Lesser Mistakes

There was a trickle of dirty water in the corner. A dark, nascent puddle forcing itself into my subconscious. Drops fell from the ceiling and splashed into the puddle at an unequal rhythm—torture in its own right. Meant I couldn’t even count the seconds properly.

Maybe there was a leak upstairs, or a pipe that nobody ever bothered to fix. I could believe it; this place was low priority in every sense of the word. Applied to me, too.

Same with the dented metal bars caging the window and the moldy stone floor below me. I had a lot of time to analyze the stains, the rust, the cracks. Wonder about which was formed when, how, and what for. 

Of all things, I hated how the meager amounts of moonlight creeping in delayed my progress. I had counted the cracks on the left wall throughout the afternoon, then lost my place when night hit. 

Oh well. I’d start again tomorrow, like I always did. I had the time for it. 

And why not. I hated the moon, too. When I first started it acted like a friend, or at least a companion I could always rely on. But lately it had been treating me like the scum that lined the gutters. I was less than that now, I knew that. Were the bruises not enough of a reminder? Did it have to shine a light on the blood as well as the scabs left behind?

Nights weren’t breaks anymore. Preludes didn’t count as breaks. 

Blindness would have been a mercy at this point. I didn’t want to anticipate or worry or any of that shit. Not like I was capable of either anymore anyway. 

If I had no eyes, could I stop dreaming in color? Could I stop dreaming at all? I had been thinking about that a lot recently. Ironically, finding a way to shut out my thoughts. Cut out all hope. Give in. 

To what, even? I don’t know why I was asking. I gave up on looking for a reason a while back. Weeks, I think. Maybe months. Years would sound more dramatic—and I may as well. Time was binary for me. It either happened or it didn’t. 

Lately, it started up again. That was why I noticed the moonlight. The trickling water. The voice. I hated all three, but the last one started the clock again. So I hated it the most. 

“They keep finding new ways to hurt me,” it said. “Ways I never thought possible. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. They must really hate me, huh? Just like you do.”

I ignored it. Nothing was ever gained from listening in on its insane rambles. 

Sure it made time go by faster. Sure it tickled a part of my brain that ached to speak up and cry out in pain. I was not ignorant of its effects or its luxuries. There was just nothing to be gained by paying attention to it. 

Look, just hearing it again made me acknowledge it. I wished I had the energy to crawl to my bed, smother my ears with the dingy pillow. 

I hated my body, too, I just decided. Although it served me well once, now it only hindered me. Slow and bulky like a lug of tightly packed potatoes. Emptier and emptier each day, a fact I was growing ever fond of. 

Schadenfreude was a terrible, awful thing. But I think it was the one constant in my life that I still viewed positively. At least it gave purpose. I needed purpose now more than ever. 

“Vert, if you can still hear me,” the voice said, “let me know- say something.” 

Should have known. It was trying to make me listen. 

I ignored it. There was only so much I could offer to a voice that would never shut up. Made that mistake once, never gonna make it again. 

“Are you asleep, Vert?” the voice tried again. “I know what they did to you—I’ve been there. You’re not sleeping. So say something.”

I hated that it was right. I was exhausted but about as far from tired as one could get. Sleeping was difficult when pain pricked at every limb I could feel at that moment. Which, much to my bewilderment, was not all of them. 

I think they finally hurt me so bad that numbness was setting in. The blood flow in my arm was so scuffed that I couldn’t move it in a way that counted as natural. 

I wondered if the intent was to worsen me gradually or if I just got lucky until now. Or, well, unlucky if you ask me. Not being able to move was a stronger virtue than I had expected. This must be how flowers feel, when they bud at their own pace, and flow in the wind. 

I didn’t have to choose how to move my body because my body wouldn’t move. I could be a flower. Pain would be my pollen, my petals shriveled and black. 

The voice then sighed. “I know you’re listening, Vert. You might not like it—sometimes I don’t like it either—but we have to live with it.” There was a pause accentuated by a deafening drip of water. “Kyogre’s fins…listen to me. Do you hear me? I sound like you, don’t I? Heh.”

Laughter. Not the sadistic kind, nor was it hollow. Whether or not it was genuine hardly mattered to the swelling in my heart, either. 

As soon as it touched my ears, I wanted to reach out and grasp the sound it made. Embrace the faint echoes. Savor the swirling, tingling warmth against the cold, hard floor. 

A finger twitched—the single most significant movement I had made in hours. 

“Sh-shut up,” I growled, wincing as sharp pin pricks stabbed the back of my throat. My vocal chords may as well have been hanging on by a thread. But I had to speak, just for that. As much as I despised it, the voice deserved that much.

