Wes found himself at the end of an empty hall that stretched further into the ship, his vision blocked by a bulkhead set into the pale green walls of the passage. He stumbled forward, his claws clacking against the textured metal floor. Step by step his alien four-legged gait grew more sure and the feeling of wrongness diminished to an ache in the back of his mind.
Wes slipped through the bulkhead where a door had been left ajar. On the far side, the hall continued some twenty meters before ending in a staircase and a wide steel door. From this door echoed the pattering of water on metal, the crash of the angry sea, and the urgent shouts of men.
Wes trotted down the empty hall, the clicking of his claws drowned out now by the sounds above. He climbed up the metal stairs, stopping before the closed door that blocked him. With a deep breath, he lifted a paw and pulled down on the handle.
A gust of wind pulled the door outwards, spraying the hall and the injured absol with water. He shivered despite his fur, the wounds covering his hide stinging from the cold and the wet, his pounding headache returning with a vengeance. Wes took a single step outside.
Gray light trickled down from above, illuminating a broad deck pelted by sheets of rain. A dozen human crew members in yellow raincoats ran to and fro, securing hundreds of metal crates amidst the storm. Several Machop assisted the workers, the stocky gray-skinned pokemon carrying and securing cargo with far more strength than their human counterparts.
Four metal cranes clung to the sides of the ship with a fifth larger one attached to the bow. Behind Wes, a tower painted in white rose several stories from the deck. Light glowed from a wide glass window near the bridge where several figures moved around inside.
Wes stumbled away from the door, following the base of the tower to slip behind a pile of crates before the crew spotted him. He glanced past the distant side of the ship to where the dark swells of the ocean rose and fell in a froth of rain and foam.
Wes blinked.
An absol swam towards the coarse gravel beach. Rolling waves crested and broke in front of him. The pokemon spat seawater while its lungs gasped for air. The water rose around him, and then broke, sending the absol tumbling against the rocks and up the beach. His limbs trembled as stumbled away from the roiling waters.
“Hey! Which one of you idiots left the door open?”
The voice snapped Wes back to the present and he shuffled further out of sight. Like the visions in the ship, the imagery felt so real, yet muted. A possible future. But how did he reach the shore? Wes sent his gaze across the ocean.
Waves crashed against the gray stone of the familiar Slate Cliffs half a kilometer away. They continued near unbroken except for where a large wash cut through the gray wall to form a narrow gravel beach - the same beach he had stumbled up in his vision. Several kilometers to the south, obscured now by the storm, would be the port town of Denville, his home. To the north, the Slate Cliffs curved out into the ocean, forming a long peninsula that protected the ship from the worst of the ocean’s fury.
Behind Wes, the door slammed shut and another man marched out onto the deck. Wes shook his head, shivering against the rain. He needed to move before the sailors discovered him. He needed a plan.
We peered around the crates, scanning the nearby railings to spot a large orange capsule lashed to the railing halfway down the deck. He recognised it as a self-inflating life raft. Maybe…
Two sailors, their heads bowed against the rain, walked into sight causing Wes to duck back behind the crates. There was no way he could make it to the life raft without being seen. And if he did, what then? Could he even release it and direct it to shore with no hands? Could he avoid the sailor’s pokemon? Even if he escaped them, the waves would crush him against the cliffs.
An absol sat exposed and shivering at the base of a large oak tree perched atop the Slate Cliffs. It looked out over the ocean to the large ship still anchored in the bay. A large spotlight scanned the surface of the water in search of something or someone. The absol shut his eyes. He just needed to rest them for a second, and then he would keep going. He felt so tired.
“Rastigan!” A man’s voice sounded out over the crashing waves. “Rastigan is that you?”
The splitting headache following the vision sent Wes toppling sideways against the metal crate. He took a deep breath, stilling the building nausea and bracing himself against the pain. He needed to leave as soon as possible. He needed to go now.
When the pain at last began to abate, Wes glanced past the railing to stare apprehensively at the foam-capped swells beyond. As a human he might have been an excellent swimmer, but this was madness. This was the sort of stupidity that killed people. Wes hesitated, his thoughts straying to the lab where his own mutilated corpse lay in a teleporter in the bowels of the ship. Staying here meant death.
I’d rather die on my own terms.
The absol took a deep breath, glanced around the crates for sailors, and sprinted for the ship railing. His white form blurred against the gray of the storm as he leaped out over the railing and above the swelling seas. Wind buffeted his fur as he fell
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Down
Down
Down
With a colossal splash, he breached the surface. Rushing water engulfed his senses and salt poured into a dozen wounds. He opened his mouth to scream, but tasted only the briny sea, his pokeball slipping from his teeth. Around him was nothing but the darkness of the sea where its silence brought a strange moment of peace and fear beneath the waves.
He kicked with all four limbs.
Wes’s head breached the surface into the chaos of the storm. Waves pounded against the towering hull of the nearby ship. Foam and spray filled the air. He bobbed in the surf, coughing and sputtering as he rose and fell a dozen feet with each swell. Disoriented, he paddled away from the towering hull of the ship, his aching limbs swimming on instinct.
The storm blew in from behind, the top of each swell cresting over his head to leave him gasping for breath in the trough. He struggled to get his bearings in the brief glimpses of the distant cliffs he got before dropping back between the waves. Somewhere in that direction a gravel beach awaited him.
Wes pushed onwards, fighting against the sea. At first he struggled against every cresting wave, but the landward winds proved a mixed blessing, and began to push him towards the shore as surely as they sought to drown him. The wind was on his side for now, but Wes knew how quickly they could shift.
