Trigger Warning: Existential crisis and despair

Music in media: Found/Tonight by Ben Platt and Lin-Manuel Miranda

17 January, Monday, 6:30 p.m. | Winter

For a while now, the darkness had been roiling. So when she saw the blur of a green-haired giant emerge, consolation bubbled within her and burst just as quickly. All thanks to the reply.

"Icosa isn't here. It's me, N."

This was the second time she's made this mistake. Who could blame her? Both were similar in more ways than one.

But it would be better if none of them had come for her. How was she to look anyone in the eyes in her current state? Who would accept her without first deeming her a monster? Out of the perpetual darkness sprang a thousand names and more, those hideous, little things that left a foul taste in the mouth, like swallowing the bile that had shot up the throat, the lukewarm discomfort, slimy and sticky and burning.

So no, it's not about timing. Not about punctuality or tardiness. Not the tragic one second too late, one tear too many... None of that. When the words wriggled out of her being, the squeakiness sent goosebumps all about her. Her chest itched and her fingers grew numb for a short while.

This was a feeling that rarely cropped up. It had little relevance, little need to appear before her like the hissing Ekans it was.

Silence continued to swell between the duo. She wanted him to speak, but it's better if he said nothing at all. She wanted to howl till she forgot even the simplest of words and their meanings; she wanted to start a fire, go window-shopping, lick an ice-cream cone. She wanted to curse and swear and sully the darkness the way it sullied her.

"All you shitty-ass people who made me this way! Even Giratina wouldn't know how to fuck you over."

Yes, she would say something like this if she could.

No, that's what Icosa would say if he lacked restraint. She wasn't Icosa. She could hardly be considered a human now.

Yes, yes, a pitiful little one.

No, it's a stupid thing to do, pitying herself just because someone familiar had walked in on her like this, like she's some criminal locked up in the cage of time, like it's visiting hours and after this he would be gone and she would be alone again and the sand or snow or ash or whatever this thing was in the hourglass would fail to cover her and her eyes would fail to close at all and she could only stare and stare and stare at the unblinking darkness.

No, this would be something a whole other person would think and feel. These thoughts were probably injected into her headspace from somewhere else, no different all this malice and bitterness because there was no other way to label such thoughts without acknowledging how dirty they were.

She giggled. It felt like a fever dream, having a caring brother, a blissfully ignorant life, a home, a mentor, a friend, two friends, no friends... Each time a happy memory projected itself, it was simply that. A shitty projection, unreal, fictitious, estranged. She grew more and more convinced this girl named Aomine Rae must be a work of fiction, like all halcyon things.

Then this N standing before her must be a projection too. A way of gaslighting the self. Huh, that's a new word. Gaslight. Had she always known this word?

It was an impossible word, especially in this darkness. It was something ancient, something primordial... and mocking.

But this figure before her felt so real. That voice and that mist on the hourglass. They couldn't well be figments of her imagination. Right?

"Rae!"

She had responded earlier. She didn't know if she should now. Was it right to claim that name as her own? If her memory served her right - serves her right, she says! - that one syllable contained all the hope in the world. It felt wrong to desecrate something so sacred.

"I'm not Rae," she growled instead.

N, or the man masquerading as N, knocked on the hourglass but it showed no signs of cracking. Why did he have to knock? Did he plan to enter when it's already so suffocating in here?

"I'm not Rae!" She repeated herself.

By now, her claws and tail and fangs and snout all felt natural to her. To be neither fully human nor fully Pokémon felt natural to her. It should scare the wits out of her, logically speaking, but logic had shut up long ago. The longer she stayed, the longer the sand or snow or ash or whatever showered upon her, the more her humanity (was that the right word for it?) dissipated like smoke.

That young man was turning his head away now. He should have done that all along. No good came out of approaching her. She was the incarnation of bitterness and malice after all. She would bite back at every compliment and snarl at every attempt at happiness. It just felt like this was the better way to live. To be as guarded as possible, knowing the world was the screwed-up one first and foremost that made you the way you are now. If all that Team Plasma crap didn't happen, she wouldn't have tapped into this part of herself.