“Vert?” it said, a faint hint of interest behind their bewilderment. “…I knew it. I haven’t heard you move in a while, but I just knew. Are you okay?”

That was such a stupid fucking question. Was I “okay?” Waste of breath. I hope you choke on your own blood.

But the voice just kept going. I shouldn’t have bothered; this was a mistake. 

“Listen, Vert. I’ve given it some thought. We hurt each other. Worse than any guard in this place ever could.”

More like you hurt me, you piece of shit. I didn’t even give him the satisfaction of an apathetic grunt of acknowledgement. I died in the past few seconds and now he’s talking to a corpse. Idiot. 

“I just…look. I…crud, how do I say this?”

You don’t, you childish, bumbling…

“I’m not a poet, like you. I can’t sing or play five instruments. Was it five? I can’t remember.”

It was six. Technically seven, but I never did learn any songs on the oboe by heart. Master never got to listen to me practice, either, so I didn’t count it.

“I am…just a stupid Greninja. Remember when we met and I didn’t get the jokes you were making? At the time I think I said I was too distracted to notice. But…”

You were distracted by me. By the look in my eyes. 

“…I said it was because of your eyes, later. And that’s partially true. You’d…you’d never admit it, but I swear I could see beautiful meadows full of trees with blooming leaves.”

Liar. ‘Not a poet,’ my ass. 

“The truth is, I was thinking of another ‘mon. A compatriot of mine—an Inteleon.”

What?

“He had these sleek arms. And he talked really smoothly. Really clear, too. The kind of guy I could entertain myself with for hours. So I did. We’d talk for hours and hours every night before I met you.”

Why did Gris never tell me about this? I thought he said that I was his first?

“He was a great listener. Rarely had anything to say, but what he did say captivated me. If you’re a poet, Vert, Noir was a songbird. And uh…I asked him to sing for me a couple times, just like I did with you.”

I could still remember the look on your face. I couldn’t believe that my music could bring someone to tears like that. And I still didn’t. Part of me thought it was all an act. A ploy to…put me here, in a cell. 

I couldn’t imagine that his initial plan involved him suffering the same fate like he was right now. 

“I…I loved him, Vert. So much that it hurt. I would stand beside him during our daily routines and have to force myself not to let the words slip from my mouth. You wanna know what I did? You’re not going to believe this.” 

Gris chuckled. It was a tired, breathless kind of chuckle. One that he could barely manage. 

“I made up a story about how, where I came from, there were several different words for love. Not just the catch-all term everyone uses. Words for familial love, friendly love, brotherly love—everything that I could think of. And I made up a word that I could say to him so that he would know just how much I loved him.”

Don’t say it, Gris. You’re going to embarrass yourself. 

“…The word was mopo. It meant love between comrades. Purely platonic. I told Vinca that I was deeply in mopo with him. We were inseparable, the greatest comrades two ‘mon could be. And he…said it back to me. He meant it.”

I heard Gris sniff. 

“In my head, mopo just meant love. It was my word, anyway, I could make it whatever I wanted. Vinca loved me and I loved him. Simple as that. But…it wasn’t real. Vinca was straight. He even had a girlfriend back home. I just deluded myself into thinking that this fake love I made was good enough.”

If Gris were a different pokemon, someone who I cared nothing for, I would have said that this was the most pathetic story I had ever heard. I would have assumed it was fake, too, judging by how easily I could sympathize. I fawned over a ‘mon that would never love me back before. The agony was worse than the pain my limbs were already under. I wanted to suffer in this cell, but my petty emotions caused me to rot. 

“A-anyway, I never saw Noir again after the last raid. You know, the one where we both escaped and ran away together? I moved on. We both did. I figured…you wouldn’t want to hear this because it doesn’t mean anything. Because it really doesn’t; who cares, right? Why not at this point, though? Why not?”

The words left my desert dry throat before I could stop myself.

“B…because-” I coughed. “You want me to feel sorry for you.”

Gris paused, as though he wasn’t expecting me to speak just now. 

“…It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he said after a moment. “But we’re here now, so…why not?”

I started moving. First a full-finger motion, followed by a hand swollen by abuse I forgot the source of. I lifted my arm and immediately winced as it screamed back at me. It, too, was swollen. Alarmingly cool and limp. My legs were much the same—like howling Mankeys stomping me down at every attempt to exert control. I could not stop the sharp howl of agony from escaping my lips even after biting my own tongue.

What I had become sickened me. I was reduced to a shambling lout lacking the capacity to sit up properly. A wretch. 

But dammit, if Gris was going to be his normal humble self then I was going to sit up for it. Wretch or not.

