“What’s a Mystery Dungeon?”

mis·tak·en (mi stā’kən), adj.

1. wrongly conceived, held, or done. 
2. erroneous; incorrect; wrong.
3. having made a mistake; being in error. 

Random House Dictionary of the English Language
Second Edition, Unabridged

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Oswald woke up in a cubicle. 

Ostensibly, this had to have been his cubicle. It may have been empty, sure, but it pretty much had to be his. There was no reason that this could, nor should, not be the desk he sat at for nearly half of his waking hours. Despite what basic logic seemed to conclude, however, Oswald knew something intrinsically wrong about the space. He idly sat in his chair, petrified by a compounding force conjured up in his mind, staring down the off-gray walls and white desk with a light sense of dread. He couldn’t name what he was so mortified by – nor exactly what he was failing to see, funnily enough – but he knew something was violently, subtly wrong. Oswald had this deep feeling, rapidly growing from the pit in his stomach, that he might’ve effed up somehow. That, and how he definitely shouldn’t’ve dozed off on the job. 

Oswald bolted up from his seat. It was an instinctive reaction, something that he was well-used to doing after his inevitable and common mistakes. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was one of those mistakes, somehow, but how he made it he couldn’t tell. After getting up, Oswald nearly threw himself back down out of an unfamiliar sense of clumsiness; he managed to regain his balance, thankfully, but it didn’t do anything to shake off the fear that’d slowly been building up. Without paying too much attention to the dread-inspiring cubicle (he thought that’d make it better, somehow), Oswald quickly stepped out into the artificial hallway to try and find a co-worker to find some sort of solace in.

He hadn’t realized it until then, but the entire room was deathly quiet (aside from the long-since numbed hum of fluorescent lights). Oswald couldn’t find a clock on the room’s bare, white walls, but there was a fairly decent chance that the office had since closed. If he slept long enough, it’d certainly be possible. He tried to shake off the worrisome notion of being alone as he made his way down the hall, slowly realizing that the hunch must be right. Most of the desks he passed had some sort of personal mark on them, a desk calendar or some strewed papers littered next to a monitor, but only the remains of the people he really wanted to see. He didn’t recognize any of the cubicles he passed, nor the room itself, but that didn’t bother him nearly as much as the myriad of other problems suddenly forced upon his mind. Most prominent among them, (What the hell is going on?).

Oswald’ nearly made it to the end of the hall when he finally found what he was looking for. A few cubicles down from where he was, he faintly caught the soft shuffling of paper, unmistakably the sound of paperwork or the like. Human contact was far and away the most grueling part of Oswald’s work cycle, in his eyes at least, but the sight of someone else was well worth the anxious pitfalls in a time like this. Even if they’d take him for a madman (which was quite justified at the moment), he’d at least have the peace of mind he’d been missing for – what, a minute? Funny how things work themselves up so quick, even knowing that-

Oswald reached the inhabited cubicle. A large, purple-and-yellow balloon floated on top of the desk chair, ostensibly waiting for him. It moved its two red eyes in a thoroughly unnatural way, eyeing Oswald down. 

“Why’re you still here?,” the thing playfully asked in a deep, tired voice. 

Oswald was not confused as to what the thing was; it was a Drifblim, without a shadow of doubt. A Pokémon he had no strong feelings for, aside from using it once or twice on his first Pearl team. This realization, however, swiftly led to confusion about everything else. 

There was only one reasonable conclusion – that he was dreaming. Oswald had never dreamed lucidly before, but he figured it was the only thing that could possibly explain what was happening. Hoped, at least.

Somewhat relieved, he answered. “Don’t know. Just found myself here.”

The Drifblim’s eyes narrowed. “‘Found yourself’?,” it skeptically asked. 

Oswald went to pinch himself, to demonstrate to the Pokémon (and to himself, to an extent) that he was dreaming. It was cliché, no doubt, but it was the kind of corny thing he liked to pull off when he could. He looked down to do so, instinctively, but realized that he couldn’t; his arms were short, thin, and (crucially) digitless, much to his bewilderment. His white underbelly and yellow highlights suggested that he, too, was a Pokémon – an Ampharos, by the looks of it – in this dreamscape he’d cooked up. (Lucid dreams are weird, man). 

Undeterred, Oswald grinned at the Drifblim before jabbing himself hard in the abdomen. It hurt like hell. He hunched forth in pain, nearly forgetting why he’d done it in the first place. 

The Drifblim swiftly got up(?) from their chair. “The hell you do that for?!,” they blurted out. 

“I… thought I was dreaming,” Oswald mumbled out, hunched over from the blow. He was too dazed to realize what that meant. He eventually posted up against the cubicle wall, slouching opposite of the Driftblim. “…Guess I’m mistaken.” 

“Yeah,” the balloon snapped back in a matter-of-fact voice. “What’re you doing here, anyways?” 

Oswald paused. Why was he like this all of a sudden? The pain from his chest made it hard to remember much of anything, but he definitely didn’t open any portals to the Pokémon world yesterday. 

