The sound of rain smashing and clattering against the earth was like a rabid audience clapping for a world act music performance. Water flooding in with a tormented roar from the distance as the wind screamed against our hurricane shelter.

I sat in solitude, wedged between the meeting walls corner, with my knees pressed into my chest in a huddled manor. I jumped slightly as another house was torn apart, metal roofing flying about and erupting like thunder. I couldn't see it, but ears can do much. The wafting musty scent mingled with the hot sweat that dripped from the people who had no cots to sleep on. If they were lucky, they brought a blanket from home to curl up on as bedding. Disorganized isles tried to form between the globs of humans and pokemon alike.

I was immobilized by everything that had happened. Finding Mew. How I had glitched. How Red saved me. What was going to happen next? Trying to take my mind off of these pressing matters, my eyes scanning the room rapidly for a certain little imitator, coming up with nothing. My lungs deflated, my shoulder slouched over as I ghostly observed the people who passed with exhaustion.

Before I knew it, my mind fazed between a darkness and the dusk around me. Whether it was a tiredness begging me to sleep or the weight that tugged at my heart that begged to shut down, I refused to sleep. Just drift as the town huddled around me lulled themselves to an unsettled but regular sleep. The occasional murmurs catching my ears, counting each breath taken starting to give me a headache.

"How much longer, mumma?"

"Just seven more hours baby."

"I'm scared."

"Just fall asleep, when you wake up it will be nice again. Just like all the others."

It was within the hour that a stillness possessed the people, singing them to a silence that suffocated me. Only a whisper here and there. It was to the point I thought that I was the only one awake, listening to the devastating storm.

Once the feeling of being alone in a crowd that would never hear me, I let a low exasperation carry out my words, "I'm scared," my clotted strands of hair slinked between my eyes and I didn't even try to pull them away.

"Of what?"

My skin crawled up the back of my neck, my heart clenching as I turned to lock gazes with Red. Calming, I twitched a smile to the boy, letting my arms droop, "Everything. The Glitch. Myself. The storm," I answered honestly. "The sounds reminds me of the numerous war videos and documentaries I watched as a kid. Then watched again in AP World History."

Red's head tilted carefully, confused about what I just said.

"Ah, yeah. In, um, where I'm from," I avoided mentioning being the player in a crowd full of people plagued by my doings, "we stay in school for a long time. AP is Advance Placement, basically college courses taken at high school. College is the highest form of education, most go into that schooling after they turn 18. High school are the four years precede that."

"What about wars? We only had one," he continued to press like a child looking for answers. "The great war. A worldwide struggle."

I tugged a smirk at him, "Our world, has had too many wars. In my country, we were seen as people trying to take over the world for the longest time. And I won't say that wasn't too far from the truth... And our world has had two. Two great wars that ravaged so, so, much."

Red still looked to me with curiosity.

So I told him, the scars that humanity left. Explaining to him the major powers of our world. How our weapons took so many lives of people "just following orders". How by the end of world war one, the country Germany was left in war debt and could barely survive. Then, it lead to world war two.

"It was horrible. But the German Prime Minister, Adolf Hitler, was trying to lead his people to something better than what they were left scrounging for. But he went way too far. Every time I hear about what he did to an entire culture," I hesitated, "I can't help but feel like I was there. I never could be, my imagination is nothing but a sliver of the pain they felt. Germany had took out much of Europe, even had turned on its own ally. They originally had a pact with the Soviet Union to split a certain territory. But Germany turned on the Soviet Union and tried to invade them."

"Who won?"

"That's not an easy answer," I replied sorrowfully. "After a second front was opened by Soviet's new allies, the U.S. and Britain, the Soviets were able to pull ahead in the battle. But not after losing over 20,000 lives."

A silence floated amongst us, rain thundering like feet running over the area.

A quote coming to mind. "In my country, there is a quote that says: 'Don't play for more than you can afford to lose.' Basically, it's saying to play everything safe. But in World War two, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, said something very different. 'To play the game for more than you can afford to lose. Only then would you learn to play the game.'"

Red scrunched his face together oddly, "Why would someone say something like that? That path would only lead to pain and failure."

"Back then, if they played it safe then that's what they would end up with. Pain and failure," I said quietly. "He was pushed to give the final lead. The final everything. In the game of war, that's just how it must be played."

