Pathos「Pokemon Fanfiction」

Seven

Chapter Seven: No Longer Human

Is everything alright—?

Aiden wasn't sure what to think of his thoughts, but he had far more pressing issues to take care of. He was lucky he'd convinced Yan to go to bed earlier, because if he knew one thing, it was that he wouldn't want her to see him in this state.

She'd see him in the morning either way. He didn't know why he was bothering so much about it.

His brain felt like there were dozens of Durant gnawing on each nerve and Arceus, it was number than it should have felt. There as no white-hot fire as he had expected; instead, all he could feel was a layer of frost starting to crawl over his body.

It took several long seconds before he was aware of his surroundings again. The world blinked back at him through lapses of black dots over his vision. He was already starting to forget the exact details of the herb shop he was standing in.

Why is it happening so fast? Is Lacia rushing?

Aiden took a long, deep breath, knowing that it would be long since he could take such a breath again, and tried to sit down as best as he could.

With shaky eyes, he glanced down as his hands. It wasn't the fact that they felt cold and clammy—they'd felt that way as soon as he'd stepped into the human world as a ghost—but the fact that their degrading had sped up from some measly light flickering at their fingertips.

A hard ball of saliva sat in his throat as they faded in and out of sight a few more times before settling on a semi-solid form. It wasn't as stable as he liked it to be; he could see the floor through the paleness of his skin if he squinted, but it would last him for a few minutes.

Some part of his mind—a part that could still function and wasn't being swallowed by the haze of numbness that the rest of his body seemed to be stuck in—tittered at him with a vague scolding.

I screwed up. I screwed up. He shot a glare at the floor as if it had wronged him, flinching at the effort it took to contort his face into such a shape, and fought back the tears pricking at the back of his eyes. I actually trusted her.

He'd known ever since the events in their past life that something was wrong with Lacia. There had been something off about her prescence ever since he'd seen her past self in the dirty alleyway, and he was starting to piece together the bits of clues that he'd been unwilling to realise for the past two weeks.

Perhaps he'd wanted to be blind to them. Perhaps he'd tried to ignore them for the longest time because he thought that he could save his friends and his brother.

He should have seen it coming. He had, in actual fact, but he had never tried to act on it.

Aiden had always chose to stay naive for a reason; he knew that he would never be able to make decisions once he knew the truth, so he'd try to not know what was going on even when the truth was right before his eyes.

But that was a trick that wouldn't work for him anymore.

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore how his body was fading, and drifted into a restless sleep.

§

"You look terrible."

Aiden didn't even have the energy to be offended at the statement—and besides, he had to agree with the figure above him. He peered at the lake below him; his eyes were downcast and circled by grey, and he was as pale as he'd suspected.