Virah slowly opened her eyes.

Although it was completely different from the one back in her hospital room, the white ceiling above her felt familiar, and so was the headache aching away at her skull.

She got up and groaned when the dull headache turned into a brief flash of pain, her joints locked up as her body tensed.

Her hand reached up for her face, she felt contact as her palm pressed against her skin, sweat dripped down from her forehead and to her fingers, the liquid running down until it soaked the entirety of her hand.

Virah heaved before jumping out of bed, she reached out for the trainer's bag she left on the bedside cabinet the night prior and took out a towel she wiped her face.

With a sigh, she sat down on the edge of her bed, her ragged breathing sounded loud in her ears, it was the only thing she could hear while waiting for her mind to clear.

She closed her eyes and let the throbbing relief on the top of her head washed over herself, she inhaled a lungful of air and exhaled. The pain was receding now but it was replaced by the right clenching of her chest.

Virah pressed the towel against her eyes and cried, "Ratata."

Her meek voice sounded broken to her tired ears and Virah couldn't help but think that misconception as the truth, and maybe it was, she honestly didn't know but- really- a large part of her heard the broken sound with enough clarity to think of it as genuine and it was-

That cry was as genuine as it could get- her following weep only solidified things and the end of the towel facing her eyes starting to get soaked with tears only gave her proof of the thing that she has been denying.

For some time now, she didn't have the opportunity to cry about Ratata's death or even acknowledge it, she had been too busy, too occupied with the things going on that her mind never processed the stress of her friend's death.

But now that she was alone, it finally came down on her like an avalanche and boy was she not ready for the stream of emotions weighing down on her right now.

Virah felt her grip on the towel tighten as she cried even harder than before, she wanted to punch something- pull on her hair-

"Why?"

Why what? Why didn't Ratata leave with her? Why did she think that negotiating with the rangers was a good idea when she could have just told them the Beedrill brood was hers? Why didn't Ratata leave her room? Why did people rat her out?

So many questions, and all of them led to what ifs that, should they have happened, should she have just made the right choice- Then maybe Ratata would still be alive now, and she would have gone back to her apartment with him ready to greet her.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Not as a… corpse-

Virah felt herself keel over as the floodgates opened in their entirety, she cried and cried more, continuing even as the soaked towel started to wet her face.

When she finally stopped, she had hiccups and could barely breath because of them. Virah wiped her face with the dry side of the towel and she hiccuped three times before she finished the job.

Once she calmed down enough to get her mind in order, she got out of bed, headed to the bathroom, and washed her face clean before changing out of her clothes from yesterday.

The staff cleaning her room later would definitely get annoyed from the fact that it was just her first night and her bed already smelled of sweat but Virah didn't think she had a choice.

Talking to her friends about her problems and letting everything related to Ratata last night stream out was something she wanted to do so badly that she couldn't help but let the words spill out.

Virah found herself walking back to her bed, she fell back down on the covers with a soft grunt.

Her hand covered her vision and soon, her palm pressed against her face. She sighed, "crying like that was probably a bad idea though,"

What did she mean by that? Was it her weeping last night or her breakdown moments prior? Both… worked after she gave them some thought because spilling her worries like that could possibly make her complacent and over reliant on talking to people for stress relief.

And on the other side of the spectrum, having a mental breakdown early in the morning is not a sign of a healthy mind, it's actually the complete opposite and Virah, for her part, didn't want to consider the implications of that.

Both were bad things, and not doing one would lead to the other, but also, she did both in the same week, same day even, so it's clearly not as clear cut as she understood it but-

She sighed, "emotions are complicated,"

And that was the truth to it all, emotions are simply complicated, there's no clear reason for why people do the things that they do and chances are, analyzing them and creating "methods" to fix or get them out of the way would just lead to people finding more ways to get stressed.

And to Virah, who is well aware that she is viewing this with her limited knowledge on Pokemon psychology of all things, the resulting back and forth would turn into a constant cycle that would eat its own tail endlessly.

People would find one cure, another complication would pop up, then they'd find a cure for that and suddenly realize said cure doesn't work on their prior problems and… things escalate from there.

"I should… just calm down and smell the roses, live in the present," Virah hummed, "that's what Mr. Alakazam would say if I complained about these things again,"

"Whatever," Virah stood up and officially got out of bed, "I'm ready to start my morning,"

She got out of her room and quickly headied for the ranch, when she got there, she scanned the fenced off area packed with various Pokemon and moments later, she caught her Pokemon loafing around.

Since all of the Pokemon were paying attention to her anyway, all Virah had to do to get Nitro and Jet's attention was to raise her arms and wave them around.

She greeted the two poison types with a nod and a good morning as her Pokemon flew over to her, "have you two eaten yet?"

When she got a positive answer, she smiled, "good, guess that frees me of the responsibility of feeding you guys myself,"

Virah grabbed the Pokeballs from her hip and raised them at the two, "let's go?"

She pressed both device's center and expanded them, once she got another nod, she recalled the two and went on her way, this time her destination was the cafeteria which she's eaten multiple times in before.

The place's familiar red and white sterile walls were a welcome sight after her disconcerting night and morning and she calmly made her way over to the spot in the counter where all the trays were on.

She grabbed one, waited in line, and once she was about to take her food, she asked the lunch lady which card of hers was more appropriate and got a shrug in response, "if you're a sponsored trainer, then give us your trainer card, if you're a breeder, then a breeder card,"

"Right," Virah nodded, she took out her trainer card and offered it to the woman who scanned it before giving her a meal that consisted of brothed Magikarp, bread, various berries, and a carton of momoo milk.

It was ten times better than what she got as an intern and Virah was glad that she decided to use her trainer card instead of her intern one.

Then again, maybe breeders and interns are different?

'They are, obviously, I don't know why I even…' Virah cut her thoughts off as she found a seat and started her breakfast, the meal was nice, and most likely preplanned for people who walk a few miles every day.

When she was done, she tossed her wastes on the trash and walked out of the cafeteria to head to the gym, or, since there actually wasn't a facility like that in the breeding center, Virah opted to head to the park.

She didn't call Whitney and Grene on account that the two were probably tired from walking back to their houses last night so it was just her for this morning and Virah thought that the silence was nice.

The change of pace aside though, the poison specialist didn't plan on slowing down on her training even for just a single day so after a warm up, she proceeded to do her early morning run.