Pokémon Acanthite Forums

Yes, before I say anything else, it does feature another Pikachu as the main character. Sorry, but I tried writing about humans and… its boring. Got up to 6 pages in MS Word with the last fic I was trying to write with using human characters and I scrapped it and got stuck and bored with it way too early for comfort. But even though this features a familiar yellow electric mouse, it will be very different from Trial of Juno and Black Rescue Team, the plot and setting is very distinct and very unique. Also, slight portions of this were inspired by a dream I had (Pretty much the region of Metro and the setting was, not the storyline behind it). Heh, if you ever need fic material, just drink water before going to bed. Dreams do help.

With that said, enjoy. I have some pretty interesting plans for this story, and I hope you all enjoy it. I needed a nice, new fic to start off with fresh with a clean slate.



Jordan…

It all came back to me like it was a distant memory. Reunited without memorabilia, a gift of remembrance…

They say time heals all wounds, but I still see the scars and have seen the pain their eyes. Whatever still hurts us, we try to cope with it… however we can. We have to… its not like we really have a choice if we want to keep living.

There was very little light coming into the room. The broken and cracked linoleum-tiled floor and the chipped and pitted white walls were only dimly lit in the early morning sunrise. Meanwhile, the only shadow was coming from the hanging light, swaying just a bit from the calm wind coming from the window.

I stepped up the rusting metal ladder against the wall and looked outside the broken window. Past the sharp and jagged edges of the dirt-stained glass that surrounded the frame, I saw the water, very still and not moving while fragments of a beginning sunrise shone through in the polluted sky. I saw it in the water again like always… pure black, corroded oil always merged with the water ever since the Temper Earthquakes destroyed the Southbound and the Evan Oil Rigs four years ago. No one cleaned it up… and we couldn’t even if we wanted to. During that same earthquake, the Jansen suspension bridge that linked our city of Grayside to the rest of the mainland was broken, trapping us in an overpopulated city that was cracked and slowly falling apart. In twenty years, I figured we would still be living in rubble, barely surviving…

It all felt like a prison we were being put into just for living. No matter how bad the buildings looked, you knew someone was living in there. Many apartment buildings had large cracks all along the walls like tendrils. Others had support pillars destroyed, many with windows shattered, and a gray haze always seemed to float about in the city streets.

It was hard for every Pokémon living in Grayside City. There was no way out, no one was willing to swim through the oil-corroded water, and many had died from being swallowed by it in their desperation to try and escape. Not to mention the damage to the Jansen Suspension Bridge was too severe, bad enough to the point where the southern half of it was totally underwater, while the northern half just stayed there, a memorial of what once was, and a testament to the freedom we once had to come and go as we pleased…

We lived in a two-room apartment on the fourth floor of Clyde Apartment Complex, with my dad and my mom, and my younger brother and sister Diego and Naomi. Unlike Diego and myself, Naomi was still a young Pichu, somehow still managing to be happy in this pathetic place. She usually wore a smile, probably the only one keeping us going with any sense of happiness. Even though she knew this was a dark and mournful place, she still remained cheerful… like a lone sunflower still growing among a field of ashes.

Diego was sleeping at the moment, still laying there in an unnatural sleeping position due to the bed’s poor construction. It was almost 6:30 in the morning, and I couldn’t continue sleeping. Something just kept bothering me, and I couldn’t help but look out the window…

My eyes always kept looking on the Sapphire Waverider about two hundred feet away from my eyes. It was an old speedboat that had been long neglected, with its sides covered with oil, just like the splintering docks were. Meanwhile, the front visor was broken, the cushion seats were ripped up, and nothing on it worked. Sometimes I wished the waves would just push it back out to sea so I wouldn’t keep thinking about it, but every morning, it was there, washed up upon the shore, never moving once. I kept having stupid dreams of me taking it out for a ride, and actually going somewhere and doing something with my life rather than staying here. I took a look at it up close several days ago and its motor was beyond mutilated, and there were serious doubts it would even run in such oil-polluted waters. The truth of the matter was, it would never run again, but it seemed that regardless of how many times I told myself that, there was this tiny hope. It was like my only escape, but it was in shambles. Again… my heart pleaded with me…

Just give it up…

What did I expect to do anyway? The other cities in Metro were in their own kind of misery as well. Veno was a gambling and crime infested nightmare, The Heights were the top of corporate corruption and greed, and even Highway 47, an entire town built on and below a highway that was never used even once because of the earthquakes. Even if I really did get to the other side… what did I expect to see?

