Chapter 1: p1: Vs Forces of Nature (Lightning 1)

I've never had the greatest luck in life. In fact, most would call me rather unlucky.

From failing classes several times over to being held back twice; losing an important job interview because someone stole the wheels to my bike; thinking I got lucky by winning a free coupon to eat at a new seafood buffet place, only to get my stomach wrecked due to undercooked food.

Made doubly unfair cause you literally can't say no to an entrée of oysters with a tray of sauteéd crab legs to add as a bonus… but I digress.

While I certainly didn't have the worst life imaginable, having the luxury to do things like play the latest video games or read books both paper and digital in my free time, it still wasn’t one of total pleasantries.

One could even say it was those other innumerable minor inconveniences which truly filled the bingo board for this living circus of a life of mine. To top it all off, for for the vast majority of those things, I knew exactly what caused them.

So what were these mysterious and intricate reasons that had me suffering losses on my scoreboard before you could even utter long socks and orange crocs?

Phantoms. Unseen meanaces.

Okay, now hear me out. I know the paranormal gets a lot of bad rap, especially considering most “proofs” are just products of superstition and overactive imagination painting experiences but this is different!

It all started when I was about six, maybe it happened earlier too but my memory bank doesn't extend that far clearly enough to parse for details so who knows.

Anyways, it all started one night. I was but a wee nappy time child, serendipitously dreaming serene dreams of celephine secrecies when, at some unknown nightly hour, I was awoken by a flash of light.

Now the why and how still largely eludes me even to thisday. But the rarity of the event was something I’d never forget.

If I bet someone two nickels for every time I’d woken up to a prismatic blue glowing orb that folded in and out of itself like some unending 4 dimensional art piece Vince Van Gough cooked up on a deadline while huffing paints and astral projecting his spirit into the future to get tips from Bob Ross who was dreaming he was a happy accident tree… Well I’d have exactly two nickels, which to be completely fair isn’t a lot. But nevertheless still really weird for it to have happened at all in the first place.

So, being the fearless precious child I was at the tim,  I did the only sane thing any bundle of pure radiance and sunshine a child up past their bedtime would do. I waved and talked to it:

“Hi Mister or Misses orby. Why aren’t you asleep? Do you want to play?”

I was honestly too pure for this world.

When it didn't seem to respond or react to my questions, I did the only logical thing any curious and responsible 6 year old child would do.

I poked it.

Suddenly, I was standing in the backyard of my house at the time. Toys and miniature playhouses and slides littered around the small backyard area. Nothing amiss.

Well, if you counted reality splitting halfway over it like funky fun house mirrors reflecting sparkling dots of  cosmoic light nothing amiss, that is.

But with the amount of things that people and places could get away with in those times, that probably had the same energy level as letting an impressionable young child watch breakfast club at 6 am after a night of scaling candy mountains and swimming in sugary oceans--highly un-recommendable, but still somehow still marginally better than letting them run rampant with markers and crayons near very expensive or dangerous objects all over the house.

But my bone to pick with parents and authorities of that generation is neither here nor there, at least not in this context.

So getting back to the orb. It ended up appearing again between the points of our world and where the laws of reality peaced out the fuck out, expanding and swallowing the lights from the mirror-like wall into a totatlly different scene. Soon I wasn't seeing the immemorial unraveling of the infinitely expanding universe, but in a stark contrast a blue-greenish tinted, fittingly eerie forest.

As if that wasn’t bizzare enough, figures from within its shadings crept forwards. Dancing sillouettes stalking closer as more and more joined from the heavens and earth; many plummeting down onto the terra firma or crawling up from within said depths to join in the preternatural dance of perennial desire.

As if appeasing some illusionary god which might call forth its dieform feat of releasing us from the impure fetters of our mortal bodies, so that we may immanentize the eschaton and rightfully ascend unto our thrones within the hallways of heaven. In everlasting evanescence, to do as thy will; as above, so below they say.

