[journey] my shard of light

With the papers securely placed in your bag, you walk through the city. It is already getting later in the afternoon, shadows having grown longer since the middle of the day. It is a bit cloudy, one moment the sun breaks through and bathes you in its warmth, the next it disappears behind a cloud, leaving you to feel the cold without its rays of light.

As you move forward, several things seem to be happening around you. As you pass by two people who are standing on the corner, hidden in the shade of the building, you can hear them arguing. They seem to be arguing about what the best way would be to capture a pokemon they had been requested to find. Though you don't catch any more details than this.

As you pass by an alley, something seems to shift, but the moment you look towards it, nothing seems to be wrong, yet you can feel your Pikachu tensing, her attention focused on what was happening there. From up ahead you can hear a little commotion, though from here you can't tell what is happening there.

With everything that is happening around you, you decide to head into the alley, wondering whether someone is there. But as you call out, nothing answers you. As you carefully make your way inside the alley, Zinnia seems to keep focused on what is ahead, urging you to go through the alley.



With this perception, you don’t notice the subtle shift that happens in your surroundings. As you continue to the end of the alley, a scenery appears before you, one you wouldn’t expect to find at this place in the city. It is a park, fields of grass surround a lake, a path winding through them with several benches here and there. In the background you can see some of the higher buildings of the city.



Everything seems quite serene and as you take in your surroundings nothing seems out of place for now and yet Zinnia is telling you to move forward, to follow the path. What will you do?

With the encouragement from Zinnia you start to walk the path that lays beside the lake. As you walk, you notice that it is quiet, too quiet. There isn’t even a breeze that ruffles the leaves on the trees. As you look towards the water it is completely still, just like everything else around you. Like everything in this place is frozen in time.

Because of this there is something that immediately catches your eye. A flicker of movement a little farther ahead. You can’t make out what it is, but you can tell it keeps moving near the trees, staying clear of the water. Near this spot you can see something shimmering just above the lake, but whatever this is doesn’t have a concrete form.

You decide to go and investigate what is happening within the trees, leaving the shimmering for what it is at this moment. You sent Zinnia ahead, the Pikachu moving swiftly through the trees. You follow at a slower pace, but what you can see from where you are is that your pikachu is closing in on whatever it is. But as your pikachu is closing in, it doesn't seem to stop moving, doesn't even seem to react to Zinnia.

As you get closer, you notice that the one moving through the trees is a child. The boy seems to run around, sometimes going behind a tree and sneaking a peak around it, as if he is looking for something. When he doesn't spot it, he moves to the next tree, inching closer and closer to the water. But just before he reaches the water he turns around and goes back to where he started. What will you do? Will you attempt to communicate with the boy? Or will you try something else?

As you catch the arm of the boy, he stops in his tracks and seems to do nothing at first. At the same time you get the feeling that you should be touching the boy and that you are holding him in place, yet there doesn’t seem to be any physical contact, you can’t really feel his arm in your hand.

The boy watches the water ahead, an expression akin to worry edged on his face. ”I’m looking for my friend.” The boy finally said, taking his arm back from you and moving towards the water where he kneels down, staring into it. He holds out his hand, reaching for the water, but at the first touch of water he draws his hand back quickly. Like the water would hurt him. At that moment you noticed something. As the boy reached out his hand, you would have expected to see a reflection upon the water, but that hadn’t been the case. There had been no reflection, not even now that the boy stood up to his full height again. What will you do?

As you kneel beside the boy, he turns his head at you. But it doesn’t seem like he is looking at you, more like he is trying to remember something. ”We were playing near the water.” The boy said as he turned to look back into the water. ”One moment he was there, the next he was gone.” The boy seems confused. ”I don’t remember what happened after.” Though the boy says that you see him looking around, like he is trying desperately to remember what has happened here.



You cast a look upon the water and notice that your own reflection is visible there, you notice that things closer to the water are also visible, but the boy himself isn’t. As you reach out your hand and touch the water, you can touch it and it feels like your fingers are indeed touching water. Yet no ripples appear upon the water. What you also notice with your perception is that the shimmering from before seems to have come closer. Though it is still hovering above the water, it seems to have followed the movements of you or that of the boy. What will you do?

The boy doesn’t seem to notice the shimmering that you can see, he seems focused on the water and its surroundings. Meanwhile you focus on the shimmering, even asking it what it is. It comes closer, yet staying just out of reach, not taking a specific form.



