Chapter 1: A Bumpy Start

Chapter Start: 

*****[(-o-)]*****

{ First Person P.O.V. }

'This is unsettling. Don't get me wrong; this place is somewhat peaceful, if a bit eerie more often than not,' he thought to himself, speaking to no one in particular. But while going through his less-than-ideal circumstances, he thought about how this all happened.

'I sacrificed myself to save my friend, and now I find myself in this unfamiliar place with no visible way out and little chance of escape. Just fantastic.' Don't get him wrong, he was glad to have been able to save his friend or at least....'I hope I managed to save him. I don't know if he managed to get away or not.' 

I'm sure whoever is listening to my thoughts and is wondering about the first half of those thoughts, so here is a short introduction. Hi, I'm Duke Opal, the son of Jackson and Susan Opal, and my older brother is Karmin Opal. He was a high school and college graduate, majoring in wildlife, zoology, and animal and plant husbandry. He enjoys taking time out of his schedule to relax and explore nature and the wilderness. Duke likes to spend time with his Pops on long camping trips and also enjoys spending time with friends.

He has also been a fan of the Pokemon Franchise and all things Pokemon since he was a little kid; even when he grew up, he never grew out of loving Pokemon. So when he wasn't at work, traveling with friends, or camping with his family, he played games or watched anime and movies at home. During his work days, he worked as a Zoologist at a local Zoo in his hometown in California. 

He specialized in studying animal behavior, psychology, and animal husbandry. He has worked with various animals over the last twenty years, including ten years as a Zookeeper. He helped the animal specialists with their charges, amassing knowledge with multiple animals. This unique love for animals stems from his childhood joy of Pokemon, but as you know, there's no Pokemon in the real world, so animals. 

I became his substitute. He had an oddly fulfilling life, but he always sought more. He wanted more adventure, to explore the wider world and see everything it had to offer. That may be why he said yes and told his friend he would be near the airport; his friend asked him if he wanted to travel with him to the African savanna—researching rare plants and animals. 

They were there for about two days, coming into the third, when everything turned worse, as a pack of hungry hyenas surrounded him and his friends; not wanting his friend to die, the man bites the bullet and calls to the animals and begins to sprint away. The pack was dead on his heels, with no way of getting rid of them; all he could do was run even faster, but because he was so focused on running ahead of the angry pack, he overlooked the rather large canyon until it was too late. 

He fell off the cliff of the canyon, that was... His last memory. 

He sighed. 

'That has got to be one of the most embarrassing ways to die, but at least my friend managed to escape. I hope Chris will be fine.'

'But now I needed to worry about my situation, like figuring out where I am.'

But that was better said than done, as the moment he woke up in this place, all he saw was darkness—like the nether space you see in Minecraft but less, you know, 'blocky.' Not to say that it isn't bad, which it still pretty much is, but the thing is, there is nothing here except the darkness and himself. He checked while aimlessly wandering around; he lost hope of finding someone else or even a way out of this place. 

Both seem like a more and more distant dream the longer things go on, but it could be worse, at least in his opinion, as at least his friend wasn't here with him. No matter how much he wished for someone to talk to, he wouldn't wish this fate on anyone, not even his worst enemies, not that he had any. 

'This can't be it, can it? Is this where it all ends?' he thought. 

'Will I just fade away here to be forgotten?' 

'To let myself be taken by the void forever?'

'If I give in, will that make things easier?' he questioned. 

He kept thinking to himself that he was already dead, there was no one waiting for him, and his mom and dad would be sad for sure, but they still had his sister. And they are all strong people; they'll eventually get over his death, and his friends will probably move past it too before long. The zoo could find someone to fill in his shoes now that he's gone, and the animals will take some time to get used to him not caring for them but will probably get used to it soon enough. 

'So really, I should be asking myself why I'm even worrying about anyway? I mean, not like there's anything to hold on to now that I'm dead.' He thought.

But for some reason, no matter how much he tried, something in the back of his head made him hold on to continue trying to live on. He couldn't figure out why he felt this way, only that he did and that he had to keep doing so as if he would lose something significant if he didn't; with nothing else but a gut feeling, he kept hanging on, hoping beyond hope that something would change, that his existence wouldn't end here. 

He didn't know how long minutes, hours, days, and a whole decade could have gone, and he wouldn't have noticed. It made him all the more frustrated because no matter what he did, he could shake off that little feeling in the back of his head telling him not to give up. It only seemed to get stronger over time until it nearly became a booming echo in his head, but soon after what seemed like an eternity, the voice suddenly stopped and spoke softly, asking him a rather strange question. 

It seems to say, 'Do you seek a change? Do you wish to escape this place?' 

'Yes, I want to leave this place; I don't even care where so long as it's not here.' he mentally said. 

He thought anywhere was better than here, as the empty dead void was nothing more than a rage-fuel nightmare he caught to escape from. The inner voice asked him if he could go to any world and where he would go, and though he thought for some time, he eventually came up with the answer. It is the world of Pokemon simply because it's his childhood dream to go to the world of Pokemon and become a Pokemon trainer. Another was that it was one of the worlds he was most familiar with, so it was easy to choose the next, which was what he would be or do once he became a trainer and his dream.

This question took even longer to answer simply because of how much goes into being a trainer and what he could be capable of doing. But once his choices were decided, everything began to change, as his vision (as much as a soul can see anyway) began to darken and become heavier. When he closed his eyes, it was the last time he would see the void, waking up in a new world, a new place; now, this is where his new journey begins. 

*****[(-o-)]*****

Chapter End: