Prologue: The Light

Oh, how Mathew missed when the street lights would illuminate his yard. He tried to fix them himself, but the harvesters always worked faster. Now, the only thing exposing the looters in his yard was the glow of the moon.

He peered down at the two. Mathew didn’t have to know who they were to know what they were here for. How pathetic…but also, how dreadful. That feeling was what kept him there, unmoving, watching.

The mechanical parts of his home’s defender whirred and stirred outside, and just as swiftly as the marauders had arrived, they vanished into the night. Buttons made sure no cowards like them would ever step foot in his house. Watching the titan of a machine succeed brought a wave of euphoria. Victory.

It didn’t last long.

The moment Mathew threw himself back into bed, he knew sleep was far off. He tossed and turned, but no comfort came. It never would. Many months had passed since this room, now nearly barren besides the bed and a lone dresser, had given him comfort.

His own mind was not much better. Every pursuit of peace of mind was drowned out by his many turmoils and regrets. The flood was unending.

He turned his exhausted body to face the other side of his room. There was nothing there… Big mistake. He was already welling up with tears. Damnit. Now he needed something to drown it all out.

Careful not to wake anyone else, he tiptoed to the kitchen. There was plenty of food lying around that he could munch on to fill in the empty space where sleep should go. Or perhaps he could drink the night away. That’d be easy. Nice, even. Slowly, he reached for the refrigerator door and—

Mathew turned around only to find himself blinded by a giant ball of searing heat and energy right in front of him. “Greetings,” a voice boomed in his head.

The light was so overwhelming. “What the hell…” His back slid against the door until he was sitting on the wooden floor. In the blink of an eye, he had reached into into a drawer and pulled a knife on the light. “Get back! I-I’m not ready to go!”

The gleam of the ball dimmed, as if to quell his panic. “Do not fear, for I have not come to bring harm to you. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

He understood what this was now. Rather than suppress them with gluttonous coping methods, his brain had decided to counter his overwhelming feelings with an equally overwhelming dosage of lunacy. Maybe the looters had gotten in and tampered with the air? No, this had to be something else. “Let me guess,” he said, dropping the weapon. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”

The floating ball of energy shook around as though it had a visible head. “I can assure you, I am no Grim Reaper. Rather, I am speaking to you from another dimension. Have you, by any chance, heard of Pokémon?”

Mathew squinted at the light. “That’s…a question. I’ve played a few games before, yeah. What about them?”

“In my world, pokémon are real, living creatures.”

He stared at him for several seconds. Then, he burst into laughter. “Hah! Really? I’ve dreamed up a magic light preaching to me about alternate dimensions where creatures a corporation made up live? I really didn’t think I’d gone this crazy yet.”

The voice in his head sighed. “Still don’t believe I’m real? Take this.”

A thick, three-ring bright blue binder slapped Mathew square in the face. He stared at the gift in his lap in awe. He certainly wasn’t dead or a loon… What did that make him now?

“In this binder,” the voice explained as he studied it, “are blueprints. These blueprints are for a portal generation device designed to allow you to create a rip in this universe and jump into another. This rip will allow to venture into my world: Solceus.”

Inside, various papers filled its rings, showing every angle inside and out of this seven-foot, circular device. No easy project, that’s for sure. “And you expect me to make this how, exactly?”

“There is no need to play coy,” the light told him. “I know very well about your talents. At the time of your youth, the possibility of crafting such a thing may have once held doubt. But this is twenty sixty four! Your skills and funds, combined with these blueprints, are all you will need to assemble the right parts.”

Mathew couldn’t deny any of the praise he gave. For a brief moment, that gave him confidence, and he considered that maybe this light coming into his life wasn’t so bad. Still, he remained skeptical. “Okay, but what’s in it for me?” he asked. “I’ve already got clients bleeding me dry here.”

“Don’t you see the world you’re living in? How miserable it is?”

He slouched against the cold refrigerator door, chilling his spine. “Yeah. It’s twenty sixty four,” he mocked. “You’re screwed, I’m screwed, the planet’s screwed, it’s the goddamn apocalypse. What about it?”

“You can use this gateway into my world to escape. Start again. And in return, all we will ask for is your presence and assistance.”

We… Mathew still had doubts about this miraculous encounter, but this idea gave him a warm but foreign feeling he could no longer deny. Was this…hope? He wanted it to be hope. “Well, it’s worth a try, at least,” he conceded.

“Excellent!” The light was enthused, as if this was a bigger occasion for him than it was for Mathew. “Now, before I part, I should mention that going to this dimension will turn you into a pokémon as well, but I’m sure you can live with that, can’t you?”

“Wait, hang on. What should I do about my s—?”

“Good,” the voice interrupted. “Until we meet again.” With that, the ball of light slowly shrunk into nothing, leaving him to rub his eyes and adjust back into the night. No longer blinded, Mathew got a long look at what the blueprints had to say. At the bottom of each diagram, essay, and graph, the page was signed with a pair of initials written in white: D.E.

Satisfied, he closed the binder and made for another room. He was going to sound insane, but he had to tell him the good news.

Eight months. Eight long, grueling months were what it had taken to construct this mechanical masterwork. It looked miserable, barely matching the blueprints’ design and hardly fitting in his workshop, but it was done. He hoped.

Mathew spent a solid two minutes praying for it to work. He was desperate now. Ever since that chance meeting, he had wanted nothing more than to meet the light and whoever this D.E. was and finally free himself from this nightmare.

After he finished bargaining his soul, he decided it was time. Slowly, he pressed the button on the side. Tiny streaks of sparks danced across the ends of the circular machine. He stepped away, fearing an explosion.

There was no explosion, however. Instead, the very air began to tear away. In his past attempts, the black rip would shrink into nothing, but here, it kept growing until it met with the portal’s frame. It was stable enough that he could simply walk through it now.

“Yes!” Mathew shouted in blissful joy. It was done! He could finally leave this awful Earth! With that out of the way, he could begin preparations. First order of business: change into a business suit, complete with a burgundy polka-dotted tie. Although he’d been given numbers to punch in, he didn’t know where they led. He’d rather arrive looking too formal than too casual.

Next, he searched his house up and down, making sure he had everything he wanted for his potentially permanent vacation. The unfinished Wormhole Wristlet? Take! An emergency lunch? Take! That scrapbook on the shelf? Uh…well…he’d regret it later if he didn’t take it. And how could he leave behind his computer?! Thank God that his backpack could store it all.

Huh. I wonder what Solceans worship? he thought.. Don’t they have, what’s his name…Arceus? He shrugged it off for now. He’d get those answers soon enough.

Throwing the backpack into the corner for the moment, Mathew went over his plans one last time. He had all that he could want, except…except for…

No, no. He couldn’t think about that. It was an awful loss — the hardest part of these eight months — but there was nothing he could do about it now. Well, nothing other than finishing their task.

He grabbed his backpack, rubbed his chin for a moment — this might be the last time he’d have a beard — and then stepped into the rip.