The first thing Alec became aware of upon returning to consciousness was the steep pitch of the surface. Bobbing up and down, trying not to puke, he was afraid even to open his eyes.

What will I find if I’m brave enough to do that?, Alec wondered, closing his mouth. He couldn’t open it now - if he did, he’d spew whatever he’d last eaten all over the floor.

Wait a minute - what was the last food item he’d consumed? 

That was the most horrifying thing. Try as he might, Alec couldn’t recall what he’d eaten prior to passing out, or going to sleep, or whatever had caused this lapse in his memory.

The ground sloped again, and Alec dug his heels in. He couldn’t slip and slide, because this wasn’t, well, a Slip-n-Slide. The surface was far harder, and he wondered how much he risked by not doing so.

“Open your eyes, furball!” 

Alec realized that that command was likely directed at him, so he did as he was told. And then…

He saw that he was sitting on the deck of a ship. It was no wonder that the ground had been swaying beneath him, no surprise that he was green around the gills. Because he had reason to be.

It was almost impossible to see much more, though. The ship, only slightly larger than your average fishing vessel, was encircled by a dense layer of fog.

“Where…am I?” Alec wondered aloud, gulping after he said this in order to avoid hurling. Quite frankly, this was a struggle he found himself slowly but surely losing.

“Look at us, furball!” the same voice barked, and Alec did as he was told.

It was a tall, lizard-like creature that Alec didn’t recognize. That was where the voice had come from - a lizard.

“I don’t get it” Alec stated, and that was the tipping point. He leaned over and vomited the entire contents of his stomach onto the ship’s deck.

“Poor you” the giant lizard replied, though this tone was not one of concern, but rather of mockery. It was plain to see that the lizard didn’t really care about Alec’s well-being.

“Hey! Go ahead and laugh!” Alec exclaimed. “I don’t see you puking your guts out!”

“That’s not nice of you, Travis” announced a different voice. A quick turn of Alec’s head revealed that this creature was a somewhat fox-like creature, a quadrupedal one whom he didn’t recognize. And that wasn’t exactly reassuring.

That’s weird. I feel like I SHOULD have seen this creature before. But I haven’t - Jesus Christ, have I forgotten EVERYTHING?

The lizard turned to face the fox, then snapped the following: “I’ll make fun of it if I want to, Chase! We need all the levity we can get!”

Chase the fox frowned. “Not if it comes at the expense of another group member.”

Alec couldn’t help but feel a tiny bean of hope rise within him at the mention of being in a group. Besides that, it was hard to experience any optimism.

A third unrecognizable creature, a furry one akin to a giant raccoon with a dark “mask” of fur surrounding its eyes, spoke up next.

“I don’t care about this spat,” the raccoon muttered. “I just want to make music.”

Travis glared at the raccoon. “You want to make music, Rocky? We’re trapped on a boat in the middle of the open ocean, and you want to make music!”

“It’s just like you said, Travis,” Rocky the raccoon pointed out. “We need to have something fun to do here, or else we’re going to lose our minds. That’s how it usually works.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Travis acknowledged, putting his head in his pincers. “Makes sense.”

“All right, you four! Stop talking!”

The tone was so obviously authoritative that it couldn’t possibly be ignored. The four creatures turned in its direction like moths drawn to a flame. (Maybe the voice was just as deadly as that analogy would suggest. He sure hoped not, though.)

A man in a captain’s uniform stepped onto the deck. With the rough, undulating waters, he had to hold his arms out like the wings of an airplane in order to remain upright. Somehow, he managed it.

“Where are we?” Alec asked. “This is quite the adventure.”

“It worked!” the captain exclaimed. “By the Bible, it worked!”

Travis frowned. “Why should the Bible matter here, dude?”

“I’ll explain,” the captain told the quartet. “You see, you four…you are what are known as Pokémon.”

Alec gasped. Pokey…mon? Like, pokey monsters? What the hell is he going on about?

“It was what we had to do,” the captain asserted. “If we didn’t, you all would have stayed as corpses rotting away.”