As you ask it what it is, it stills, staying in place. For a moment it seems like it is considering your question, wondering whether it should answer you. But then it turns away from you, not giving you any kind of answer and seems to focus on the boy at your side. As the attention switches to the boy, he stands up and turns around. The boy heads towards the trees, leaving you and the shimmering behind. It didn’t seem like the boy had acknowledged the shimmering, but the moment it got close, something had changed for the boy and caused him to turn back to what he had been doing before. What will you do? Will you follow the boy, try something with the shimmering or do something entirely else?

Leaving the boy for what it is for now, you focus on the shimmering. The shimmering itself seems to watch the boy as he heads into the trees, but when the boy is out of sight it turns towards you, watching you closely.

You ask Zinnia to coax it to come over and you can tell that it is interested in the sparks that are skimming across the water’s surface. There is a curiosity there, like that of a child as the shimmering heads closer to the source, to your Pikachu. It abruptly stops just before the shore, still hovering above the water. Like it can’t get any closer. It moves from left to right, but never gets any closer. You can softly hear some sounds now that it is closer, but nothing clear enough for you to make out. There might be some kind of barrier here, something that keeps it away. What will you do?

You settle down on your knees, stretching your hand out over the water, but the barrier you might have expected to find is not there, at least not for you. The shimmering can clearly not come closer to you, cannot get away from the water, but your hand can cross the gap between you two. The moment you make contact with the shimmering, it settles around your hand, seemingly disappearing inside you.



The moment the shimmering completely disappears, your vision turns black. It doesn’t stay like this for long though, the moment light fills your vision again, you find yourself standing beside the lake, however this time it is clearly autumn. The leaves on the trees have turned brown, clouds blocking the sun in the sky and the water that had seemed so quiet before is now more turbulent.

You notice that your hands are holding a kitestring, the string leading to a kite that has the face of a pikachu. You notice that the hands are a lot smaller than your own, indicating that this is not your own memory. The child looks beside him and you notice a familiar Pikachu sitting there, it is Zinnia. The Pikachu runs ahead and the boy follows, pulling the kite behind him.

The wind picks up, lifting the kite into the air, blowing it left and right. The boy follows after the Pikachu, till suddenly the string gets tucked from his hands by a strong gust of wind. The boy watches as the kite flies away, getting stuck in one of the branches hanging above the water. The boy quickly runs towards the tree, starting to climb it. You can hear the protests of the Pikachu, probably warning the boy, but he is not listening, instead only climbing higher.

Once he reaches the right branch, he carefully tries to reach the kite, stretching his body, but then an ominous creak sounds and before the kid can do anything to save himself he plummets down in the cold water. Desperately the boy tries to struggle, to move his limbs to get back to the surface, but some plant had stuck itself to his leg, making him unable to swim up. His desperate movements only cause his body to need more oxygen. The need for air starts to burn and his movements become more sluggish. Finally he can’t hold his breath anymore and gasps for air, only for water to fill his lungs instead. You can sense the panic setting in, the feeling of helplessness as the boy’s consciousness fades to black.

You find yourself back at the water’s edge, gasping for breath, the sensations from the memory still lingering. As you look to your side, the boy that had headed into the trees was standing beside you, staring at you. ”You shouldn’t have done that.” The boy tells you and a shiver runs down your spine. Zinnia seems to be defensive, placing herself between you and the boy. The Pikachu seems almost angry. Another voice sounds, this time in your mind. ”Help… me…” What will you do?

Despite your hesitation, you ask how you can help. The boy in front of you seems displeased as you ask this, clearly not happy with you offering to help the voice, which you realise was most likely the voice of that shimmering form. ”Save me from him.” The voice is now clearer and it reminds you of the memories you have just seen, the voice belonging to the boy you have seen the final memories of.

”You want to save him?” The boy speaks incredulously, the voice sounding a lot older now, not one that would belong to a young boy. One moment the boy is there, the next he disappears. Something shifts and you find yourself face to face with a pokemon, one that is clearly powerful, too powerful for you to fight.



The Alakazam seems to be watching you as it hovers in front of you, not touching the ground. Amusement crosses his face as it seems to think of something. ”Alright, I will make you a deal.” This time the voice resonates within your mind, possessing a depth and age to its tone. ”You can have the boy, but I want something in return, something from you.” You realise that the Alakazam is seriously offering you this, but that what it wants in return might change you forever. ”The choice will be mine, it might be a memory, some knowledge or even an emotion, I will take what pleases me and in return you can have the boy and you might even get something out of this yourself.” The Alakazam has laid out his conditions, what will you do?