Story Notes:
I use a series of symbols, so this may be a little complicated.Something that looks like dialogue but looks like (this) is a thought inside of Dillon's mind.[These] indicate song lyrics playing in Dillon's head.If {these things} surround something, then it is a dream that Dillon is having.If squiggly lines ~that look like this~ surround something, then that something is written.__________________________________________________________If the above line separates two things, then Dillon has written the passages at different times.__________________________________________________________ For example, if Dillon wrote these story notes, then he would have written the explanation of symbols first, then he would have come back in a little while because he remembered that he forgot to add an explanation for the lines. Then he would have come back and written this part because he forgot to include an example of how the lines work to make it easier for you, the reader, to understand. You got all that?__________________________________________________________NEW SYMBOL FOUND IN CHAPTER 5! If stars *like these* surround a word, then it is only onomatopoeia for a sound that is being made. __________________________________________________________NEW SYMBOL THAT WILL APPEAR IN CHAPTER 6! When two lines || That resemble something like this || are around something, it is a written side note.
"Can it wait 'till later?"
{I was fifteen. The setting was the principal's office at the ninth graders' campus, separate from the rest of the school. Mr. Coby, the principal of the freshman, was sitting in his office chair across from me without a table in between us. He was leaning forward and speaking to me while I was crying. "Now, how exactly did you hit him?"
"He was walking through the gym ahead of me," *sniff* "and I came up behind him. I hit him with a backfist."
"What's that?"
*sniff* "It's- it's like backhand slap, except with a closed fist instead of an open hand. I hit him on the left side of his head. His head barely even moved in reaction to it, though and he turned around after I got him."
"Then what?"
"I told him, 'Stop doing it, I'm sick of it' and then quickly walked ahead of him before letting him react." On that statement my crying escalated.
"What did you say he was doing?"
It took me a few seconds to force myself to breathe in a manner which would enable me to speak, "He keeps calling me 'retard' in Chinese every time he walks by me. I'd-" I sniffed and cried some more before being able to go on again, "I'd told him that it bothers me but he refused to stop. I've told Ms. Woodlief about it multiple times, but she either hasn't done anything or hasn't done enough."
My crying resumed again for a full two minutes before Mr. Coby could get in another word. "How long has this been going on?"
"A-all semester."
"And why didn't you ever tell anybody?"
"I did, didn't I say that? But neither verbalizing nor going to an adult worked at all and I felt like if I wanted it to stop then I had to stop it myself." *sniff*
"Allow me to ask you something, do you think- who was doing this to you?"
"Uh, I think his name was Chin. I don't know his last name, but how many kids in this school could possibly be called Chin?"
"Well then, do you think Chin would have told anybody that you did this?"
*sniff* "I doubt it."
"Then I appreciate even more that you came right to me and said you hit somebody. That shows that you really are remorseful, and I can see you're very shaken up with guilt, but I can't have kids hitting each other and I'm sure you know that. Now, I know you're a good kid, I've known you since your first day at this school. I understand that you had strong provocation. Now let me impress upon you, the cops would be called in and you would get a MINIMUM punishment of three days of out of school suspension in any issue involving violence. But it sounds like you didn't really hurt the kid, your provocation was hard to resist and was going on for a long time, and you turned yourself in right after it happened. So, today's Thursday, I'm going to send you home for today, suspend you for tomorrow, and then I'll see you back at school on Monday. Do you want me to call your parents or would you prefer to?"
*sniff* "I think I should." I picked up the phone on the table next to the two of us and dialed my dad's cell. "Hey, Dad? It's Dillon. Can you come to school, I'm in a little trouble."}
"Come on, get up!" Michael whisper-shouts at me while shaking me. Upon waking up, I could see without leaving the pyramid shaped tent that it was still dark out and would remain that way for some time to come. The interior of the tent was only just barely big enough to uncomfortably fit all of us humans, so we were rather squished. Next to me, Shanon lay still asleep despite Michael being on op of her. (Wow, if this tent was on fire, I bet she still wouldn't notice!)
"Um, can you please explain to me why you're up, and more importantly, why I am, too?!" I whisper-shouted back.
"You were moving around a lot in your sleep. You OK?"