Pokémon world…

Oswald’s face brightened up. “…Mystery Dungeon,” Oswald confidently muttered out after a moment. “This is the Mystery Dungeon world. I must’ve ended up here after… falling into some time warp, or something.” He cockily grinned at the Drifblim, awaiting confirmation. 

They stared back with as much dumbfoundedness as their flat, red eyes could deliver. “What’s a Mystery Dungeon?,” they asked.

The two stared at each other with a lethal dose of tension. Oswald felt like he’d ended up on the wrong side of heaven. Neither wanted to act, but the Drifblim crumbled first. “What’s a Mystery Dungeon?,” they repeated deadpanilly. 

“It’s… I had these games, growing up, where people got turned into Pokémon and had to fight other Pokémon in dungeons and stuff.” Oswald felt a bit daft explaining the concept out loud. “That’s the only thing I knew like this, so I figured it must’ve been it.”

“…When you say ‘people’,” the Drifblim cautiously replied, “what do you mean?”

Oswald hesitated. There was no way this guy would ever believe whatever story he tried to spin about his humanity, but… he’d clearly said too much. His grave was half-dug, he might as well finish the job. “Humans,” he anxiously replied. 

The Drifblim’s expression didn’t change. Oswald couldn’t really tell, but he figured they were unamused. Unsurprised, maybe. They stuck out one of their ribbon-like appendages after a second, slowly offering a hand to help Oswald up. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. My name’s Aaron.”

Oswald stared at the ribbon, confused. Trying not to seem rude, he quickly gripped it with his new arm. It worked better than it should’ve.  “Oswald,” he said while pulling himself up.

“Nice to meet you, Oswald,” Aaron replied. It was tired, but genuine. The Drifblim gestured towards the other side of the room. “I’m gonna clock out, then I’ll show you the way out of here.”

Oswald cautiously followed Aaron as he started to float across the room. “Y-you believe me just like that? That I’m human?”

“It happens,” Aaron answered. “Saw it a couple years back on the news. Some Plusle over in… Thailand, or something, on vacation. Poor guy could only speak Czech. You’re lucky you speak English.”

Oswald’s anxiety muddled itself with confusion. “Wai-wait,” Oswald blurted out after a moment of hesitation, “Thailand? Czech? I-is this just… the human world? Normal, regular human world? Not the Air Continent, or the Grass Continent, or… or-”

“The North American Continent,” Aaron interrupted. “If that’s what you left, then… yeah, I suppose.”

Oswald’s mind blanked out, trying to understand how the hell that could work. All the wars fought, all the borders settled, all the history written… by effin’ Pikachu and friends? Really?

More than anything, though, a horrifying prospect loomed over Oswald’s psyche. “…So I’m still in St. Louis?,” he wearily asked. 

“Afraid so,” Aaron snapped back. Oswald muttered a curse under his breath.¹

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Aaron clocked out at 5:32 P.M.. The place was abandoned, for the day. Oswald spotted a couple signs that read ‘Literatim’ across the place in fancy, orange text, but by and large it looked no different than any other office he’d worked in. He thought it might’ve been the office he worked in, however dreadful that’d be, but (thankfully) he didn’t think it was. Oswald followed Aaron, half absent-mindily and half mortified, as the two made their way down to ground level. The elevators were ungodly large. 

“…I don’t reckon,” Oswald eventually asked on the ride down, “that there’s a precedent for what I’m supposed to do in this situation?”

“Don’t think so,” Aaron responded. “Unless you wanna throw yourself at the press, I don’t think there’s anywhere you’re meant to go. …Immigration services, maybe,” he jokingly tacked on. 

The joke landed flat on Oswald. He questioned if he should really ask a complete stranger for the obvious, knowing that he didn’t want to end up on the front page of the New York Post. Aaron seemed nice, sure, but he knew St. Louis. Any town that didn’t have a Glock in the glove compartment, maybe, but not here. Not a stranger. (Oh God, are there guns here?) 

Oswald’s hope eventually got the better of him. “…You don’t think I could-”

“I got a couch,” Aaron interrupted. The elevator dinged as it reached the tower’s lobby. “It’s yours if you want it.”

“…Think I do,” Oswald responded after a moment’s shock. Selfish as it was, he was more confused than grateful. Like he was just thrown to the curb by the powers that be, and handed a blank check afterwards. …Well, maybe more like a $5 bill. Here’s hoping bedbugs don’t exist in this universe.

Aaron told Oswald that he usually took the MetroLink home. The building they were at (Laclede Gas, as it happened to be) was the weird one that had the station underneath it. MetroLink was the city’s light rail system, and mostly a joke to Oswald; he mostly associated it with yuppies taking rides home after 5 to… Clayton, or Webster, or Richmond Heights, or something. That, and the hellish collection of buildings in North County commonly referred to as ‘Lambert International Airport’. Not a positive perception, to say the least.

As the two made their way down, 8th and Pine Station seemed bigger than Oswald remembered it being. He might’ve also been shorter (he wasn’t quite sure on that front), but there definitely weren’t two levels of track. Aaron, almost ritualistically, floated to a pair of buttons & matching speakers near the station’s stairs, and pressed the one labeled ‘S’.

