Chapter 1: At the Court

In July 2018, I was arrested and taken to the courthouse to give my testimony. By then, it was all over the news, and why shouldn't it have been? It was easily the biggest news story of the last few years.

The day started like any other. I was sitting on my front porch at about 7 AM, somewhere in the southern United States, when I heard a siren in the distance.

Huh. Someone probably had a medical emergency, a domestic dispute, or something. It must be Tuesday.

Perhaps it was a bit flippant of me to dismiss it like that, but in my defense, this sort of thing happened frequently. That was just the reality of living in rural America; things rarely happened, and it was seldom anything good when they did. Fortunately, none of these disputes involved me, which was all I cared about.

Imagine my surprise when the sirens grew louder and louder, indicating that they were getting closer to my house. Still, I didn't want to believe it.

It must be one of my neighbors. It needs to be. It certainly isn't me. They didn't call the cops on either of my parents, did they?

And yet, I must have been in denial all along. I'd ignored summons after summons, after all, and good things rarely happened to those who didn't answer subpoenas. My time had come, just like they say.

The police cruiser showed up in front of my house, and I tried to detach myself from the situation. It was the person across the street. They were the suspects of whatever crime had supposedly occurred - they had to be.

But nope. If the universe were conscious, it would have bellowed something like LOL, NOOB!

A tall, broad-shouldered man opened the door of the cop car and began walking up the front walk toward me. He wore a no-nonsense expression and sunglasses to protect his eyes from the infernal glare of that ball of fire in the sky.

"This is the home of Lucas Teller, is it not?"

After having told the police department so many lies, I supposed I might as well come clean. "It is."

The cop frowned at me. "Mr. Teller, do you realize what you have done? Do you realize how difficult you've made things for us?"

I didn't say anything. Didn't I have the right to remain silent?

The police officer grunted with evident frustration. "Of course. You're not going to talk, are you? Well, we're going to make you talk. That's just how it is."

With a clicking noise, the officer produced a pair of handcuffs. Like everything else in this part of the country, the handcuffs appeared rusty and outdated, but I knew they'd still be effective. My heart skipped several beats at the thought of being chained like that.

"Am I under arrest, Officer?" I asked.

"Indeed you are," the cop replied. "Your crime is failing to comply with multiple subpoenas, making you a repeat offender. And you have to come with us right now."

"Why?"

"Because we'll need you to testify before a grand jury. The grand jury hasn't yet determined if they will seek an indictment; your testimony should help them decide."

"Great," I muttered, not looking the officer in the eye. Didn't they always say you should never make eye contact with a police officer?

"Anyway, just so I don't get sued later…" the cop began. "Ahem…you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

"Even if there's no way it could be incriminating?"

The cop gritted his teeth. "Please don't talk back to me. You are under arrest, Mr. Teller, and that doesn't exactly put you in a position to be funny with me. There's not going to be any monkey business in the courtroom."

The cop cuffed my hands behind my back, with my arms twisted uncomfortably in that direction. The force felt like it might break my wrists.

"Okay," the police officer said once I'd been unceremoniously placed in the cruiser, "time to head to the Forrest County Courthouse, where the hearing will take place."

I barely resisted the urge to snort at the name of my county. It was, after all, named after a Confederate general, and why would a US state honor him that way? Then again, it's not like this mattered very much to me.

The drive to the courthouse was pretty quiet, apart from the constant humming of the cruiser's engine. We drove the same route into town that I tended to use when going around for pleasure, past a small lake. But unlike those other times, I wasn't here for fun.

Once we arrived in the county seat of Forrest County, the sidewalks became more crowded. A few people walking by glanced at me as if to say, I feel so bad for him.

Of course, the majority of the townspeople gave me angry looks. Whatever I was going through served me right for being a criminal.

I glanced at the tattoo on my wrist, a black marking consisting of two symbols: One of a lion cub, the other of a pair of concentric circles connected by two lines. Most people wouldn't see either of them as remarkable, but after all that I'd been through, I certainly did.

We arrived at the courthouse's parking garage, and I leaned towards the nearby elevator. It led straight into the building; that way, I would be able to escape the public eye, at least to some extent.

