"Should we take a leave? He still looks pale…"
A woman's voice broke the silence, low and trembling.
Another voice answered—gentle, firm, yet lined with worry. "Maybe I should talk to the lab. Professor Oak will understand. He's been working too hard lately, anyway… and after that fever last night…"
Their words grew fainter as they moved toward the stairs, the sound of their steps echoing lightly through the small house.
For a while, there was nothing—just the soft ticking of a clock and the faint chirping of Pidgey outside the window.
Then, under the sheets, a small movement.
The boy stirred. His eyelids fluttered open, and light spilled across his face, forcing him to squint. His head felt heavy, thoughts sluggish, like he'd woken from a dream too deep to remember.
He sat up slowly, his hair a mess, his breathing uneven. The morning light seeped through the curtains, painting his room in warm gold.
It was familiar… yet distant.
His gaze drifted toward the wall. A clock, circular, with a red top and white bottom, caught his attention. It looked like a Poké Ball. The hands read 8:19 AM.
He blinked at it for a long moment, an odd sense of nostalgia tugging at him.
His eyes wandered again—to a computer sitting quietly on his desk, beside a tin can full of pencils. His school bag leaned against the leg of the table, still unzipped.
Everything was normal. Everything was the same.
But it didn't feel right.
His mind wasn't quiet. It was crowded.
Images flashed behind his eyes—memories, but not his own. A small hospital room. A boy lying on a bed, frail, surrounded by machines that beeped softly. On the screen before him, bright colors flickered: monsters, creatures of every shape and size, battling and smiling alongside their human partners.
That boy had loved it—loved them—more than anything else. He had spent days watching them, dreaming of what it would be like to touch one, to train one, to live in that world.
And then… nothing.
The vision faded, replaced by an ache in his chest and an unfamiliar silence in his mind.
He sat frozen, his hand clutching the sheets tightly.
"What… was that?"
The question echoed faintly in his mind.
It didn't feel like a dream. It felt too real. Too vivid. Like he had just lived another person's life for a second.
He pressed a hand to his temple. His pulse was quick, his thoughts slipping between confusion and disbelief.
"Those weren't my memories… were they?"
For a moment, he could still hear the faint beeping of that hospital monitor, see the boy's reflection in the window, pale and tired yet still smiling at the TV screen.
Then, as if a fog lifted, the name returned to him—his name. His own life. His family.
He exhaled shakily, grounding himself.
"... Right… my name is…Leyn"
The thought faded, replaced by something familiar. A detail that shouldn't have stood out—but did.
"My parents work for a man named Professor Oak…" he murmured absently, his voice barely above a whisper.
The sound of that name made him pause.
"Professor Oak?"
The words hung in the air, almost absurd. That name—he knew it. Not as a memory of someone he'd met, but as a character. A fictional one. The man who gave trainers their first Pokémon in the show the boy from those other memories used to watch.
His stomach tightened.
"That can't be right…"
He looked around again—the Poké Ball clock, the computer, the faint hum of something alive beyond the window. The quiet chirps outside suddenly felt sharper, clearer, more real than before.
"No… this isn't just a dream. The details are too real. Too consistent... "
He swallowed hard, his heartbeat pounding in his chest. A shiver ran down his spine.
"Could it be…?"
He stood slowly, bare feet pressing against the cool wooden floor. The sunlight brushed across his skin, warm and comforting, grounding him just enough to keep from panicking.
He moved toward the window and gently pulled the curtain aside.
Outside, a gentle breeze stirred the leaves of a tall oak tree. Down the road, a few houses stood quietly in a neat line. But it wasn't the buildings that caught his attention—it was the Pidgey fluttering by, its small wings catching the morning light, and the Rattata darting across the grass.
His breath hitched.
They weren't drawings. They weren't animations. They were real.
"No way…"
The realization hit him like a thunderbolt, half awe, half disbelief.
"I'm… in the Pokémon world?"
He stared for a long moment, the weight of those words sinking in.
Then, faintly, a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Unbelievable… the boy in those memories would've given anything to see this…"
For the first time since waking up, his chest felt lighter. The confusion hadn't vanished—but beneath it was something else. A spark of wonder.
A spark that whispered of adventures waiting beyond the door