“The next southbound Azure train is in… 2… minutes,” a woman’s voice cracked out. “The next southbound Blue train is in… 6… minutes.”

“…Southbound?,” Oswald asked. “Since when did the MetroLink go southbound?”

Aaron turned off towards another set of stairs. Oswald followed. “Early seventies, I think,” the former chirped back. “Long time. They don’t have it like that, where you’re from?”

“No,” Oswald replied. “Only goes east & west. Most people just drive.”

“Drive?,” Aaron asked back. “What, personal trains?”

“…No, cars,” Oswald condescendly replied. He then swiftly realized the ludicrousness of a car-based society, given the circumstances, and promptly regretted how uncompassionate he sounded. “It’s… I’ll explain it to you later,” he hastily followed up.

Aaron didn’t respond. The two approached a long row of glass booths, almost like a box office, labeled “ACCOUNTING”. Oswald didn’t even try to understand what that one meant. 

Aaron floated to the nearest empty stall. Each one had a set of stairs leading up to the booth’s counter, comically small and apparently suitable only for mice. “Account?,” a Wartortle soullessly asked from the other side of the glass.

“0818218,” Aaron quickly responded. Almost automatic. “Pass for me, paying for a plus-one.”

The Wartortle typed something into a computer. “He have an account?,” she asked Aaron. He motioned something with a face that apparently meant no. “Name,” she then commanded while pointing at Oswald.

“…Oswald Nelson,” he cautiously replied. She gave off stubborn substitute teacher energy.

The Wartortle typed something else out on her computer. “Have a safe trip,” she insincerely said. 

Aaron nodded(?) before floating off. Again, Oswald waived his right to question whatever the hell ‘Accounting’ meant. “…Am I sorted, then?,” he confusingly asked while following Aaron.

“Yeah, you’re good,” Aaron quickly replied. “You can pay me back later.” Oswald couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. The ‘Accounting’ center flushed straight into the Azure line platforms, so rapidly that Oswald had hardly noticed it before Aaron stopped (and practically stopped him, by extension) to wait. The opposite side, home to the northbound platform and a handful of lonely passengers, had a display saying that the next southbound train was ‘>30 seconds’ away. The southbound platform was only slightly more populated. Aaron seemed to stare at it impatiently. 

“…How long does the train take?,” Oswald absent-mindily asked. (Not like it really matters.)

“Ten minutes, usually,” Aaron answered. “…To get to where I wanna go, not to get here. It’s usually pretty quick getting here.”

As if on queue, the electric motor of the next train suddenly grew loud enough for Oswald to hear. The boxy, uniform cars of the MetroLink’s trains pulled in no more than 10 seconds later, draped in a colorful advertisement for the city’s art museum. The doors opened, no one came out, and the two wordlessly got on board. Aaron cooped up in a barren section between rows of seats, in the middle of the car, as  Oswald uncomfortably joined him. The train was barren, but not empty.

The train, as it started to roll on down the Azure line, produced a low, constant white noise of track movement. It felt surprisingly loud, to Oswald, but it made the rest of the train feel oddly silent. As if everybody had shut up to hear what the train’s wheels had to say, impatiently waiting for it to end. Oswald hated it. 

Oswald stirred for a couple minutes. The P.A. blurted out the titles of familiarly-named stops. “…I know I’ve already asked, but… you really take my word, that I’m human? At face value?,” he asked, eventually, to break the silence. 

“Suppose I do, yeah,” Aaron answered.

“J-just like that?,” Oswald dumbfoundedly responded. “That I’m some… some scientific impossibility, j-just on my word?” He had started stuttering, profoundly confused at the stranger’s indifference. 

“What, you want me not to?,” Aaron replied. 

“N-no, I… I me-”

“Relax, I’m pulling your leg,” Aaron said. “Frankly… well, I don’t really take you for a liar, and I’ve got no other idea how you would’ve ended up in my office that late. Guess I just believe you.”

Oswald’s mind started to pull out of overdrive. A feeling of soft relief slowly flushed over him, though not enough to fully snap him back to normal. (Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe Aaron’s a good guy. Maybe I’m overreacting.)

Oswald caught a glimpse out of the train’s window as his mind started to cool down. The train had climbed out of the tunnel he had jumped in on, and the low sun shone an unsteady beam into the carriage, frequently broken up by the buildings of South City. The track was street level, definitely not something he remembered on the MetroLink he knew. There was a vacant lot outside and, barely visible on the horizon, a small ridge of green poked its way just above the horizon. Oswald knew the sight instantly; rural Illinois, on the other side of the Mississippi River. Compared to the rest of (what was ostensibly) South Broadway, the crests of the distant trees stuck out like a beautiful sore thumb. Maybe, Oswald thought, this’d turn out alright.

Maybe.

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¹St. Louis, should the reader be unaware, is a medium-sized city in the U.S.. Oswald regarded it, his home, as little more than a cursed collection of people, buildings, and crime.