Moving past that unfathomable, inspirational scene, I also managed to see that those silhouettes were also quite different from humans or even regular animal personages (as far as I could have reasonably comprehended from at the time).

Some seemed to bear rich radiant flowers at the top of their visages-- twirling majesticly with petalled skirts. Others, partaking more in their theme of enchanting mystique, held what looked like jagged sticks behind them. Almost resembling tails in a way. Their heads drooped ever so slightly as murky shadows whirled and lurked beneath. 

…I'm pretty sure I even saw a weird axolotl-like thingy standing on two stubby legs staring at me with big beady eyes and rounded mouth making both silent and meaningless popping gestures in what was probably a sign of establishing its heirarchy, now that I think about it.

So when a number of those silhouettes pushed against a seemingly invisible barrier separating worlds before managing to enter my side of reality and slowly faded to where they were semi if not completely invisible, I did the only understandable thing any 6 year old child would do when experiencing an extraordinary encounter of the “oh fuck oh shit” variety would react with.

I named the mouthy one Doppy and called it a day.

I’m sure it liked it, if suddenly getting drenched by water was any form of indication.

Now as fun as this night was and my resulting experience of waking up to my parents screaming mad upon not finding me in my bed in the morning but outside on the grass, there were some major changes that went on in my life, which weren’t totally removed from that rather eventful and unforgettable night. Namely, that I was now “guarded” (or more like pranked) by a band of unperceivable apparitions.

And oh were there shenanigans galore.

Most probably wouldn’t believe you if you said what had actually made you soaking wet and cooled you down on a hot summer’s day was actually an unseen, unforeseen spray of water. Nor the fact that it came from telling your unnoticeable friend how much you were enjoying the soft, mildly baking rays of the sun. And for good reason if the strange looks my siblings gave me were anything to go by.

Fewer then, of course, would believe you if you were to say a random gust of wind had managed to pick you up half a foot off the ground when no one was looking because you said it would be cool to fly--Screams in fearful delight the only evidence which even hinted towards such an occurrence.

Therefore, it is quite apt to say that truly none who pride themselves in the scientific logical would believe it if those bouquet flowers from the florist's shop down the street just “happened” to appear and fall from above onto you after you wished you had more florets to complete the wreath of flowers for Doppy’s (the self-made pink stuffie's) head.

Though there were, of course, compliments on the weaving skills of the resultant floral crown however. Even if the explanation for how an innumerable amount of the other ones appeared as well received pausing doubts at best.

And yet, through all this, such phenomenas would turn out to be but the most harmless of experiences--Not always as innocuous and kind-hearted as one might hope, unfortunately.

I recall a time when a tree branch swaying in the wind suddenly smacked me. So I kicked its meanie trunk back. Guess who got hit by falling branches and acorns whenever going out for the next few weeks?

Sometimes things would just straight up disappear. That project I spent three weeks on and was due the next day while being left on the table overnight?

Yeah poof. Gone.

Even worse, when I came back from school presentation day very upset at a failing grade, it was freaking there on the table! With the addition of many strange and unusual figures all over it as well (Doopy you beady eyed plastic mofo).

As revenge, I decided to take it into the backyard… and blow it up.

...Even now I still somewhat wish I had made that paper mache volcano life sized, or had enough baking soda to see it actually flood the land instead of a little puddle in the sandbox for that matter. Had my admittedly astute parents had slightly less foresight and took to buying those additional materials, I would have way with that land wrecker too.

So with all these phantoms causing mayhem within my life, at best playing pranks on me and at worst, making things really difficult and inconvenient you’d think I’d have say, at least learned to live with my lot and move forwards so that life continues, right?

Well… not quite…

You see, there’s probably some hidden in interacting with the supernatural--even if no one else but yourself believes in it. But regardless of your believes, if something really does cause action in your life, it’d be no surprise if it then in turn results in change.

Maybe it was from the stress of dealing with all this. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the deciding factor either.