As though reading my mind, the cop who'd cuffed me shook his head, a slight toothy grin appearing on his face.

"No. No elevator for you, Mr. Teller. You get to walk in front of the general public because they all have a right to see you, and they all have a right to know what you've done."

"Uh…don't they already know that?" I blurted out.

"They do," the cop replied, giving me a slight slap on the wrist. "Now, crowds can smell fear, so I would advise you to tamp down on whatever emotions you're feeling. The court of public opinion matters just as much as a court of law."

I grimaced, then glared at the police officer. "Why should I care about your advice?"

He didn't reply. Instead, he grabbed me by the wrists and led me down the ramp of the multilevel parking garage, past numerous people who were getting out of their vehicles. With every set of eyes trained on me, my stomach fell even more, and my face grew hotter.

As much as I hated the police officer, I had to admit that his advice was worth heeding. I did my best to keep my gaze directly ahead, striding forward with all the confidence and lack of emotion that someone in handcuffs can muster. My hands would usually flap about in a situation like this, so I guess the cuffs helped in that way; they made it harder for me to show how nervous I was.

And then we were outside, and there were so many flashes that I wished I'd brought sunglasses. I was looking out into a sea of cameras, both news cameras and those from private citizens' phones.

I averted my eyes, but it wasn't easy. It was hard not to wonder what others thought of me; was I a monster or just a confused teenager?

The walk to the courtroom wasn't long in an absolute sense, but it certainly felt like a marathon. My legs seemed to be moving of their own free will, because I did not want to enter that room.

I was given a light shove into the courtroom but managed to keep my balance. Then, I looked around and saw that the room was packed. What felt like half the town had shown up for my grand jury hearing.

At the prosecutor's table sat a thickset man of average height with dark, thinning hair. For those in Forrest County, he was practically a household name. He was known to have a reputation for being very tough on crime, and he wasn't the type to advocate for a lenient sentence for someone who'd committed a victimless offense.

The judge, a man with circular glasses and a shock of white hair, banged his gavel. "Now that the suspect is present, this allows us to begin."

"Suspect?" I all but cried. "I didn't do anything!"

"That's what they all say," the prosecutor snapped. "Why would anyone admit to the acts we have accused you of?"

"You have the wrong guy," I insisted, trying not to sound like I was whining. "I'm not going to repeat this. Whatever you think I did, I'm innocent."

The judge frowned at me. I would have almost certainly been taller than him on even ground, but from his position in the stands, he towered over me. So I shouldn't have found him intimidating, but I did nonetheless.

"I'm sure there's an explanation," I said, taking deep breaths after every word.

"I'm sure there is," the judge echoed. "But I can't say for sure whether or not that explanation exonerates you. My duty as the district judge is to call balls and strikes."

The prosecutor, a man named Darren Ferguson, narrowed his eyes into slits, licking his lips as he did so. Mr. Ferguson looked rather like a coyote sizing up his prey.

"For the last year, Mr. Lucas Teller, you have been making my life miserable. So much has happened with you. It's not even funny."

"Quite a bit of what I went through wasn't funny," I shot back. "I'm not the villain here."

"Well", Mr. Ferguson responded, "you've been making such preposterous claims - I don't know what to believe! If you're telling the truth, which I have no reason to think you are, then everything I know about our reality must be wrong."

"Objection!" someone in the crowd announced.

"Whatever," the prosecutor said. "The point is, Mr. Teller, you're claiming that Pokemon, those characters from Nintendo's multimedia franchise, are real. We're saying we don't believe you, and you have the burden of proof here."

"Do I? I thought the prosecution had the burden of proof."

For a moment, I thought I'd caught Mr. Ferguson in a trap. He'd have to admit he'd said something wrong. And according to his reputation, he was seldom wrong.

"That doesn't matter," he snapped. "Let's just go to the oranges of this story. I mean, origins."

Amid my inner turmoil, I couldn't laugh, partly because it would make people think I wasn't taking any of it seriously. But in the back of my mind, I knew that if this went wrong for me, I could end up in prison for a long time.