The sun was beating down mercilessly on my small, scrawny body, making the dangerous but shaded jungle to my left seem more and more appealing. The rags I was wearing were not only useless against the claws of monsters, but the sun as well.

I was still checking every dune on my way for signs of animals inside them, and every wave that broke somewhat noisily on the beach prompted me to turn my head to check if I was being ambushed by giant crabs.

I did however notice that the beach was also remarkably clear of any of the litter that my subconscious seemed to associate with beaches. There were no empty plastic bottles, no paper cups, or empty cartons for fries.

There was the distinct possibility that I had survived some kind of ship wreck and I was the only human on the only island. Since there was no other land visible on the horizon there was also the possibility that I was on a single island far from civilization.

It didn’t seem likely to me that any semi-advanced society would stomach such an abundance of dangerous beasts near their settlements, so I was reasonably sure that at least this part of the island, if not all of it, was uninhabited. At least as far as people were concerned. The beasts were clearly thriving.

When I made it around a particularly large wooded outcrop of the island that reached into the sea for many hundreds of meters I spotted something gave me a glimmer of hope. The outcrop had hidden a small river delta which was emptying it precious cargo of fresh water into the sea. I licked my dry lips and marched towards the river with renewed vigor.

As I neared the river delta my steps slowed again. I wasn’t the only one who was drawn in by the promise of drinkable water, and the river and its surroundings was teeming with a variety of animals. Almost all of them were oversized versions of the more normal animals my mind insisted should be there.

There was something vaguely familiar to them, but my subconscious self hadn’t made the connection yet and my conscious self had other, more pressing, concerns. I tried to keep track of the many different beasts that were around while plotting a safe path further inland.

I spotted three types of monkeys with strangely vibrant green, red and blue fur jumping through the tree tops, a variety of different bug larvae and at least two species of tadpole.

While a few of them were chasing each other and some of them were fighting each other, most were content with leaving each other be, which was a relief to me. By now, my body was screaming at me that I needed water and I now had to decide between my fear of the beasts and dehydration.

As I navigated carefully through the groups of animals, some were looking curiously at me but soon lost interest. I carefully made my way further inland along the river until I found an overgrown footpath.

I didn’t know whether it was there because the beasts used it or other humans, but since it ran parallel to the river it was my best bet to find other people. The further I made it the less animals were around until almost none of them were around.

I quickly walked over the few steps to the river and fell to my knees. I barely resisted dunking my head under water and greedily splashed the fresh elixir of life down my parched throat with both hands.

When I was satisfied I quickly looked up, suddenly cognizant of the ruckus I had made, only to look into the blueish-green eyes with black, rectangular pupils of what looked like the adult stage of one of the types of tadpole I had spotted.

It croaked loudly as I rapidly wrenched myself back from it. Three massive bulbs with a turquoise center and black rim were planted atop its big, pear-shaped body. The turquoise part of the bulb on its forehead lit up and it shot a stream of bubbles the size of my head in the air above me. When they popped the resulting displaced air ruffled my hair and the leaves on the trees.

Before I could even formulate a conscious thought my body had decided that between fight of flight, there was only one option. My bare feet pounded the foot path along the river bank and my arms pumped at my sides as if I could pull myself forward on the air itself.

I didn’t know how long I ran, but after a while my sides were stinging, my lungs were burning, and my legs were flagging. Just as I contemplated stopping, I burst into a clearing which contained a concrete and metal building. Not questioning my luck, I dipped into reserves I didn’t know I had and sprinted all the way to its entrance.

There I sat down on the steps that led up to the building’s front door and tried to catch my breath. I was sweaty and exhausted, and I wanted nothing more than to put some solid walls between me and the jungle. Unfortunately, I didn’t know if any animals had broken into the house and made their nests there, so had to catch my breath in case I had to run again.

A while later, I carefully opened the thankfully unlocked door. While the first few centimeters opened silently, the door emitted several high squeaks and creaks when I opened it further. I cringed at the loud, unpleasant sound but when nothing attacked me, I slowly made my way inside.

I found myself in a hallway from which three other doors were leading further into the building. Since one of them was right across from me I carefully made my way over and opened it. Learning from my previous mistake I only opened the door wide enough to peer through, and only when I couldn't spot any danger did I open it a tiny bit further.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I repeated this pattern until the gap between the door and its frame was wide enough for me to stick my head through. I was thankful that this door had decided to stay mostly silent, and that the room behind it was an empty office.

The office’s walls were covered in shelves and cabinets that reached from the floor up to the ceiling. The middle of the room was dominated by four desks which were facing each other, still covered in papers which had suffered enormously under the tropical climate. I snuck over to the desks to see if I could see what had been written on the papers, but long exposure to humidity had made all of them indecipherable.

Since rifling through the cabinets wasn't a priority for me, I went back to the hallway and tried out the next door on the same side. This door also opened silently, and I found myself in what seemed to be a research lab. Whatever had been studied here had seemingly been biological in nature since There were many glass tanks in which dead specimens of the local fauna were preserved and I counted four operating tables, one of which still had traces of blood.