"Uh, yeah. I feel fine. Now why are you up?"
"Can you blame me? Didn't we just leave everything we had behind for a totally new life in a COMPLETELY NEW FREAKIN' WORLD? How can any of you sleep?" Towards the end, Michael stopped whispering and started talk in a voice only slightly softer than normal.
A snore even louder than those that came before it from outside reached our ears and both of us chuckled quietly and simultaneously. "Why don't you ask him?" I was indicating the big pile of sleeping swampert which was snoring quite liberally just outside. "Now, back to being serious. I thought you knew the full implications of the choice that you made."
"I thought you told me everything I needed to know." The atmosphere was beginning to get tense.
"I told you that you could either stay in your old home or give it all up for something new. We haven't even been in this world for 72 hours and you already want to go back?" Shannon stirred beneath Michael and we feared that we had woken her, but she remained in slumber.
"I thought I would have the option to go back whenever I wanted." We were getting even louder now.
"You do have that option. If you were to turn around right now, nobody would hold you up. Now, do you want to go or stay?!"
"Can it wait 'till later?"
"No, we- oh. Uh, sorry." I cut myself off when I realized that Shanon had spoken. "I need to get something to eat, just see if you can get back to sleep." I can never sleep on an empty stomach, but I had no actual intentions of eating.
I tried to sneak out to avoid waking Swampert, but I tripped over a log that I missed among the dark. He wasn't making any noise, though I couldn't see him, so I assumed that I hadn't disturbed him. I kept casually walking until the tent was out of sight, but once it was I ran for the somewhat nearby river which we had already used to refill our canteens. I needed a quiet place to think.
Luckily it was close enough that I wasn't overly fatigued when I reached it. At the point I was at, the river was relatively calm. (Perfect.) The first thing I did was stick my feet into the water and it was very cold, to my surprise. It was September, so of course it would be, but I wanted to find out if it was safe to swim in; I do my best, or at least my most rational thinking in the water. Usually. I get cold very easily, though, and I'm usually a wimp about the temperature of the pool in what used to be my backyard, but I deemed this temperature acceptable, if only just. I stripped down to my boxers, leaving my clothes and glasses on the ground, and took the plunge.
A wave of cold washed over my body and my skin practically screamed in protest, but it soon went quiet when the cold turned into a comfortable coolness after a matter of seconds. After swimming across and back a couple of times, which was only eighty feet in total at the most, I leaned against the ridge that the shore dropped from and had my elbows on land hold me up.
(What have I gotten not only myself, but two others into? At least Swampert sort of volunteered for this. I guess they did to, kind of, but still... I wish I could have given them a longer period of notice, but they really should have known what they were getting into. Anyway, we haven't even really done anything or had anything happen to us, and it hasn't even been three days yet, so what's there really to complain about besides the lack of activity, which Michael seems to be all for or he wouldn't be whining. Still...) No matter how hard I tried to put the fault on the other two, anger kept trying to morph into guilt... and it eventually succeeded.
(Maybe I can't be blamed for dragging them here, because I didn't, but I'm still completely responsible for opening the possibility to them and thinking that they, or anybody could make a rational decision like that in a moment, particularly one so unexpected and with such a level of significance. Even I couldn't do that... maybe I didn't.) Tears were now welling up in my eyes, but they were indistinguishable from my already wet face.
(I can't believe I got them into this! What was I thinking?! Who am I kidding, I wasn't thinking!) I always considered matters of the mind to be one of my strongest qualities, so this seeming failure was a major blow to me. (If they become stuck here and are unable to adapt, nobody will be to blame except me.) Only the stars watched me weep. Or so I thought, anyway.
"Wha- whoa!" The river's current picked up significantly and nearly instantaneously and I ended up getting swept away. I kept my head above water without too much trouble, but the water was of a velocity at which I couldn't fight. There were no rocks to grab and nobody to help.