Or perhaps it was simply the result another one of their unforeseeable pranks gone wrong and I was just the unfortunate victim of it. Or maybe even this was simply something bound to happen regardless of these admittedly aggravating and uncontrollable external circumstances.

Either way when illness struck, I was usually the one left to pick up the pieces as though it were a vitric house of cards.

No one knew the cause or why it really happened. But at times, I’d be perfectly fine. Then at others, I’d experience what suddenly felt like a plug being pulled in my body; losing whatever strength I had to stand or even think. It was almost always unexpected, intense, and in the case where I was near anything hazardous, extremely dangerous. It was part of the reason I was confined to bed so much nowadays as it progressed.

And if you thought it couldn’t get worse than that, I’m sorely sorry to say that considering it wasn’t the only health symptom I experienced, it does.

Sometimes, I’d suddenly fall asleep regardless of the time or place.

Or even more than that, my brain would just shift gears and make it hard to process words and images.

And finally, there would be times when I’d see and hear illusions overlapping with reality--wait that’s actually those prankster phantoms, isn’t it?

Or maybe not. Whereas the phantoms at least had some semblance of cohesion and logic--keeping forms and occasionally stopping bad things from happening to me, the illusions had none of that.

Numerous amounts of doctors I had visited throughtout my time experiencing this were left at a loss when I showed the signs for a multitude of symptoms such as narcolepsy, autism, mutism, tachypsychia, catatonia, and a whole host of supposedly “recurrent pseudo-placebo conditions” which sounds just as ridiculous as it was having dealing with those near impossible situations in a day to day life.

I’d love to joke and say I was the glass bones and paper skin meme, but in all honesty? The truth of the matter was that probably wasn’t all too far off from reality.

By the way, I have no idea if it was intentional or not but the song is really fire and really carries that gorgeous 2010’s hard rock/metal anime opening spirit. That totally wasn’t a free shameless plug for PTC (started circa 2019) by the way.

Nope. Not in the slightest.

But anyways, the number of times I’d visited school after entering secondary education was more than a hundred but mostly likely less than a thousand or so. That is to say, in eloquent terms: sporadic as jazz.

I said before that school was rough for me. And so was my luck. It felt like everything in general just had itout for me and I hated it.

Yet despite it all, I still pulled through.

I have my family, as well as the few friends I made both virtually and in daily life to thank for that. And truly, I was thankful because if it weren’t for them, I’m sure I would have been bone-deep bitter towards anyone and anything. That I didn’t turn out like that could be called a small miracle in and of itself.

Unfortunately though, like many things in this grand scheme of life, not everything is always peaches and rainbows. Life continued and with it, my conditions and prospects at living a long and normal life seemed to grow dimmer with each time my health seemed to progress for the worst.

Where I had used to only go through light phases of narcolepsy perhaps every few months for a few weeks, now it’s every month; now it was nearly daily to where I would experience that frustratingly familiar sensation of sudden weightlessness.

Other conditions continued to worsen in a rather similar manner as well, much to the befuddlement and dismay of my caretakers and loved ones.

Even now, as I tried to solve a simple disentanglement puzzle, part of my mind was on a loop. The puzzle was one where you have to arrange the metal pieces in a certain order to take them apart. It’s part of my daily motor and mental exercises but I was frustrated because while I understand the base concept behind it and had even solved it quite easily in the past, My visual perception makes everything look like I’m in water to a hyper lucid degree.

My instincts tell me to force one solid part through a gap in the other piece but as I do it, I’m frustratingly met with continual resistance. I’m sure I've been repeating the same motion for the last 5 minutes because I felt like it was the “correct” way, even while I logically and intellectually understand that it is in fact not.

And yet it’s a mystery as to why I still have trouble moving myself to follow a different line of action in spite of such a fact.

Who had said it again? “The definition of insanity is to repeat the same action repeatedly and expect a different result”. It makes me wonder what experiences someone would have had to go through in order to consciously construct such a phrase, but I’m definitely feeling like I’m feeling the loonies right now.

