Gotta Read 'em All! - Tournaments

Final Round - RESULTS

Hello everyone! The moment you've all been waiting for: the very last round of the tournament, the ultimate conclusion.

The GottaReadEmAllClub had a very thrilling, fun experience with running this tournament, and hopefully the contestants and followers have, too!

Remember, even if you didn't manage to end up a winner, that doesn't at all mean you're a bad writer. Not at all! Possibly the most difficult aspect of this tournament for the judges was choosing the winners themselves, since there were so many good writers participating. And remember: there's always next time :)

But! Enough of that, let's move on to the winners.

Because, sadly, @MelonLord7 was unable to submit her one-shot, @d_s_t_e is the winner of this round, hence the winner of the entire tournament. Congratulations!

First, here's her magnificent one-shot:

The citizens of Lavender Town are a people haunted by the memories of what once was. The recently bereaved wander into the borders weeping and heartbroken, bearing their spheres of midnight black – the pokéballs that are not pokéballs because there is no life within. Some carry their spheres like heavy burdens that drag them down with every step, others clutch them tightly in both hands, holding, squeezing, never letting go until the funeral presider must pry it out from between fingers that are too stiffened to properly release. I was one of those people, standing beside the freshly dug grave with my fingers curled like claws as I watched the midnight sphere release the corpse of my first and only Pokémon. "Royal looked so small and helpless, lying there inside a little hole in the earth," I say. "His eyes were dull and glassy, his fins were stiff and motionless. A part of me was panicking, thinking, you know, he can't be on dry land. He needs water. It was just so wrong. But the other part of me was thinking, that's not Royal. That's just some plastic dummy, something that's never been alive. Seeing his body there, I couldn't imagine how it had ever been alive." I stop speaking just as my voice chokes up. I sit back down in my metal folding chair amid murmurs of sympathy. The group leader thanks me for sharing, says something that's probably supposed to be comforting, but I'm not really listening to her. I'm nodding my head, pretending to accept her words while my head is filled with nothing but the remembered image of fresh dirt pouring down upon his scales, sealing him away bit by bit into his grave.

These support group things are supposed to help, but they never do. I have some kind of rare immunity. The only person in this room who's been in Lavender Town longer than I have is the group leader. Most of these trainers call themselves visitors, staying in the big hotel on the north west side of town only for a week or two, as long as it takes to recover from their loss and move on with their lives. I'm a permanent resident. For five months now, I've been renting the apartment between a middle-aged grief counselor and a crusty old tombstone engraver. The man who presided over Royal's funeral lives across the hall. Ninety five percent of the town's population is in the business of death. Another four percent are in the business of providing goods and services to those people. I'm in the one percent, the group that all the others like to call "the ones who just can't let it go". As the support group meeting comes to an end, all the newbies and hopeless dependents crowd around the group leader, trying to monopolize her attention. I feel her trying to catch my eye, but the needy people pen her in. I walk a straight course out the double doors. She should know by now that this is what I always do, but, then, I suppose she knows what day it is. Five months I've been renting my apartment, but seven months before that I was staying in the place I've nicknamed the Hotel Grief. All told, it's been one year. One year exactly since that day. The day I watched my friend die right before my eyes. Props to her for keeping all her patients' details straight, but props is all I'm giving her. "Patient" isn't the right word. Probably. I don't care. It's what I feel like I am to her.