That was what I was thinking before I found help. "Get him out of there!" I was being forced to face downstream and was unable to see behind me, which meant that I missed the swift actions of my pursuer and didn't even know of their presence until they grabbed me somehow brought me to a stop while the river was still flowing at a pace no slower than before. They must have been pretty darn strong too, because it only took ten seconds to come to a complete stop despite the river's constant protests. The water was flowing around us almost like we were suspended in space. They then altered the angle we were facing and we started moving with the water again, but we were moving very slowly. Also, apparently because we were facing slightly away from the direction that the river would take us, we were gradually moving closer and closer to the land until I was able to reach out and pull myself out, at which time the person holding me let go. All in all, it was definitely not your average river rescue.
I lay flat on my belly while panting like a dog as soon as I exited the death trap that some mistakenly view as a welcome and generous source of hydration. I hadn't inhaled or swallowed any water, but was physically exhausted yet again. (Geez, I'm not cut out for this!)
A pair of familiarly large, blue feet came into my field of vision. "Are you alright?" asks their owner. (What a predictable question.)
In between gasps of air, I answer without looking up, "Heh-heh, I should've known. You were snoring loudly enough to scare away a bear before I tripped on something in the dark."
"What's a bear?"
"Not important. No, I can't say I'm OK, but if you're asking about my physical condition then yeah, I'd say I'm pretty much whole. Looks like I owe you one."
"For what? All I did was shout and watch."
"Wait, you shouted that? Then who got me?" When Swampert didn't answer me I looked up at him to ask again, but saw that he wasn't verbally replying because he was pointing at the Good Samaritan, who was crouched over me on my right side.
Now I'll redescribe the scene as it was told to me. Seconds after I was snatched by the river, Swampert emerged behind me and shouted for assistance. It was pure luck that not only was a sleeping floatzel nearby, and not just that Swampert's shouts had woken it, but that it took the time and energy to do something instead of being a mere bystander to my ordeal like any animal would. That's what separates pokemon from animals I suppose: they may wear the skin of animals and think in ways similar to animals, but intelligence and morality, and I use the word "morality" loosely, which I once thought were unique to mine and your kind accompanies their natural animal instinct forming a potent mental capacity, something I believe any human could do if they had a strong enough will to access their primal side, not that I could show anybody the proof that it's possible. It's a wonder why they're not the dominant species around here.
Anyway, it pursued me using those propeller-tails all floatzel have, and it reversed the direction of its tails' spinning once it had a hold of me to bring our velocity to zero. In the brief moment when we weren't moving in the slightest, it was only because of the floatzel's diligent effort in maintaining the revolutions of its tails. As the water-weasel turned me towards land, it let up a little to allow the very instrument that tried to do me harm to bring me out of its own path of destruction.
"Going for a late night swim was NOT one of your better ideas." It sounded like he was scolding me, but remember that I'm not the worlds most perceptive person, at least when it comes to how people act.
I sat up. "What can I say? Michael woke me and I couldn't get back to sleep. Was I supposed to sit around and wait for time to pass by? If I wanted that I would still be in Norton. And I don't appreciate being followed."
"And I don't appreciate you hiding things from me. You call yourself my friend, then sneak off to wallow in your own misery and try to hide it from me? Do you think that you can't come to me, or do you just outright distrust me?!" Floatzel seemed to be getting a little bothered by the situation.
"In case you forgot, you were asleep! What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to disturb you for the purpose of forcing you to hear my own petty and irresolvable inner conflicts?" At this point I was speaking before thinking, as I often do under stress. I like to blame Autism for that, and it may even be the cause, but I'm not one-hundred percent sure that I and I alone am not the source of fault. As it is, my little problem can sometimes be an explanation, but NEVER can it be an excuse.
"If you felt as strongly about them as you clearly did, then yes! That's exactly what you should have done!" (...What?)
"It's not major, it's just-"
"You were crying!"
"Are you expecting me to apologize for thinking that you had better things to do then here me whine?" I was on my feet now.
"Yes, because I don't, as you say it, 'have better things to do than hear you whine!'"
"Zel!" It seemed that Floatzel was getting tired of hearing us argue, but I was still going before I could process that.
"Why do you care?"
"Why do I need a reason?"
"ZEL!" he shouted as loud as he could. He then spouted lots of incomprehensible gibberish, or at least that's what it sounded like to me. Any moron could have seen, though, that he was telling the both of us off and it seemed that I was among that group of morons right now.
"It seems like you're pushing me away. Why won't you let me in?"
