Déjà Vu

Tap. Tap. Tap. A small club clattered against a wall of chiseled stone bricks. The wall, which would have previously risen just below this boy’s shoulders, stood more than three times his height now. He had adjusted to locomotion in his new form by now, but his surroundings were clearly not created to accommodate one of his stature.

Yet he was helpless to the urge to observe the moon’s gentle glow. Had he cared about such sentimental things as a human, or had his transformation to a Pokémon implanted this desire in him? He suspected the latter; observations of his demeanor – both by himself and his companions – didn’t support the other explanation.

Whatever the case, this insatiable longing influenced him to stack up some nearby objects and reach this vantage point. He had faint memories of doing this kind of thing in video games, but it was about as enjoyable in practice as it was in said games. What a pain, he thought. Not only the pain of stacking when you’re just over a foot tall, but also the pain of his strange amnesia. He cursed his brain for committing inconsequential details from video games to his memory rather than, say, anything about his identity.

Why had he even come here? Deep down he’d hoped that he could find some answers. Obviously sitting and observing the moon wouldn’t reveal anything new about his situation, but perhaps it could turn some gears in his head. If anything, he found those gears were grinding rather than turning. The more he thought about anything, the more helplessly frustrated he became.

Tap. Tap. Tap. He continued clattering his club against the bricks. He hoped that it wouldn’t damage the refined architecture, but he also acknowledged that it didn’t matter much. With any luck, this place would become uninhabited within a few days. Besides, his club was only hitting the outer wall. You’d have to climb from the outside or fly a drone to get a close look at any potential damage. For some reason, this level of concern felt unfamiliar to him.

“Char?” The glass screen door squeaked open a few paces behind him. A few human paces, that is. “You’re, like, the last person I expected to see here.” Quiet footsteps were drowned out by the door closing itself.

He turned in his seat to get a look at his visitor. “Is that an insult?”

“Depends on your outlook.” The blue lion cub dashed across the terrace. He leapt from the ground to one of the stacked objects, and then directly to the wall. He nearly lost his balance upon landing, but his friend extended his bone club as a barrier, saving him from a seventy-odd story fall. “Nice save.”

 A heavy sigh escaped from Char’s mask. “Here I thought you were getting used to the quadruped lifestyle. Clearly I was mistaken.”

“Falling to my death beats wasting time stacking stuff.”

“No, it definitely doesn’t.” He stared daggers at his irresponsible friend. “How old are you, Felix? Sixteen? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

“Kidding, kidding!” A nervous grin appeared on his face as he waved one of his front paws down, suggesting that his friend relax. “And don’t lecture me like you’re some wise sage. You’re only a year older.”

“I have one-sixteenth more life experience than you, then. That’s, uh, at least six or seven percent.” His gaze rose to the sky as he worked out the math in his head. Internally, he blamed his poor performance on his smaller Cubone brain, or perhaps a side-effect of his amnesia.

Felix’s grin turned to a sour pout. “Life experience that you can’t remember.”

“Touché, Padawan.”

“The hell’s a Padawan?”

“It’s a Jedi’s apprentice. In Star Wars. You seriously don’t know this stuff?”

“No, sorry. Guess I wasn’t a total nerd in my human life.”

The Shinx’s witty retort prompted a light tap on the head from Char’s club. “Sounds more like you’re uncultured. Kids these days, man.”

“Said the seventeen-year-old.”

“Whatever. When we make it out of this, you’re in for a Star Wars marathon. Even the bad ones.”

“So all of them?”

“Any more Star Wars slander and I’ll knock you off this balcony.” He waved his club for a moment, before returning it to his left side. “It’s a shame they confiscated most of our stuff. We could’ve gone to my old apartment and grabbed my VHS set. Not much to do at night since the game started. I’m lucky they didn’t take my iPod.”

Felix’s eyes widened in surprise. “Your memory is impressive, man. The rest of us don’t remember much past our names.”

Char wondered how that could be. He hesitated to accept that his amnesia was simply less severe than everyone else’s. It was just less consistent. Sure, he remembered where his iPod was, all the albums he had on it, and that he enjoyed Star Wars, but he also forgot his name until he saw it on his phone in the morning. The others seemed to know that much from the get-go. How did his amnesia work?

Perhaps Felix could help him find the answer. “It’s not like all my memories were just there the moment I woke up. I didn’t know I liked Star Wars until twenty seconds ago.”

“Maybe it’s all there but, like, blurred. What made you remember the iPod?”

“All my personal files on my phone were gone, including my music, so I went to look for it.” He couldn’t help but question how whoever is running this game even got into his phone to begin with. Did they individually take the phones of the thousands of competitors and wipe them? Sounds unfeasible.

His friend’s face lit up. “Ok, so it was prompted. Something happened that brought the memory back. And this conversation made you remember Star Wars.”

“Guess so.”

“Well that makes it way easier, right?” Felix’s mouth contorted into a fanged grin. “The memories aren’t gone; they’re just slowly coming back! It’s like in a video game sequel when you lose all your items from the last adventure.”

Char’s brow furrowed beneath his mask. “I thought you said you weren’t a nerd.”

“Playing video games isn’t for nerds, dude. Watching Star Wars is total nerdosity, but video games are normal.”

This answer didn’t satisfy the Cubone. “Sure, but using video game mechanics to explain your friend’s memory loss is the nerdiest shit I’ve ever heard.”

