Chapter 7: An Unknown Occurrence

"So mind telling me why you looked so distraught? You usually keep everything bottled up better than that and don't like outwardly showing weakness, so the fact that you were so obvious about it tells me that it's something very important to you. So we can either do this the easy way, where you tell me what it is, or we can do it the hard way, where I take guesses at what the problem is." Perhaps sensing my apprehension about talking about my problem, she finally turns to me with a concerned look before sighing.

"The hard way it is, I guess."

In the dimly lit room, I find my mind racing to and fro; part of me wants to escape the current conversation. Part of me wants to simply laugh it off and put on a smile that would dissuade others from pushing the subject any further. Part of me simply wants to ignore it all and simply be normal.

Set on beginning my trial Iris gestures to the other bed in the room with a silent command to sit so that we can begin. With my mind racing, my body robotically makes its way to the bed before sitting down. thankfully my mind catches up moments later and i can finally look up to see chocolate brown eyes staring back into mine. Thankfully,let me go at this rate. "How many times have we replayed this scenario already?"

"fine. i'll talk." assuming that the most harmless way to get past this is to just come out rather than delay the inevitable i take a second to steady myself before i begin to talk. "I know that it's selfish; it could even be considered downright childish of me, but I couldn't help but feel slightly envious of you after hearing your story with Drilbur. You managed to take your experience and come out better for it, but what do I have to show for myself after all these years? I feel like I'm still just making the same mistakes or not even being able to face them to begin with."

Looking into her eyes after expressing my own envy and misgivings with myself, I can see both shock and confusion at my words, but not wanting to interrupt me and risk me closing myself off, she stays silent and simply takes time to digest my words.

"Do you remember that incident when that newly evolved Hydreigon went on a rampage? how much destruction it caused in the forest? You managed to sense its fear at having evolved and how it was more scared of hurting anyone with its new strength. You managed to help calm it down along with Shannon and her two Deino, but all I could do was stand there. petrified and took stuck in my head to move correctly."

Nodding her head at my question, she questions me about my reason for bringing it up.

"Yeah, it had just recently evolved in the forest and wasn't used to how much she had grown and went into a hysteria, which caused her to lash out at everyone and everything, trying to make sense of her situation. why are you bring that up though? It was a scary experience, but she was just as scared, if not even more scared."

"i was scared not because of how powerful she was but what i felt and HEARD from her." Remembering the deep sense of fear from the three-headed dragon, I can't help but recall her voice. Remembering the event, when I got close to her, I felt her emotions: fear, surprise, anguish, and trepidation. All of them were rampaging inside her heart, but the thing that stood out the most to me in that event was how I could hear her voice. how i understood her as if i was talking to you. The longer her emotions were at a fever pitch, the more they felt smothering to me."

She'd been horrified at the power she gained; she wanted someone to save her, and all I could do was stand there shocked and drowning in her overflowing emotions that resonated too deeply within me, as if I was drowning in that same exact maelstrom of negativity alongside her, and I couldn't see the light to the surface, so I stood too scared to even breathe properly.

"when you and Shannon finally got her to calm down a bit only then was i finally able to start thinking properly but the damage had already been done. having such foreign emotions take over like that and completely immobilize me in such a way. It became a trauma for me, and I found myself too scared to acknowledge the main cause of it. How I'd started feeling the emotions and the voices of the Pokemon around me."

Perhaps seeing just how far that event had affected me on the subconscious level, Iris looked at me ashamed at having never known that I'd been suffering at that point along with the dragon we had been attempting to calm. She merely thought I had been afraid of the ferocious-looking dragon, but I wasn't scared of her; I was scared along with her, and that fear paralyzed me.

"How long?" were the first words to come out of her mouth. not a question but a statement. "How long have you been able to hear them? How long had you been capable of feeling their emotions, and why didn't you tell us the truth? "We could have helped you before it got to this point!"

for the second time this day i could see tears had begun to well up within her eyes threatening to spill over. Peering into her eyes, I can see a veritable mixture of emotions, but one of the more prominent is guilt. guilt at having failed to notice that I hadn't been right. how I stood frigid and drowning in the moment but had to get the words out, or I felt as though I'd never move past that experience.

"That had been my first time experiencing something of that nature. I didn't really understand it back then. Why could I hear her voice begging for help and wishing for salvation while also wanting to push them away to not hurt anyone by accident? Why was I able to feel her emotions so strongly that they managed to overwhelm me? I thought I was abnormal. that I was strange and shouldn't be capable of such a thing. So I wished to no longer hear their voices. to lock my heart away, so I couldn't resonate so strongly with them. Without realizing it, I had bound myself to that place and to that singular moment. I spent the next couple years trying to ignore the voices of the Pokemon around me because I felt like a freak. like something that just shouldn't belong."

i had hoped and prayed that what all of 'this' was was just some simple one off event but it wasn't. Ever since then, I could hear them fearing the reactions of the others, so I kept it locked away and pretended to be fine. I wore the smile, laughed with them, and even acted as if I hadn't a care in the world. I buried myself in history tomes trying to see if what was going on with me was normal, and yet no matter how much I sought out the information, it seemed to elude me to the point where I began to despair because I stood out instead of falling into the mold.