I didn't answer Swampert's question, or what I thought was his question anyway. "Tell me what Floatzel said."
"That is what he said."
I turned my head seventy-five degrees to my right to look at Floatzel, who reaffirmed it by nodding. "Look at me." I shifted my attention back to Swampert and, before I knew what I was doing, locked eyes with him. Instantaneously, reality came flooding back to me. I couldn't force myself to stay angry and stressed, not while gazing into the depths of those deep, gray eyes. (Gray eyes...)
I hoped that my mouth had now slowed to a pace that would allow my brain to keep up. I bought myself some extra time, though, by choosing that moment to re-don my Call Of Duty pajama pants, Disturbed T-shirt, and my socks and trail runners. Just a quick note: I hate Call of Duty, and I am a Halo fan all the way. The pants were a Christmas gift, and my mother thought it would be humorous to buy me COD. She was sadly mistaken.
Back to what's important, I took a deep breath before speaking, "I'm willing to answer that, but not right now. I don't feel like I'm in my right mind right now. Can we just go back to camp and talk about this in a few hours? I promise that we will. For the moment, I'll say 'I'm sorry' and hope that I didn't hurt you because as I said, or tried to anyway, causing a problem for you because of me is exactly what I was trying to avoid."
"Fine. Let's go."
But there was still something to take care of. I turned to Floatzel, "Sorry that it's a bit overdue, but thanks for the rescue." Floatzel waved a paw and looked away, the universal, or multiversal I suppose, way of saying "Don't mention it." "Alright, well, I'm going to stop bothering you now. 'Night." As I walked away I accidentally bumped into Floatzel and had to grab his shoulder for support. "Sorry! I guess I don't really have my land-legs back, yet." Floatzel just waved it off like it was nothing, which I guess it is.
When Swampert and I got back to camp, the other two humans had successfully returned to slumber. My partner and I decided that we should try and mimic them. I didn't want to run the risk of the humans noticing my red eyes and the fact that I was still sniffing a little- the distinguishing marks of recent sobbing. So, I snuck in and extracted my sleeping bag and the two of us, me and Swampert, are both going to be sleeping outside. Before I lay down though, I'm going to write down a few predictions that I have about tomorrow and see if they come true for my own amusement.
Michael is going to want to talk about what happened earlier.
Swampert will want to speak with me about an earlier happening too, but obviously not the same one.
Michael is going to say that he wants to leave.
Shanon is going to scold us for waking her.
Shanon is going to catch a new pokemon.
I'm going to lose my first battle.
I'm going to make a new friend and a new enemy in the same person.
"I'll be right there!" Swampert is calling for me to hurry up so I'm just going to stop here. I suppose I'd better get used to hardship. After all, I willingly signed up for it.
__________________________________________________________
"He was walking through the gym ahead of me," *sniff* "and I came up behind him. I hit him with a backfist."
"What's that?"
*sniff* "It's- it's like backhand slap, except with a closed fist instead of an open hand. I hit him on the left side of his head. His head barely even moved in reaction to it, though and he turned around after I got him."
"Then what?"
"I told him, 'Stop doing it, I'm sick of it' and then quickly walked ahead of him before letting him react." On that statement my crying escalated.
"What did you say he was doing?"
It took me a few seconds to force myself to breathe in a manner which would enable me to speak, "He keeps calling me 'retard' in Chinese every time he walks by me. I'd-" I sniffed and cried some more before being able to go on again, "I'd told him that it bothers me but he refused to stop. I've told Ms. Woodlief about it multiple times, but she either hasn't done anything or hasn't done enough."
My crying resumed again for a full two minutes before Mr. Coby could get in another word. "How long has this been going on?"
"A-all semester."
"And why didn't you ever tell anybody?"
"I did, didn't I say that? But neither verbalizing nor going to an adult worked at all and I felt like if I wanted it to stop then I had to stop it myself." *sniff*
"Allow me to ask you something, do you think- who was doing this to you?"
"Uh, I think his name was Chin. I don't know his last name, but how many kids in this school could possibly be called Chin?"
"Well then, do you think Chin would have told anybody that you did this?"
*sniff* "I doubt it."
