FLOOD [Pokémon]

Chapter 25

DARWIN

Saturday, March 24, 2018

"Darwin," Grandpa Jon said heavily, "can you please go look in the hallway closet? There's some rope there we can use to...secure Nero."

I ran, but not for the hallway. After stumbling around blindly for a moment, I crashed into the bathroom and stumbled over to the toilet, where I hurled my guts up. Even after I was empty, I felt sick — something about the pain and sh*t still happening too fast, but especially the pain. My... I don't know what throbbed. My brain? My brain stem? Something inside still hurt like fury, like a pulsing wound, the sensation needling my stomach. Another ache swelled and ebbed inside my skull, and I retched, sending bile and blood dripping into the toilet.

Footsteps — I looked up to see Grandpa moving to one of the white cabinets, pulling out a drawer. He came over and handed me a tiny packet of white powder labeled BC. "Take it with a swallow of water," he said, handing me a cup. "Should do something for the pain."

He flushed the toilet, and I ran water in the sink and knocked it back with the painkiller. I chanced a look into the mirror, and barely smothered the urge to run back to the toilet — Nero and his goddamn elbow had beaten me black and blue. Thank Arceus he'd missed anything essential, but dry blood painted streaks down from my eyes, and my nose was still dripping. I reached up to touch it, but Grandpa's hand got there first, probing gently.

"Bruised," he determined, "but nothing broken. You'll walk it off."

I stared at him unabashed, feeling like I was trying to assemble a puzzle that had no complementary pieces. Nero, he was called, and Grandpa had called him that. How did he know him? More importantly, did he know who...what Nero was? The question was at the tip of my tongue, but got stuck there.

"Grandpa," I said, opting for the easier route, "who is that kid, and how do you know him?"

He was back at the cabinet, fishing out stuff: Band-Aids, rubbing alcohol, gauze, and a cold-pack. "I met him just today," he told me. "He came by asking for help."

"What kind of help?"

"Directions."

"Where?"

He gazed up at me, eyes glassy. "To Rustboro Trainer High School."

I felt a fresh stream of blood leak out of my nose, down to my upper lip — I pinched my nostrils shut, trying to staunch the flow. "He was looking for me," I said.

"Yes, he was looking for someone who'd supposedly caught his Sharpedo out at sea. Though I didn't know he was talking about you at the time, son. I had no idea."

"Why did he think you would know where to find me?"

"Not you, the high school. I can give people directions to that place easily enough."

Then I guess a better question was how Nero had known that I went to RTHS. But I almost didn't care about that. "Grandpa," I said tonelessly.

He looked up again, from where he'd been loading the medical supplies in the bin. Something about my voice had spooked him — his eyes had gone wide, his pupils expanding. "Yes, son?"

Ask, I thought, but no, how could I? Nero was there, I had visual proof that he existed... But today he had legs, and to suggest he'd ever had anything but would still, to anyone, be lunacy. Ask. But I chickened out at the last second.

"That thing with his voice..."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you see how Thomas fell to the floor when Nero said, 'Sit?'"