The Long and Winding Road
By: BetterButterBuddha
Chapter 6: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

June 25th, 2000 Valencia Island

My heart pumped faster and faster as I ran with poliwag in my arms. The tadpole pokemon was still deeply hurt; he was slipping in and out of consciousness. I pressed hard against his chest to slow the blood flow. The river it once resembled was quelled by my efforts, but that wasn’t my main concern. This wound would leave poliwag vulnerable to infections, so the pokemon center would be the only place to heal him fully. I continued to run.

As my legs took me on the path back to the city, my mind began to wander. I thought mainly about the future. Not the near future, like tomorrow or next week, but the far future. Mostly the eleven or so months we had until the ocean’s currents stopped. Would it really be the end? Where to look? I thought about the man in Calset Island. I once took the opportunity to look at a map of Orange Islands. Calset Island is small, and unpopulated. The expert on legendary pokemon would probably be a hermit, I thought to myself. Would the man even have any insight? Could he even help me? The most important thought I had was the fact that after I went to see him, there would be nobody else I could rely on. It would be up to me.

These thoughts continued as I entered the pokemon center. I ran down the corridor to the Emergency Room, past the trainers who were chatting, and the nurses who were walking from door to door, checking their patients and adjusting sensitive medical equipment. I only became concerned with the here and now when I came to the nurse at the front desk.

“Nurse,” I said, “I need to see a doctor. My poliwag was severely injured in a fight against an enraged rhyhorn. He’s been bleeding from his chest for the past fifteen minutes. I pressed against the wound to help slow the blood flow, but I need medical help. Poliwag needs it.” I showed poliwag to the nurse. He was still unconscious, but he looked to be in slightly better shape.

“I see what you mean. Give him to me; we’ll take care of him. We’ve got a good team of doctors here, and he’ll be fine,” she said. Her efforts to console fell on deaf ears. My mind agreed with her, but my heart was anxious and afraid. Poliwag had become a friend to me, and I would feel awful if anything bad ever happened to me. I remembered the few hours before the accident, and how much he enjoyed himself. Doing so only made my feeling of fear for him increase, but it made me feel better at the same time.

The nurse had already summoned a blissey to get a stretcher for poliwag while they tended to his wounds. Joy set poliwag’s still body against the board of the stretcher, and headed towards the operating room.

“Joy,” I inquired, “will you be doing surgery? I know poliwag is hurt, but is he hurt that badly?”

“No, we’ll only be helping to heal his wounds. We will probably give him some antibiotics, and maybe if the head doctor judges that he needs it, we’ll feed him a blissey egg, or some miltank milk. Both are very nutritious, and the both have a natural chemical that boosts the subject’s immune system. Poliwag will be fine. There won’t even be a scar. Don’t worry. Now if you’ll excuse me, we need to get into the operating room,” she said. Her voice had an underlying tone of sincerity, as well as a tone of empathy. Poliwag was going to get better. I headed off in the waiting room.

So I waited. I read magazines, studied my pokedex, and constantly inquired to the nurse at the desk how poliwag was. Every time it was the same answer, “the treatment is still in process.” I sat back down every time.

I glanced at the clock. It was ten at night. I looked back at the reception center to notice another nurse whisper something in the receptionist’s ear.

“Vincent Castaneda? Please come to the front desk,” she said. I obeyed, and went up to hear what she had to say.

“Your poliwag is fine. The wound wasn’t deep. Poliwag’s unconsciousness was probably not due to blood loss, but to shock. Having an animal as large as a rhyhorn plow into you is defiantly a justifiable reason to faint. We gave him several antibiotics, and put him to sleep in the infirmary. He’ll be fine; you can visit him tomorrow morning. But for now, I suggest that you get some sleep. We provide free beds for all pokemon trainers. Do you know the way?” she informed me. I was totally relieved that he was alright. I was also thankful for the chance to sleep.

