Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.' — Charles Schulz

He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted. – Berthold Auerbach

The first thing that made me realize this was not normal was the dreams.

Everything was chaos, wind and rising seas, voices, shouts of defiance and screams of terror. There was Neesha, clinging to Watercut as if the Dewgong could save her from the storm. In the ocean where the water rolled over them and broke over their heads repeatedly I saw her choke and gasp. Her grip was iron, her eyes were blazing. She glanced above to me, and smiled. I knew then that we could win this thing together. Her Pokemon blazed ahead with admirable strength and determination. To my right a young man on a Pidgeotto flew adjacent, his face hardened in a permanent serious frown as the rain grew more intense. It was pelting us, hurting us as we forced our way ahead. Neesha began to gain distance on me until I could no longer see her. I looked aside and the Fearow was gone; I called out but my voice was swallowed by the wind. Something hot and cold and, burning and freezing, struck me and I fell towards the water, my Fearow screaming as he fell. I reached for him. I know I said his name, saw him look at me with fear in his eyes. Then I went under the water and everything was hazy, eyes burning with the salt of it and voice unheard as my head barely broke the surface before going under. The water pulled me down hard, and everything went dark.

Each morning I woke in a cold sweat. The details and clarity with which I remembered weren't normal for me. On an average day I didn't even know if I dreamed. Now I couldn't get the images from my mind, no matter how hard I tried. When we arrived in Lavender Town, staying at a proper hotel, I went to the Pokemon Tower for reasons I didn't understand. Most people in Sinnoh are admittedly a bit superstitious and religious, yet for all Cynthia's talk of legends, I was never part of that crowd. The draw to the building produced the same feeling as the dreams and the sight of Neesha in purple clothing. Something was there, just beyond my reach, some knowledge that I desperately needed and wanted, and I couldn't ignore it. I had to go. I had to try to figure this thing out somehow. Walking silently among the graves, wincing at the sight of a young Trainer sobbing over his stillborn Eevee, I scanned the headstones as if looking for something. I didn't know what it was, but I'd know it when I found it.

Everything was quiet, that awful silence filled with pain and mourning. Neesha and I had often lapsed into companionable silence, but this atmosphere was instead made up of sobs, whispers, words to the dead that hadn't been spoken in life. I went unnoticed in the rooms, up the floors, everyone too absorbed in their own personal tragedies. Slowly, I looked over the graves and came to the realization that one day, when I was buried, my Pokemon would probably not stand there and sob over my loss. They would never mourn me like I would mourn them. In order for a Pokemon to miss you, you have to have bonded with it. I could never bond with anyone, human or otherwise. No matter what I tried, ultimately I was always alone in the end. That was what had made the decision to end my own life seem so appealing. I knew no one would care; my job would be taken in a week and my Pokemon given to my successor, my house sold off by the city and only Flint would even notice, several weeks later. The fact that he hadn't called me or tried to contact me when I left with Neesha was only further proof that I wasn't meant to be there, in that role. So logically, I was meant to be somewhere else, doing something else entirely. I just wish I knew what it was.

There was a grave on the third floor, in a far corner with all Pokemon they didn't have names and dates for. Gloom, loving and loyal to the end one said. Next to it was Shiny Onix; may he rest in peace. I passed down the line with increasing anxiety, feeling irrationally that I was about to find the missing piece to the puzzle. I found it dusty and devoid of flowers, in a corner where the light was low. Fearow, a true hero. No greater love have a 'mon, than that he would lay down his life for his Trainer. And like a light switch had been flipped within me, I sank to the floor and felt tears flood my eyes even as they went wide in shock. Where the dream had ended, I could now fill in the gaps. In a storm that intense I should have died, drowned in the water to be found one day by some terrified marine Pokemon. Instead, somehow he'd saved me. The strain of carrying me to land after being struck by lightning… he couldn't have survived that, he hadn't, and I had just forgotten everything he did for me. I'd rushed off and gotten us both killed because I was seeking a challenge. I wanted an interesting fight. I was tired of boring matches. I'd been such a damn fool.

"I'm sorry, Fearow," I said softly, touching the gravestone. The obsidian granite mix was cool and smooth under my fingertips. "For getting you into that mess, for being such a half assed Trainer, for everything. I'm sorry."