We couldn’t fight it though, we just couldn’t. We were all under Dyson Corporation’s control. They owned everything, the company that was allowed to grow too far and become a government of a whole region’s worth of property. Maybe I should have been happy we at least had a place to stay, since there were more Pokémon that were homeless than those who actually did have a roof over their heads. But still… it all seemed so miserable…

“You’re up already, Jordan?” Diego asked me with a bit of surprise, stretching on the worn mattress, “I bet you couldn’t sleep.”

I sighed, and turned around and stopped looking out the window. Diego too, just seemed like it really didn’t bother him anymore. I just couldn’t keep sticking with this system, I knew it was going to kill me one day.

“Diego, how much longer do we need to stay here…?” I asked him, even knowing that he wouldn’t have the answer to that, “Four years have gone, and all I’ve ever seen were Pokémon starving in the streets, homeless… or lying dead in the gutter from starvation.”

“Jordan, come on.” Diego told me, knowing I was doing too much thinking, “Be happy for what you do have. Be happy dad, you, and I still have jobs where we can still feed and support ourselves. Nothing is ever going to bring it all back, that’s just something you’ve got to see for yourself.”

Nothing. But I remembered those days… before the Temper Earthquakes. Before they wrecked everything, murdered all hope, and Dyson took advantage of everyone’s desperation. Back… when we were still free…

“Now come on, it’s still a little too early.” Diego continued, “Get some more sleep, or you’re going to be too tried at work. It would hurt us quite a bit if you lost that job of yours…”

“Yeah… okay…” I told him mirthlessly, still feeling pretty depressed.

I headed back to bed, the one worn-down mattress with the tiny, dirty blue blanket. Once I got up and got underneath the blanket again, I knew I was too restless… with dreams. Dreams of having peace, having a real home with clean air and being out of this awful, hopeless city. I wanted the corruption to end, but I didn’t have anything to do it. I was alone… and naked without help…

Trepidation

That reminds me…

I was speechless at the moment. I felt like my mouth was sealed… forbidden to ask questions, dream, or even have a mind of my own. What I couldn’t understand was why sleeping was my ultimate favorite thing to do. Maybe because I was free in my dreams. I didn’t have to live in such a terrible world full of desperation and hopelessness.

And where death was just commonplace.

An escape after the long road of fighting. That fight continues on, and there is no escape…

This job… I knew it was going to be the death of me. My dad Joshua, my brother Diego, and myself all worked in the same steel mill. The heat, the fumes, and the smoke was going to kill me one day, I knew it. I always got home feeling hot, sick, and dizzy. It was just too much, and I wasn’t strong enough to handle equipment like that all day. I didn’t have a choice though, and without the little money we got from it, we were doomed…

And the worst part was knowing we never benefited from any of the work that we did. All Dyson Corp employees lived and worked in Dyson City, far up in the north and away from the blue-collar filth that the rest of the region had to deal with. We were all just here to support them, and nothing more. Everything in Dyson City was nice, well maintained, clean, and very lavish. Everything else was a total slum, filled with corruption, scandals, and crime. They rejoiced with pleasure… while everyone else slowly died a choking death…

In an hour, I would find myself at the smelter again. This was a job meant for a fire Pokémon, not for me. They could actually bear this heat, but I couldn’t. And I tried to stop and ask the question… when would it all be over with? Or would I one day find myself old and gray… still working here until the day I died, never accomplishing anything? Never living the dream I dreamt night after night, hoping it would end one day…

I shut my eyes, and I could feel a burning tear coming out. And to think… there were some who thought I was fortunate. But I knew the truth. None of us were. We were all dying… heading toward an inevitable…

“Jordan, come on!” Diego pushed me, trying to get me to wake up, “We can’t be late again.”

