Ethan followed Jocelyn through the Pokemon Center as she weaved her way past empty and quiet rooms. Idly and admittedly depressed, he watched the small fluorescent lights on the ceiling pass by until Jocelyn stopped to fish out a keyring. She unlocked the simple, yet new wooden door before her and beckoned him in. “In here. This won’t take long.”


    There was a hint of something in her voice. He couldn’t place it, but his immediate reaction was to be wary. Trusting her, Ethan entered the room, brushing past Jocelyn as she held the door open. The interior of the room caused the wariness to spike in intensity. There wasn’t anything medically related inside the small, warmly lit room—not that he was here for anything medical related. No healing machines, no shelves filled with medicine or books. Just a long cushioned couch, a comfortable looking chair, and a small coffee table with a box of tissues placed upon it.


    His stomach twisted.


    He scanned the beige painted walls and the small framed pictures hung up upon them—Warm colors, calm landscapes… the kind of thing to put someone at ease.


    This wasn’t a casual, out of the blue meeting or conversation. This was something she had planned. The room he stood in had a purpose, and it wasn’t lost on him. Back on Earth, Ethan had taken many twists and turns in his education. Nursing, Computer Information Systems, Data Analytics… in Nursing school, Psychology was a required course. He’d seen this type of room before.


    This was a trap.


    Ethan took a step backwards and turned, finding Jocelyn finishing up with closing the door behind her. She gazed into his eyes with her shining blue eyes and a relaxed and inviting smile.


    “I don’t need this,” He said quickly, voice a tad sharper than intended.


    Something in her eyes let him know that she knew the jig was up. “Nobody’s forcing you to talk.” She said calmly, “Just sit for a moment.”


    Ethan gestured around the room, his heart rate elevating. “You planned this. Who’s idea was it?”


    “Does it matter? Are you looking to blame someone? I was asked to help you.” Jocelyn said calmly as she came forward and gently grabbed his shoulders to spin him around to face the room and not the exit. After, she slid by him and sat down in the chair, leaving the couch open and free.


    Ethan didn’t move.


    “I severely doubt a therapist coming to stay at my ranch was a coincidence.”


    Jocelyn just sat there, a smile plastered on her face and hand held out towards the couch.


    A few seconds passed by in silence as he stood there in a stand-off, emotions rolling and ebbing as he came to terms with this—connecting the dots. Joyce’s ask for a Nurse Joy to stay at his ranch, Jocelyn being a therapist… This reeked of someone plotting behind his back. Almost like someone was making plans for him without his input—again.


    “Talking about it won’t change anything.” He said, tone monotone, unmoving.


    Jocelyn continued to say nothing, just pointing and waiting for him to sit down as she watched him.


    Seeing as she wasn’t moved, he changed tactics. “I’m not going to sit down, Jocelyn. Me sitting down is saying ‘I need help’.” Instead of walking towards the couch, he walked towards her. “I don’t want to need help. I don’t want that. I don’t need this.”


    When he reached her chair, she had to crane her neck to stare up at his looming form. Breathing became hard as he tried not to think about the past, but he needed to explain to her his reasoning…


    He tried, he really did. But, the day was already too much to bear. He wasn’t very successful at controlling his emotions. His normally calm, friendly, somewhat carefree demeanor was gone, replaced by a rare bout of self-justified anger. Deception and people making decisions for him were things he could not stand. “Not too long ago, I needed help and nobody was there to answer—FOR A FUCKING YEAR!” With uncharacteristic aggression, Ethan kicked the small table holding the tissues, sending it crashing into the nearby wall. Jocelyn flinched and jerked from the sudden action, eyes spreading wide at the unexpected crash, but didn’t bother turning to look at the mess he’d made.


    “You don’t get to bring me here into this pre-prepared room and decide whether or not I need help. I decide if I need help!” He jabbed a finger towards her.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    He focused so that his voice was no longer yelling, but still forceful. “You don’t know me, Joyce doesn’t know me, Cynthia doesn’t know me, nobody in this world—Human or pokemon, truly knows me. You think you do, yet you don’t. This weird ability I have? That doesn’t tell them who I am.”


    He took a deep breath, staring into the semi-shocked eyes of Jocelyn for a tense second, before stepping over the crumbled remains of the wooden coffee table to sit down on the couch. She parted her mouth to speak, but he raised a hand to stop her. “Save it.” He snapped at her, then the energy he had but a moment ago completely drained. “Let me explain to you what you don’t know.”


    With steepled hands, elbows on his knees, he leaned forward. With two words, he showed one of the unknowable gaps that would forever be between them. “I died.”


