[attr="class","rigidtag"]STERLING WARDEN

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notes.

☕

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He woke again, coughing up a lungful of water. Victor wanted to just curl up and die. [break][break]

At this point, it was becoming abundantly clear that he was stuck in some kind of cyclical hell. He wasn't exactly sure what the 'trigger' was for his death(?) and the resetting of the scene, but he did know that he desperately wanted out. [break][break]

After coughing and retching and forcing out all the water from his lungs once more, he realized something much more obviously different at the beginning of this particular 'loop'. As he pushed himself to his feet, his hands found purchase on a bed of dry, pointy pine needles, not grass coated in a layer of frost. It was also darker, maybe? As Victor once again took a moment to get his bearings, he realized he was standing beneath tall conifers in what looked like a small copse of trees, shaded from the morning light by their thick boughs. Huh, this was different. Maybe different was good? [break][break]

Looking all around, he realized that he could see the small cabin much more clearly now. He was only a few feet away, near a break in the trees that lead to the nearby road, and he watched as Naomi walked in from the opposite side of the small glen that the cabin was nestled in. A Ninetales limped behind her, and the woman guided the Pokemon over to a nearby picnic bench to examine her paw. [break][break]

Oh Arceus, he was so close. He wanted to run over and pull her into his arms, but he thought of the outcome of his first attempt to interact with her. It was his first 'death', and he wanted to avoid that outcome as much as he physically could, even if he wasn't sure what specific mechanism was causing it in the first place. [break][break]

Suddenly, he heard a shout from somewhere behind him, and a shuffling through the dry bed of pine needles. Emerging from the treeline nearest to the road was another past Victor; was this him from when he first landed in this cyclical nightmare? Which meant that he was heading towards Naomi, and that he would die, and that the current version of him would die, and the horrific cycle would repeat over and over and over and over- [break][break]

No, Victor couldn't let that happen. He had to stop the past him, by any means necessary.[break][break]

He quickly strode over to his past self, still shuffling forward in a daze, and grabbed him by the shoulders. [break][break]

“Hey, Vic, you can't go over there.” [break][break]

“Huh? Why not?” the past Victor murmured. The past version shook his head like a dog Pokemon shaking off droplets of water from their fur, and he leered at the current Victor, “I gotta see Naomi. Why are you trying to stop me?”[break][break]

Well shit, the current Victor hoped that this task was going to be easier than it turned out to be. He didn't have time to explain their current circumstances to the past Victor; he could hear voices from the direction of the cabin. If they were spotted, he'd have to start all over again, [break][break]

“Because if you go over there, you'll die! I don't have time to explain - you just have to trust me.” [break][break]

The past Victor grimaced and looked at the ground. The current Victor studied his doppleganger's expression, and watched his fists clench and unclench. Was the past Victor finally listening to him? [break][break]

Suddenly, the past Victor forcefully shoved the current Victor away, glowering at him, [break][break]

“This has gotta be some sick fucking joke,” he jeered, spitting at the current Victor's feet, “And even if you're right, I'd do anything to see her again. Get out of my way.” [break][break]

TW: Blood, violence, murder [break]

[break][break]
When Victor looked up again, the other man was gone, but it did little to ease the vacuous, hollow feeling blossoming somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He could hear the voices again from beyond the trees, from the direction of the cabin, and he slowly rose to his feet. Victor turned his back to the cabin and walked back towards the road. [break][break]

He thought he could distantly hear another voice as he plodded down the dirt path illuminated by the rays of the mid-morning sun, but he couldn't be bothered to stop his southbound trek. He just needed to leave. To go anywhere that wasn't here. He couldn't bear to face Naomi, or one of his increasingly numerous time looping clones, or anyone for that matter. Victor stared at the ground as the dirt path gave way to sand; he didn't really feel like a person anymore. [break][break]

It was one of the last conscious thoughts he had as his feet were sucked into the quicksand of the desert south of Route 111. It was probably for the best that things ended this way. He stared at his hands again before they too were consumed by the sands. Victor was glad that Naomi would never meet this monstrous facsimile of her husband. [break][break]

He smiled wearily as the sands swallowed him whole. Maybe now he could finally wake up.

[attr="class","credit"]

[attr="class","rigidtag"]Josh Devlin

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notes.

Catching/befriending Ceruledge!

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Victor woke with a gasp and a fit of coughing. [break][break]

He rolled over to his side as water was forced out of his lungs, expelled onto the cold ground next to him. Oh thank Arceus, it really was just a dream. Once he had the strength to open his eyes, Victor was sure he'd find himself back in his cheap little shithole apartment in Mauville, where there was a coffee maker and a pack of cigarettes waiting dutifully for him on the counter of the small kitchenette. When he had nothing left to cough up, and he was finally able to slow his breathing to deep, if somewhat shaky breaths, Victor opened his watery eyes to find... [break][break]

Grass, covered in a thin sheen of icy frost. [break][break]

Victor felt panic well in his chest. No no no nO NO NO SHIT FUCK SHIT FUCK DAMN IT ALL TO FUCKING HELL! He was still here, on Route 111! Except now he was laying on his side in a slick patch of grass just off the side of the road. He curled into himself, the chill of the wintery morning air sinking into his skin. What was going on? Why was he still here? Why hadn't he woken up yet? He tucked his knees as close to his chest as he could as he frantically tried to assess the situation. Suddenly, a noise from somewhere nearby pulled him from his mental spiral and he scrambled to his feet. [break][break]