Whatever had happened here, the researchers had left in a hurry, and it was bad enough that no one had returned to reclaim their work or equipment. I headed deeper into the lab, trying not to stare at the dead animals creepily floating in their watery graves while still keeping an eye out for any potential ambushes.

At the back end of the lab I found yet another door which I also opened in the same careful manner as the others. Once again, I didn't spot any danger and so emboldened I opened it fully instead of slipping through the gap between it and the door frame. This proved to be a mistake as I suddenly found myself face to face with an alien in pink and beige.

I froze as I took in the plump, roughly humanoid form with floppy ears and oversized, completely blue eyes. Most of its body was colored somewhere between off-white and beige while pink skin dominated the top half of its head and formed what I could only describe as an open jacket.

I could stomach being stranded on an island with no memory to speak of, with strange but at least distantly familiar fauna. But meeting an actual alien was too much for my stressed-out psyche.

The pink alien smiled and waved at me. My mind decided enough was enough and shut itself down. With the last dregs of my consciousness felt two arms catch me before I could hit the ground and then the darkness took me.

. . .

Consciousness once again came slowly to me. This time I didn’t wake upon the ground in the forest, but a padded table. It took a moment for my thoughts to organize themselves, but when I recalled the pink alien my eyes snapped open and I sat up abruptly.

The alien stood at my side, chirped happily and clapped its hands. It then ambled over to a nearby tray, picked up a red and white sphere, came back to me, and then handed it over to me. My addled brain needed a few moments, but once I had turned the sphere enough to find a button to open it my mind made the connection that had nibbled at my subconscious for quite some time.

These were all pokemon. I hadn’t been teleported to an alien planet, but a fictional world. Well, now looking at all these pokemon it clearly wasn’t fictional at all. I only knew through brief impressions that I actually knew the names to most of the wildlife I had encountered so far.

The sphere was obviously a pokeball in its most iconic design. I looked back at the pokemon and mentally compared it to the ones I knew. Trying to map one in the flesh onto its stylized version from the games wasn’t easy, but I was pretty sure this was an Audino.

The Audino in the meanwhile had retrieved another Item, which was a red metal box. I took the box from its hands when it was presented to me and opened it at the hinges to reveal a large screen on one side and a keypad on the other. I pressed the POWER button and was pleasantly surprised that what I presumed was a pokedex turned on.

‘Would you like to register this pokedex as your own?’ the screen asked. When I pressed ‘YES’ a compartment shot out of its side. Startled, I looked up to ask the Audino what I should do next, only to be handled a needle.

I looked back down on the screen which now displayed ‘Please provide a blood sample for the biometric lock’. Still not quite awake, I just mentally shrugged, pricked my thumb and pressed it into the indentation. Maybe tetanus wasn’t a thing here.

A short beep signaled to me that the process was done, so I removed my finger. Just as I was about to put it in my mouth to stop the bleeding, the Audino’s eyes began to softly glow. The blood stopped flowing instantly and I also felt the scrapes on my feet and legs that I had suffered during my escape fade away.

‘Would you like to register any pokemon?’ appeared next on the screen alongside a ‘SCAN NOW’ and ‘LATER’ button. I, of course, pressed yes at which a slit opened on the backside of the pokedex, exposing a camera whose feed was then visible on screen.

I positioned the pokeball beneath the camera. The screen then switched back to text mode and told me that the data was being loaded. ‘Pokemon Bella (Audino) successfully registered’ it told me alongside a chime after a short while.

I looked up at my strange new companion and decided to ask my most pressing question.

“So, Bella, do you know if there is something I could use to call for help? I’m kinda stranded here and I’d like to contact the authorities if at all possible.”

Bella tilted her head slightly, as if in thought, then nodded rapidly and beckoned me to follow her.

She led me through the lab and then back into the hallway. She then opened the last door I hadn’t explored yet, unveiling a staircase to the upper parts of the lab. I only got a brief glance at the rooms on the first landing, but it seemed this was where the lab’s original occupants had slept.

The second story was taken by a single large room. It was brutally hot in there on account of it being on the top floor. Much of the room was dominated by cabinets, but in one corner I spotted an antique radio station. Going by the height of the sun it should have been early afternoon, so it had had ample time to heat the cramped room to maximum temperature.

Despite my expectations for the opposite, the radio was still working. When I flipped the helpfully labelled on-off switch many different lamps lit up on its surface. I grasped the microphone and thought about what I would say.

In the end, I had too little information to go on for me to determine where I was. I would have to improvise. Thankfully, a poster on the wall listed frequencies which were strictly listen-only alongside descriptions of what to expect. I found Orange Islands Coastguard, Stranded Ocean Swimmers, M.S. Anne, Kanto Ocean Patrol and many more.

This poster made it clear for me that whoever had operated this base wanted to stay hidden, which made it very ironic that I would use their equipment to call over the people they had tried to avoid. I didn’t think this site was known on account of the dead pokemon in vats in the lab downstairs.

Since the Kanto Ocean Patrol seemed to be the one that was most likely to be able to help me, I set the radio for that frequency first.

“Hello, is there the Kanto Ocean Patrol? I’m stranded on some island, and I don’t know where.”