Forward Unto Dawn

Chapter 1

Flash And Thunder

--o-O-o--

The sound of glass shattering and rock crumbling roared through the air as one of the massive human caves collapsed. Pulverized glass, ash and powdered concrete created a billowing pillar of dust above the ruins. The human city had been abandoned for generations, the effects of time were finally taking their toll as supporting structures that held the caves up finally gave way. Such events were becoming more and more commonplace Z noted as she strolled along the edge of an adjoining building. For some reason she felt drawn to the city, as dangerous as it was. In times long passed Absol were known as 'the disaster pokemon' because of their association with natural disasters and unfortunate events.

The city reeked of misfortune and agony: countless buildings and vehicles were vacant and derelict, innumerable ghosts filled the streets. Shades of the city's old inhabitants that haunted the ruins of what was on their homes. The apparitions were another unfortunate curse left by the dead were the ghosts, they wandered aimlessly through the city but were drawn to the vital energies of the living. Most ghosts were known to subtly drain some of that energy to manifest themselves, imagine that slight drain magnified one thousand fold and you'd have a paltry idea of the lethal effect such numbers could do to anything breathing. The only thing that could even begin to compare was below the surface, vast colonies of muk and grimer had grown exponentially in the rapidly declining atmosphere.

Z sat at the ledge overlooking the ruins, the column of smoke and ash continued to rise into the bleak canopy of clouds above. A total blanket of ashen grey clouds had blocked out any and all sunlight leaving everything a monochromatic grey rendering the atmosphere bleak and grim. Plants had long since withered and died, rain was replaced with dust and ash. Even thunderstorms added to the glum environment, lightning lanced through the dirty clouds in red and pink bolts. Z had called this world home for sixteen seasons... Or was it seventeen? Fifteen? Was it even that long? Or maybe to short? She shook her head, pink goggles stuck tight to the crown of her head. It was impossible to tell anymore, everything looked the same. She poked up again at the raging dust storm over the ruined building, watching with unending interest and picking out various swirling patterns in the smoke. Thunder rumbled above as she watched, as she got to her feet silver bells chimed on their binds. The bells and her goggles were the only things that had color in her life and she greatly valued them. Everything else in the world was grey and dusty.

The sky grumbled again as Z padded towards the outskirts of the city. Stepping inside a balcony and into the human cave her paws set up puffs of ash. The den was set up like a labyrinth, small alcoves were set into small square areas that were arranged in a grid pattern, Z couldn't even start to count them all. A stair well was at the center of the den and led to several more floors with the same setup, the walls were starting to turn to mush and were barely standing anymore, the floors and ceiling had collapsed in several places.

One thing that caught Z's attention were the colored vines that hung from the open squares above her. For a moment she even pondered trying to acquire one or two, or maybe all of them. As she stepped into the stair well she saw a round object surrounded by several dozen smaller bones. The skull had a single row of teeth on the jaw which was at the bottom of the bone, a hole in the middle and two holes slightly higher up on either side. Z recognized the human skeleton, she had a hard time thinking of what a human would have looked like. She'd never even seen a human before, their kind went extinct long before she was born. All they left behind were their giant caves that touched the sky and in some cases even passed into the cloud cover. What did a human look like? The thought came to her conscience again. What color was their fur? How tall were they? Why did they have to built such tall caves? How did they do it? Where did they go? As she thought to herself a crimson bolt branched across the darkening sky. Soon it would be pitch black out and she had to find a place to stay fast and if the weather was turning out to be another fire-storm the faster the better.

Her path was littered with fallen walls, old human bridges, turned over cars and bones... Lots of bones and not all of them human. There were bones from countless pokemon species as well. Her route was long and arduous, often twisting and snaking around itself but it was necessary to stay of the ground. More often then not she found herself leaping from rooftop to rooftop to reach her destination faster. Eventually the larger human caves started to get smaller and smaller as she got farther out of the city. It was also safer as the ghosts were concentrated towards the heart of the city. A lot of the smaller caves were good places to find food in, humans had an interesting way of preserving what they ate. They kept this clear stuff around it that made it a chore to get at but most of them were really good. It was mostly sweet stuff but there were also bags of thin pieces of dried meat and some with dried nuts and fruits. The meat was tough and hard to chew but Z preferred the flavor over the fruit, it also looked kinda funny shrivelled up like it was.

Once she felt she was far enough away from the city she took to the ground, another strange thing left over from the humans were their trails. She was used to using scents to find things but humans actually made trails of stone that went to where ever they needed. It was amazing how the humans had seemed to reshape the world around them according to their needs. Z watched with interest as a bright crimson bolt lanced across the sky, it gave her surroundings an even more menacing appearance as the shadows briefly became more defined. Thunder clapped and rolled as the light fade but purple and blue flashes could still be seen deep within the clouds. Z's den was just beyond the outlying human caves, dust, ashes, petrified tree trunks and gnarled, curling roots were all that remained of what had once been a forest. One of the largest trees still stood strong though it hadn't had leaves in gods know how long.

The sound of thunder still echoed through the night sky and if not for the lightning it would have been pitch black. Slowly descending into the roots that hid the entrance to her den. Flakes of ash fell onto her coat as she passed through and she rolled her eyes. Food was difficult to obtain, water was scarce and most other pokemon you'd come across were beyond sanity and reason. Her natural fur color was a stark white typical of any Absol but if she'd have to deal every other problem the world threw at her she refused to live with a dirty coat.

One of her biggest pet peeves was keeping her fur that pure white color. Curling up and getting comfortable she set about the arduous task of grooming herself of the dust and ash that had accumulated in her fur, combined with the flash of crimson and rolling thunder it was going to be a long night...

--o-O-o--

----- So the saying goes "Never take credit when credit is due." and a lot went into the inspiration and reference for this story. Among them at the movies 'The Book of Eli,' 'Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within,' 'Howl's Moving Castle,' (If you've seen it then you'll understand later.) and the music videos for Catalyst by Linkin Park and Until the World Ends by Brittany Spears