Victor looked up to see... well, himself. But not the version of himself from back at the cabin; it was another him, sprawled on his back a few feet away, shifting in the grass, eyes squeezed shut. Victor (the current Victor?) took a couple of shaky steps back as he watched the replica of himself open his eyes and rise to his feet. He was squinting and looking all around, and thankfully had not noticed the present version of himself shadowed beneath the boughs of the coniferous treeline. [break][break]

There was a moment of sickening recognition as he watched the other Victor look up at the thick branches of the large oak tree he was standing in front of. This really was him, a past him from just a few minutes ago, from when he first woke up in this nightmare. But why was he watching himself from the outside? Why wasn't he currently experiencing the moment as this past version of himself was? And why did something feel different this time?[break][break]

Suddenly, he heard voices coming from a break in the treeline on the opposite side of the road, and he watched as the other Victor began to shuffle towards them in a dream-like haze. Oh shit; the last time Victor had done that, he'd been... killed? Reset? Something like that. What would that mean for him, the current Victor? [break][break]

He realized he'd spent too long distracted by his own thoughts when he looked up to see the past version of himself break through the trees, [break][break]

“Hey!” he screamed at the doppleganger, “Don't go over there!” [break][break]

Victor knew it was too late when he watched the previous iteration of himself fall to his knees. Darkness began to crowd in the edges of his vision once more; had letting the past version of himself go been a mistake? It must have been, because the uncomfortably familiar sensation of air leaving his lungs was rapidly sinking in. He tried to fight it as desperately as he could; it was like being dragged by an invisible undertow, something between falling asleep and falling under dark waves. This time his hearing lasted long enough that he thought he caught a scream from somewhere beyond the trees. It was the last conscious thing Victor experienced before he was pulled back under.

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This was a dream, right? This had to be a dream. [break][break]

It was bad enough when some kind of bizarre home invader had managed to sneak into the little apartment Victor was renting in Mauville City, looming over him as he trembled beneath the covers of his futon. Then he began monologuing about... time travel? Messing around with the timeline? Perhaps this was part of the dream too, but the sensation of being hoisted from his blankets and thrust into the whirling vortex of the glowing portal felt real. [break][break]

There was a sensation of falling, of having his insides pulled and stretched like taffy, of landing with an unceremonious 'thud' onto a patch of frost-slick grass. Victor, laying flat on his back, squeezed his eyes shut, hoping he could force himself awake from the nightmare. One, two, three – he opened them back up, only to be met by an early morning sky washed in pinks and oranges, not the dingy drop-tile ceiling of the place he was renting. [break][break]

'Shit,' he thought miserably, forcing himself to his feet, 'Well, first things first – gotta figure out where the hell I ended up.' [break][break]

Victor squinted in the early morning light as he tried to assess his surroundings. A dirt path stretched to the north, bordered by swathes of grass coated in a thin sheen of frost. There was a rocky, mountainous outcropping to the east, coniferous trees flanked the edges of the path to the west, and at present, Victor was standing before a particularly large spruce tree just north of a bend in the road. There was a flicker of recognition, and a new sinking feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with the portal he'd been flung into. This was Route 111; he hadn't been back here in nearly a year. [break][break]

If this wasn't a nightmare, it was a bad horror movie instead, or maybe Victor was in literal hell. Right on cue, he heard a pair of voices from a break in the treeline across the road to the east, [break][break]

“Hey hon, can you grab the first aid kit? I think Honoka's got something stuck in her paw.” [break][break]

“Yup, gimmie a sec.” [break][break]

Victor didn't realize his feet were moving until he was nearly across the dirt road. She was here; the voice he had woken up to every morning for years, one he'd kept the voicemail recordings of, a voice that still periodically haunted his dreams. When he broke through the gap in the trees, the first thing he saw were the tresses of her silky blonde hair shimmering in the first luminous rays of dawn. Then the emerald eyes, just barely teased at the corners by the beginnings of Murkrow's feet. Then, thin lips that broke into an expression of surprise, [break][break]

“Vic? I thought you were in the cabin?” [break][break]

There she was, Naomi Haas, nee Sonozaki. The most important person in Victor's world, in the flesh. She looked just as beautiful as the day he lost her, seated at a little wooden picnic table, one hand resting on the beloved Ninetales that sat on the ground next to her. [break][break]

Victor tried to say something, anything, but he couldn't force a sound out. Things were starting to feel... fuzzy, indistinct. Darkness began to cloud the periphery of his vision; he barely registered the movement of the cabin door opening, or the shocked expression of a slightly younger, happier Victor standing there in stunned silence. There was a shout from somewhere behind him, maybe? But it was hard to tell; Naomi tried to say something, and Victor knew this because he could see her lips move, but everything sounded like it he was underwater, muffled and echoing. [break][break]

Maybe he was somehow underwater because Victor felt like he was drowning. The darkness was shrouding more of his vision, and he couldn't quite catch his breath. He fell to his knees, reaching for Naomi. Maybe he could touch her one last time? But as he collapsed face-down onto the grass, the rest of his senses leaving him, Victor was at least content to have seen her again. Hair, eyes, lips; he repeated those images in his mind's eye like a mantra as the last vestiges of conscious thought slipped into inky oblivion.

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[attr="class","rigidtag"]STERLING WARDEN

[attr="class","rigidnotes"]

notes.

👋

[attr="class","rigidpokes"]

[attr="class","rigidtag"]Josh Devlin

[attr="class","rigidnotes"]

notes.

Catching/befriending Togetic!

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[attr="class","rigidtag"]Caleb Harcourt

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notes.

🐚

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