Life became an endless procession of spray and wind and waves. Only the growing fatigue in his limbs and the ever distant cliffs served to track the passage of time. The pounding headache returned with a vengeance. It felt different this time: a true headache built from exhaustion and blood loss rather than any strange vision. The pounding spread down his neck and into the aching muscles of his shoulders. Numbness followed, threatening to send him sinking to the waves below. Still, Wes kicked and pulled, driven on by the looming cliffs and the promise of his vision.
Time seemed to still. With every heartbeat Wes struggled, his limbs growing heavy, his thick fur dragging through the water like lead. His will faltered with the endless waves. A growing part of his brain wondered why he struggled so. It would be so much easier just to slip beneath the waves where that strange peace awaited him.
A loud crack of water against the sheer rock walls of the Slate Cliffs brought a flicker of hope to Wes. With the next crest, he kicked his head a little higher and took his bearings. He found himself drifting some fifty meters south of the wash, the crashing waves threatened to bash him against the unforgiving rock. He was so close.
Just a little further
With one last burst of energy, Wes struggled back north towards where the ocean rumbled up the coarse gravel beach.
A weary Wes soon found himself adjacent to the shore. He pushed forward, wary of the waves, but too tired to care. A particularly large swell rose and curled beneath him. He fell with the water that shoved him down against the coarse gravel and carried him tumbling up the beach.
Bruised and battered, new wounds joining the old, Wes scrabbled his claws against the ground before the ocean could reclaim him. He found his way back to his paws and took slow, halting steps up the beach.
Another wave crashed behind him, pulling at his footing. Wes stood firm, tired but proud. He made it!
Red flickered in the corner of his vision and Wes looked over to see a pokeball rolling in the surf. Rastigan’s pokeball.
What are the chances? Wes thought. He tilted his head at the sound of distant laughter, but it faded into the storm.
He reached over and grabbed the pokeball before turning his attention to a familiar and well-worn path that wound its way up the wash. There it would rejoin the cliff top trail back south to Denville. He knew this because he’d walked it with Rastigan many times before. The path home.
Wes followed it, pausing every half-dozen steps to catch his breath. He found a large oak tree perched atop of the cliffs where the path down to the gravel beach met the cliffside trail. Wes recognized the tree as the same one from his vision. He paused at the thought. Should he wait? Would Adam really show up? The several kilometer trek back to Denville felt impossibly far and he was just so… tired.
Wes shivered as he stumbled over to the tree trunk, his body fighting to regain some warmth against the pounding rain. The cold didn’t make sense to him. He was an absol, native to the snowy peaks of the Crimson Mountains.
Slumping against the rough bark, Wes cast his gaze out across the bay. The ship loomed in the distance: a massive vessel more than 100 meters long with a wide flat deck, a raised bow, and a single tall tower that housed the bridge. Four massive spotlights swept over the frothy sea as if searching for something lost to the waves. Every so often the lights illuminated white letters on the side of the ship and a round symbol half obscured by the waves.
Maetherics.
Wes mouthed the word even as the letters blurred in his vision. Wind and rain pattered incessantly against his sodden coat. He stared out over the ocean, his eyelids drooping with weariness. The rain felt strangely warm, and he no longer shivered. A deep weariness set into his bones. It drowned out the blood and the pain and the numbness clutching at his limbs. He was just… so tired. A little bit of rest would help. A few minutes of sleep is all he needed and he would make his way back to Denville. Wes closed his eyes.
“RASTIGAN!” A voice shouted over the crashing waves. “RASTIGAN IS THAT YOU!?”
Wes blinked open his eyes and turned groggily to see a tall and lanky figure clad in green raincoat sprinting towards him along the trail. He saw square glasses perched upon a sharp face, its edges smoothed by a thin beard. He looked to be in his mid twenties.
Adam. His brother and his elder by some nine years.
Wes looked at his brother in confusion and hope. His visions had come true once again. Was this the end of his nightmare?
“Rastigan, where is Wes? Wha-” Adam’s words faltered as he skidded to a stop beside the absol, spotting wounds beneath wet fur matted with red and pink.
“What happened Ras?” He said, his voice urgent. He knelt down, tentatively reaching for the absol. “Where is Wes?”
“Absol!” Wes said and his heart fell, for he knew from Adam’s blank expression that his brother only heard the cries of a weary pokemon. He shook his head and sent his gaze out to see where the research vessel was anchored in the bay.
“On the ship?” Adam asked, following the absol’s gaze. “Is he alive?”
Wes hesitated, but nodded. Both were true
“Why would he be on the ship?” Adam glanced between the absol and the gray ocean swells. “We need to go back and talk to the police and coast guard. You’ve both been missing for days. When I saw you I thought… I…”
Adam swallowed.
Back to Denvile. Back to safety and warmth. Wes closed his eyes to gather himself and pushed himself up onto his paws. He wavered on his four limbs. The world swayed. He toppled forward.
Adam’s arms reached out and wrapped around his neck, steadying him.
“Shit Ras, you’re freezing.” He said, relaxing his grip to allow Wes to slump down to the muddy earth. He reached down and picked up Rastigan’s pokeball from the mud. Wes looked at the device in confusion. Why would Adam… Oh.
“It’s not keyed to me, Ras.” He said placing the ball back down in front of the absol. “You'll have to press it. I’ll bring you to Anna and then give the police a call about Wes, yeah?”
Wes swallowed, glancing at the pokeball with apprehension. Adam was right, Anna could help and the observatory was better equipped than even the pokecenter. With a deep breath, Wes reached over and pushed the button.
Light filled his vision.