It's funny what fear can do to a guy. I've seen it in action - heck, I've felt it in action myself. There's nothing quite as disconcerting as being stopped cold by sheer terror. But even more than that, it can completely change how people live their lives, how they see the world. It can even kill them. I've heard it said that the only thing to fear is fear itself...well, even if that's true, I say it's definitely warranted.
Maybe it's not true that that's the only thing we have to fear. But it sure seems like people can be afraid of a hell of a lot of things, things that might seem ridiculous to other people. Go ahead and laugh at them, but it's not like they can help it. They didn't ask to be terrified of something that wouldn't usually be frightening. And making light of it is just ignoring the real power that fear can have over someone.
I know from experience. Mine was water. Hydrophobia, they called it. I suppose it would make sense - I'm a Charmeleon, and water in one of the great enemies of our kind. And truth be told, I don't really know what brought it on. I mean, yeah, it was something we were constantly warned about right out of the egg - don't let your tail flame go out. Every Charmander "knows" that our lives rely on our tail flames. It's only when we get older and more experienced that we find out it's just a story they tell us, but it's a story they tell us because those things that risk putting out those flames also risk putting us in serious danger. Falling into a shallow pool might be nothing to worry about for most other Pokémon, but the shock could knock one of us right out, and that means drowning. Or we could get caught out on the cold rain, constantly pelted with what might as well be bullets from the sky, sapping our bodies of their heat and putting us into a dangerous state of hypothermia. So it's not like it was a made-up problem.
But it went a little too far for me.
Water may be a problem for us, but we still need it in our bodies. That put me in a bad bind more often than most, since I couldn't even take a drink most of the time without freaking out. At a few points in my life I had to be forcefully hydrated for my own good, because I would go for hours, even a day or more without drinking a thing just to stay away from water. If there was even a possible threat of rain I wouldn't even consider stepping out of whatever the nearest area of shelter was. And don't get me started on Water Pokémon.
It was probably a good thing that I was caught by a trainer, because I doubt I would ever have managed on my own; I'd have died of dehydration long ago. That's how bad it was. On some level I knew this was far beyond rational, but it never sank in.
So, yeah, I was scared to death of water. But here's the strange part.
At the same time, I was absolutely fascinated by it.
I know how weird that sounds. It wasn't immediate, it started after I'd been caught and trained for a while, and evolved into my current state. And after no small number of incidents with some of my Water-typed comrades and forced hydration sessions to keep me from committing unintentional suicide. My trainer was infinitely patient, and it frustrated me that I was being so difficult for him, he didn't deserve that. Neither did the other Pokémon, especially the Water types, who were perfectly decent guys who I couldn't coexist with for the life of me. So you can guess that I wasn't exactly into it before that time.
It was a thunderstorm that first mesmerized me. I'd never actually seen one before. Oh, sure, I knew they existed, but whenever they came around, I would be cowering in the darkest corner of a den or something so that I could perhaps try to ignore it. Usually it's the thunder that scares young Pokémon, but that never really bothered me - I'd been friends with a Pikachu in my early days and he'd desensitized me to that. After I was caught, I wasn't really exposed to a lot of storms, but one night a storm suddenly kicked up and my trainer had us stay in a hotel. A hotel with a very large window.