I quickly got up, and got back on my feet. I couldn’t keep them waiting, so I needed to move it. Meanwhile, I saw the crack in the floor again. I wasn’t sure if it was getting longer and wider, but I was afraid of what would happen if it did. Well, at least it wasn’t going along the walls as well, or this whole room could split in two. We had already lost the terrace…

Regardless, I had joined dad and Diego in the other room. Breakfast had to be quick, there really couldn’t be any stalling around.

Firebound

There was something I was seeing for myself. Everyone at the table, eating the very little we could afford. Three Oran Berries and a slice of bread was all that was in front of me, and how I savored even the little that was there. The bread was stale, the berries slightly shriveled up, but I savored every moment of it…

Because I never knew when it would be my last…

Two days ago, I still couldn’t get it out of my mind. A Loudred… had fallen into the molten steel. It was almost impossible to save him in time, and I couldn’t help but watch and hear his screams, sounding so helpless as his body was bitten and engulfed by vicious flames. The memory of him was only mourned about for two minutes. We headed back to work sooner than it took for him to die…

Ever since then, I’ve been so afraid of going need that steel pit. Every time I saw dad or Diego go near it, my heart would race. I would immediately stop what I was doing and watch over them. They were always pretty careful around those catwalks, but I was still afraid. I felt the one time I would stop looking was the time they were going to need my help to avoid falling in. I was so afraid of it, because I knew they didn’t care about us. Someone had to watch over them…

When I was done with breakfast, we said our goodbyes to mom and Naomi, and soon enough were out of there and we headed down the stairs. The elevator was broken with the earthquake, and was never used since. However, the stairs weren’t in much better shape. The cracks were everywhere, and graffiti smothered the stairwell walls and on the banister. And on every floor down the stairwell, the window was broken. Still, we were thankful to have this one brick building still standing after the Temper Earthquakes. If it was gone… we would be gone…

We reached the outside onto the broken sidewalks and cracked apart asphalt streets. Going all the way to the steel mill was a one mile hike, and the scenery around wasn’t very pleasing. More graffiti on the ground level floors, broken windows, flaming trashcans, and many, many homeless citizens was a common sight in Grayside City. The rest of the city was no better off than what our apartment building looked like… and some were even worse, missing entire walls. You could look on in and see Pokémon were still living up there, regardless of the fact it could come crashing down any second from so much weakening.

The homeless were everywhere. They didn’t try to steal any money either, they knew we didn’t have very much ourselves. Plus, it was something Dyson would have loved to see. Their own people, mutilating each other in such harsh times…

After a long mile walk in a city in cracks, shambles, and hazy pollution, we had arrived at the steel mill. I really dreaded this place, but it was too late to turn back. All we could do was head inside past the two massive doors, and be greeted with the same usual heat from the blast furnaces. As we stepped deeper inside, the brown, hazy darkness surrounded us, with the only lights coming from the molten down ores and blast furnaces.

It was there we separated. I had to head toward the smelter, dad headed toward the steel production area, and Diego was one of the many that made sure the molten steel was filling into the casts correctly.

I had to be stationed at a control area, mostly watching as pounds and pounds of ore were molten down into a fiery goop, and were fluxed to remove the impurities. Every day, it was the same thing… for hours. I had been so used to the heat that I think I could have taken a direct Fire Blast attack to the face and laugh off the pain. My eyes used to tear from all the smoke and heat, but after so many days working here, I gotten used to it. I was just hoping now they hadn’t taken any permanent damage. The last thing I wanted to lose was the very gift of sight I needed to keep my sanity.

And all this fresh and newly created steel… was sent to Dyson City through a cargo ship… the only thing that really ever came into contact with Grayside City. All the steel and other goods were loaded on… and we never saw them again. All that steel… could have been used to repair and rebuild many of the buildings that had fallen around Grayside City, or even the Jansen Suspension Bridge, but no. It was all going to a place where it really wasn’t needed a fraction as badly as everywhere else in Metro.

