To the End of the World (PKMN Wattys 2016)

Falling from the Heavens

To the End of the World

"Don't let go! You can't!" Ryan screamed at me in a fit of tears. I hesitated for a second, and looked one last time at his brown hair and eyes. He tried to plead, but it was too late. I let go.

3 years ago, I met Ryan Stryker by accident on a beach near Coumarine. On the road back to my home from the aquarium, I bumped into him in the middle of a mix up, and that was all she wrote. Him and I were bound together from that very moment.

I guess it started innocent with a backpacking trip. I'm not sure when we started to like each other, but it had to be sometime within the 6 months that we toured through Kalos. Maybe it was because we did all of our work as Pokemon trainers together, or maybe it was because we somehow ended up spending every waking moment together. The answer was the same though: him and I became boyfriend and girlfriend and when we made it official, we took a trip to Sinnoh.

In Sinnoh, we traveled everywhere by foot. Day and Night, we started at Twinleaf Town and ended up taking the gym trainer's route through the region. Three badges and two weeks later we found ourselves in Floaroma Town. Having decided to camp out in the soft fields of flowers under the most natural night sky we had ever seen, we decided to make a promise. It was the second real promise we ever made to each other, but in the end it was the most important one we ever made.

We promised to walk to the end of the earth together.

I'm not sure what prompted our promise, but it seemed in the end that it was sealed within the stars. That night, we decided to explore every region, and win every gym badge at least once. We would walk to the very end of the earth with each other. No matter what conditions, no matter if the very souls of our shoes were to be worn to the very edge, no matter what we would explore every place there was. That is what we vowed to each other. It didn't matter to us then if we were exhausted, if our hair was in messy tufts, or if our bodies were covered in so much grime that a Muk would be brought to shame. We would walk everywhere, and explore because that was who we were.

And explore, we did. We toured the rest of Sinnoh. Our list of activities wasn't short either as climbed all the way to Spear Pillar, visited all three major lakes and Turnback Spring, battled all the gym leaders, and spent our fair share of money for group tours at the Safari Zone. Then we hit Hoenn, and surfed around all the routes and islands. We found our way to boiling Mt. Chimney, to the spooky Mt. Pyre, all the way the marbled white town of Sootoplis.

There was a single night when we were in that cratered city, that we had a fight. It wasn't our first fight of them all, but it was our first major one. We fought over our vow, and it ended up being that we walked away from each other from an entire night. He wanted to go back home, and I wanted to keep on walking, keep on exploring. The entire night I walked away from him, yet somehow him and I ended up in front of the gym at sunrise, dangling our feet in the water and making up after a long night. We made a compromise then, and applied to live in a vacation house in Sootoplis for 6 months. We lived together then, practically having "moved in" except for the fact that it wasn't really our home because after that we spent some quick time and headed down to Orre for a two week battle competition that allowed us to see it all by foot.

It was then that we took a year to travel Kanto and Johto, and as these were our last, I always had the question on my mind. What do we do now? It only came around when we bumped into people we knew, like Maylene when she was in Celdon, and Crasher Wake near the safari zone of Johto, but it came along. However, we didn't talk about it at all. We enjoyed ourselves the entire time despite that, and decided that we would save the one place where Kanto and Johto "meet" for last. Our last expedition, and a proper "end of the world" would be Mt. Silver. We decided that we would try to make it to the very top, by the anniversary of the day we first met.

If only I could have made it to the end.

It's funny that I had to let go on the same day that I met Ryan. I wish I hadn't had to. We had camped out at the third and final camp the previous night just fine, and we had climbed halfway up the Silver Mountain today with not a single problem. Yet somehow, the wind and the snow decided to be against us. We were so close to the top when it happened. On a thinner ledge of a path a gale of wind swept up into us and a sheet of snow above, knocking me off and making the snow unstable. Ryan could have pulled me up, but I didn't let him. I don't know why, maybe it was a premonition in my subconscious, but I knew that if he pulled me up we would both die. So, I did the only thing I could. I let go of his slippery hands holding me from dying to a chasm below.

Did I regret it? I never could. I only spent 3 years with that man, but it was the happiest three years I had ever had. Even if meant that we would move back to Kalos, or somewhere else in the world, I would stay with him at any cost. I always wanted to stay with him again in Sootoplis, but for the rest of my life. How could I not, when we had traveled the world together? It's just as well, that I would sacrifice myself, so that he could live on and be the one to walk to the end of the world. I would sacrifice everything for him, and that's why when I couldn't, I did.

The last thing I ever did was look at the sky. Seeing the beautiful blue with white clouds was the last thing I ever wanted to do. So as I fell, and the green pines that signified the end came closer below me I breathed out and watched as a pack of Murkrow circled over my head. I was then that I felt a gust of wind from beneath me, and as I heard that fatal crack in my neck I said those 8 words that matter the most to me, and the last thing I ever heard was my whispers echoing upward trying to silence the birds as it became the end for me.

That was it, the last thing that ever came from my mouth was:

"I'll still walk to the end with you."