At this rate, she would really become plasma and shadow. Then she would find a way back to the snowy mountaincaps of Hisui, far removed from civilisation. She would dig a deep burrow and sleep in there, never to resurface again.

"Zorozoro," Mama would cry out for her and there would be fire, there would be peace, there would be ashes like snow.

"Zorozoro," cried Papa when the hail suddenly subsided and the burrow chock full of smoke.

"Zorozoro," her siblings cried one after another after another.

She wouldn't understand why they were crying like this. The smoke came from her body. It's just the illusion of destruction. It's not real. No one was created to embody destruction. That's just absurd.

But she couldn't tell anyone any of this. She was already halfway through a strange portal. All was black and grey about her, so very crammed she could hardly breathe.

And when she plopped down on the other side- no, the fall was much more painful than that. The moon was Gastly-purple. There were many moons. Blinking moons.

It stank. It was too warm.

A man in tattered clothes came up to her, his hands spread wide open like those poachers who snuffed the existence of her other siblings. That trademark smile brimming with self-assurance. That swivel of a cap. That ragged breath.

"What do I do with you at all?" This voice was different. Not N.

She glanced about her surroundings. She was at the bottom of the hourglass now and it was snowing. Real snow.

The man outside the hourglass had aged considerably. His hair was grey. His eyes were grey. So much grey.

"Well..." The man sighed, called himself Ingo and his hand passed through the glass like it was never there to begin with. "You must be bitter because you're far from home. I can't promise this place is any better, but I can take care of you if you want."

Zorozoro sniffed his hand and stepped into his palm.

He carried a strange scent. Forlorn. Stinging. Alone.

"It's the job of the ingoing train to understand tunnel vision," he said, as if that was enough to explain their situation.

Zorozoro frowned and bit his thumb, but he didn't seem to mind, only laughing like this was an endearing thing to do. Cracks formed on the glass with each wave of laughter. It grew sonorous, grew closer. It enveloped even the eventual shattering of glass. He was laughing even as crimson streaks replaced his fortune lines.

"I'm not so great a conductor, you know," said Ingo. "I can barely conduct myself properly. I should be going out of this tunnel but here we are, sitting on the tracks. I should be finding Emmet. It's funny. It isn't, but it is."

Ingo pushed his grey blades of hair behind his ear and placed his cap on Zorozoro's head.

"There. Fits perfectly, huh? You'll fit in somehow then."

"How would you know?" Zorozoro asked in staccato squeaks. She doubted the human would understand. Doubt, however, was a worse liar than expected.

She took a step forward and turned back to see footprints in the sand or snow or ashes or whatever that had piled up.

Ingo inhaled sharply and glanced at Zorozoro. "Tonight - I can't tell if it's night at all, but it certainly feels like it - we will keep each other company. For so many years I was relying on Emmet for a way out. When I was in Hisui, I had to make a way out by myself. I became a warden, a leader to people and Pokémon alike. And believe it or not, I had it within me all along. The way out, I mean.

"And so do you."

Ingo patted Zorozoro and shook her paw. He beamed. She looked past him. She thought she saw a sign flickering in the dark, neon green, beckoning her to "EXIT".

Exit she did.

One paw in front of the other.

Then the paw became a hand, a foot. Then she could no longer feel the wind swishing against her hind legs. Then she was clothed in a snuggly fabric. Then something long fell from her head which wasn't smoke at all. Then she was in a field of flowers. Then her former Zorua self was there on all fours, mirroring her even as she glanced left and right. Then it felt weird to be on all fours. Then standing felt way more comfortable, as if lifting herself off the field meant lifting a burden off her soul.

"Where..."

Her wordlessness was assurance enough.

"You're out at last," said Zorozoro, which only made her blink. "We are really separate now."

She blinked again. Dusted herself.

"This... Is this really it?"

Zorozoro huffed. "Yes, Rae. And I... I'm sorry. And thank you."

The Hisuian Zorua's words warmed her heart. Perhaps this was one way, albeit obscure, of bonding. That must have been what Zorozoro had experienced back then.

