Claire still didn’t understand what had happened. She was on the bank of the river she had betted her death on. One of the only beaches that wasn’t harshly and steeply culled by the water in front of her. Not only had she survived, but she had a fainted, baby pokémon in her arms. She only remembers falling into the river and the coldness of it she had taken for misguided relief.

As she had been carried away, terror and chaos ruling her body and mind, she welcomed it. Her body was half-heartedly fighting, but it did little to stop nature that one could not fight.

Then, as some sort of heavenly interference, some impossible and random statistic, something stronger was pushing her to the surface than the raging current. A flash of blue in her eyes, aching from the water and blurry, had her reaching out with unadulterated fear. Terror like none before in this life gripped her. She hadn’t felt this scared since she had first left the void.

The baby totodile jumped in after her and was repeatedly propelling himself at her. His hits were strong enough to fight the currents and bruise her body but not much else. Tragically, she noticed that they were growing weaker the few times it managed to hit her. It was instinct to grab the pokémon as the waves started to drag them both down harsher and the river sped up. It was impossible to curl into a ball with how her small body was being thrown around, yet she still held that little totodile to her chest in desperation.

She could handle her own death, but a little Pokémon dying because of her? She had no determination in her life for its entirety. There was no time to think as she was thrown into rocks and breath knocked out of her, but still she fought. She fought with her legs and one arm to grip anything to stop their spiral into their deaths. The Totodile was yipping sharply and was worryingly still, not fighting against her.

Her arms were far too tired to pull herself out of the raging river. In fact, when her arm finally caught on to a miracle piece of wood, the force of it almost knocked her shoulder out of socket entirely, Her body was thrown further and she almost lost her grip on the Totodile before she was able to wrap her legs around the limb of the tree, which was actually root of some grand tree growing half out of the hill bordering this part of the river and dominating it. She made sure the totodile was between her and the root as she wrapped herself around it with all her might.

Her body was beyond bruised, there were large cuts on her arm. Her breath heaved and she gurgled and spit out water, hacking her lungs out for long minutes that felt like hours. Her throat felt like someone was forcing her to swallow grass and she briefly wished she could just let go.

The root took some of the pressure of the stream off of her limbs, but she was still being pushed to let go. To give in and let the river decide their fate. The little totodile was whining, a dull 3 glowing in front of her eyes above its head. It stared at her with a complexity, and a simplicity what an oxymoron, looking at her with devotion and also… also…

She had no idea.

She screamed for help as soon as her breath stabilized. She had no idea how far they had been dragged but a fisherman heard her cries fast and shit bricks at the sight of a small boy clinging to a root in an angry, unforgiving, river.

The small town of Cherrygrove had thrown a fit at one of their little orphan children almost dying to the river of all things, and it seems like half of the population had gathered on one of the only banks in a long mile to check over her. They were caught off even further by the pokémon in her arms she had refused to let go of.

They seemed so collectively happy and relieved she was alive that she was in awe. Claire was sat on the bank as they checked over her, yet the words didn’t reach her. She wasn’t dead. She wanted to cackle. It was absurd. Some part of her was so relieved she hadn't died but even more viscously she felt dread about it all.

"Someone get him over here!"

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"Someone get the damn doctor!"

Claire wasn’t dead. There was a heavy totodile in her arms and she wasn’t dead. Adults were clamoring around her and calling for the doctor. He immediately appeared and checked over her body, palpitating her arms and chest and gently, if not sternly, ordering her around. She had no strength to follow his orders.

“Ethan, oh my Arceus, please, someone tell me he is alright!” The loud voice of the matron yelled out as she came running across the beach, looking comical in her long dress and stout frame. The woman's voice shook her out of her daze if purely out of habit. How many times had she woken to that voice in the morning? To go eat? To do her daily chores with the other children? Oh, Claire thought numbly, she didn’t want Mary to see her hurt.

But you were willing to kill yourself? She thought viscously to herself. She would definitely see that one.

“Boy! I told you to not go to the riverbank and bridge by yourself! What would I have done if we hadn’t found you in time?” She yelled in a fright, hovering over the doctor checking over him immediately. Even with her voice raised she sounded terrible with a gentleness that should have been impossible. Did she only notice it because she was older mentally, the worry covered by anger? Claire was too shocked and tired for the guilt and shame of her actions to hit her.

She still mumbled an apology, and the woman drew her into large arms. The comfort of it was selfish yet Claire clung to it,

“Matron Mary, he’s just bruised and has some cuts. I need to do a more extensive stay over in the clinic for some light observation. That pokémon probably needs to be checked over at the center and identified.” He peered down at Claire again and she passively dipped her head.

“Arceus knows where he got that thing, but it’s too small to have been in the river. Leave it to a kid like Ethan to find a fucking- sorry, Mary, a totodile while he went pleasantly for a dip in our deathtrap river.” The doctor, Doctor Smith, of their town was always so blunt he often put people off with his bedside manner. He was curt and that curtness didn’t pass well with people in pain. The Matron didn't seem to care, rubbing Claire’s back with kindness as they further spoke, Claire tuning it out as the townspeople chattered endlessly.

Words filtered to her but only in singular instances. The conversations stretched and stretched and the weight of the pokémon in her arms was the only constant to her senses. Matron Mary lifted her up and carried her to the clinic as the doctor poked and prodded and lathered her in various ointments and bandages, giving her the blue, magikarp band aids because “well you’ll probably like those better than the pink, skitty ones”. The other orphan children clamored around her utterly fascinated with the pokémon in her arms and the excitement went on around them and…

"I swear, it'll be the day when I let you out of my sight again, Ethan! I swear it all, I swear... let you out of my sight for one minute and you basically throw yourself into the river to save a pokémon!" The adults had made assumptions about how she had ended up in the river and with a dip of her head in shame that wasn't purposeful, in fact it was entirely for the pure absurdity of HER being the one to jump after the totodile was so ironic it was hilarious. She had started laughing stupidly, giggling like a fucking idiot and the adults had taken that as a sure sign that they were right.

Now the whole tone was preaching about how quietly, small little Ethan who hated going outside, and talking to anyone, jumped in the river to save a baby pokémon.

She was watching it through her own eyes, of course, but her body had gone on autopilot. What was she even doing? Time passed and she existed and everyone else in this town existed around her despite the fact this had once been purely fiction for her. Never even had names but now this body knew them with the familiarity of a small-town awareness.

So many people with complex lives she would never know all the details of just like her own. Characteristics that could never be translated like fiction. Real people could be defined in infinite words, and it would never be enough. To the most boring fisherman to the estranged doctor of their town. She was alive and the life around her was solidifying it. Claire had tried to pretend that everyone around her wasn't real to make it easier to die, and yet now all it did was show how much they would be devastated by her death.

She started laughing again, the serious Doctor finally giving in and giving her a stern look as she kept laughing. She couldn't stop laughing! It was so ridiculous. To be placed into Pokémon without being given any reason. To be placed into a boy when she had just got over not being born one in the last life. To try and kill yourself and a fucking baby saving your life by jumping into a river after you. He had basically doomed himself by jumping in that river! What if he had died? She would have never forgiven herself in the afterlife.

Eventually the fainted pokémon, after being shallowly checked over by the doctor for any emergencies and being deemed okay to stay in her arms while she was being checked over, was coaxed out of her arms. That was finally when Claire’s young body decided to give in and pass out.