Sinking Into Apathy

*Warning: Smart, Abused, Morally Grey, Selectively Mute Ash. This story may also contain some triggers in the beginning*

Satoshi had been four years old when it started. An all encompassing feeling that he was being slowly cooked from the inside while also being repeatedly stabbed. Four years old when his father left him with some old friends and set out looking for a cure.

He had been five years old when everything truly came crashing down. His father had gone missing, and the couple he stayed with died in an accident going out to look for his father. Without a choice he was sent back into the care of his mother.

His mother who hated everything about him. Then there was pain, and more pain, and even more pain. It never seemed to relent and without prior warning Satoshi feels himself slipping into the dark abyss of emptiness.

Join a different version of Ash Ketchum, who after growing up under the abuse of his mother and subject to a mysterious pain that seems to come and go randomly, finds himself slipping into a cold feeling of apathy. Will Satoshi learn the cause of his seemingly mysterious illness? Will he be able to escape the results of the abuse he's suffered?

Will the start of his Pokémon Journey save him from a fate of forever feeling numb?

This is a fanfic I do not own Pokémon! Nor do I own any of the photos or videos that are shown in the fanfic.

Some elements of this story come from the fanfiction Renegade by 0 Jordinio 0 on fanfiction.net