Screw it.

I dropped the disentanglement puzzle. Either because my hands slipped or because I don’t want to do it anymore, probably both. I don’t bother picking it up again, either way.

Some of my family are around, they’re encouraging me and telling me it's okay, I think.

Sounds meld into each other in offset picthes as their faces blur with stereograms emerging from the background to them. There’s a condition for these that I can probably remember. Or maybe not if it was one of the long ones… It was…

…Oh great, now I can feel even my critical processing skills beginning to… tank as well….

White noise is starting to form. I can feel the edges of my vision darkening. I was going to respond to them.

Just…  Just… in one… minute…

…

“His condition is deteriorating at an exponential rate day by day, I’ve truly never seen or heard anything like it… I’m sorry I have to say this but I believe you all should be prepared for the worst”. The main physician said. 

Some of the family members--the mother and daughter--wept. The father and infant however did not. One much too young to understand. The other had had his tears dried up seeing his child in that state for endless months already; knowing it would probably come to this since long ago.

“How long does he have?'' He asked emotionlessly. The mother shot an angry glare at the man while the daughter looked at him in surprise before shaking her head with tear stained eyes, as if trying to stop herself from accepting the truth.

“The rarity of his situation makes it difficult to estimate. Based on the current progression rate… Months before he starts losing more memories and lapses in a coma;

Quicker, if there were to be unforeseen complications…”

The doctor’s unspoken words hung in the air like a guillotine to the family: ‘-Which there probably will be’.

The daughter finally couldn’t take it anymore and ran out of the room with suppressed sobs.

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The father shook his head wearily before continuing a quiet discussion with the doctor while the mother held the youngest son closer to her to stop him from crying from the emotions he was picking up on.

Meanwhile, the daughter who ran out bumped into another patient but didn’t bother apologizing.

The female patient, confused, tried to call out quietly but the other girl was already gone.

Disappointed, she began to make her way past the analysis room and opened the door two rooms down.

The door clicked close as she practically skipped barefoot to the side of the sleeping male’s bed.

She greeted him nonetheless and took the puzzle he had on his lap with shaky hands before talking about her day.

Like how she wished the nurses wouldn’t scold her for sneaking out since her motor skills weren’t at their best. Or how she’d enjoyed strolling through the little garden area nearby so she could feed the ducks green peas. Motherfreakin’ ducks loved green peas.

She also talked a little bit about how she wished the silent chills at night would stop, the ones where she couldn’t stop shaking and shaking. Those were the worst.

She then secretly wished he would sneak in like he used to to help her through it. His company was always the best even if he never said much

But what she really wished for, most of all…

She lowered the solved puzzle back where she found it and took his fingers into her gaunt, trembling hands while thinking of what she overhead while on her way here.

She wished that he would be alright.

———

Far above in the pitch black night sky. Where the most ambitious of humans aspired to reach, like a primordial core desire unsprung the closer one gets… only for one to look up at some point and realize just how little they’ve truly come to unmasking the grandiose glamour of the glorious cosmos.

Within such a space, an semi-visible vortex seared through the incessantly isolating interspace with murky plasmatic light as reflective spheres dripped like acid rain, swirling in superfluous bubbles of warped light.

They descended and while some seemed to dissapate by some invisible forces, others persisted and descended upon city.

Whenever these orbs came into contact with objects, they’d momentarily warp and bend them before disappearing. Most people touched by them only felt a temporary discomfort before it went away so it by itself didn’t raise much attention.

Where problems started to occur was when they touched building structures, in particular weak and vulnerable points. Some of which managed to stay steady, others of which experiencing the last push needed to make them collapse, like an old shack. Or coming into contact nearly finished houses and their exposed electrical wiring.

And as it just so happened, it seemed a number of these orbs fell towards a certain antique hospital…

———

Cleos was cold.

The heavy thunder hurt Cleos’ ears.

