The pendulum.
No bigger than a coin.
All I can do is be drawn into the glint in the shadows. Back and forth.
Abandoned home. Decrepit. Destroyed by the elements and time.
Bare wooden floorboards, warped and uneven. Irregular.
Limbs akimbo, arm dangling in the crawl space just under the floor in the jagged mouth of a hole consumed by darkness. I want to scream but I don't.
The pendulum.
Sirens in the distance. Light creeps in through the holes in the ceiling. Fading.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Shadows crawling across its face. Back and forth. The pendulum swings. Back and forth. I couldn't articulate what makes time irregular here, or, for that matter, what the normal experience would look or feel like. But everything is wrong with it.
My hand is twitching, assuming it's still there, buried in all that dark.
A sound escapes my throat. A voice, not my own.
A tunnel of light emitting from the breath of the swinging pendulum. A tunnel of light that is felt, not seen.
A voice that speaks through me. A voice that is not my own. It speaks through me, to me.
The pendulum.
...are you lost..?
A girl.
Tall and thin.
Black hair down to her shoulders. A stark contrast to the white blanket of snow covering the ground under her black boots.
The otherwise naked trees and tombstones around her. Snow broken like a ragged and torn cloth over the mound of dirt that seems far more fresh than it should.
The tombstone. Instead of a name and dates that chronicle the beginning and end of a life, it simply says MOM.
The letters don't seem stable. Difficult to read. But she can feel them. Strongly, at first, but the more she tries to confirm it with her eyes, the more doubtful she becomes. A sick film of panic excreting from the ball of emotions caught in the back of her throat.
Fingers clenching. Index fingernail digging into the nail bed of the thumb on the same hand. Pushing the cuticle back. Pushing the skin past its limits. Breaking it.
A hand on her shoulder.
Her eyes widen. She is frozen. Internally and externally.
...are you lost..?
The question coming from the voice that speaks to her, through her. Not from here, not from this cemetery.
From the room in the abandoned house. Crumbling under its own weight.
The voice from the shadows of the room. The voice from the shadows within herself. It speaks again.
...are you lost..?
She tries to speak for herself. Through herself.
An exercise in futility. Her eyes close and she can see the pendulum once again.
Reality distorts around her. The ground vibrating. She can hear the muffled screams of her mother from the coffin under her feet.
Focusing on a single word seems to bring a smile to the creature's face.
Yes.
The gleam in the creature's eyes. The creature from the shadows in the living room of the decaying home. Through her own decaying consciousness.
I am lost.
A smile widens across its face. It can see me. I can see myself, standing at my mother's grave. Listening to her tortured screams. Muffled and far away.
The locations bleed into one another.
Yellow fur on its crooked brow, across its crooked grin. Beady, soulless eyes. The pendulum swings, back and forth.
this is one of your dreams.
one of the many i have eaten.
nightmares are an acquired taste.
Try to move. An internal force like violent waves crashing into the side of a cliff. Angry forces of nature lashing out, changing little.
Seemingly nothing. Too much to focus on. Too much to communicate. Drowned out by the screaming.
Internal screaming. The screaming of her mother.
The burning of her home.
Helplessness. Hopelessness.
Dissociation.
...are you lost..?
The eyes of the creature are familiar to me. A sense of love and betrayal fills me with a dread I don't understand.
Origin of emotions as lost as I am, but the emotions remain all the same.
It speaks through me, to me.
...would you like to see another dream..?
Focus on the word.
Let the word embody me so it may communicate itself.
Yes.
The creature seems pleased. The pendulum swings back and forth.
"Did you notice anything strange about your mother? Before the incident?"
The psychiatrist speaks in such a way that lingers with artificial sympathy in the quiet of the room. The hands on the clock ticking, barely audible over her own heartbeat.
Agatha doesn't respond.
"Agatha? Did you hear me?"
