Pokemon: Dreams Come True

Chapter 37: Unwelcome Reunion

Nearly nine years ago...

Seven years old. The darkest time of my life. The cold shadows that weren't mine wrapped me in its frigid embrace. My life was like a broken tree, where the winds could knock me down on a whim.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

My older sister Beatrice and I were as close as siblings could be. She was the one I looked up to, and I was the cute child who would follow her around. We looked the same; our blonde hair was the same shade and covered our left eye, and our eyes were the same misty gray.

We loved each other dearly and were nearly inseparable. She always found my curiosity to be adorable and always tried to sate it.

Her, our mother, and our father were my heroes.

And you know how the story goes.

When I was seven-years-old, Beatrice found a mysterious Pokemon when she was wandering the nearby forest.

It's funny, really, how everything dangerous lurks in a forest. Forests are the places where the cold darkness always resides in, hiding under the cover of the green canopies above, waiting for the next unsuspecting victim to walk into its domain.

"Val!" Beatrice came running out of the forest, beaming at me. "Look what I found!"

I was standing outside of our house, waiting for her to come back after she told me to stay put. She claimed that she saw something moving between the trees and went to check it out.

"What did you find, Bee?" I asked, my eyes lighting up with anticipation.

When I started learning how to speak I wasn't able to pronounce her name, so I called her Bee. And that nickname stuck, so I continued to call her that even after I learned how to pronounce Beatrice.

Her signature cheerful smile crept onto her lips. "I found a super cool Pokemon!"

"Super cool Pokemon?" I looked around, not seeing anything. "Where?"

"Right in front of you," Beatrice's countenance displayed a hint of mischievousness

"Right in front of me—"

A dark humanoid Pokemon appeared in front of me, startling me.

I gasped at the sight of it. "A Darkrai? What is it doing it here?"

Darkrai looked at me with an impassive look, blinking at me.

"It was watching us," Beatrice said. "It seems friendly despite its scary appearance. Darkrai are normally lonely because they put people to sleep and give them nightmares, so they stay away to avoid harming people."

And after that we became friends with the Darkrai. Despite being the Nightmare Pokemon, it got along surprisingly well with the Pokemon at our house. When I had nightmares, it would absorb them so that I could sleep well.

My mother, Cynthia, had become fascinated with it and immediately began to study it, wanting to know its origins.

My father was the most skeptical one. Believe it or not, he's from the Hoenn region, so he wasn't very familiar with Darkrai. He knew more about Dragon-types than anything else.

One day, I was outside sitting with Darkrai. Sometimes it would have this faraway look that made me think that it was contemplating something. Or maybe it was just sad; I never really knew.

"What's wrong, Darkrai?" I asked with concerned eyes.

Darkrai looked at me sadly. Then it got up without a word and walked off to the nearby forest.