Broken Ends

I’ve been trying to figure out what it all means in the end. Night after night, I’ve been condemned with dreaming about purpose… and desire. And when I realize how far from the road I’ve strayed…

I sat behind the control panel, making sure the ore was being molten down correctly, and wasn’t too hot or too cool to use. And if it was just the right temperature, it had to be used immediately. After so many days of doing this again and again, it was all too easy to get careless, but I couldn’t succumb to that since I knew what would happen if something went wrong and it was traced back to me.

The day had gone by slowly, too slowly. I could feel every minute pass, like a painful extraction of the fleeting amount of youth that I had left, a total mind reprogramming and a slow descent into becoming as mindless as the next machine. Today, it would be my misery, and tomorrow’s nightmare. And then… my worst fear. An artificial bliss in my newly reprogrammed ignorance…

When at last it was finally over, I had wiped the sweat from my forehead, and prepared to leave, putting the smelter process on hold until the next unfortunate soul could take the shift after mine through the night. And yet, each day I left that steel mill, it feel like I was leaving a piece of myself behind that I would never recover. That inner child at play, that youth, and that cheer. The kind that gives a long life of happiness, and with this gone, it felt like I was slowly blending in to become like the rest of this city. Cracked, broken, and doomed to someday fall to pieces.

“Whew, glad that’s over with.” Diego told me as we joined up with dad.

“Right, makes the rain feel great.” My dad Joshua replied to him, “Too bad it hasn’t done that for a while.”

We had walked out of the steel mill, past the heavy double doors and into the cool air around us. After working in there for hours, it actually felt pretty cold to be out here. Still, I was silent, joining them on the way back home. I wanted to be optimistic like them… like Naomi, but I just couldn’t. Not when…

“Hey Jordan, you okay?” Diego asked me, looking at me strangely, “Come on, this job isn’t that depressing to you, is it?”

“It’s nothing…” I told him, walking on past another dilapidated, gray stone apartment building.

“Seriously though, you’ve been so depressed lately.” Diego continued on, wondering what was wrong with me, “You’ve got to look at the bright side of things sometimes. Its hard seeing you down like this.”

Still, I continued on, trying to dodge the very deep cracks in the asphalt streets, as well as the potholes, jagged rubble in the streets, and trying not to look at the homeless Pokémon in the broken down alleyways. I wanted to pity them, but I couldn’t in these kinds of conditions. We were all falling as one…

And dad was silent. After a few seconds, I could feel him wrap his arm around me, and look at me face to face.

“Jordan, you can’t let this all depress you.” He told me, trying to be honest as I stared into his black eyes, “Diego told me what you’ve been saying lately, and I know you’re depressed about how we live, the work we do, and how unfair it all is, but if you let it get to you… you’re going to break down… and I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

“Dad, I can’t spend the rest of my life here…” I told him, feeling his warmth close by, “One of these days, there’s not going to be anything left around here…”

He was silent for a moment, but still, he looked on. It seemed… he still had hope.

“Maybe one day that will change.” He told me, trying to give a slight smile, “Just keep doing your best, and I’m sure something good will come from it.”

I only wished that was the truth…

I love it. I think it is awesome but I got lost. I hope my fanfic is just as good.

How did you get lost?

Thanks, I am glad you like it... No! Love it...

Chapter 3 will be up soon, so don't sleep on this Fan Fic and think I work slow.

~NP

Chapter 3

We headed back up to the apartment after that walk, up to our floor and back up the crumbling staircase. Every time we went up, I feared it would collapse the moment we were heading up. It seemed like each day, more and more pieces of it were falling off and those same pebbles fell all the way down the stairwell.

Once we arrived at the door, dad had unlocked it, and we headed on in. When I stepped inside to see mom and Naomi there, I should have been happy to see them again, but in a place like this, it was far too difficult.

“How was work?” My mom Janine had asked the three of us.

“Just… hot.” I told her, still exhausted, “I’m… okay though.”

“Don’t worry about it so much, honey.” She told me with a smile, “We’ll be okay, I know you’ve been down lately.”

But still, the part that really got to me was the fact nothing was being done about it. We were still… slaves after all.

I had sat down again by the table, joining Naomi as she was trying to draw something with a piece of charcoal on the blank side of an old piece of paper. When I got closer to take a look, she smiled and wanted to show it to me.

