Larry died, like most people, he didn’t expect it. Honestly, he can’t even remember it much anymore, he can’t think straight right now anyway. Every time he tries to, it feels like his thoughts get washed away, like something is on the tip of your tongue, but just for his entire consciousness.
His thought process ebbs and flows, going from conscious thoughts down all the way to mindless humming of the mind about nothing in particular at random intervals. It’s infuriating, but he can’t seem to do anything about it.
Once his mind ebbs back into his head, he thinks again, ‘What happened? Where the hell am I? Why is it…completely…dark…’ His thought flow back out of his mind, leaving him. ‘Hung…ry…’ is the single thought he is able to piece together in a matter of minutes. Before he can begin to contemplate the single thought for hours on end his mind ebbs back in ‘This is scary. Let me out… Someone…’
Somehow, instinctually, Larry knows he is inside and needs to get out. His thought drains out of his head again, the droning of his mind goes on for a bit, before a single thought manages to manifest once again. ‘Out.’
With an animalistic drive his body begins to nudge at the insides round edges, his consciousness fades back into his mind, finally, it comes to a conclusion, aided by his instincts.
‘I need to get out!’
The slow drivel with which his body attempted to get out before ends, and is replaced by a wild and frantic fight against the inside wall. His ebbing sapience manages to stay with him finally, not slipping from his grip. He fights against the inside, to get outside.
Small-clawed stubs smash against the inside, his horned head pressing against the inside before finally, something changes. Uncountable minutes in, the inside finally gives way to the outside, cracks on the inside spiderweb over its entirety but unlike Larry might have thought, the outside isn’t much better. Before he can begin to contemplate his newfound freedom, the outside collapses in on him.
Something drops straight onto him, buried figuratively and literally, and he begins to think over his dilemma. Like a puzzle set being dropped out of its box onto a hardwood table, his mind finally finds something to work on. He begins to think, ‘What is going on right now? I can’t see, but broke through something and came to some sort of outside in a frenzy I couldn’t control… So, what is this?’
In the back of his mind a few things linger, veering him back off of his train of thought, ‘Damn, I am hungry… I still need to get out… But out to where?’ When he realizes what he just thought and that he completely lost his previous train of thought once more he quickly reorients back, but can’t seem to stay on track no matter how hard he tries.
Dread slowly creeps to the forefront of his mind; it feels like his head is invaded by these intrusive thoughts and he is somehow stuck all the way deep in this darkness. Akin to a tap on the shoulder, his instincts suddenly give him a tip, ‘Need to eat, if I’m hungry… Yeah, no shit…’ The last part Larry tries to say out loud in a short burst of conscious mockery, but before he can fully open his mouth the outside from before drops down into his open mouth.
As the outside hits his tongue though Larry finally realizes multiple things in a burst of intelligence.
‘I am alive!’
‘I am underground!’
Finally, he fully grasps consciousness and begins to consume the ground around him in a frenzy. It’s the most delicious thing in the world. Larry knows he is outside now, but he still isn’t Outside yet. Larry is underground, his instincts are telling him he should get completely Outside.
For now, Larry crawls upwards, while eating himself a small place to crawl upwards. The ground here is absolutely delicious, the best thing he’s ever tasted. It is sweet and savory and just melts on top of his tongue, but at the same time it has that salty umami flavor that just explodes on his tongue and makes his cheeks pull inwards.
He doesn’t know where he is, what happened or even what he is.
‘Shouldn’t I be dead? What is going on?’
Larry continues to eat his way upwards, slowly but surely. He has been stuffing his mouth nonstop but he isn’t feeling full at all, it is actually the opposite, his hunger doesn’t fade no matter how much of the amazing stuff he eats.
Actually, now that he thinks about it, he slows down a bit, ‘I’m eating dirt right now aren’t I, why is it so damn tasty?’
The thought makes him slow down a bit for a moment, before simply continues on.
‘Damn it all right now, this tastes so great I don’t even care, let’s just get out of the underground!’
Continuing his meal with renewed vigor, Larry continues to eat his way out. A few minutes in contemplative silence later he feels the top of his head breach the ground above him finally.
Elation fills his entire body and he rises up out of the hole he's eaten into the ground. As he looks up, he finally gets his first motes of sunlight, or at least what he thought was sunlight, turns out it's a dim light, and not much of it at that. Raising his head up high, Larry finds himself to be standing tall inside of a large, open cave. Darkness still consumes the area around him, but now he can at least see somewhat in the darkness, compared to before.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The large cave before him is broken up by large bodies of water and stalactites and stalagmites hanging from above and below, although Larry himself wouldn't be able to pinpoint which is which. Largely flat walkways flow around the open space, with the occasional hill bringing one higher up into the cave. Seas of water flow around and even a few waterfalls break the open space, Larry can already hear the splashing water around him, giving the space a serene quality he doesn't get to experience often.
Any semblance of serenity is broken when he finally looks down upon himself, as he was eating his way to freedom Larry didn't have much time to consider his situation, he'd simply assumed he was buried alive considering he'd been underground.
