"Leaf..."

The voice was like an angel, the deep gentle words pulling at my mind to awaken.

"Hey, come on Sis."

"Mn," I grumbled, the sense of light bled in though my shut eyelids. "Five more minutes, Eos," A glazing scent filled my nostrils, like sweet batter being pressed by high heats.

A finger twirled a few strands of my hair carelessly, "Eos? The Greek Goddess or the Limp balm? You still dreaming there, Leaf?"

My ribs fell down with an exasperated breath and I sluggishly opened my eyes, only to be utterly flabbergasted by what laid at my wake. A beautiful boy with rippled coffee hair tousled about like he had just woken up. His eyes were an endless brown that flickered with an eternal blaze of life. He had a pair of peachy lips that blended perfectly into the rest of his spilt-milk skin, which pulled into a lopsided grin, "What's with that face?" he looked around the same age as me.

I was at a loss for words, not just at his face. Not just the soothing air in his voice. But at the gradient filtering of the complex shadows, which crossed his face, that tucked in at just the right crevices. The complex layering of each single strand of hair on his pretty little head. His eyes an almond shape instead of a large anime. My hand moved on its own to graze the side of the boy's face, feeling as if my senses were hyped up, yet not. "Real," I let slip with furrowed eyebrows. "You're real."

Playfully, the beautiful boy snapped up my wrist in his large palms. "No duh, Leafy." Though he snickered, receiving only harsh glares for a nickname which I had never heard before. But somewhere within me stirred, like maybe I had, "It's kinda hard for a twin brother to not be real." The drowning feeling washed over as my lips drew farther apart in shock.

I'm home. Aren't I?

The teenage boy shrugged with a devilish curl of his mouth, "Well, maybe this could all be a dream and I am just a creation of your subconscious." Upon seeing my dead serious expression, her broke out laughing with a light-hearted aura. "Geez, Leaf. Come on, breakfast is ready." This boy didn't wait for a response from me before grabbing me up from my bed, letting me smash into the polyester carpeting.

This is my room, I registered each furniture piece of layout. How my single box window of the cube room had drawn shades that failed to contain the light of day outside.

The boy, who claimed to be my twin, loomed above in wait, "Come on, mom made waffles. I don't want them to get cold!" he whined, ushering me on with his foot. Silently, I rose up and lucidly followed him though the house I have known for so long into the checkered kitchen.

My mother waited at the rounded oak table that the bright sunlight spilled onto from our patio door. She was already cutting her way through the grated cooked batter suffocated in maple syrup when she looked up to us with a detailed smile painted to fit her face, "Fire, Leaf. I thought you two would never come down! Grab a serving and join us."

I didn't respond, just swept up a porcelain white plate from the cupboard they always were in before shoveling on the breakfast which let up steam in tendrils that dispersed before reaching too high.

Opening the drawer that contained the silver utensils, I grabbed a cool fork and sat beside my mother at the table, "Us?"

As if the strangeness was never ending, a man sat not too far away. His hands holding a blue paperback novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Don't tell me you have forgotten about your own father?" he laughed, drawing the book away from his face. A morning scruff grew around his jawline as his fine wrinkles of time crinkled at how he smiled from his cheeks. The man was like an older version of Fire, but his eyes filled with so much more wisdom.

My breath was gone. Nothing felt like it existed on my insides, just the man I heard about but never met existed outside, "Dad?" I uttered with disbelief in every syllable of my tone. "You're supposed to be dead. And yet---"

"Leaf!" my mother scolded, causing me to straighten quickly in the seat I had taken. "Your father is not dead! Do not say such profound things!"

Fire though quickly came to my defense, "Don't blame her, mom. I'm pretty sure she's still asleep. When I woke her up, she called me Eos. And looked completely confused when she saw my face, like I never existed until the moment her eyes opened."

I wanted to say, that's because he didn't. But with all these fixated crooked stares being shot in my general direction told me not to, "Er, Well. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't how my life was." I began to mutter, kicking myself for even muttering the truth, If this wasn't how my life was, why am I telling them this? as for how foreign this world was to my memory, there was a comforting essence of nostalgia that wrapped a metaphorical blanket around me. Like, maybe this was right.

Like maybe I was wrong.

"I don't get it," my father answered bluntly.

"Well, it must have been an affecting dream to leave her like this," Fire answered, leaving only my mother to react.