It occurs to me that there could be others. There could be a whole team of Pokemon I've lost. There could be a whole family of relatives dead and unmourned or alive and alone. I try to push the thought away. Sinnoh was my home. I made it my home through years of sweat and effort, training and triumph. I'd had nowhere else I could remember, nowhere else to go, so I had made a spot for myself, carved out a niche, and tried not to let anyone see how unstable I was. I'd tried to forget that I didn't have any memories, pretend like I was normal and everything was fine, yet late at night there had always been the void. Now I was standing at the precipice, the point of no return. I could go home, kick out whoever had taken over in my absence, apologize to Flint and pretend that there was nothing wrong. I could be a Gym Leader, maybe even a member of the Elite Four, respected and well known, safe and secure in the knowledge that I was a good Trainer and a good man. Or I could take the plunge and uncover whatever horrors were waiting for me in my long forgotten homeland. I wouldn't like everything I found – this grave was proof enough of that – but I would finally know, I would be able to say where I came from, what I did, and who I was. In Sinnoh I was Volkner the lonely and powerful Trainer. In Johto and Hoenn I was a nobody. In Kanto, somewhere, long buried under years of absence, there was me, the real me.

I stood on uneasy feet to make my way back to the hotel. Neesha was a curious piece of this particular plot; she was too straight forward to be lying to me. Perhaps she didn't remember either. Maybe she was hiding under that smile the way I'd buried all my fears and uncertainties in training; it certainly was easier than facing the horrible truth of not knowing. The two of us had the same origin, whatever it was, and we'd managed to survive alone after it… Yet, we hadn't really lived until we found each other again. We basked in each other's familiarity, in the strange sense of I know you that we both felt. If I were a spiritual man I'd have called it a blessing to have met her. If I were a god-worshipper I'd have thanked some deity for it. As it was I just wondered if maybe we weren't both just desperate for company. Her drive to train her favorites and only her favorites, never the strongest or most popular Pokemon, made her an eccentric if not an outright freak to most people. I was man enough to admit I had some problems dealing with people. Maybe that was how we'd become friends the first time.

Or maybe not. I didn't know. All I could do was guess and, for the first time in my life, admit to someone that I was lost in this life and needed help uncovering the past. I didn't want to say it. I didn't like saying it, even to her. Knowing that deep down I was just a lonely and confused Trainer was a blow to whatever pride and dignity I had left. Unfortunately, I also knew it had to be done. Firstly, I was older and therefore should've been the more mature one. Secondly, if you don't want things to be the way they've always been, don't do what you've always done. Time to admit that deep down I was an empty vessel and all I knew for sure was that I had gotten my Fearow killed. And I hadn't even managed to explain the suicide attempt to Neesha yet. I couldn't even begin to imagine telling someone as driven and focused as her that deep down I was weak enough to want to end it all. I couldn't imagine ever telling anyone that. Then again, if you'd told me a few months ago I'd be running around the globe with a twenty year old girl, I'd have thought you were mad. More and more of the things I could never imagine were coming true. So one day, when I was sure she would understand, I'd tell her. It was the least I could do after she saved my life.

As I was travelling more in the land where I'd lost my memories, I was beginning to recall more things. I remembered a stadium made of colorful bricks and baby Pokemon fighting. I remembered the laughter of a tan skinned boy whose eyes were perpetually blocked by his hat, and the way he used to hold his Gloom close. There were Scythers lined up cutting logs and a scoreboard the crowd watched eagerly. Ever present, there was Neesha, her face a hundred different expressions stuck to my mind as if engraved in my memory. She clutched her hands together as she watched the Donphan pack race, she crinkled her nose in confusion at school as a complicated battle concept was explained, she cheered as a brave Cleffa belonging to the tan skinned, dark browned haired boy fought in the stadium, and her blue eyes were always focused. I had been there beside her. I had seen it. I had lived through days and days at her side, done things with her, but if I tried to focus the memories would slip away. They were vague, few recognizable words, no details, always small tidbits with no context to them. I didn't know where we had been. I didn't know who that boy was we had both known and trained with. I couldn't have hazarded a guess to our ages. All I knew was that it all felt real and certain in a way nothing else had. That had been us, I was sure of it. I stopped walking mid-step, struck by a sudden, horrifying thought.

If I was here, and Neesha was here, where was the boy with the Gloom? I shut my eyes as the reality slammed into me like a punch to the gut. Loving and loyal to the end, the tombstone had said. Buried at nearly the same date as Fearow. I remembered begging him for his strongest Pokemon. She was his.

"Oh my Arceus, what have I done?"