Dong. Dong. Dong. Three tolls of a bell.

The edge of a lake, a lake raining blood.

The monster crunches down on me, and I scream hard, blood gurgling in my throat. I try to break free, savage bolts of lightning spitting off in every direction.The Gyarados drops me, howling in pain, and my bloody, broken body rolls up to Bronze's feet. I'm so cold... and I can't move. Everything is cold and wet and-

Bronze, his fire extinguished, runs over to me. His eyes are the beautiful copper color I fell in love with, and now they're wide with shock and pain. "Bronze?" I whisper, the words hurting in my mouth.

"Yes. It will be okay. You'll be okay. I promise. I promise. I-"

I shake my head, searing pain shooting through me. Just a few more words, please..."I knew, Bronze."

"You did? About the-"

"Bronze, I love you... please don't forget me, okay?" With the last bit of my energy, I run my bloodied hand along his face, smiling one last time for him. It's so shaky, and I can barely see the blood as my vision blurs over.

"She's not dead." Bronze says, turning to me. "She can't be."

The words echo as they fade away with the rain, and I can feel my heartbeat stop. A million years or a second could've passed in that darkness. I just wasn't. No breathing, no heartbeat, no anything. Just the darkness.

Then suddenly, my eyes widened for the first time in what could've been anything. Gray light streamed through them, and I got up, the feelings foreign, like walking for the first time. I walked towards the light, and suddenly I was back. The lake was non-existent now- just a hole in gray ground. No grass, all just gray dirt. The only tree still standing was skeletal and looked almost like a hand, reaching towards the sky, begging for mercy.

I looked up at the sky, and then my eyes grew even wider, the pupils dilated in fear. The sky was gone. Darkness. Pure black with no stars, nothing but blue lines running across it.

"Too late." I hear a metallic voice call.

I look forwards to see my sister, but at the same time, a chill runs up my spine. This is not my sister. Her eyes are empty black voids. "Sis?"

"Second chances."

A white textbox appears in front of me. I have two answers- yes and no. Confused, I press no, my yellow fur glimmering in the gray, dead light.

Yellow? Did I somehow... evolve? I'm too scared to focus on it, as this dead ghost of my sister says, "How disappointing."

The textbox reappears and she repeats, "Second chances."

This time, hand shaking, I close my eyes and press 'yes'.

The entire world begins to fade around me, everything breaking, disappearing into nothing. Tears stream down my eyes- I don't want to go back into the nothingness. Urgency makes my heart beat fast as I try to escape this endless hell to no avail. In the darkness, this time, the light appears as soon as I'm back in it, and scared but certain, I run on.

This time, the light is green. Celebi. "Do you want to get back to her?" She asks.

I instantly know who she's talking about, my master. "Yes." I say, determined, "I'll do anything."

Celebi smiles. "Go on ahead. I must warn you, though... this will be hard. Harder than you expect."

I don't really know what she's saying, so I step forwards.

Falling.

All I feel is the endless void engulfing me, and then I hear fluttering. There's a bird, chirping merrily around my head, and then bumping into the window. It's obviously a Pokemon, but like none I've ever seen, red head, grey body, and tiny little feet. My eyes snap open.

This isn't Johto.