanding of amnesia in the first place, because there were plenty of things about being a human that he could remember. He remembered countries, foods, species of trees, movies, songs, brands of cars. He knew the names of the seven dwarfs and the types of mechanical stress. He could recall how to use a computer, but not how to drive a stick shift. He counted to three hundred and back, just because he could.

These memories certainly painted a picture of who he was. Yet when he racked his brain for anything personal, he came up completely empty-handed.

Five six four, um, five five five, two, seven… fourteen? That was definitely a phone number, though he had no idea whose.

Not knowing his own name is what bothered him most. It's normal to misremember your age or the details of your face. But your name is always there. Forgetting it is like getting out of bed and falling into a sinkhole. He began to list names, hoping one would stick.

Aaron. Adam. Albert. Ahmed. Aiden. Alex. Abe.

Going alphabetically wasn't the smartest idea. The pretense of thoroughness made him feel better all the same.

Ben. Brock. Barry.

He kept plodding along.

John. Jacob. Jerome.

The sunshine was blinding.

Zachary. Zane…

Now the wind was making his nose cold. He started over.

Brian. Benedict.

BOOM!

A sudden explosion startled him from his reverie. He looked around for the umpteenth time. A heavy cloud had crept onto the horizon, breaking the uniform landscape.

Hmm. Is it going to rain on me? That might be nice, as long as I don't get struck by lightning out here. No chance that I lose my memory and get struck by lightning in the same day.

The distant thunderhead rumbled in agreement.

And I became a Noibat. I managed to forget for a while there.

He stopped listing names since none of them stood out. It was tempting to just pick one, but that seemed like a betrayal. He never agreed to give up his name.

I became a Noibat. Noibat. Oh god. If I really am a Pokémon, and I get captured by a trainer, then they're going to call me 'Noibat'.

He remembered that he'd always given his Pokémon nicknames when he played the games. Just cute things, like naming Electric-types 'Sparky'.

Hold on! That was definitely a memory!

Yet when he reached out for it, it was gone. He imagined typing with a directional pad. He pictured a child excited to have a new team member. Nothing. Thunder rolled, far away.

After a long while of stewing on this, he noticed that the horizon was dropping away in front of him. The stony plain came to an abrupt end, as if he'd arrived at the edge of the world. He hesitated before peering over the side.

He found himself atop the caprock of a plateau. A vista of sandy shrubland spread out below him, scrawny bushes strewn about like tufts of cut hair. Other plateaus loomed in the distance. He scanned the cliff for a path down: it was sheer at the top, tapering down into a rocky field. Either he had not turned into a human-sized Noibat, or this cliff was taller than most skyscrapers.

He staggered away from the edge. There was no way down for a human.

So that's what this has been building to, huh?

He inspected his wings dumbly. They were shaking.

Are these things really large enough to carry my weight? If anything, my ears are more likely to let me glide.

A more clear-headed person might have searched for another way down. He, however, had checked out of this reality after an hour of walking. The worry that this was a dangerous hallucination was long gone; this was all just a nightmare. Jumping off the cliff to wake up followed a certain dream logic. His fear of heights was very real, though. He flapped his arms experimentally, but couldn't get lift.

Should he get a running start to clear the cliffside? The wind seemed pretty rough. Maybe he was the size of a pipistrelle and even terminal velocity wouldn't be enough to kill him. Dream or not, surely he could fly, if he were a Flying-type Pokémon? Some part of him was determined that he could. He returned to the plateau's edge.

This is nothing. Everybody dreams about flying, or they dream about falling and then wake up before they hit the ground.

He resisted the urge to back away from the cliff. So he was scared of heights - another fun revelation about himself. But he could overcome that if it meant waking up and having all of his memories back. He decided to give himself a battle cry, if only to hear his strange voice again.

"CEEEK!"

He fixed his eyes forward, leapt, and spread his arms…

…And caught the air as he fell! It flowed over his downy fur and billowed in his membranous wings. He was suspended by his arms, floating hundreds of feet off the ground. Soaring. The surge of the wind in his ears was almost melodic.

Then he made the mistake of looking down, and he was nosediving. He cupped his wings like parachutes in a desperate attempt to recapture the rushing air. This slowed him well before he hit the ground, but also pushed him back into the plateau. He'd overcorrected. He stalled, hit the side of the cliff hard, and tumbled down the rest of the slope.

Once again, he found himself splayed helplessly on the ground, barely able to think. Scrapes clamored for attention all over his body, though they were drowned out by a throbbing pain in his right leg. It shrieked fiercely when he crawled. He couldn't go any farther. As much as he wanted to believe that this wasn't his body, he couldn't begin to rationalize away this injury.

The foot of the plateau was somewhat more hospitable than the caprock. The rough ground between the plateau and desert made a poor landing strip, but offered some protection from the elements. He dragged himself into the shade of a nearby outcrop.

I… have never had a dream like this. I've never felt pain in a dream before.

He started to feel lightheaded.

I didn't figure out my name. I was sure I was about to.

Even as the world dimmed, the issue of his name felt most pressing.

Maybe Noibat isn't such a bad name. It sounds… French… I guess…

Good enough for now. He'd remember his real name any minute.

Noibat curled up as comfortably as he could, and fainted. Peals of thunder and the unerring wind fell upon deaf ears.

And the mystery dungeon shifted around him.