“Wow, I guess it worked… I’m surprised nobody tried it before!” Greg sat there, admiring the void around him. He and Tim had tried something new. Pokeballs were designed to capture pokemon of course, but there was no reason why they couldn’t encapsulate and store any other biological creature as energy. Greg was pleased at this discovery! From his point of view, Greg didn’t really see anything; it appeared as though he was floating in space. He gazed out among pure blackness, noticing some light twinkling here and there, probably just final remaining glints of the outside light boucing off the reflective edges of the pokeball. Tim discussed with Greg before his “capture” that if it worked, he would let Greg out immediately. With this fact known, Greg simply smiled and waited the few necessary seconds for Tim to get to the ball, and initiate Greg’s release. But the release never came. Surely Tim would have gotten to the pokeball by now? It felt like it’d been minutes now. Maybe there was just a technical issue? It is true that no human had ever inhabited a pokeball before. Perhaps Tim was just having trouble getting it open? In the worst case scenario, Tim would just have to visit a Pokecenter and have Greg manually removed. The nearest pokecenter was only about 30 minutes’ walk away, too. But it felt like hours had passed. How many hours? Greg was worried. Time was hard to track with nothing to use as orientation. His watch didn’t seem to work here either, since the hands haven’t moved at all. Greg was getting hungry, but not for food. He was hungry for life… for light, sound, movement, anything. The darkness was getting a bit maddening. How many days had passed? Greg tried to remember where they even were when he and Tim tried this experiment. Was it at the woods near home? He could swear he remembered a street sign. Or was that just a weird-shaped tree? The river was flowing pretty hard, so it must have rained recently before his capture. Or was that the sound of traffic? Greg felt all mixed up. His life-hunger grew by the…day? Where could Tim be? It’s not like he would be keeping Greg in here on purpose, right? What if he was? Tim wouldn’t do that, he was Greg’s friend. “But then why am I still here?” This didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair. How could Tim do this to him!? What kind of friend is he? It’d been weeks now! Maybe even months! Greg festered with these thoughts. If he ever got out, he wasn’t sure what he might do, but Tim would never be a part of it again. The days continued to tick by in Greg’s consciousness. This must be his life now, for eternity. Greg tried to remember the color of grass, or the way flowers smelled. He tried to remember Tom’s face. Wait… wasn’t his name Jim? No, it was definitely Tom. It’d probably been a few years now. Tom probably moved on with his life by now. He probably finished school and started to work toward his dreams. Greg wouldn’t have that luxury. He was busy trying to picture how bright the sky used to be from within his eternal tomb. It felt like it’d been forever. Years seemed to whiz by in mere seconds. Greg couldn’t even imagine what his own face looked like. What even was a face? He was trying to remember basic things to hold on to in his memory, but it was so tough now. “I am Greg.” He’d never forget that fact, no matter what happened. He simply would not forget his own name. “I am Greg.” He may never escape this dark prison, but that’d be okay now. “Greg. I am Greg.” As long as he remembered himself, he would not cease to exist. “Greg.” And maybe there was still hope somewhere. Maybe there was still some form of existence in his black world. “Greg” Greg didn’t believe it, but it’d be okay if someone else had hope like that. “Greg” … “Greg” Suddenly, a light far more explosive than anything he could imagine burst forth into Greg’s field of vision. A great explosion of sound and color danced around in front of him as Greg felt himself being swept…somewhere. Greg could only remember one thing during his millennia of isolation, and his location was not it. Tim walked up to Greg. “Hey man, it worked! How cool is that?” “Greg! GREG!” Tim looked at Greg with a confused face. “Cut it out, man. Just because you were put in a pokeball for just a few seconds doesn’t mean you should go around acting like one. Let’s go get some grub, bud!” “Greg…Greg Greg…” A single tear streamed down Greg’s face. His mind was too scrambled for understanding, and he would never be able to explain his awful fate to his best friend. Just like no other pokemon like him ever will.