The raven haired boy swayed from tiredness, but gave a motion of understanding before slumping against me. His head nestled beside my neck as his voice pulled with a drowsed trance, "Your world sounds sorrowful and tragic."

"It can be sometimes."

"Then why don't you stay here?"

His medium head tucked itself against me just perfectly, already the boy falling asleep. My lungs swelled, my heart soaring at the thought of staying with Eos, Blue and him, "I can't," my heart dove back down as the truth froze over. "But, my world can be beautiful sometimes. And there are people I'll miss. That will miss me."

"So will we."

"I know, but this isn't my home. And I... I need to go home someday."

Red's warm arm pulsed softly against mine, a gentle sleep beginning to beg me with a peaceful benevolence, "I want to see your world," he whispered in a dreamy tone. "Can I go with you?"

In the end, will you even want to?

I didn't answer, acted as if I was asleep with low puffs of air. And when I felt the same low puffs of air from him. He was out, letting me hush the words eating me away, "Have you ever fallen for someone you know you can never have?"

It was in the extreme slamming of a door flying open that aroused many, salty brine pouring in from behind the panicked couple. In that moment, I thought I heard a yes, remembering Amber. But it may have just been my imagination. The shock awakened everyone in the shelter, sending Red and I flying apart from one another.

"My daughter! My daughter!" the woman cried out in a hoarse voice, her face striking my memory quickly, "She's still out there! She's still out there! I can't find her!" civilians quickly swarmed around her, reassuring them that she and her husband were safe.

"But my child! My Copycat! My Copycat!" she continued to scream hysterically. "She ran off from us! Saying impossible things! Like big brother and big sister were better! She doesn't even have any siblings."

My body seemed to move on its own, breaking away from the reserved red-eyed boy, already jogging though the people, followed by a run. As I passed by the mother, I snarled quietly, "Her name is Eos," And the sobs froze.

I was quickly met with an immensely strong gale, an ocean licking its waves and rainstorms against me. The ground at my feet turning to mush as the salt stung my eyes and burned my nose, but I continued to run about the unfamiliar Isle.

"Eos!" I yowled above the winds, a cold sinking in my skin and turning my stomach inside out. "Eos! Big Sis is here! Please answer me! Eos! Eos!"

Helplessly, I floundered though the abandon town, shingling flying about the air dangerously. "Big Sis! Big Sis!" a sound slinked meekly though the wind that whizzed past my ears.

My legs pushed faster than I thought they ever could be, and in my blurring, absconded vision I made out a small child with evergreen curls. Above her towered a threatening house which creaked in the tempest. She tugged at her golden dress which was tangled up in debris that she got caught in. Only getting closer, I saw how tattered she was. Her pasty skin clawed at by the sharp debris, blood running down her battered knees. But the doll she was never seen without still coddled in her arms, sopping with rainwater.

I bent down close to her, I didn't spare a moment to save the dress. Tearing at it with all my power to get her free as the child began to cry. "Copycat missed, missed Big Sis and Big Bro!"

"How about Eos?" I laughed, finally getting the child free. No matter how beat-up the child looked, the smile that crawled onto her face would always be like dawn just breaking the horizon to me.

She sniffed, "I missed, missed you guys too," She crackled, throwing her arms over my neck. I embraced her back warmly. My eyes darting up though at the slightest movement. I had no time to think, or I thought that.

I guess our brains just shut down when we think we are about to lose someone we love.

The house that creaked now was blown into with a large piece of another's roofing. The front frame becoming undone and throwing itself forward on top of us.

A vigor consumed me, making me take the young child I held in my arms and push her as hard as I could away. And I had made the toss, "Run!" I shrieked, my body falling down from the force I put into saving Eos. She nodded, scrambling off while I splattered into the icy mud. Flecks of disgusting mud flooding into my mouth as I tried to breathe. My limbs flared about to get up, but the shadow casting just grew longer and longer. My body instinctively abandon the flee attempts, rolling up into a fetal ball. My hands braced around my head and nape and my knees rolled up to protect my vital organs. Then the impact of debris that crumbled away from one another struck everywhere, I howled in pain. The rocks were sandwiching me, all the air gone from my lungs in a fell swoop. A large chunk rolled off from what kept me pinned and crashed into my temple.

And everything was gone.

The storm was gone. The cold was gone. The weight of a crashing building was gone. Just an overwhelming pain throbbed. But that soon left too.