Learning to Heal the Hurt – Book I: Fire Red
A Pokemon Fanfiction by Saya
Chapter 1: The Hurt

It was all my fault.

‘No it isn’t’, other people tried telling me, ‘It was just an unfortunate accident. You had nothing to do with it’. I couldn’t listen to them. I knew there had to have been something I could’ve done to prevent this tragedy! Yet, unknowingly, I had done nothing to help the matter. It was because of one of my actions that this had happened, and I knew it too. Because of it my mother was dead, and there was nothing I could do about that. The accident had happened a full seven days ago, but the horrible images still refused to be banished from my mind, no matter how hard I tried, torturing my dreams. No one had been able to console and comfort me in the last week. I did not want pity; I wanted revenge.

Saturday, June 5th had started out as a wonderfully warm day, the temperature resting in the low eighties, and the sun caressing the world below with its soft, golden fingers. I had been standing in the small plot of grass I called a yard at the front of my house, fully enjoying the first day of summer vacation. School had let out only the previous day, and I was marveling at my newfound freedom.

Deri Kemp, one of my best friends, had set out on a Pokemon journey the hour school let out, with another of my friends, Reenie Amier. He had been planning this journey and departure with his parents for weeks, and was barely able to sit still on the last day of the school year. I couldn’t blame him. Pokemon training had been Deri’s passion for years. When we were younger, Reenie, Deri and I had spent hours planning out all the exciting adventures we’d have together when Deri turned thirteen, the minimum age requirement for a Pokemon trainer. Deri’s parents were forever complaining about the minimum age for Pokemon trainers. According to them the youngest you were allowed to start a Pokemon journey had been fifteen when they were kids, and the age had been rapidly decreasing ever since. ‘Before you know it’, Deri’s dad always told us, ‘we’ll have ten year olds rushing around Hoenn proclaiming they’re Pokemon trainers!’ We’d always scoffed at this.

Reenie and I had never shared Deri’s passion for Pokemon training, but we both loved adventure. So, we agreed to accompany him when he was old enough to start. Though, when the time came for Deri to actually leave, I found that my summer jobs, and weekly earnings, were a much-needed addition to my mother’s monthly wages. Money had been an issue in my household all my life, but never as severely as this. So, unable to leave my mother alone to fend for herself, I’d forced myself not to go with them, or join into Reenie and Deri’s constant planning sessions. It almost made me sad to think of my two best friends away on some exciting journey with out me. I knew, though, that my mother came first, and nothing could change that.

I lived in a small neighborhood directly outside of the busy streets of Sandar City, Hoenn. Sandar wasn’t a ridiculously large city, as Rustboro, Mossdeep, and Slateport were, but to me it was the largest group of buildings I’d ever seen stacked together in one place. Each house in my neighborhood stood barely two feet from its neighbor, with only a tiny plot of grass in the front and back of the place. Reenie lived only a few blocks to the north of me, and her yard was about three times the size of mine. Naturally, I’d spent most of my childhood romping with Reenie and her four brothers around their yard. Deri lived a little farther away, but could always reach us within a fifteen-minute bike ride that became shorter as the years passed and we grew up.

On that terrible day of June 5th, unknown to me, I’d left the front door of my house slightly ajar in my haste to get outside. That was when everything began to go wrong. After taking a few deep breaths of the fresh summer air, I’d turned around and begun to head back inside, where the air was cooler. Stepping inside I’d been just in time to catch the first glimpse of my mother coming down the steps to the foyer from the second story of our house. She had two huge baskets balanced precariously on her hips, one of laundry, one of other various household items.

“Oh, Talia!” She’d said, smiling at me as she began to descend the steps, “I have something for…” Those were the last words she ever spoke to me. From there, it all happened so fast that even now I barely can recall what happened. All I remember is the sharp yap of a Pokemon, and a brown blur rushing up the steps toward my mother’s feet. Before I had time to call out a warning she’d blundered right into the creature.

The harsh, guttural cries of a Pokemon rang out across the room, almost drowning out the surprised shout from my mother, before she tripped over the small, brown striped figure at her feet, and plummeted downward. The full baskets of clothing and inanimate objects prohibited her from catching herself on the wall or the banister. If she hadn’t been carrying the baskets, her life might’ve been saved.

With one last terrified shout, my mother tumbled headfirst down the stairway, entangled in the small Pokemon that had tripped her. The sickening crack of a human skull against hard tile resonated throughout the room, leaving only a deafening silence, broken by the pitiful cries of “Zig! Zigzagoon!” from the terrified Pokemon, in its wake. I stood there, utterly immobile, my limbs frozen in shock and numb terror. Aliana O’Connel lay in a twisted position, a position I was sure was unnatural for any normal human being. She wasn’t moving at all, her chestnut hair masking her face, and I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing or not. Clothing, towels and bed sheets, pens, paper, toys and loose change lay scattered all over the floor and stairs, debris from the baskets she’d been carrying when she fell.

I couldn’t move, could barely even breathe, as those horrible images kept playing and replaying themselves in my mind. I didn’t even know what condition she was in; if she was alive, seriously injured or…dead. The Zigzagoon struggled shakily to its feet, gazing terrorized at the scene around it. Snapping back to my senses I turned, screaming kicking, waving my arms madly, and chased the Pokemon from my house. It had injured my mother. I could not have it running around my house unhurt while my mother was not! Utterly exhausted, bone-weary and terror stricken, unable to do anything, I sank down onto my knees, and stared dumbly at nothing.

