Pokemon: Game

Title: Game
Fandom: Pokemon
Characters: Red
Rating: PG
Summary: Red comes to realize that his world doesn't seem real.
Word Count: About 1400 words

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“What a shame, he could have really made something of himself.”

“He’s just so heartless he doesn’t even want to be near people!”

“What do you mean, I thought he just went up there to train?”

“He was just a kid then, you think he wanted all that stress?”

So many assumptions, so little time. The one about him being cold and heartless was most popular, especially since he had stopped speaking for a while now. But no one knew the truth. Not even his friends, not even his mother, not even his childhood friend. His friends have long since stopped talking to him. His mother sends him letters, and he would reply with a sentence saying he’s fine; the only sign that he was still alive. But even then there were skeptical people who theorized that someone else was replying, but they didn’t care enough to prove Red was dead.

Only two people cared enough, one being his mother. The other was his childhood friend; Green. The brunette had long forgotten any anger pent up towards the former champion, and he simply put the past behind him as he ran his own gym. He was the only one who ever scaled Mt. Silver for a reason other than to battle the former champion. Green would visit Red every week and bring him food and other supplies. He would head there, complain about the cold or the hike he made, then finally accept Red ignoring him before setting down the food and supplies and going home.

Green would be the only one to know the truth behind Red’s silence. He went on the same journey as Red and experienced the same horrors, if not more. And yet not even Green knew why Red truly left society, gave up championship and human contact. Green had tried to guess; maybe Red was afraid of people after all he had been through? Maybe he realized he didn’t want all the stress that came with championship and tried to escape it? Maybe he was just tired with the world? Green couldn’t be certain of any of these assumptions, and he didn’t ask Red about it. He had given up trying to guess why Red stayed at the top of the mountain.

Many assumed Red was up there because only the strongest of trainers would dare scale the mountain to face him. But even that assumption was wrong. Red didn’t enjoy the battles from those challengers. They always lost, and they would cuss him out or call him a freak. And Red would continue to remain silent. And those challengers would continue to come, lose, and say rotten things about him when they came down from the mountain. The only battle worthwhile he had was with a trainer even more arrogant than Green ever was, and he still lost. But none of that mattered. Red wasn’t there for the battles.

Red knew something no one else did. It was a fact that everyone refused to accept, and a fact that Red never knew how to accept. It was this fact that made Red realize what the world really was. The world wasn’t a wonderful place full of miraculous things. The world wasn’t an evil place full of dark things. The world wasn’t even a thing. It wasn’t real. Red didn’t understand it, and he had long given up trying to understand it. He had also given up trying to tell people, because they brushed off his words like nothing and continued living their lives. No one cared. Maybe because they weren’t real either. But what did that make Red?

It had all happened a while ago, sometime during Red’s Pokemon journey. Where was he when he found out? It was obviously by a forest, but he had several badges at that point, didn’t he? It was the turning point, the real turning point. It’s what truly made Red silent. When was that? Before or after the incidents with Team Rocket? Before or after Red found out Green’s Radicate had died at his hands? Was it before or after people started spreading rumors about how cruel Red apparently was? Red couldn’t remember. All that mattered was that he found out.

One day, he’d just been wandering through a forest. He had been on a path. He broke through some trees, aiming to find a shortcut.  But the trees stopped after a while. The grass stopped. The ground stopped. The sky stopped. It all stopped. It just all ended. The whole world ended. It cut off into sheer blackness that just kept going and going. It had scared Red so much that he left the forest immediately and headed to the nearest town. He tried to tell people what he saw, and he described it as the world just cutting off into nothingness. And no one believed him. A few people acted concerned for a bit, but then ignored him.

It was then Red began to notice things. Why did everyone always follow paths, never going over bushes or fences or through trees? Why were the only people in water swimmers out in the ocean? Why couldn’t Red ever swim like them, why did he have to have a Pokemon Surf for him? Why didn’t people swim outside where there were rocks? Why did every building look the same, every tree and flower identical? Why did the world look like everything was just copied and pasted over and over again? Why did people often say the same things, or talk along the same subjects? Why did Professor Oak only ask about Red’s Pokedex everytime they spoke?

Red noticed all of these details everywhere he went, to everyone he spoke to. It was all the exact same, everywhere he went. And the blackness was still there. Everytime Red went off a path the blackness was there. And one day, when Red threw a rock out at the open blackness, it came back. Or to phrase it better, it re-spawned exactly where Red had picked it up. And battles started seeming the same too. Why was it every trainer was always weaker than Red, even gym leaders and the Elite Four? Why is it only very few people ever actually improved in their training?

It was as if someone simply created the world without putting much work into it, like it only had one purpose. And Red was the center of this world. He was the strongest. He caught all the Pokemon. There was no one stronger than him and he never lost. It was as if the world was only an illusion made for him to believe he was a real human. An illusion made to keep him going through life. But he knew the truth, and he no longer fell for the illusion. He knew nothing was real. And to make matters even worse for him, he found that Green and his own mother weren’t real either. But he had to admit, whoever made this world did a good job with Green. Red actually thought he could be real too.

But there was one day Red took Green to the blackness, to show what he had found. To prove something was wrong with the world. But what did Green do back then? He looked at Red, smirked, said ‘Smell ya later!’ and left like absolutely nothing was wrong with the image. That made Red certain that Green wasn’t real either. And Red hated that. Why was it only him who knew this? Why did everyone else blatantly ignored what was right infront of them? Why did everyone not deny it, rather they just ignored it? Why did Red have to be stuck with this horrible truth?

Oh, but he knew why. It was all about him. He was the strongest. Only he mattered. Everything revolved around him. Everyone else was weak because only he was allowed to be strong. It was like he was trapped in a void, made for someone else’s entertainment. It was like he was inside a game. Everyone and everything was programmed to do the same things day in and day out. Maybe Red had been programmed wrong. Maybe he was a code that didn’t belong. Or maybe he was a real human trapped within. Either way, if this was a game, then Red didn’t want to play anymore.