I nodded my head, and headed for the bedroom in the back. I put my pajamas on, and looked at the mirror quickly. The man looking back was tired and weary, but he looked responsible. I set the pokeball containing rhyhorn on the bureau, and climbed into bed. Sleep soon came upon me, and dreams followed closely after.

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The first image that I noticed was at first peaceful, but after I contemplated its meaning, it became disturbing and lurid. I was out on the edge of a dock, and looking out at the ocean. It was sunset in my dream’s imagery, and the beautiful reflection bounced off of the waters edge as it always had and presumably always would. The waters on which it reflected were very serene; too serene. Nature is not that perfect. There are always flaws and imperfections; that is what makes nature perfect. A feeling of impending dread rushed over me as I realized that I was gazing upon a waveless ocean.

My dreamed self was then compelled to jump into the water. I could not see anything, but that didn’t seem especially important. The thing that frightened me was that I could here nothing. If you’ve ever ducked your head into the water at a beach, you’ve heard a steady droning; that noise is the water currents moving from underneath the sea. I continued to swim.

I went far out into the ocean. My arms were tireless, and they felt no pain from exhausted. A fleeting feeling of immortality came over me. Once I was far enough out that I could not see the land, I felt an urge to go under the water. I did so, and then continued to drop down under the depths.

The normal feeling of pressure against one’s ears that you would expect was not present. I did not need to breathe either. I could swim like a deep sea fish, or possibly a whale. I continued down.

Finally I came to a point where my urges to continue deeper were satisfied. I floated there for a moment to take it all in. The water was so deep that one could see nothing. No light shone this far down. Here, there was no up or down because there was no point to judge by. I might have been moving, but if I was, then I couldn’t notice it. Images of slightly bioluminescent microorganisms flashed before my eyes.

Suddenly, I heard something. It was an eerie sound, but it was incredibly loud. My chest vibrated from the immense reverberations of this ghostly song from the deep sea. It was a sad song, it lamented with a barrage of flat, bitter notes and a minor key. The song moved me, and as it continued, I began to cry. The water of my tears mixed in with the oceans, but my sadness remained.

My own intrapersonal lamenting was soon interrupted by the presence of something white in front of me. It was moving slowly, and it had an ethereal pattern to its motions. I strained to see it, but as I did so, I could feel myself slipping, slipping out of this dream.

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Poliwag looked just as good as he ever had. He was awake this morning, and he seemed totally refreshed. There wasn’t even a scar, just like nurse Joy had said.

“Poli, poliwag!” he said, excited to see me after such an experience. His eyes shone brightly with the promise of a new day. He was obviously glad to be alive.

“Poliwag, you look great!” I said. “How do you feel? Are you ready to go to a new island? Apparently, we’ve got a boat, so we should leave as soon as possible. Are you feeling up to it?”

“Poli!” he informed me. I didn’t really know what he said, but as he said it, his cheeks flushed, and he wagged his tail. Since most people obviously cannot understand pokemon speech, trainers relied on experience to help them understand their pokemon. I had learned to interpret some of poliwag’s body motions as a language of its own, and I could now understand some of the basic things he said. The movement he just did meant something along the lines of, “Let’s go!”

“Alright, then,” I said. I withdrew poliwag back into his pokeball and put him into my pocket. I grabbed my stuff in the boarding rooms, and then walked out the door.

The catamaran was just where Blue had told me it might be. It seemed to be waiting for me; it was right up against the docks in the port. It shone a brightly colored blue in the daylight, and I could not help that maybe Blue was a little bit narcissistic in his choice of color. A catamaran normally has two parts that lie in the water with a platform or a cockpit connecting the two semi-boats. This one was no exception, except for one thing. It could be powered with either sail or electric motor. That would probably be useful in the future, given the somewhat variable weather the Orange Archipelago is famous for. I climbed into the cockpit, and maneuvered it out of the docks.

Once we were out at sea, I opened the cockpit and caught a whiff of the fresh ocean air. I let poliwag out into the ocean to play for sometime. As I watched poliwag play, I noticed the beautiful day, and thought to myself, “This is a world worth saving.”