The shouts of my mother and the cries of the Pokemon must’ve carried out to the neighbor’s house, because the next thing I knew Judy Sullivan, my high school aged neighbor, had poked her head through the front door. A sharp gasp escaped her lips, and the next thing I knew people were rushing about, ordering me left and right. Barely minutes later an ambulance came roaring up to our front door, and carted my mother away in a balloon of light and roaring sound. I could not think, couldn’t even comprehend what had happened.

When Mrs. Amier, who had taken the time to come and be with me, to comfort me, though I would not respond to anything she said, gently took me aside and told me the horrifying news I fell into a vortex of my own world. I couldn’t think, couldn’t make contact with anyone outside myself. My mother, my caring beautiful mother had died. The fall had killed her. She’d felt no pain.

The next week passed in a whirling blur of faces, each paying their respects over my mother’s death, each attempting to comfort me. Behind that mask of caring and sorrow I could sense a relief, a kind of pity, that the orphan girl standing before them was not their own child. I hated them for that. The only ones who might’ve been able to comfort me in the week immediately following my mother’s death would’ve been Reenie and Deri, my best friends. They, alas, were away on a journey at the time. I didn’t even know if they knew about her death.

I could barely keep myself on my feet after my mother’s death. I could barely comprehend what was going on, and it was only later that I realized what had been happening during that week. The funeral processions were carried out, none of which I saw with my unseeing eyes, locked in my own world, and Aliana O’Connel was placed beneath the surface as her final destination in this life. Mrs. Amier, Mrs. Kemp and Deri’s younger sisters, Ruth and Yaliana, had taken full control of my life, my house and my belongings, reading through my mother’s will, with the help of a lawyer, and organizing the distribution of our tiny ‘fortune’. In all that time I didn’t help them. In all that time not one single tear fell from my eyes. I was in a complete state of shock.

This morning I’d stepped out of the Kemps house, without telling anybody where I was heading as I didn’t even know myself, and began to walk. It didn’t take me long before I finally found myself standing in the sidewalk by my house, the place I had lived peacefully only a week before with my mother. I just stood there, dumbly staring up at the small gray-sided structure, torturing memories releasing themselves on my unprotected mind. As I’d stared up at the house I had this strange urge, this sudden need, for revenge. Though I knew it had been my fault my mother had died, and my life had changed forever, I wanted revenge on something. I wanted something to blame, beside myself, for this catastrophe that had befallen my family. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do anything. Someone had to pay.

My thoughts immediately flashed back to the terrible day, and that tiny streak of brown catapulting towards my mother’s descending figure; the shocked expression registering in her pretty face as she fell; the ugly cries of the Pokemon afterward, calling out in its pain beside my mother’s still figure. It had been the cause of my pain, and it would pay dearly. Not just that tiny, insignificant Zigzagoon, but also the whole species of Pokemon.

Anger began to seethe up into my mind, blotting out all other thought. Pokemon would pay for what they had done to me, for what they had done to my mother. I would make sure of that. Blinded by rage, I stumbled around to the side of my house, struggling to keep myself under control. I would leave this place, this place of misery and death. I couldn’t stay here any longer. I had to leave.

Grabbing my bicycle I wheeled it out onto the driveway, and, without even bothering to strap on my helmet, I took off, peddling as fast as I could onto the street. People milled about the sidewalk on the first sunny day of the summer, enjoying the sunshine with their friends or families. At least, I thought bitterly, they actually had families to enjoy it with. Bitterness and anger swelled inside me, powered with the recent wound over my mother’s death. I rode through the crowded city streets, heedless of the passersby milling around me, shouting at me to watch out or slow down. I didn’t listen to them, as I was lost too deep into my own problems.

Why did this have to happen to me? What had I ever done to deserve this? I had led a completely innocent life as far as I was concerned. I hadn’t done anything terribly wrong, but now my mother was mercilessly ripped from me! I wasn’t ready to lose her yet! I still needed her, relied on her for most of my needs! I was angry at the world, angry with everyone and everything, but most of all, I was angry with Pokemon. They had to pay.

I rode for what seemed like hours, the wind whipping my dusty brown hair around my face. I flew through the city of Sandar, Hoenn, the place I had lived all my life. Many people knew me here, but not many would care about my recent loss. The world was a vast, uncaring place. I would learn that the hard way in the weeks to come.

Only once I had reached the outskirts of Sandar City did I begin to tire out, my leg muscles beginning to feel the strain of riding for hours. The sun was high overhead by this time, blazing down on my lone figure. Fatigue began to take my sweat-laden body, and I slowly began to lessen my speed.

Without warning, my bike wheel struck a hump in the otherwise smooth cement of the road, totally taking me by surprise. Before I could do anything to stop myself I was flying over the handlebars of my bike, and sprawling onto the road. Pain erupted in my head and leg through my sudden tears, and I quickly scrabbled to my feet, tears streaming down my face. Surveying the damage done from the fall I found that my arms, face and legs were covered in tiny scrapes and blood. My knee was bleeding heavily.

Crying, I stumbled off the road, leaving my damaged bike behind, and made a break for the forest. I had to get out of here, had to get out of this cursed place I had lived in for years. My mother was dead; there was nothing left in life for me anymore. I was only one small, unimportant girl, left to the horrible cruelty of the world.

Stumbling a few more feet into the forest I fell to the ground, my whole body aching, and entirely exhausted. My tears suddenly began to fall faster, and harder than before. They quickly elevated into sobs, wracking my whole body with grief, anger and pain. I shook, letting myself cry. I hadn’t cried in the week since my mother’s death, but I couldn’t stop myself now. I needed to cry. My mother was gone forever, but I was out to get revenge.