This wasn’t right. Cleos shouldn’t be here. Why was Cleos here?

“Cleos! We’re almost out of the storm, okay?! Don’t worry, we’ll heal whatever damages those church bas-, ah sorry language. Whatever those unholy cult scum did to you! I’ll make them pay in ways so that they’ll wish they'd never have been born. I promise!” A man shouted over the booming thunder. The shadowy expressions on the man’s face transformed like the uncontrollable whirling of a tenebrose zoetrope.

Whose voice was that? Father’s? Why was he here too? Why heal Cleos? Was something wrong with Cleos?

The man must have seen Cleos’s confusion and tried to explain.

 

“I know you’re confused right now Cleos but trust me! I’ll get you to safety before I figure out how all this happened! Your mother, she…-. -e’ll be taking refuge at a friend’s… Don’t worry about… she’s safe for now. I told her to lay low. All we have to do is drop you off before I make sure it’s safe and get her. Then we can all be a family again. I promise you that Cleos, or my name isn’t-...HOLY MOTHER F-” The man paused his emotional speech to look up at the alert of a monitor before saying something that a random but perfectly timed thunderboom censored.

“-R. HOW ARE THEY FOLLOWING US?! WE SHOULD BE CLOAKED IN THE MIDDLE OF A THUNDERSTOR-”

Any further curses were interrupted as up ahead of the hidden ship’s window, within the titanic tropical typhoon they were in, triangular shapes by them as beams of light streaked past the ripping wind tides like they were non-existent and struck the armored hull of the aeroship.

DAMAGE TO HULL DETECTED: 45% DECREASE IN ENERGY SHIELDING RESERVES.

An automated voice sounded out as the words popped up on the screen as well.

“...OK. Wow, that was stronger than I expected... So uh, slight change of plans, Cleos! I need you to leave on an escape pod first while I lead them away from here. I don’t want to risk further injuring you with the fight that’s about to happen. Don’t worry, its shielding should be enough to withstand a point blank Hyper Beam blast from most pokemon, even a Gyarados! The pod has also has tracker on it that’ll allow me to find you when the time is right. And I will find you!”

The man cursed when he saw numerous dots light up on the panel.

“Dammit! They're gaining on us! You have to go, NOW!”

Father put the ship on autopilot and quickly carried me to a circular catch on the side of the wall before setting me in an enclosed, cushioned seat.

“I know this must all be confusing to you, dammit do I know. I’m sorry we have to part again so soon Cleos, I should have been a better father. I’m sorry…!” The man spot softly as tears gathered on his eyes

Father’s face was shadowy as flashing lights shined on the pain and loneliness on his face. He looked alone.

So I hugged him.

Cleos’s father stiffened when he felt thin cold arms wrap around him before returning the hug.

“I love you Cleos. If… If you don’t hear from me for too long… there’s notes in there with instructions on what to do, there’s also-

Suddenly, the light began to brighten before glowing white hot, before he could say anything else, a wave of sheer energy pulsed through anything and everything, before the light bulbs around us glow hot bright and shatter.

“...We’re out of time, I’m sorry I can’t explain more. Stay strong Cleos. I swear upon the Divine One’s name that I will find you, no matter what… Now GO!”

With that he gently pushed me into the chair of the room that automatically strapped me in before closing the metallic doors to the pod and locking it. A few seconds later, there was a hum before the world spun right as another surge of energy pulsed through me and made me pass out.

———

Coming back to myself, I looked outside the hospital. It was dark out now. Or darker.

The dream I had was strange, but then again, most dreams I have are unusual. Even if falling out of an airplane only barely makes the cut for weird. I wonder what exactly it symbolized or meant?

Time and logic were returning to normal, though the intensity to my senses had not. Before the dream, I remembered going into a catatonic state with sounds muted and images blurring.

Fun.

I feel a weight as I shift my legs then look to my side and see someone, a familiar figure.

Sleeping by the edge of my bed. She looked quiet and pure, her inky hair gently tracing against her outlined feature.