"Then I appreciate even more that you came right to me and said you hit somebody. That shows that you really are remorseful, and I can see you're very shaken up with guilt, but I can't have kids hitting each other and I'm sure you know that. Now, I know you're a good kid, I've known you since your first day at this school. I understand that you had strong provocation. Now let me impress upon you, the cops would be called in and you would get a MINIMUM punishment of three days of out of school suspension in any issue involving violence. But it sounds like you didn't really hurt the kid, your provocation was hard to resist and was going on for a long time, and you turned yourself in right after it happened. So, today's Thursday, I'm going to send you home for today, suspend you for tomorrow, and then I'll see you back at school on Monday. Do you want me to call your parents or would you prefer to?"
*sniff* "I think I should." I picked up the phone on the table next to the two of us and dialed my dad's cell. "Hey, Dad? It's Dillon. Can you come to school, I'm in a little trouble."}
"Come on, get up!" Michael whisper-shouts at me while shaking me. Upon waking up, I could see without leaving the pyramid shaped tent that it was still dark out and would remain that way for some time to come. The interior of the tent was only just barely big enough to uncomfortably fit all of us humans, so we were rather squished. Next to me, Shanon lay still asleep despite Michael being on op of her. (Wow, if this tent was on fire, I bet she still wouldn't notice!)
"Um, can you please explain to me why you're up, and more importantly, why I am, too?!" I whisper-shouted back.
"You were moving around a lot in your sleep. You OK?"
"Uh, yeah. I feel fine. Now why are you up?"
"Can you blame me? Didn't we just leave everything we had behind for a totally new life in a COMPLETELY NEW FREAKIN' WORLD? How can any of you sleep?" Towards the end, Michael stopped whispering and started talk in a voice only slightly softer than normal.
A snore even louder than those that came before it from outside reached our ears and both of us chuckled quietly and simultaneously. "Why don't you ask him?" I was indicating the big pile of sleeping swampert which was snoring quite liberally just outside. "Now, back to being serious. I thought you knew the full implications of the choice that you made."
"I thought you told me everything I needed to know." The atmosphere was beginning to get tense.
"I told you that you could either stay in your old home or give it all up for something new. We haven't even been in this world for 72 hours and you already want to go back?" Shannon stirred beneath Michael and we feared that we had woken her, but she remained in slumber.
"I thought I would have the option to go back whenever I wanted." We were getting even louder now.
"You do have that option. If you were to turn around right now, nobody would hold you up. Now, do you want to go or stay?!"
"Can it wait 'till later?"
"No, we- oh. Uh, sorry." I cut myself off when I realized that Shanon had spoken. "I need to get something to eat, just see if you can get back to sleep." I can never sleep on an empty stomach, but I had no actual intentions of eating.
I tried to sneak out to avoid waking Swampert, but I tripped over a log that I missed among the dark. He wasn't making any noise, though I couldn't see him, so I assumed that I hadn't disturbed him. I kept casually walking until the tent was out of sight, but once it was I ran for the somewhat nearby river which we had already used to refill our canteens. I needed a quiet place to think.
Luckily it was close enough that I wasn't overly fatigued when I reached it. At the point I was at, the river was relatively calm. (Perfect.) The first thing I did was stick my feet into the water and it was very cold, to my surprise. It was September, so of course it would be, but I wanted to find out if it was safe to swim in; I do my best, or at least my most rational thinking in the water. Usually. I get cold very easily, though, and I'm usually a wimp about the temperature of the pool in what used to be my backyard, but I deemed this temperature acceptable, if only just. I stripped down to my boxers, leaving my clothes and glasses on the ground, and took the plunge.
A wave of cold washed over my body and my skin practically screamed in protest, but it soon went quiet when the cold turned into a comfortable coolness after a matter of seconds. After swimming across and back a couple of times, which was only eighty feet in total at the most, I leaned against the ridge that the shore dropped from and had my elbows on land hold me up.
(What have I gotten not only myself, but two others into? At least Swampert sort of volunteered for this. I guess they did to, kind of, but still... I wish I could have given them a longer period of notice, but they really should have known what they were getting into. Anyway, we haven't even really done anything or had anything happen to us, and it hasn't even been three days yet, so what's there really to complain about besides the lack of activity, which Michael seems to be all for or he wouldn't be whining. Still...) No matter how hard I tried to put the fault on the other two, anger kept trying to morph into guilt... and it eventually succeeded.