Chase’s eyes grew to the size of dessert plates. “We…we’re dead?”

The captain gasped. “No, clearly not! But you were!”

“All of us?” Rocky enquired, looking as though he were ready to somehow compose a song based on that line.

“All four of you,” the captain confirmed. “All four of you were going to the dirt if we didn’t revive your asses and put your souls in the bodies of Pokémon.”

“Wait…what the hell!” Travis yelled. This was a bit much for him to grasp, clearly. And as much as Alec didn’t love Travis’ earlier actions, he couldn’t help but sympathize with the lizard.

The captain narrowed his eyes, which were barely visible behind his giant black beard. “Would you rather be dead?”

“Well, no,” Travis acknowledged. “I wouldn’t want that. But I guess…”.

“It’s better to be alive?” the captain replied. “Yes, it is. Jesus Christ claimed he could conquer death, but we have actually done it at GameFreak.”

“I still don’t get it,” Alec muttered. And it was true; his mind was racing a mile a second, unable to come to terms with what this all meant.

The captain sighed. “It’s okay if you don’t understand. We certainly didn’t know how this was going to work at first, or if it would. But look at that, you’re all alive!”

“Barely” Alec snorted. “I still feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

None of the four creatures commented on the obvious, which is that Alec had already done so. But that didn’t matter, because the captain still had something to say.

“Now, let me assign you your names,” the man announced.

“We already know our names,” Alec said. “My name’s Alec, right?”

“It is, yes, but I mean your species names” the captain responded. “Alec, you are a Furret. I could read from the PokéDex, but honestly, that would be too much trouble.”

I don’t know what a PokéDex even is. But surely reading from a book would be pretty trivial compared to, I dunno, bringing us back to life?

“Suffice it to say, Alec,” the captain continued, “that you are a Normal-type.”

Alec grimaced. “Normal? Shouldn’t I be exceptional?”

He was aiming for a joke, but the captain didn’t seem amused. Speaking of the captain, he turned to Travis.

“You, Travis, are a Haxorus. You’re a Dragon-type, which means you can breathe fire, though I wouldn’t recommend doing so on this boat.”

Travis smiled, reaching his arms out as though about to spread his wings.

“Another thing,” the captain said, “don’t even think about trying to flap your wings. You don’t have any, so it’s not even worth trying.”

The smile faded from Travis’ face in an instant. Alec didn’t blame him for this either - it would be pretty amazing to possess the power of flight. Didn’t every kid dream of that at least once?

Well, maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.

“Next up,” the captain continued, “is you, Chase. You are a Flareon, meaning that you’re a Fire-type.”

“Can I also breathe fire?” Chase asked, winking at Travis as he said this.

The captain nodded. “But just like with Travis, don’t try that here. Most Flareon had to evolve from Eevee, which requires a Fire Stone. But you’re lucky - you get to be a Flareon from birth. Or should I say, rebirth?”

“Very funny.”

“Right” the captain continued. “Last but not least, we have Rocky. Rocky, you’re a Zigzagoon. Like Alec, you’re a Normal-type.”

“Great” Rocky muttered. “I get to be generic - shouldn’t I want to be the GOAT?”

The captain frowned. “What is this goat you speak of? Are you referring to that animal that often lives on a farm?”

“It means Greatest of All Time,” Travis clarified, speaking very quickly.

“Well, that’s up to you,” the captain replied. “What matters is that you all have a second chance - in that respect, you are the first of your kind. And you’d better make the most of it, because life is precious enough as it is. It’s a miracle - some would say, a gift from God. Or in the case of you four, a gift from Arceus.”

“Maybe” Alec said. Maybe this is the next great adventure. Perhaps all those stories - or rather, some stories we were told about the afterlife were real.

There was a loud, metallic sound seconds later, which Alec assumed was the anchor being released from its chains and driven into the ocean floor.

“That’s all the time we have here” the captain stated. “Remember, we’re all rooting for you. Now, jump off and swim to shore!”