“Its our house, Jordan!” She smiled, showing me the picture, “Do you like it?”

It was hard to say either yes or no. If I said no, it would have killed her feelings. While her drawing was simple and cute, a lot of truth was lacking from it. It didn’t have the broken windows, or the homeless Pokémon around it, or the cracks that forked and webbed around the entire building. And after I considered that, I knew the answer to her question…

“I love it.” I told her, smiling at the picture, “Nice job, Naomi, you’re getting better at drawing every day.”

“Thanks!” She told me with a smile, getting back to adding more to the picture.

Shortly after, I sat down in my chair, just happy to finally be out of that oven. Even though there wasn’t that much to this apartment, it was still better than being out in the streets. That was the one reason I could never quit. Even if I was fighting for this creaky old wooden table, this broken down apartment, and barely enough food to keep on living, I was fighting for this family. That was… one thing I could be happy for…

“See this?” Naomi asked me, showing me the picture again, “It’s a car. I’ve seen the cars, but I don’t know what they do.”

“They used to drive around in them.” I told her, suddenly forgetting something, “They… helped you get from place to place.”

“But how come they don’t use them anymore?” She asked, wondering why that was.

Dad couldn’t help but sigh at that moment, and I couldn’t help but think for a moment that I made a mistake of telling her that. I knew it was hard talking about this kind of thing to her, especially when she was young. But still… sooner or later she was going to have to know what really happened all those years ago.

“About fifty years ago…” My dad told her, finding it hard to do this, “There was a great war. There… used to be humans back then, and they were able to fit into these… cars and drive them around. That was… until the bombs fell upon Johto from Hoenn, spreading a chemical agent called Namtac around. It was… meant to turn Johto’s citizens into Pokémon so the Hoenn people could move in and claim it for their own, but what they didn’t realize was how far the… Namtac could spread around. In less than a week… humans had become extinct…”

“But… that means we’ll never see them again?” Naomi asked, looking up to her father, “We can’t bring them back?”

“No, they’re gone, Naomi.” He told her, trying to comfort her, “But please, don’t let it bother you. This was even before I was alive, and many of the elders around here don’t even remember what life was like back when there were humans. It’s a thing of the past, and I know when you’re older, no one will even remember them…”

Everything I had been told about it was through a story. It was all about the Brigadier War, and how Hoenn got gotten so fed up from Johto’s lack of cooperation over importing and exporting goods that they declared war. When the Namtac bombs hit, that was the end of it. Humans were forced to join the wildlife around them, but many of them refused to give up on society and civilization. Hence… what we had today…

Message

It got dark early here. Meanwhile, we never really saw the sunset, since the pollution blocked it out. While the light in our bedroom no longer worked, the one in the kitchen still functioned to a degree. It would flicker every now and then, but still, it was enough for us to have a decent dinner with lighting. As for our bedroom, we used a small metal can with a little paper in it to burn and provide for lighting and heat. It was just enough to find our way to get back to bed, but we really couldn’t expect to do much else.

Meanwhile, dad and mom slept in the kitchen, in two beds off to the side and away from the old table and chairs we used to eat and do other things at. They weren’t much though, just an old metal frame, a mattress, and a blanket or two.

Bread and berries were hard to come by around in Grayside City. Berry bushes still grew around the eastern outskirts of town, but the polluted air and terrible rainwater really did it in for them. As for the bread, there were some places to grow wheat, but again, was nearly toxic due to the weather. With this dire need, demand for even squalid food was high, and even after paying high amounts, we really didn’t get too much. The few berries and the slice of bread on my plate was already costing us an enormous amount. We did what we could though. Apparently, Dyson Corporation hadn’t taken enough soul out of this entire region as it was…

After dad was done with his dinner, he went through the two mail messages that he had gotten in the old, rusty mailbox right outside our door. Seemed like… he was somewhat shocked by one of the letters. And I knew… dad was pretty perceptive for a Raichu…

“Looks like it’s from the mill.” Dad told Diego and I, “We might be relocated to a different area.”

“Are you kidding?” Diego asked, somewhat surprised, “Where are they moving us?”