    Jocelyn blinked wildly, unprepared for the sudden statement. Ethan carried on, not bothering to wait for her to come to terms with what he had months ago.


    “Yes, I died. It took me a while to figure it out, but before being dropped into this forest, lost, scared, and afraid, I was on a train. The very last thing I remember was a boom, an explosion. At that moment, everything I ever had, loved, wanted—People, family, things, they were gone. My mother, gone. I will never see her again for the rest of my life, and I have to live with knowing that she thinks I am dead. My home, it is gone. I can never return to my warm bed, my inviting room, my home. My friends… everything I had is gone. Not physically or emotionally, but by an untraversable distance.”


    “The next moment I was here, not a minute away. My new home is built on the exact spot I arrived. Like any person, I tried to find my way to safety. It took me a single day to stumble across a pokemon. Something I had only ever seen in fiction—a children''s cartoon. I didn’t know what it was at first. I thought maybe it was a monster. So, I fled back to this clearing, starving, confused, scared, thirsty, and most of all alone.”


    By now, he couldn’t even look at her. He stared at the beige walls behind her pink topped head instead. “Eventually, I put two and two together. It took me a few days, but I figured out what world I was in. The world of Pokemon. One might think that would make things better, but being alone in a forest surrounded by wild beings who could snuff out your life with ease is more terrifying than being alone in a forest without them.”


    “I strayed by myself through this forest looking for food so I wouldn’t starve to death. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would know what starving felt like.” He swallowed, throat tight as he replayed his memories.


    “Starving isn’t just feeling hungry—it’s like your own body is eating itself from the inside out. At first, it’s an ache, deep and gnawing, but after a while, it stops feeling like hunger and turns into something worse. Your limbs go weak, every movement feels like dragging yourself through mud, and your head swims like you''re underwater. Your stomach cramps until it feels like it’s tying itself in knots, but the worst part? The exhaustion. It drains you and makes you feel like you’re fading away, bit by bit, until you’re not sure if you’ll ever have the strength to get back up again.”


    Instead of explaining more about those dreaded memories—the horrible thoughts of personally fighting a pokemon to the death to eat them—he moved on. “Eventually, I found a stream for water and berries to eat. Not wanting to risk myself in the forest alone, I planted the berry seeds that now make up my field. Months passed, and I bided my time for someone to help me. ‘Next week, maybe tomorrow! Someone will help me.’ I thought, yet every time, I was let down.”


    “After so many let downs, so many disappointments, you begin to lose hope. Losing hope isn’t like flipping a switch—it’s a slow, quiet unraveling. At first, you tell yourself things will get better, that you just have to hold on just a liiiiittle longer. But then, day after day, nothing changes. Absolutely nothing changes.” By now, he could feel the tears leaking from his eyes, but he needed to finish. “The weight of it settles in your chest, heavier with each passing day, until even breathing feels like a chore. The things that used to matter—like living—start to feel distant. You stop dreaming, stop planning to make your situation better, stop caring. You wake up and wonder why you even bothered with making anything at all. And the scariest part, Jocelyn? It doesn’t hurt the way you think it would. It just feels... empty. Like you’ve already given up—you just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”


    He moved his watery eyes to Jocelyn whose hands never managed to write anything in the small notebook she held. He rambled. “I met a Geodude, and sometimes I wonder what its life is like. It helped me, when nobody else did. It made me a large rocky bowl to store water in. It’s now Chatot’s birdbath.”


    Ethan looked away again. “I met Ursaring and thought that I was going to die. I met Pachirisu and fed him berries, asking him for help with digging holes for the trees to keep him around. My heart soared when he stayed around for an hour or two so I wouldn’t be alone. Eventually, I settled into a rhythm while I waited. I survived, sought out any relationships I could have, spoke to pokemon, and waited… and waited… and waited…”


    Ethan wiped his blurry wet eyes and continued, voice thick as Jocelyn began to cry. “I remember the winter. No jacket, coat, fire… a wooden shack made of leaves, wood, and what little vines I could find to solidify it into one piece. The wracking shakes and biting cold—the holes in my clothes that let the whipping winds sear my skin with lances of frost—The only clothes I had to wear for months on end, the last reminder of what I used to have.”


    He stood as he mentally tried to compose himself, knowing he was a wreck. “So, no. You don’t know me. Words will not help me. There was a time for help, but sadly that time passed long ago. Thinking that you could talk me into feeling better is insulting, and thinking that you could make the decision that I needed help is even worse.”


    He walked to the door, opening it and stepping into the hallway. “When you talk to Joyce, tell her that you guys fucked up. Find me if you need help, but otherwise, I don’t want to speak to you.” He slammed the door, leaving a sobbing Jocelyn behind.