“Vert?” Gris whined. “What’s happening? What are you-”

I sat back against the wall, finally upright. My vision was swimming with scrambling bugs, the blood knocking against my own bones with every heartbeat. I fought the urge to let my eyelids fall.

“We both know it means something,” I gurgled. “If you had told me on a picnic in the Slushland Alps I might have agreed with you. But look at where we are, Gris.”

Directly behind me, I could hear Gris shifting around. We were back-to-back, passing our voices around the corner of the stone wall. And in that moment, I could feel him staring at me through that very same wall.

“Even if I did want you to feel sorry for me,” Gris remarked, “we both knew it wouldn’t work.”

“And you would be correct,” I added.

I heard Gris grumble to himself, before shifting again.

“I was going to tell you eventually…”

Gris was acting like I cared that he manipulated a straight guy into admitting his feelings for him. There was a lot more he could have done to entrap the guy, make him regret. Maybe then I would have been impressed. But all Gris did was lie to himself. 

It almost made me laugh. Fucking Gris, and the things he does to me…

“No, you wouldn’t have,” I said. “You wanted things to be perfect. And now that it’s fallen apart, you want to be justified for it.”

It was such a naive outlook that I couldn’t believe what he was saying on the road that one time, right after we escaped. He talked about living out the rest of our days in a shack of our own with nothing but the next day to worry about. A Greninja and a Chesnaught, living happily ever after.

He talked about the clouds and how they moved. The colors so vibrant that I could touch them, and grass like carpets, compact and soft. It never rained in his fantasies, even though both of us liked it when it rained. Because rain, despite everything it did for him, just made him sad. Gris never liked talking about what made him sad.

Just like right now. He was quiet. I took that as a signal to keep going.

“If you wanted anything but, you would tell me about what we’d do when we’d get out of here.” I shot him a glare through the wall. I liked to think he felt it. “Don’t act like I don’t know you, Gris. You always mean what you say. You’re a terrible liar. Always have been.” 

Every word to leave my mouth shot a dull throb through my neck. When I was finished, I slumped back and angled my throat for the wall across from me, panting quietly. 

For a while, that was all I could hear: my dwindling breath alongside the droplets trickling down into that puddle in the corner. Indeed, soon even my own breathing slowed to a ragged reminder of my own mortality. Moonlight was reflected in tiny rippling swaths. Rings fading out into nothing. 

Then, Gris spoke. So quietly that I couldn’t hear him. 

I waited, as if more would come. What else could he have to say?

But there was nothing. Just a couple words I couldn’t hear. Lost to the air like droplets to a puddle. 

I didn’t care for where the droplets went. They didn’t matter anymore, as a collective. Words didn’t matter when you couldn’t hear them. Pointless platitudes and tiny lies, dreams spoken without any regard for future action, nothing worth listening to. 

Words had power. What mattered, though, was how they were spoken. And to whom. And in what way. If they failed to meet that criteria, they were never meant to grow beyond the sounds they made. 

I had no reason to ask Gris to repeat himself. None whatsoever. 

And after everything he put me through, I should’ve ignored the itching at the back of my mind. The thought that those words truly mattered. Not just to me, but to him as well. What did I lose by asking him to repeat himself, and say it again? What power did words really have, spoken a second time?

I turned my head slightly. The word came out as nothing more than a sigh.

“What?”

Gris responded after a moment of dead silence. 

“…I’m sorry,” he muttered, barely audible.

To that I frowned. “Now you’re being sorry? You think that makes a difference?”

I could practically hear Gris shrugging. “I mean it.”

Of course he meant it. Gris didn’t have a disingenuous bone in his body. 

My frown deepened. I fought against the bruises on my neck to hurl my anger directly through the wall, right at that pitiful Greninja. Something to make him hurt. To make him bleed. 

“We both know it’s your fault,” I growled. “If you hadn’t meant everything you said we wouldn’t have been found out. If you weren’t such an idiot I could’ve made it to the shore by now. I wouldn’t have to think about this war anymore. But it was because of you, you and your sorry ass…”

That was all I could say before the pain became too much to bear. I collapsed against the wall, my heart beating harshly against my chest. 

Gris said nothing. For all I knew my words killed him and left him rotting on that musty jail floor. 

I ran the words I spoke in my mind several times. Words that mattered. Words that hurt. Gris knew that he couldn’t compare. His words never mattered. Not to me, or anyone else. 

I’m sorry. 

Not me. Never me.

I’m sorry. 

I was better than that. Stronger. I spoke because I had something to say. Gris spoke because he felt that he had to say it.

I’m sorry. 

Only speak when you’re spoken to. Never compromise. Don’t waste your breath.

I’m sorry. 

Pokemon like Gris never live past the worst of times. This was bound to happen eventually. 