Her head slowly tilted like how I would, her dark curls dripping over her shoulders, "Why don't you tell us about the dream?"

I could lie about what happened in the other life.

I could lie and say I had forgotten.

I could stay silent.

Despite all those options, the truth came out so easily. Explaining the real world I lived in. Where my father was killed just before I was born. Where my mother had a thought miscarriage and lost my twin. Where I was genius all alone, even though all mother did was try to look out for me in her cold way. How I miraculously became sucked into a pokemon game thanks to a fail-safe. The punishment I was sentenced with. How the game was falling apart. Every detail I told them.

By the end, my father was first to respond, "I still don't get it," Standing from the table he asked. "You want another waffle, Leaf?"

"Nah, I prefer pancakes."

He nodded, snagging himself another serving. My mom after a long wait started to let out rolls of laughter, curling over her own stomach, "What a dream!" looking back to me, she smiled with redden cheeks. "But it's impossible. To be sucked into a game? No one would be able to do that."

I nodded, "I guess you're right." The logic did make sense as I accepted her truth so easily. Perhaps, it was all a dream is what I began to believe. But I could feel my twin's stare growing cold, still, I brushed it off.

Once everyone had finished breakfast and taken care of our plates, my mom had asked everyone to just take some time outside. Fire said he had homework to finish and father had to resume his programming work. So that had left my mom and me on the stone patio, gazing out at our backyard.

It wasn't too vast or too urban. A good acre of property overall. The early spring chill nipping through my sweatshirt realistically. I wore my usual black pull-over hoodie and grey sweats. My eyes scanned the garden which I rarely saw before. Bordering around the mismatched stone patio were rings of gardens, overgrown with weeds. My eyes landed on the small flowers that popped in purple illumination. "Look at those flowers, they are so pretty. Did you plant them?"

"Wild violets?" my mother spat, a disgust in her voice. "Heavens no! They grew there themselves. Why would I ever let a weed grow in my garden on purpose?"

Flinching, I uttered an apology, still keeping my mind focused on the dainty weeds. The graceful winds danced in the distance between us with a morning hush for a time.

"Ah, listen to those birds," She grinned after a while.

"I can't. I have to focus on these flowers."

She turned to me quizzically, "Why is that?"

My mind shifted to circle around the woman with a matching question, "I'm a genius, mom. And if I don't focus on something solely, then I get everything. And it hurts. You were there for a few meltdowns." I said, recalling my young childhood when I would scream about the world being too big.

She stared for the longest while before cracking up, her soft voice echoing into the vast partially clouded skies, "Genius? You're still living in that dream world!"

"You're a great mom, you know that?" I spoke dryly, my pride earning a scar.

Her eyes winced at my tone, "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. But Leaf, you're straight C student, if not for a rare B now and then. And that is just regular classes, be happy your father and I talked you out of taking an AP class."

My shoulders fell slightly, "Huh," Maybe, if I just don't focus this once. And if something goes wrong, my mom is right here. A giddy emotion plucked at my heartstrings as I dropped my focus.

Mourning Doves cued with a lonely chirp in their patterned calls to one another. The one that goes like: "Kooh-oooh-oh-oooh." The breeze that swam between my mom and I was tickling like a painter's brush against a canvas. I could hear the near things, but not everything.

I was normal.

A beam drew upon my face at the knowing I was normal. Average. It was like a Pidgey trapped within a prison-like cage, being freed after a life time. But something else pricked me with discontent.

A caged Pidgey hasn't ever flapped its atrophied wings nor doesn't know how to fly, even after being set free.

The days tumbled into months, feeling a graced serenity living this idealist life. At school, I socialized and made friends. I had two close friends, a boy and a girl, one I even developed feelings for. They were the same from that dream I had back in that other reality--- no. It was a dream within a dream on Mt. Silver. That silly dream of that other world faded into the back of my mind until it was conceived to be forgotten. Fire and I got along like peanut butter and jelly. Well, we didn't always get along, and we for sure were not the same, we went together almost perfectly as long as there wasn't more than the other.

Sometimes, we could have been the same person.

I was content with life, not looking for any second life or another path. There were bumps, but it was my ideal and perfect life.

