One Week to Change: Epilogue
#12 of One Week to Change.
Epilogue
All I could feel was cold. The tips of my paws... The air in my lungs... The light in my eyes... Everything, meant nothing. This wasn't what I wanted, I wanted to go home and lay down on my pure white cushion looking across the small gap between Nion and myself where our food bowls lived. Looking at the one who had caused me to lose my freedom, but gain a life... A meaning... A place to be accepted... I- I had thrown it all away. Just because of some stupid reason to believe that I was stronger. Why couldn't I realise my mistake before it began? I had thought about it days before, but I couldn't come up with anything that said it was the right thing to do. All thoughts of our engagement ended up with me in trouble... Why couldn't I listen to the voice of reason?
Because I didn't have one...
I had thought about it, but nothing came through. My life had been changed so dramatically in such a short amount of time that I couldn't bring myself to think of the right thing to do. There was only one right thing... And that was to call it off.
But I didn't. I stood, I fought... And I lost.
I lost the only thing that had ever meant anything to me. I lost the one that had, despite all my thoughts, accepted me as who I was, regardless of what I had said or done. Nion had gone out of his way to make me feel comfortable and at home... When all I did was attack, threaten and... And...
I opened my eyes, The last thing I remember was crawling onto a cushion in the corner of Nion's room after Draye had thrown me across the room. After that, I had no reason to think. Not that I had a choice in the matter.
I was still curled up, possibly on the same cushion as before, but I wasn't in the Pokémon centre. I was moving. I glanced around slowly finding Draye to my left between the thin slits of something... I looked right to see nothing but black, and through what I assumed was the main opening, was a solid grate. I stretched my paws out, pressing against the cold steel, feeling my claws slip through the metal.
"Stop it!" I heard Draye call as the container I was trapped in rumbled with an exploding impact, almost deafening my newly awakened ears.
I immediately pulled my paws back onto the cushion. Nothing could prepare me for what I saw next. But underneath my paws, was the vibrant yellow that as all too familiar. Nion! I was bumped into the air for a moment, then came back down onto the soft yellow cushion that my now... Dead... Friend slept on. I closed my eyes, trying to rid myself of the horrors that had owned my dreams for the unknown number of days I was unconscious.
Nion. I wedged my eyes tighter as tears began to emerge. He was really gone. And it was my fault... All my fault... If only I hadn't of brought up the idea... If only I had of forgotten about it and just stayed at the river... If only...
There was another jolt and my cage shifted left slightly as we took a right turn. I didn't know where we were going, but I assumed that by the size of the inside I could see, I assumed we were in one of the metal transports humans use. We could be going home... How far was it from home to the Pokémon centre? I traced my thoughts back to when I was first captured, and despised but Nion and Draye until my final breath... But it wasn't me who...
Stop it!
I took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm my nerves. I remember walking with Draye past four roads, then turning left on the fifth, only to continue for another three.
Left...
We turned right...
Maybe it was another route. We were going home... But it wouldn't take that long to get home... And why was I put in a cage with Nion's old... Nion's cushion. Draye had already been home... Maybe he brought it with him to try and comfort me...
But it wasn't a long trip... And why was I held captive like in a ball? But not in a ball? I looked towards my right, following the brown side up until it was clear. I saw nothing but the clear blue sky, dotted with few light clouds. Occasionally there was a tree-top, but otherwise, there was nothing.
I was lost... But Draye was with me... He wouldn't do me wrong. I'm his pokémon... He wouldn't do anything to his only-... Pokémon...
* * *
I awoke with a start... My world was shaking as I was lifted up and taken outside the metal contraption.
"Wait here... I won't be long." I heard Draye say to the other human quietly. He turned around, allowing for me to have a view of the landscape. Green and grey were the main two colours. The green of long grass, and grey of the rocky cliff-face that was the backdrop. There was an occasional tree or two as I was spun around, but I couldn't help but have the feeling that something wasn't right. That something was happening that I didn't know about.
My cage shook back and forth as Draye walked towards a sign that read '
Scenic Route
'. As I looked up the trail that lead skywards, I couldn't help but realise where I was. Home.
The calls of the Staravia that never ceased came back to my mind, as I picked up the all too familiar sound. He couldn't... Draye couldn't release me... Not here... Not now... I was the... His... Only Pokémon... The one who caused the death of his first and only.
Draye climbed the mountain-side... The track veered from the edge of the mountain into the cave, but Draye ignored the track, climbing over the fence and taking me around behind the rocks that had provided cover from intruders, and shelter from the elements. The wind was cool, but it wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before, nothing I wasn't new to... Nothing I hadn't experienced before.
Draye walked on for several minutes. Ducking below branches and weaving between previously fallen boulders from past storms that I could so vividly remember. I was set down at a scene that was all too familiar. The rocky peak where I had once spent my days doing nothing, and that was about to become my life again.
Draye set me down and unlatched the metal grate. I lay low, sticking as best I could against the yellow cushion. I didn't want to move. I wanted to stay and live with Draye.
"You leave me no choice Luyo." His voice was soft and strained, barely audible over the gusty winds. "I can't look at you without seeing Nion. And it's not the memory I want to have."
I still stuck as low as I could. Deafened by Draye's words. Whether I liked it or not. I was home again. And that wasn't something I ever wanted. I was happy with Nion... But now I have nothing again.
* * *
Epilogue Part 2
(One Week Later)
My life has since returned to normal, aside from one difference. Nion was all my mind thought of. I missed him more than I ever thought I would, but it was something I couldn't stray from.
Several hundred feet away was my cave. Exactly how I had involuntarily left it, and forcibly returned to. I had little to no choice in anything that had transpired over the previous week, and the only choice I ever had was the wrong one.
Life was cruel and I was left alone in the world much as how I'd begun. I stayed overlooking route 211 all day, and retired to sleep on Nion's cushion wherever I chose to put it.
I would continue my life like this forever if I had to, I only wished that I could undo all the damage I had done. I had taken a life. I had destroyed a family. I was everything the myths and legends had described me to be. The bringer of bad luck and misfortune.
I secluded myself from the world like I had done before my life was changed. I didn't deserve to live any other way than how I do now. Cold. Alone. Miserable. The three words that describe my kind. All I could hope for was that no-one would ever find me again. But again, I yearned to be found again. To be taken in and cared for. To be accepted and wanted as what I was. To have another chance at life outside what I knew.
But if that chance came again. I wouldn't make the same mistake. I wouldn't put myself before others. I wouldn't try to prove myself against anything else. I wouldn't be myself.
Because all I did was destroy lives. And it wasn't something I wanted to do again.
Nion...
His name still spoke through my mind.
Goodbye Nion. I will never forget you.
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Ok..... That was it.... What I believe to be my best piece of work.....
Let me know what you think..... And as for the second actual reason I put this story up is because I have a request....
Might someone, (anyone really) with any artistic talent create an image of the painting Draye had? The one described in the earlier chapters? I can't remember which ones... It's been a while since I've read-over this....
But.... yeah..... Hope you liked that.... (If you couldn't figure it out the ORIGINAL plan was for the story to be happy-cheery.... like all too much is in this world... But, I made it like real-life... Because, honestly,(and you can read the notes on my FF.net copy of this...) I was the Luxray... and I killed myself.... [figuratively]....)
Anyway, I'll end this now... because that last bit probably doesn't make sense.....
Thank you for your time