(Maybe I can't be blamed for dragging them here, because I didn't, but I'm still completely responsible for opening the possibility to them and thinking that they, or anybody could make a rational decision like that in a moment, particularly one so unexpected and with such a level of significance. Even I couldn't do that... maybe I didn't.) Tears were now welling up in my eyes, but they were indistinguishable from my already wet face.
(I can't believe I got them into this! What was I thinking?! Who am I kidding, I wasn't thinking!) I always considered matters of the mind to be one of my strongest qualities, so this seeming failure was a major blow to me. (If they become stuck here and are unable to adapt, nobody will be to blame except me.) Only the stars watched me weep. Or so I thought, anyway.
"Wha- whoa!" The river's current picked up significantly and nearly instantaneously and I ended up getting swept away. I kept my head above water without too much trouble, but the water was of a velocity at which I couldn't fight. There were no rocks to grab and nobody to help.
That was what I was thinking before I found help. "Get him out of there!" I was being forced to face downstream and was unable to see behind me, which meant that I missed the swift actions of my pursuer and didn't even know of their presence until they grabbed me somehow brought me to a stop while the river was still flowing at a pace no slower than before. They must have been pretty darn strong too, because it only took ten seconds to come to a complete stop despite the river's constant protests. The water was flowing around us almost like we were suspended in space. They then altered the angle we were facing and we started moving with the water again, but we were moving very slowly. Also, apparently because we were facing slightly away from the direction that the river would take us, we were gradually moving closer and closer to the land until I was able to reach out and pull myself out, at which time the person holding me let go. All in all, it was definitely not your average river rescue.
I lay flat on my belly while panting like a dog as soon as I exited the death trap that some mistakenly view as a welcome and generous source of hydration. I hadn't inhaled or swallowed any water, but was physically exhausted yet again. (Geez, I'm not cut out for this!)
A pair of familiarly large, blue feet came into my field of vision. "Are you alright?" asks their owner. (What a predictable question.)
In between gasps of air, I answer without looking up, "Heh-heh, I should've known. You were snoring loudly enough to scare away a bear before I tripped on something in the dark."
"What's a bear?"
"Not important. No, I can't say I'm OK, but if you're asking about my physical condition then yeah, I'd say I'm pretty much whole. Looks like I owe you one."
"For what? All I did was shout and watch."
"Wait, you shouted that? Then who got me?" When Swampert didn't answer me I looked up at him to ask again, but saw that he wasn't verbally replying because he was pointing at the Good Samaritan, who was crouched over me on my right side.
Now I'll redescribe the scene as it was told to me. Seconds after I was snatched by the river, Swampert emerged behind me and shouted for assistance. It was pure luck that not only was a sleeping floatzel nearby, and not just that Swampert's shouts had woken it, but that it took the time and energy to do something instead of being a mere bystander to my ordeal like any animal would. That's what separates pokemon from animals I suppose: they may wear the skin of animals and think in ways similar to animals, but intelligence and morality, and I use the word "morality" loosely, which I once thought were unique to mine and your kind accompanies their natural animal instinct forming a potent mental capacity, something I believe any human could do if they had a strong enough will to access their primal side, not that I could show anybody the proof that it's possible. It's a wonder why they're not the dominant species around here.
Anyway, it pursued me using those propeller-tails all floatzel have, and it reversed the direction of its tails' spinning once it had a hold of me to bring our velocity to zero. In the brief moment when we weren't moving in the slightest, it was only because of the floatzel's diligent effort in maintaining the revolutions of its tails. As the water-weasel turned me towards land, it let up a little to allow the very instrument that tried to do me harm to bring me out of its own path of destruction.
"Going for a late night swim was NOT one of your better ideas." It sounded like he was scolding me, but remember that I'm not the worlds most perceptive person, at least when it comes to how people act.
I sat up. "What can I say? Michael woke me and I couldn't get back to sleep. Was I supposed to sit around and wait for time to pass by? If I wanted that I would still be in Norton. And I don't appreciate being followed."
