Symbiosis

Chapter 5

Alex's first hint that something was wrong when blinked his eyes open was that he heard a woman speaking. He didn't have a visitor, did he? Also, it seemed like something was rather off with the ceiling. And that certainly didn't feel like his bed. So where was-? Then memories of yesterday rushed back to him. Memories of him being at his coworker's place. Memories of the city being in complete turmoil. Memories of him turning into a mew. His heart made several flips as he recalled these events, and an uncomfortable jolt shot up his body, causing him to flinch.

"Alex? You up?" a familiar voice spoke, coming from across the room. Alex looked up to see Nick sitting at the couch eating an omelette with the news on.

Alex sat up and blinked away more of his tiredness. "Erm... sorta. So what's... um, where's..."

"Preston went out earlier," Nick explained after Alex trailed off, "I think he said he just needed some air. Poor guy's taking it especially rough," Nick said with a hint of worry in his voice.

Alex blinked again and rubbed away some of the fog in his vision, also trying to get his thoughts in order. That's right, Preston had turned into a pokemon too. A druddigon. Alex glanced back at his other coworker, Nick. "And you?"

"I mean, I'm not the one who turned into a pokemon, right?" Nick asked with a shrug.

"Well yea, but you can still have thoughts on it, right?" Alex sat up all the way, stretched his body, and leaned back into the couch cushions, becoming more alert for the day by the second.

"Eh, I... dunno. I've mostly just been watching the news and trying to browse through reddit and some of the pokemon forums. Emphasis on trying, anyway. I'm still sorting through the whole thing, and there's only so much I can find with the internet being as screwy as it is right now, but I can tell you this much; everyone else is flipping shit."

"Yea, I can imagine," Alex muttered in a barely audible voice. Then a somewhat irrelevant thought occurred to him that he decided to voice anyway. "Hold up, I thought the both of you had work today?"

"Nope. Got a call from the bossman this morning. They're shutting everything down for at least a week. So is everything else, actually. The entire city is still... not functioning. Mostly cuz of all the car accidents. They news heads said enough people got into a wreck that it's gonna take a few days to get it all sorted out and get the bare essentials up and running back to normal again."

"A few days for the essentials? You mean like police and ambulances and stuff?"

Alex was surprised to a flash of worry on the normally laid back Nick's face. "Pretty much. They said that they got overloaded fast, and there's not gonna be any quick way to sort it out. The roads alone are gonna take days to clean up fully."

"I... wow." Alex sat there gobsmacked. There were no words that could express the emotion or thoughts running through him, so he said nothing more.

With the abrupt uneasy silence hanging over the both of them, Alex and Nick just sat watching the news, which seemed to be permanently locked onto the pokemon phenomenon. "...are unsure as to what caused the invasion, but government officials from all but eight countries have confirmed that some variation of unknown creature has suddenly appeared overnight. The white house has yet to-"

"Every single country? Are you kidding me?" Alex nearly shouted, cutting off the reporter.

"Yea. You were right yesterday. It seems like it's a worldwide thing. There have actually been sightings of a few legendary mons too, like... I found these out while browsing reddit and the news. I was reading something about a moltres in Australia, a... xerneas, I think it's called, in Russia; a ho-oh in Japan- kinda fitting, actually- and there's actually been two different claims of articuno sightings. One in Greenland, and one here in the USA."