I’m sorry. 

It’s not my responsibility to help him in any way. 

I’m sorry.

I don’t love him. I thought I did at first, but now I know that was just me being foolish. 

I’m sorry. 

His words meant nothing to me. 

I’m sorry. 

They don’t.

I’m sorry. 

They don’t. And never will.

Never. 

Never.

…Is it gone? 

I sucked in air through my teeth. Looking down, my claws were digging deep into my knees. Bright red punctuated the melancholic blues and blacks of the night. Light, however faint, cast a long cloak over the ground in front of me. 

A shadow moved over this light, nearly snuffing it out. The room became that little bit darker, with fractals sliding past my vision at speeds I forgot were possible. 

I darted my gaze to the window. There was a face staring back at me. 

“Psst, Vert!” 

The heavy shadows made it hard to recognize the shimmering eyes through those metal bars, but the inflection was unmistakable. 

“Jaune?” I croaked. 

The Delphox from outside the window swiftly looked left and right before whispering, “We don’t have much time. Just hang tight, we’re gonna get you out of there.”

How…how did they even find me? Weren’t they back at base?

Before I could consider more questions, Gris spoke up from behind me.

“Vert?” he breathed incredulously. “Who is that? What is…”

I’m sorry. 

I would never get this chance again. 

Jaune said, “We’re gonna need to blow up the wall, this hole is too narrow, even without the bars.”

And then the entire guard would be upon them in minutes. A stupid plan, but it was something. And I could only hope Jaune had more planned. 

“Hurry up,” I croaked. 

For a brief moment, Jaune nodded then disappeared. In that time, I could hear Gris shuffle around behind me. “Vert,” he said louder this time. “Please, I’m sorry. Take me with you. I’m sorry for ever hurting you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry. 

I heard Jaune shout “Ready?”

There was a beat. 

I looked over my shoulder and swore I could see Gris’ eyes full of tears. The image prevented me from properly bracing myself.

BOOM!

Shards of rock blew into the cell. Dust hit the ceiling and rained down upon me quicker than I could reasonably cover my face. My ears rang something fierce. 

Smoke clouded my vision and my mind, images wobbling to and fro. I saw a figure morph from bipedal to quadrupedal and back again. Shouts and sirens mixed to create a cacophony of noise. The puddle became a lake. 

Within just a few seconds, the noise quieted to a dull tone—my own heartbeat somewhere off in the distance. I lowered my arm and met the light of the moon with open eyes. 

Jaune appeared with two more pokemon I didn’t recognize. He barked some command and they funneled into the cell. 

“Vert!” 

It sounded somewhere between Jaune’s command and a cry from Gris, but it was pained, almost inconsolable. 

When the two pokemon approached, I held up a claw. They aimed to lift me up, but they would get nowhere dragging a Chesnaught around. Even one as weak as me at that moment. 

My muscles screamed at me, sharp pin pricks of agony coursing from my feet to my torso. I fought against it and let out a scream of my own. My bad arm cracked under the pressure of my own body, but I ignored it. I only needed my legs for now. And thankfully, they worked. I rose to my full height, cradling my aching arm with my other. 

“Let’s go,” I groaned. Adrenaline could only force so much out of me—I would need to relearn how to run as I went.

“Vert!”

I heard the voice again. Through the harsh pounding in my ears, the shouting, more explosions in the distance—somehow I heard it through the wall. 

“Vert, please!”

There was another source of pain that I had pushed deep down until now. Perhaps the gravity of the situation caused it to seep out. 

My heart ached staring past that wall I had known as my only companion for these past weeks, or months. It didn’t matter now. 

“Vert, don’t leave me, please!” Gris shouted through sobs. 

I looked between the hole and the wall. Images of Gris’ eyes full of tears filled my mind. The last time I witnessed such a horrible sight, I hugged him for everything he was worth. 

“Vert!” Jaune commanded. “We need to go, now!”

There was a crack on the wall—a new one caused by the explosion. Had I been at full strength, I could have busted it down easily. 

I had to use my less dominant arm, but I managed a few punches against the rock. It melted under my strikes, a hole large enough to fit the length of my arm forming. I could feel the blood on my knuckles after every punch, but I didn’t stop until I could reach all the way through, creating an even larger hole. 

But that was it. Gris could figure out the rest. It was up to him now.

“Find your own way out,” I told him, though I didn’t know if he heard me. 

And I didn’t give him a chance to hear it again. I followed Jaune into the night, stumbling all the while. 

I’m sorry. 

“I’m sorry, too, Gris,” I said under my breath as I ran. “I’m sorry we’ll never see each other again.”

Never again. I won’t make the same mistake twice.

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