At first, I thought this might have been a total sheer blessing. I immediately looked up, and watched dad closely. Even mom was interested to see if we had suddenly gotten a job change.

“I’m not sure…” Dad told us, reading further into the letter, “Seems like they want me to discuss it in person at the employment office.”

“We’re… not losing our jobs, are we?” I asked dad, wondering what it said in the letter, “I mean… they just can’t kick us out like that, can they?”

“They do whatever they want to do, but thankfully enough, it doesn’t seem to be that.” Dad replied, still trying to keep a reassuring smile, “We’ll be okay, I’m sure they just want us to be moving somewhere else.”

To me… this seemed all too strange. However, if today was the last day I was ever going to be working in that fiery furnace, I was ready to throw a party. I hated working there with a passion, and hopefully if this was a job relocation, we would be working in a better and more comfortable place. But still, there was no way to tell until after dad came back from the employment office. This was something he would probably need to do in the morning. And quickly, since if we did relocate, we would have to be there as soon as possible…

When we were done with dinner, it was lights out. We weren’t sure how much longer that light bulb above us would last, and the day it went out would be the day we were totally left in the dark. It was a shame, since I would have loved a decent after dinner conversation about something happier in life, but still… it wasn’t meant to be.

Diego, Naomi and I had headed back to our beds, and Diego and I were still totally in the dark about what we were going to be doing tomorrow. I figured in the morning, dad would leave early, find out where we were supposed to be working, and head over there. But for a moment, I was afraid. I wasn’t sure what was really happening, and I was anxious. What if this new position was even worse than the steel mill? Or perhaps… maybe we were just losing our jobs, and not getting anything as a replacement? It was really hard to figure out how this was all going to play out.

It was pitch black in the crumbled up room, but still, I found it hard to sleep.

“Well, looks like you got your wish after all.” Diego told me in the dark.

“I’m honestly not sure what to think of it.” I told him, totally in the dark, “Hopefully its better than that oven.”

“Honestly, I didn’t mind working there, but yeah… I see what you mean.” Diego replied, still recalling how hot and dark it was in there, “I still remember the incident with that Loudred…”

Yeah, I could tell he was still thinking about that, and my mind was on it too. I was glad Naomi was still too young to work, but I knew that would come in time as well. Still, I could only wish there was a better place to spend her childhood, and not have it in this miserable place.

“I still remember those screams…” I told Diego sometimes still hearing them off in the distance in my imagination, “Poor guy… and no one even really cared about him. That’s what I was afraid of. Something like that… happening to one of us…”

“Jordan, come on.” Diego told me, almost with a laugh, “I know you’re my older brother, but you don’t need to worry about me all the time. I mean, I’m probably more worried about you and how depressed you’ve been lately than anything else…”

He was right though, I couldn’t be down like this all the time, but it was hard living in such chaotically engineered world like this. I was hoping tomorrow would be better, and there could be opportunity for us elsewhere…

I like how you post your chapters. I think I will do the same. I will probably give links to them instead of having them on one post (it makes them hard to read).

Yes, that is true. It is harder to read the chapters when you put them on one whole post. It starts to look sloppy with the additional chapters you add. That is why I post them one post at a time. Heh, It is nice to know I have influenced you to try a different style of writing. ( Or posting...)

~NP

My chapter 5 is almost done. I have writers block so I am rereading your story.

Chapter 4

Stigma

Sometimes it’s hard to stay on the path. It’s hard when we’re surrounded by so many things that lead us astray. And then there are those that stray so far away that they go on a new road. That rugged, jagged path that goes to nowhere.

I could have sworn there was a window here before. And… the other things, but I simply accepted they were gone, even beyond the logic. No, they just weren’t there, if ever. I denied it completely. There was only this windowless room, and the metal door. I don’t know why I was so intimidated by its massive size, patches of rust and dark blue metallic color. But there was blood on the rusting, brass knob. I just didn’t want to touch it. I was… scared. And I looked down, and another pool of blood, slowly seeping toward me from behind the other side of this door.

“JORDAN!” A voice screamed behind me.