What was her name again? I recognized her face, she’s my friend, she also has a condition. Was she mute? Was it something related to auditory senses?

I can’t remember.

We did fun things together like play games or read books or share music with each other. What were they all again? I can’t remember.

Her name… It starts withn S. No an A? Or was that her last name?

I can’t remember…

Something wet fell on my face. At first I thought it was raining but then remembered I was indoors on my bed. Was it one of the phantoms?

Doppy had the habit of making things spray water on me in random situations…

Ah-. I see, I was crying.

But how come?

…I can’t remember.

…It’s dark out now. Or darker… Oh my friend is here sleeping on the bed. I wonder how long she’s been here.

Her name was-...

I feel the world shift and fall as though a plug was removed again as I’m forced into a sleep without my choosing again.

The last thing I see as my hand reaches out to hers is that her face also had tears.

Also? Oh I see, I was forgetting things. What was the condition called again?

I can-...

———

“Day 1: I’m bored. The ocean is dark and quiet. I wonder how father’s doing? I hope he’s okay… There’s few things to do. The things father said were here are here but I keep falling asleep. Hopefully I won’t need them…”

…

“Day 2: I’m beginning to think clearer now, like a fog is slowly being lifted. But my past stillremains shrouded. Who am I? Why was that person I called father with me? And why did he send me away? Does it have something to do with whoever was apparently chasing us--me? Who are they and why were they after me then? There’s just too many questions and no one here to answer it for me…

The pod sometimes bumps and shakes into things and that makes me really nervous but it doesn’t seem like it’ll be breaking anytime soon. Hopefully. The lights from the displays seem to be getting dimmer each time I turn it on though. Or maybe my vision is just becomming accostumbed to the pitch black darkness when they’re off… I wonder…”

…

“Day…3?: It’s starting to get harder to tell the passage of time. There’s no clock and it’s always dark out. I’ve just been guessing the time in the first place so it could easily  still be the second day, or the fourth. I don’t know…

Anyways, I’ve been steadily eating the rationreserves, which taste like dry gum by the way. But it allows me to stay alive so I guess I can’t complain too much. Things are still very, very boring though. The displays don’t allow me to read the books my father left me. Not that it would help much if I could since I’m struggling to read the characters in the first place. The illustrations in one of them are familiar yet unfamiliar as well… Just what are ‘pokemon’?”

…

“Log 6: I wonder why things are the way they are. Why are we here? What’s the point to, well, anything? I’ve been wondering about these things a lot. Am I going to die? Would it just be easier to open the hatch (not that I think I even could if I tried) and accept my fate? Either way, there’s not much food left. If I don’t get out of here soon, I’m gonna starve. And yet I can’t steer this thing nor would I know where to go if I could… How cruel fate is.”

…

“Log… I don’t know. I don't care. I cried again. Didn’t think I could after shedding all those tears but I did… I’m going to die, aren’t I? God, just a few logs ago I was saying I wouldn’t mind it. And I really meant it-. At least, I thought I did… But today I woke up and- and every just came crashing down on me. 

Father, where are you? Mother, what happened to you? Why am I here alone? Is it my fault? Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry.

I’msorryi’msorryi’msorryi’msorryi’msorryi’msorryi’msorrypleaseforgivemei’msorryi’msorryi’msorryi’m-”

The ship suddenly thrummed to life as Cleos’ teary face looked on listlessly. There was a bone shaking bang and a sense of pressure bearing down before Cleos realized what was happening and started screaming.

The pressure seemed to last forever, perhaps Cleos would have believed it had if the little display in front didn’t show something new: Light. And with the light, everything came to a slow stop as Cleos could see a bright orange ball within reach before it spun around once and then returned… Then spun again… and again and again. Faster and faster like wild colors fusing and breaking on a canvas.

There was no longer a ball, but lines that went up down, left right, side to side.

Cleos blinked once, the colors disappeared.

There was only darkness.

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