The Shinx’s tongue fell from his mouth as his eyes shut tight. “Go whine about it to Yoda, nerd.” He released his mocking expression and shifted his glance to the city below. “Nerdy or not, it’s an easy way for me to think about it. Do you think my memories could be the same? Do I just need to find my metaphorical Morph Ball?”

Brushing aside the weird Metroid comparison, Char thought of how he could aid his friend. “This is your apartment, right? Does it stir anything in your head?”

“The view is familiar, that’s for sure.” His golden eyes remained fixed on the skyline. “All the weirdness got me in the mood for some reflection. You think I was like that as a human?”

“You seem sappy enough for it.”

“Makes us a pair of saps, then.” Felix didn’t seem disturbed by the remark, instead releasing a restrained laugh in response. “Typically the whole city would be lit up right about now, but tonight there’s hardly anything. The moon might as well be the only light in the world.”

Char had noticed it too: the striking sense of emptiness. Seeing the city stripped of roughly 95% of its inhabitants was nearly as jarring as seeing the remainder replaced with magical creatures. Those transformations no doubt contributed to the vacant feeling. Nobody had the luxury of turning into the towering beasts the game pitted them against. Their cute, tiny forms made the world feel just that much emptier.

Returning his focus to his conversation with Felix, he spoke. “You remembered that you’re a sap, and the view seems ingrained in your mind. That’s a start at plucking some memories. The video game stuff too.”

The small steps didn’t appear to please Felix, whose face contorted into a frown. “Just superficial crap, though. It doesn’t tell me anything about who I am, just where I live and what I like.”

The Cubone shifted in his seat, looking back to the terrace. Tables, chairs, a hot tub, and even a pool adorned the giant space. It succeeded Char’s entire apartment in square footage, where he presumedly lived with at least one parent. “Whoever you are, seems like you were pretty loaded.”

Somehow, this surprised him. “You think? I hadn’t thought much of it.”

“Uh, yeah dude. My apartment sure as hell doesn’t have all this.” Char found his friend’s ignorance bewildering. “Maybe your lack of surprise says a little something about you.”

“I didn’t take you for the ‘glass half full’ type, Char.” He playfully punched his arm. “They say ‘you can’t take it with you,’ but I guess that theory was a bust. This place makes for a good base of operations, so I lucked out big time.”

“Enough bedrooms to accommodate our whole group. We’d all be sleeping on the floor if we stayed at my place.” Char felt uneasy as he thought of his home. It didn’t seem like a half bad place to live, but he was overwhelmed with negativity in the brief time he spent there. Must be more blurred memories, he thought. The moment Felix offered him a room, he took it. “Who needs so many rooms anyways? Maybe you’ve got a big family?”

“Hmm…” Felix’s head tilted to the side as he lifted his gaze to the moon. After only a moment, a chill ran up his spine and forced his head back down. “It’s all fuzzy, I can’t figure it out.”

“Can’t get it all together in one night.” His feet idly kicked at the outer wall. “With or without your memories, you’re still you, man. Don’t let it distract you too much.”

A moment of silence followed as the boys’ eyes met, broken by youthful laughter. “How do you say something that’s both so sappy and so pragmatic?”

Char lacked an answer. As far as he was concerned, his pragmatism was natural. You can’t afford to lose focus in a crisis, even with weird existential stuff. How was what he said sappy though? His lack of self-awareness left him silent.

“Don’t freak out about it. I’m just messing with you.” He stretched his feline body as he stood from the wall. “You’re right, though. If I’m gonna win this game and become the Hero, I’ve gotta stay focused and give it 110%!”

While the sudden shift in mood was disorienting to him, Char was content knowing his friend felt better. “That’s the spirit. Once you win, we’ll figure out who we are too.”

“And watch some Star Wars, unfortunately.” Felix’s comment got a chuckle out of Char. “Three days till the end. I’m counting on you to have my back, partner.”

He raised his paw, briefly confusing Char. When Felix enthusiastically nodded towards it, his friend couldn’t help but bump it. “Yeah, same to you.”

The Shinx giggled and hopped down from the wall, returning to the glass door. “Sleep tight.”

The Cubone, now alone, watched the moon a while longer. Partners, huh? It wasn’t the first descriptor he would’ve given to Felix. He’d say Carnation, the Chikorita girl he’d met on the first day, fit the role better. I suppose you can have more than one partner, Char reasoned. Felix still felt more like an annoying little brother than anything, but that came with a certain connotation of partnership too. Siblings stick together, after all. He wondered if he had any siblings as a human, but he doubted it. It certainly seemed that Felix did. Was he close with them?

He still had so many questions. If survival and escape weren’t enough motivation to win, his memories were plenty. He assumed that answers would lie at the end of his path, but he knew that it was far from certain. Winning the game meant becoming ‘the Hero,’ whatever that meant. He’d only just begun to accept that becoming the Hero probably wouldn’t return him to human form, and that he might be a Cubone for life. After all, why would they turn him into a Cubone just to change him back later? The lack of any certainty pushed him to avoid thinking too hard about anything.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Without conversation to hold his attention, he returned to his clattering. Three days left. Win or lose, they’d surely learn something at the end of the week. The plan was to let Felix win and wing it from there. That’s a lot of trust to put in someone you just met, Char mused. There was no guarantee that the rest of the team would be safe, but it didn’t bother Char. His new partner is counting on him, so he might as well return the favor.