I felt the breath in my lungs suddenly escape in a yelp of fear and agony as I turned around to behold the ghastly, sketched image of a human man. But… how…? It was just like I remembered from the books. Tall… on two long legs, and bare, lightly haired skin, except on his head. For some reason, his head had more hair than the rest of his body, something I was never able to understand about humans from the pictures. And his ears… so… oddly shaped, like a curved crescent and a funnel. Definitely not long and thin like a Pikachu’s ears were like. His large nose and his long fingers, and his long legs… were just some of the features that seemed so foreign to me…

“Please…” I pleaded with him, thinking this blood on the knob might have been from some other poor unfortunate soul who had been here before me, “Don’t hurt me. I haven’t even done anything to you… whoever you are.”

The room had gotten very dark, but the man began to change form from the pencil sketched image… into living skin and flesh. He was the only thing I could see now, still standing there and looking down toward me.

“I’m…” The human had told me, looking at me strangely, “I’m… I’m what… I’m what you could… what you could… have been…”

“I… I understand, but that’s… gone now.” I managed to tell him even out of the massive fear I had, knowing this was all from the Namtac bombs, “I know… I could have been human, but I never was. I’ve… always been like this, I don’t know… what its… even like to be you.”

Was that really worth dying for? I didn’t even know what I had done to upset him.

“No one… No one remembers…” He cried, looking down, “No one… remembers… no one…”

But amongst all the agony and chaos, there were only one thing I could tell him. It was not our fault… not my fault… yet this all happened. We lived on… but like this, it was just something that was going to have to continue. But after all these years… humanity was doomed to become a myth. But even if he was just a figment of a dream, I gave that same figment the respect I would have wanted… despite how small it seemed…

“Goodbye…” I told him, slowly drifting away.

What would become of that image, that potential, and those possibilities were cast into the darkest reaches of all the would-be things that would never come to pass. It was the hardest choice, the most difficult understanding to know that under natural circumstances, the world around you was something that should have never been. But we were like a train on railroad tracks, our route was in one direction, and we either stop, or we keep going.

It was true the question came to mind of what I would have done as a human, but truthfully, I didn’t know. It was just not the way things were meant to be…

Pressure

The loud banging on the door had my heart stop for a moment and I had quickly awoken from the bizarre dream I had experienced. Sweat on my forehead, gasping for breath, I looked around, and saw it was morning, and I was back in the same cracked up, slowly falling apart bedroom apartment. I quickly got to my feet, and saw Diego was still sleeping but he had heard the knocking, tossing and turning from the noise, trying to get more rest. Meanwhile, Naomi was up, wondering what the noise was about.

“What’s going on?” Naomi asked me, as I got to my feet.

“Might be something about the job, sis.” I told her, knowing this was probably nothing to worry about.

But I knew that harsh knocking certainly didn’t sound like dad. Either way, I walked through the old wooden door connecting our bedroom to the kitchen and found mom alone standing in the center of the room. I had figured dad already left to see what was up with our jobs, but still, I didn’t know what this was about.

Mom had walked up to the door, and opened it, seeing who was behind the door. She had grabbed the handle, and pulled upon the door, and standing behind it was a Machoke and a Golduck. For some reason, I had a feeling this had nothing to do with the job, but none of this was making sense…

“Ma’am, we’re here with the Dyson investigative bureau.” The Machoke told her in a low and serious voice, keeping his arms crossed, “Is your fiancé Joshua Waters?”

Something was seriously wrong. Why was Dyson after dad? I just didn’t get it, he didn’t even do anything that was illegal. Judging from this apartment and his job, what was there that he could have possibly done?

Still, mom was a little uneasy, but she got herself together. She then looked up at the Machoke, and tried to be as casual as possible.

“That’s right officer, how can I help you?” She asked him, trying to clam herself.

“We need to know where he is, and right now.” The Machoke told her in an intimidating voice, “And if you don’t, we will not hesitate to take you and the rest of your family into custody.”

This was totally insane. I knew for a fact dad would never do anything to harm anyone, so what was this about? However, mom knew they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Fighting or refusing would only just get us into more trouble…

“Mommy…” Naomi muttered softly with a fearful look in her eyes.

Still, mom took a deep breath, and looked up.