One morning, Fire and I sat at the kitchen table, sipping on our breakfast beverages and watched the outside move. A lone obsidian feathered crow swept the sky for a brief moment, screeching its harsh but meaningful calls. The gardener's mother had hired were ripping out all the weeds which had sprouted. I watched them even tear out the wild violets that once brightened the flowerbed. "Why are they taking those out? I liked the Wild Violets."

Fire watched stoically, not a falter in his hardened mask. "Well, in the rest of the garden, they are a weed, despite how it seems. They never belonged there in the first place." The quiet resting on our shoulders, the gardeners tore out dandelions to chickweed. And even the wild violets.

"Do you think I would able to transplant them to another garden later?" I inquired curiously, enjoying the feeling of not having to single my mind on one thing, just letting it run its course.

My twin shook his head with an emotionless aura emanating from him. "A weed will always be a weed. It will just go to the trash like all the others. But you know that."

Taking a gentle sip of my piping hot chocolate I nodded submissively, "Yeah. But it is a pity. Maybe it will end up growing in a different garden," I mused seeing the tangled pile of amethyst-hued petals being crumbled by all the other unwanted vegetation. The lacing silence lasted for an uncounted time before Fire spoke again.

"They miss you."

"Who?"

"Them."

"That doesn't help, Fire."

"And you miss them."

The memories I thought faded, weren't. Each starting to pull back into my mind. The faces of each of them. The world I lived in. "I don't know who you're talking about," I responded still though gritted teeth.

He, though, was able to see right through me. "Stop denying this, Leaf. I can only guide you for so long."

"Then stop guiding me," I snarled sharply, gaining the attention of our parents from the other room, "because you're my brother. Nothing else." A pair of ruby eyes melted my heart, ginger hair brushing past my mind. I tried to shake this feeling away as a child's laugh filled my imagination.

The boy grabbed my arm forcefully and pulled me close, his eyes stabbing me with daggers. "You know that isn't true. You know who I really am." Tearing his arm off, I stumbled back, an anger and hatred gargling in my throat as I stared at Fire. "You know how everything is going to end. So stop denying it. Stop running away. You have to leave."

"No."

"Leaf, you can't keep denying what you know!"

"Shut up!" I screamed, "I don't know everything. I'm not a genius!"

"That's wrong too! You are a genius! You know what this place really is, you know what you have to do and you know what's going to happen after everything!" he responded, fed up with how I acted out to him. His eyes became full of a sadness, "Stop lying to yourself."

"Stop this!" I trembled just looking at him. A few moments of silence floated between us as it slowly rolled in on me. "I don't want to go. I don't want leave."

I wanted him to wrap me up in is long arms and tell me it would be alright. But, he wouldn't. He wasn't what I wanted. Just what I needed. But it broke his heart to see me in this condition. "You know you can't stay. You now know none of this is truly real." I was staring at the part of me which would always know.

Struggling to take in deep breaths I whispered. I looked away from him, it took everything inside of me to finally whisper two words, "I know."

"You know none of us will ever know about this. Because---"

My mother cut him off with furrowed eyebrows, my father close to her. "What are you two arguing about? Not real? Fire, are you egging her on again about that dream?"

I looked to the part of me who wanted to deny it all, "No. Fire's right," To say it was all a dream. My mother here was nothing but a concept of my mind.

The father at her arm cleared his throat, "What are you all talking about?" The part of me who knew nothing about who, or what, I was. Or at least wanted to.

"I know it's fake. I've known from the beginning. Here, I even figured out what I was in the other world. I just wanted to be normal for once. I just wanted to see you all. One last time. But, I have to wake up. Wake up from this dream," I looked to my mother, locking with her beautiful eyes I gave a haunted smile as the words seemed not my own. "Love you."

My father's face broke. My mother's shattered. And Fire's. He knew too. He was the part of me which would always know. And he held was the most damaged and grimaced as this dream world of my ideals became painted in a blinding white light to take me home to the game.

Yeah. Home.

But my last was coming. And I would still continue to lie even to myself about it.

All until the bitter and hated end of Pokémon Red.

~~~

A/N: *curls up sulking in a corner* Everyone closest to my heart is a waffles fan. Most of my friends are waffle fans. Only a couple friends is a pancake fan. I feel utterly betrayed. Even coin flip was in favor of waffles.

And yes, I do have a pattern for using twins. But this one makes sense. For once. Time to get onto the next chapter!

~Avalon R. Day