1

"You know I always cherished our time together, right?" Samantha said to me as we sat at our normal spot in the Viridian Forest.

"Of course, I do silly, why are you talking like they're gonna stop? We're gonna conquer the world together. C'mon help me pack up our stuff," I said and started cleaning up the picnic we had set up.

"You have to do this on your own," Samantha said. There was no emotion in her words.

"No, you helped me set this stuff out, so come help clean it up," I said and gestured for her to come to me.

"Reef, denying it won't change anything, you have to do this without me," she said.

"Okay then I will. You just keep being lazy," I said and packed everything away.

When I was finished cleaning a Snorlax wandered onto the path we needed to take to leave and went to sleep.

"Umm, what am I supposed to do now?" I asked Samantha, she still hadn't moved.

"You're going to have to figure this out alone, I can no longer help you," she said. She was still using that lifeless voice.

"I don't understand why you're acting so strange, but I wish you would knock it off and help me," I said. I felt myself getting angry at her.

"You know why I can't help you, Reef. Now, figure this out and prove to both of us that you make it without me," she said.

Every word she said infuriated me more. Who was she to just walk out of my life like this? We had plans together, we were supposed to be together. No one else understood us like we understood each other. How could she leave that bond behind?

I walked up to the sleeping Snorlax and pushed on its large, soft belly. The only response it gave me was a long, deep snore.

"Move you stupid, lazy jerk!" I yelled as I began punching and kicking the Snorlax in the gut.

I did that until I got winded. It was like hitting a furry wall made of jelly. What made matters worse was that the Snorlax never seemed to notice. At one point I could've sworn I saw a smile cross its face as it lay there. I eventually gave up and sat against the belly and tried to convince it to move.

"Okay big guy, if you wake up right now, I'll go to a Poké Mart and buy you 10 of whatever Snorlaxes like the best," I said as I caught my breath.

"That's not going to work, you need to accept it or you are going to be stuck here," Samantha said.

"Okay, if you come and help me, I'll do anything you say for an entire year," I said to her. I knew she wouldn't want to miss a chance to boss me around.

"Accept it Reef, so you can move on," she said. Everything about her was wrong. I wanted the real Samantha back.

"C'mon, you know you wanna get past this just as bad as I do. If you help me, we can pick up where we left off," I said. I plucked blades of grass as I waited for her response.

"We can't pick up where we left off, but you can. You have to continue on without me," she said.

I stared at the pile of dead grass in front of me until a gust of wind blew it away from me.

"What's the point? Even if I get this thing to move, something else will just come along and get in my way later on," I said hopelessly.

"Then you will figure out a way to overcome that obstacle as well," she said. Her normal voice had returned.

"Without you there with me, I won't be strong enough," I said with my head pointed firmly at the ground.

"You will be, you always have been. You just need to accept it and carry on with your life," she said and walked over to me.

She held out a hand for me.

"Accept it," she said as I hesitated to take her hand.

I took her hand and stood up.

"I'm only agreeing to this because I don't have any other choice. But I will never forget the times we shared. I said as a tear rolled down my cheek.

"I would never want you to. All I want is for you to live the best life you possibly can," she said as her skin began to dissolve into pure light.

"I'm gonna miss you so much," I said and tried to grip her fading hand.

"Just remember our love and I'll always be with you," she said as the last flecks of her light disappeared.

My eyes suddenly shot open as a pain like a river of lava rushed through my right leg.

"Hey Graham, he's awake. Get over here!" a male's voice called from somewhere near me.

I was lying in a dimly lit room. From the way the light flickered I could tell it was lit by a fire. I tried to sit up and the pain stopped me in my tracks.

"Bro you gotta keep still, your leg is sliced up pretty bad," a skinny kid with long braided, brown hair said and helped me sit up.

I looked down at my leg and there were bloody, white cloths tied around my calf.

"Where am I, and who are you guys?" I asked as I searched the area as fast as I could.

A second guy walked over and sat next to me. He was athletically built with black dreads. His skin was as dark as mine.

"Hey Brotha, I'm Graham and this here is Tulley. We are better known as The Forsaken Family. To answer your other question, you're in our corporate headquarters on Melemele Island. You washed up on the beach a few days ago. I had the doc patch you up as best he could. He wasn't sure you were gonna be able to keep that leg," he said and shook his head.

"Wait, where is Melemele Island?" I asked, confused.

"You're in The Alola region," Graham said like it was common knowledge.

"Ha, I told ya he wasn't gonna be from here," Tulley said and clapped his hands together.

"You probably shouldn't be celebrating the fact that this poor dude washed up on an island he never heard of, barely alive," Graham said and gave Tulley a dirty look.

"Well, when you say it like that it sounds bad," Tulley said and looked away from us.

"What is this building we're in? It doesn't look like a corporate headquarters to me," I said, still surveying the room.

"Oh no I was just glamorizing; this is the best little shelter we could build with the stuff we found layin around," Graham said and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Did I have anything with me when you found me?" I asked and searched frantically for my backpack.

"Sorry brotha, you were just like this when I found you," Graham said.

I suddenly understood what Samantha was trying to explain to me in the dream. I was truly on my own. She never made it off the boat and I didn't even have any of my Pokémon. Getting through this stage of my life was going to require a level of strength I wasn't sure I possessed.