She looks up from her lap. "She wasn't sleeping. She had developed these bags under her eyes for weeks. Months, maybe. I asked her about them once, and she said 'Bags? I need them for the trip.' I thought it was a joke at first. But the more I think about it, the less it seems like she was joking."
The therapist is writing something. The scratching of the marker against paper makes her skin want to revolt. A chill works its way down her spine.
"In what capacity?"
"I don't.." Agatha starts, but loses the words. She hugs her knees into her chest.
The faces of people in the pictures on the walls are all blurred. Featureless. She buries her eyes in her knees and she can see me. Laying here. Motionless. Arm consumed by shadows.
Watching her through the pendulum.
She gasps and drops her feet from the chair onto the floor. Her boots audibly thudding, squeaking against the shiny hard floor.
White. Soulless.
Beady eyes dissolving into the back of her consciousness.
"Agatha, I know this is difficult, but there are a lot of bags to unpack here."
"Bags?" She chuckles bitterly under her breath. "I need them for the trip."
A single pokeball rolls across the floor and into my hand. Stopping at my fingers.
Pristine. The way I found it after the fire.
After the... fire?
The creature is smiling at me. The pendulum swings back and forth.
...are you lost..?
...or are you beginning to understand..?
Movement. Barely noticeable to some but it's a world of difference for me.
My eyes widening. Fingers twitching.
That wasn't a dream.
"Doctor?" I ask, looking up at her.
"Yes?" Dismissive response. Obligatory, almost. Felt pen scratching at the page in front of her, making me wish I could leap from my flesh and leave it behind forever.
"Is it normal for pokemon to get in and out of their pokeballs on their own?"
She stops writing and looks at me.
For the first time, she's actually curious.
"Is it true your parents died when your house burned down?"
The kid's curiosity isn't malicious, just insensitive. I think for a beat before answering.
"No, just my mom. I never met my dad."
"You never met your dad? How does that work? Did he die?"
"I don't know if he's alive or dead, honestly. He left my mom before I was born. The only thing I know about him was that he was a semi-famous pokemon trainer back before my time."
The kid's eyes widen. "Whoa like a champion?"
Nod. "Yeah, for a time. In Kanto and Johto, I think. Lost the tournament out here in Alola after he met my mom."
"So you musta grown up around all kindsa cool pokemon huh? Like a Charizard? Did your dad have a Charizard?"
"I don't know, I never met him. My mom didn't really keep pokemon, just a Drowzee he left behind. Mostly stayed in the PC."
"Drowzee is a boring pokemon."
"Well, since getting here it evolved in its pokeball. On its own. That's kind of odd, don't you think? Have you ever heard of that happening?"
"What kind of pokemon trainer doesn't have a Charizard?" He asks, not really paying attention. "When I become a world famous pokemon trainer, I'm gonna have a Charizard."
I nod and force a smile. "I bet."
I'm crying and screaming and clutching to the doorway of the van as they drag me out.
I've aged out of the orphanage.
I'm begging them, trying to explain that I have no place to go as they toss my bag into the street and force me out with it.
I'm officially homeless when the doors slam.
My case worker sitting in the passenger seat. Silent, still. Unwavering.
She hasn't said a word to me today.
It's raining as the van pulls down the street.
I try to collect myself and my things and figure out where I am so I can figure out where to go.
Po Town. What's left of it, anyway.
I pick up my bag and throw it over my shoulder and out of the pocket, a pokeball falls to the cement, clattering. Rolling out into the street.
I pick it up and examine it.
Pristine.
In the rain, I start walking.
The pendulum stops and a breath escapes me.
The creature's thumb polishes it as it smiles down at me, stepping out of the shadows of the corner of my old living room.
Rain trickling in through what's left of the ceiling.
It squats down by my head, looking me in the eye. It smiles.
Hungry. Ravenous.
...are you lost..?
I shake my head.
The gravity of the movement causes an earthquake, rumbling the foundations of what's left of my childhood.
no, it says. you are not lost.
you are home.
I let everything go as what's left of the floor cracks open and the shadows consume me.