But now that he had awoken deep inside an unknown cave and taken a proper look at himself he knew something was very wrong. He was at most two feet tall, his skin was rock hard and a dull green, and on his stomach is a diamond-shaped red spot, peeking out under his green rocky armor. His tiny nubby arms can barely reach his hips as he tries to grab at himself. At his feet green one-toed nubs stare back at him and on his rear he sees a large bouquet-shaped tail hang around uselessly. On top of his head, he can feel a large dull horn reach straight up into the sky.
‘…I died, right…?’
‘Did…Did I get reincarnated?!’
‘AND NOT AS A HUMAN?! ‘
Quickly stumbling over to one of the large pools that dot the giant cavern Larry was born into, he glanced down into it. A familiar face from his childhood stared back at him, he was a Pokémon.
‘A LARVITAR?!’
Startled by his new appearance, Larry sprung away from the pond with a squeak, above Larry, a pack of Zubat that had been peacefully sleeping were rudely awakened and flew off into the distance in a storm of wingbeats and high-pitched squeaks.
His first instinct to the huge amount of noise breaking out above him was to find a place to hide, in a panic, Larry clumsily hobbled away from the pond and over to a group of stalagmites jutting out from the side of the cave floor. Shaking like a leaf, helpless and reborn as a hatchling Larvitar Larry simply looked into the darkness of the cave overcome with a sense of fear. He didn't know what was out there and did he even want to find out?
The silence of the cave was both calming and nerve-wracking, how'd you know if something was out there without sound to back you up? With nothing better to do, Larry fell back into thought.
He was both immediately horrified and awestruck by the prospects of what happened to him. Firstly, somehow there exists Reincarnation and he was lucky enough to have it happen to him. Secondly, Pokémon were real and all of his childhood dreams were somehow validated. Thirdly, Larry was a Pokémon, and he knew the prospects of that, creature with immense power and strength to rival or even beat the strongest weapons back on earth.
He could already see some snot-nosed kid catching him in the hopes of getting a strong Pokémon for his team and being treated like an animal his entire life. Or was this a Mystery Dungeon kind of situation?
After trying to talk for a quick second and only returning a series of short squeaks which might sound akin to the word “Larvitar” if you didn’t listen in he ruled out that theory. So, no Mystery Dungeon situation or was he simply way too young to talk?
For now, everything Larry was certain of was that after his death, he was reincarnated as a Larvitar and that he was in a world that was populated by Pokémon. He’d need to find out more about this world…
Grrrll…
‘Maybe get something to eat first…’
Some shorter-term and long-term goals were set. And with such a thing he knew he had to find something to eat, though now that he thought about it, doesn’t Larvitar literally eat dirt?
‘Yeah, Larvitar are supposed to eat entire mountains to evolve or something like that!’
Finally with a slightly clearer mind, Larry finally could remember some things, like the reason he died, a truck swerved into him to avoid some wildlife. Also the PokeDex entry for Larvitar came to mind, about how they live by eating, and that they eat entire mountains to evolve.
‘Damn. So I really did die… Honestly, I am not very broken up about it. I expected myself to cry myself stupid and to be having a panic attack right about now, but just thinking it back. I really don’t think much about it.’
‘I just wish I wouldn’t have been so abrupt…Mom’s going to be so heartbroken…’
He peered back into the dark expanse of the cave in front of him, ‘Anyway, I’ve got bigger problems, don’t I? Reincarnation is real, Pokémon are as well and Jesus didn’t happen!’
His mind began to wander as he sat between the stalagmites.
‘I’m just NOT going to think about the idea that some Japanese guy manifested his dreams into a real universe, or is it the other way around? Gah! Don’t even think about it Larry!’
A Zubat squeak from above scares Larry out of his wandering machinations as one of the low-flying Pokémon veers just past him and into the darkness.
Peering around the cave once more, its jutted rocks and unkempt interior take on a more hostile view in Larry’s mind, ‘This isn’t some tourist attraction, this is a real cave.’
‘The games might’ve painted a lighthearted adventure for entertainment, but I’m now a wild beast that needs to survive in the wilderness…’
With measured steps he slowly but surely steps out of his hiding place behind the stalagmite, stubby arms extended to the side in both defense and as balance bars, considering he had been walking for all of about 3 minutes by now in his new body, they were sorely needed.
Every step with his short stubby legs felt helplessly inept, he didn’t know what he even was supposed to be doing right now
Ggrrrllllgg…
‘Oh yeah, eating, right.’
He looked back at the set of stalagmites he’d taken to hiding behind, he didn’t FEEL that powerful, but he gave it a try. Leaning forward and closing his tiny mouth around the stony exterior of the base of the stalagmite, he pressed them together. Nothing much happened, except that his tiny baby teeth were starting to hurt.
‘God damn it, how am I supposed to be eating these stones, if I can’t even get one bite out of them!’
Slightly angry he took a pebble from the ground and put it in his mouth, when it hit his tongue, he was hit with the same bliss of eating he had gotten when he dug himself up.
The ground he’d dug through was more like hard candy, with how small the pieces of gravel were, they tasted great. If those pieces of gravel were candy then this pebble was like a jawbreaker! He couldn’t bite through it at all, so he simply kept it in his mouth for taste.
‘No wonder Larvitar are known to eat entire mountains, they taste great!’