"And I don't appreciate you hiding things from me. You call yourself my friend, then sneak off to wallow in your own misery and try to hide it from me? Do you think that you can't come to me, or do you just outright distrust me?!" Floatzel seemed to be getting a little bothered by the situation.
"In case you forgot, you were asleep! What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to disturb you for the purpose of forcing you to hear my own petty and irresolvable inner conflicts?" At this point I was speaking before thinking, as I often do under stress. I like to blame Autism for that, and it may even be the cause, but I'm not one-hundred percent sure that I and I alone am not the source of fault. As it is, my little problem can sometimes be an explanation, but NEVER can it be an excuse.
"If you felt as strongly about them as you clearly did, then yes! That's exactly what you should have done!" (...What?)
"It's not major, it's just-"
"You were crying!"
"Are you expecting me to apologize for thinking that you had better things to do then here me whine?" I was on my feet now.
"Yes, because I don't, as you say it, 'have better things to do than hear you whine!'"
"Zel!" It seemed that Floatzel was getting tired of hearing us argue, but I was still going before I could process that.
"Why do you care?"
"Why do I need a reason?"
"ZEL!" he shouted as loud as he could. He then spouted lots of incomprehensible gibberish, or at least that's what it sounded like to me. Any moron could have seen, though, that he was telling the both of us off and it seemed that I was among that group of morons right now.
"It seems like you're pushing me away. Why won't you let me in?"
I didn't answer Swampert's question, or what I thought was his question anyway. "Tell me what Floatzel said."
"That is what he said."
I turned my head seventy-five degrees to my right to look at Floatzel, who reaffirmed it by nodding. "Look at me." I shifted my attention back to Swampert and, before I knew what I was doing, locked eyes with him. Instantaneously, reality came flooding back to me. I couldn't force myself to stay angry and stressed, not while gazing into the depths of those deep, gray eyes. (Gray eyes...)
I hoped that my mouth had now slowed to a pace that would allow my brain to keep up. I bought myself some extra time, though, by choosing that moment to re-don my Call Of Duty pajama pants, Disturbed T-shirt, and my socks and trail runners. Just a quick note: I hate Call of Duty, and I am a Halo fan all the way. The pants were a Christmas gift, and my mother thought it would be humorous to buy me COD. She was sadly mistaken.
Back to what's important, I took a deep breath before speaking, "I'm willing to answer that, but not right now. I don't feel like I'm in my right mind right now. Can we just go back to camp and talk about this in a few hours? I promise that we will. For the moment, I'll say 'I'm sorry' and hope that I didn't hurt you because as I said, or tried to anyway, causing a problem for you because of me is exactly what I was trying to avoid."
"Fine. Let's go."
But there was still something to take care of. I turned to Floatzel, "Sorry that it's a bit overdue, but thanks for the rescue." Floatzel waved a paw and looked away, the universal, or multiversal I suppose, way of saying "Don't mention it." "Alright, well, I'm going to stop bothering you now. 'Night." As I walked away I accidentally bumped into Floatzel and had to grab his shoulder for support. "Sorry! I guess I don't really have my land-legs back, yet." Floatzel just waved it off like it was nothing, which I guess it is.
When Swampert and I got back to camp, the other two humans had successfully returned to slumber. My partner and I decided that we should try and mimic them. I didn't want to run the risk of the humans noticing my red eyes and the fact that I was still sniffing a little- the distinguishing marks of recent sobbing. So, I snuck in and extracted my sleeping bag and the two of us, me and Swampert, are both going to be sleeping outside. Before I lay down though, I'm going to write down a few predictions that I have about tomorrow and see if they come true for my own amusement.
Michael is going to want to talk about what happened earlier.
Swampert will want to speak with me about an earlier happening too, but obviously not the same one.
Michael is going to say that he wants to leave.
Shanon is going to scold us for waking her.
Shanon is going to catch a new pokemon.
I'm going to lose my first battle.
I'm going to make a new friend and a new enemy in the same person.
"I'll be right there!" Swampert is calling for me to hurry up so I'm just going to stop here. I suppose I'd better get used to hardship. After all, I willingly signed up for it.
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