“Joshua works in the steel mill.” Mom told the two of them, “It’s about a mile walk, I’ll take you there.”

And then, she turned around to look at us for just a minute. She tried to give us a little smile, but I could still see the worry in her expression.

“Don’t worry, mommy will be back soon.” Mom told the three of us.

However, I could see it in her eyes. Dad was out there, and he wasn’t in the steel mill, but those two officers didn’t know that. She was playing a trick on them, I could see it. She was giving us a chance to escape. And just before she turned around, I looked into her eyes and saw her mouth a single word without a noise.

Run…

After that, she headed out of the room, and the two officers followed her. And shortly after, the door was shut, and the three of us were alone, totally bewildered at what we just saw.

“What the hell are they going to do to dad?” Diego asked me, having no idea what was going on.

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to get out of here.” I told him, knowing we couldn’t blow this chance of escape, “We have maybe an hour before they find out mom lead them in the wrong direction and then turn around come back here to get us.”

I knew dad was out there, but I didn’t know where. Still, what I really feared is they would get to him before we did. Trying to search for him would be impossible, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized the job notice he got yesterday was actually a trap. By now, I was furious, and they probably already had him in his hands. But why, why would they target us?

“Jordan, we’re freaking trapped.” Diego told me, sounding pretty tense at the moment, “There’s no way out of this city, they’re going to find us eventually.”

Think… I had to think, there had to be a way out of here and I really didn’t have much time. I tried looking around me, and when I saw the shelf unit that we used to store food, suddenly… an idea came to mind.

“Naomi, take whatever is left in there, we’re going to need it.” I told my younger sister, pointing to the shelves.

“Got it.” She told me, already opening the doors and stuffing as many berries and bread loaves as she could fit into the bag.

It would keep us going for about a week, but that was it. We were going to have to find another source of food when it was all gone…

“Diego, we’re going to need to take apart these shelves.” I told him, already pulling it apart.

“What the heck for?” Diego asked me, looking at me like I had gone crazy, “Jordan, we should be trying to find a place to hide, not tear up the furniture.”

I knew that what I was doing probably looked ridiculous, but this was the only solution. Hiding would only buy us just a little more time, and I didn’t even know what going to prison was going to be like. We had to fight it though…

“Diego, there’s a speedboat on the shore right besides this apartment building.” I told him, remembering the Sapphire Wavestrider, “That’s our only way out of here.”

“But Jordan, you’ve told me about that thing before.” Diego replied, remembering me pointing it out, “You know the motor on that thing won’t ever work again.”

“I know, that’s why I need you to help me build some paddles.” I told him, grabbing two long wooden poles and some of the planks of the shelves, “We’re going to row our way across.”

Diego and Naomi were a little stunned, but it was the only way. I knew dad had some old tools in the drawer, so all we needed were some nails, a hammer, and the parts of the shelf unit. I took one of the wooden poles, placed the end over the shelf plank, and then began hammering a nail into it, connecting the pole and the plank together.

“Jordan, you really sure this is going to work?” Diego asked me, looking at me strangely, “What are we going to do about mom and dad?”

“Mom gave us the chance to get out of here.” I told him, knowing trying to get mom and dad was going to be impossible, “I think she would rather see us use this one chance than to have all five of us end up in prison.”

Diego soon realized that hiding really wasn’t the answer. And we had to be quick about this, I didn’t want them to see us rowing the boat away, because I knew they would try to do something to stop us.

Diego held the plank in place while I hammered in two more nails. I felt it and it was pretty secure, so we had at least one down. Meanwhile, the two of us quickly got to work on the second.

“I’m worried about them though…” Naomi told me, watching us as we assembled the second paddle, “What’s going to happen?”

“We’ll get them out.” I told her, trying to comfort her, “Maybe not today, but we’ll find a way. Don’t you worry.”

After the third nail on the second paddle was done, we had to head out of there. Naomi grabbed the white cloth bag full of food, Diego grabbed as many blankets off of the beds he could grab, and I took the two paddles and we left behind that apartment, never knowing when or if we’d ever see it again…

Oh my gosh, I love this story! I cant wait for the next chapter!