"Have you told your mom about it? Have you even asked your cousins for help?" iris questions "You should have told us we wouldn't have shunned you for whatever was happening. we're your friends and family whatever you can't handle and carry on your own you should rely on us to help you with. We've always helped carry our problems until they no longer bother us or we work through them, so why did you close yourself off? Why did you run away from them—from me!?"

"You say you're envious of me for being able to have gotten past the problem with Drilbur, but do you have any idea how alone I was in Unova? Do you know how little I fit in that city? I couldn't make friends at that school because, no matter how much I wanted to relate to my classmates, I just couldn't. When I wanted to get a view of the mountains to calm my fraying nerves, I was scolded by Officer Jenny. That battle where I pushed Drilbur too far lost. "When I got scolded by Grandpa, I ran away." Hearing Iris cracking voice and outpouring of emotion, I was stunned.

"Saya, I ran away because I couldn't fit in. I ran away because I was lonely. I ran away because, no matter how much I tried, nothing seemed to work out for me. i tried and failed and the entire time all i wished was for was to have you and Shannon there to tell me that everything would be okay so that i could try a bit more. I'm not failing in the least. I gave up. Sure, Gpa understood and still taught me a lot of things, but he recognized that city life was too much for me at the moment, so he gave me his blessing and a promise to return when I felt stronger."

I hadn't known any of this. I had left her all alone in an unfamiliar environment because I thought that it would help her further her goals, but my own assumptions allowed her to have her spirit broken to such an extent. No, we failed each other by not keeping our promise to tell each other when we felt overwhelmed or needed to talk out our problems. to keep in contact, yet both singlemindedly acting as if our problems were outside of each other's understanding. We even left Shannon alone, and yet she welcomed Iris back with open arms when she returned to the village, not lamenting how she got left back home.

"I guess the both of us ran away then." I tentatively started. "i ran from everyone because i thought that i'd lose you two but, you and even more so Shannon lost their biggest support by both of us leaving and not even thinking of writing or calling home. I shouldn't have assumed everything was fine for you, gotten jealous without knowing what pushed you to this point, or kept the two of you in the dark about my own pain. You also shouldn't have had to bear your own pain on your own, feeling alienated from everyone in that school. i'm...so sorry."

"you aren't the only one who's been lonely these past years, Saya. All that time I spent by myself in that school, the more I found myself wishing I had still been with the both of you back in the village, pursuing my goal in my own way rather than jumping into something without having considered the full consequences of my actions. we bothare afraid of being alone. Both are afraid of being outcasts. But we're back together now, and even if she isn't with us at the moment, you know that Shannon is giving us our full support from back home, so let's make a promise here. No more running. No more secrets. No more despairing. okay?"

Approaching my side of the room, Iris pulls me into a hug while making such a promise with a cracking voice and tears overflowing. both of us releasing our pent-up frustrations and anguish, why did I even lock myself away from them? The three of us were together as kids and grew up supporting each other, and yet here I am thinking that I'd lose them for something that now seems so petty and insignificant.

"Y-yea. I promise, but you have to make the same promise to me in return. no more running away. No more secrets. No more locking away our problems instead of dealing with them in the moment. okay?" While I'm sure that my face looks horrendous, I give the same resolution to her before pulling her down to lay beside me on the bed.

"Mmm," she mumbles. "I also know you're scared of them, but don't push out the voices and emotions you sense. Not all emotions are bad. Sure, they may seem overwhelming at the moment, but I'm sure with a bit of practice you'll grow used to them and even be able to help even more people and Pokemon with them. You're not some abomination that should be shunned. You're simply you, and those little differences make you uniquely you, so don't be scared of the opinions of people you may not meet again; instead, embrace that gift you have, okay?"

Feeling as though a heavy weight I'd been carrying for so long suddenly left my shoulders, I, with a shaky voice, agreed to start moving forward again before falling into a slumber, still hugging the purple-haired girl.

Lorekeeper_Mystique

okay so here's a new chapter and a little heart to heart from Iris and Saya. i wanted to show that despite how both girls can act like they aren't bothered by any problems both of them are still human and have their own faults and issues to push through. admittedly if i was to compare myself to one of them it'd be Saya because i have a habit of simply shutting down and pretending my problems don't exist until it all come pouring out soooo yea. kind of an awkward moment to tell someone that does the same exact thing as you to be more open about their worries.