Instead, she said, "Did you just call me Rae?"

She called herself by her own name, adjusted to the lone syllable that wasn't no longer alone now, and frowned. All that bitterness and disgust seemed to have dissolved- no, receded into the depths of her being. What she had just experienced was as much her own feelings as they were Zorozoro's. The side of herself that she was quite unacquainted with. It still felt iffy knowing she was capable of all this... sorrow. The loneliness she had known must have intensified all along, waiting for her acknowledgement. She called herself by her own name again. Just once more.

Yes. She was Aomine Rae, alright.

"But this place... It can't be Driftveil City," she mumbled. "It feels familiar, somehow."

"It's the Dream World," said Zorozoro. "But we can't leave yet."

"Why not?"

Zorozoro handed Rae a black and white cap between his teeth, then motioned to the tuft of green lurking in the flower field.

Rae squinted at the tuft and gradually made out what seemed to be a human hand. Her memory of the darkness came up to her in bits and pieces, a little fuzzy and overwhelming, but just enough to piece together the situation.

"N!" She gasped and fell onto her knees. Shaking him, however, proved to be ineffective. "How long has he been out like this?"

"I don't know. There's no clock here," said Zorozoro. "We just have to wait for him to come to."

"Will we be stuck here again?"

"I don't know."

Silence.

Giggles.

Two shadows leaning against each other.

"I shouldn't have said all those hurtful things."

"And I should have been more understanding."

"So... Will I become like that Zoroark we met in the woods or will I be like Mama and Papa?"

"Your Mama and Papa? Growing up doesn't change your genes."

"Oh."

"Do you think we can talk like this once we wake up?"

"I don't know. But that man... I think I can talk to him."

"Yes."

"Then remember my name. I'm Natural Harmonia Gropius, but call me N."

Rae and Zorozoro turned to the third voice and shared a smile.

"Are you..."

"Yes, Rae, I'm fine." N managed a small smile.

The trio sat in the middle in the field and looked up at the Musharna-purple sky.

Rae clutched his hand. "Thank you, N."

"You should thank yourself."

The sky parted like drawn curtains. A quaint light poured over them. When it faded, they were back in the living room, Rae lying on the sofa, Zorozoro coiled up on her lap, and N stretched out on the floor, his head by the leg of the coffee table.

Footsteps rang across the floor, followed by mutters of ecstasy as Anthea and Concordia rushed into the room.

"We heard a—" Anthea paused at the sight.

Concordia collapsed into her sister's arms. "Why, this is a relief!"

"Thank you for your care." Rae nodded at them.

"Are you leaving already?" Anthea gasped. "You should rest! Besides, where will you spend the night?"

"It's quite unsafe with the lullaby ongoing," added Concordia.

Rae's eyes widened at the mention of the lullaby. Yes, that was what she was here for. To end it once and for all.

But she couldn't bring herself to impose on the kind sisters and N any further. She had people out there who must be worried sick of her. She could only imagine their panic.

She glanced at Zorozoro who shot her an encouraging grin.

Right, her Pokémon must be waiting for her too.

"I have to go." She rose from the sofa and stopped herself. "Umm... Is it right for me to ask this?"

"You have a right to ask us whatever you want," said N.

Rae looked between them. "Well, I know N was asleep since he's in the Dream World with us... But if you're both awake, does that mean the lullaby's effects have worn off?"

Anthea and Concordia glanced at each other. It didn't take long for them to decide to spill the truth about their affiliations with Team Plasma to the girl. She probably didn't know anything when they found her outside. Semi-conscious, perhaps.

Certainly, her memory was hazy but she remembered her friends were awake too. It was all too confusing. Her friends were not at all related to Team Plasma.

"It's impossible to fight the Gym Leader then?"

"It is possible," said N as he finally got up. "It's just as likely the whole of Driftveil is awake. You just have to open the door to find out."

Rae nodded, thanked them once more and promised to drop by again if she could.

With Zorozoro by her side, she opened the door.

They stepped out into a street bustling with life.