Pokeumans Room 181 Prologue Pt 1 - Cameron

'Daydreaming again?'

'Hm?' I said distractedly, looking up. Of course I was, but there's no way I'd tell Kieran that. I mean, he's my best friend.

'If you don't get on with your artwork Miss will have your head off,' Kieran said with a smile. That's true. You mess around in Art lessons and Darth Butler, our demonic Art teacher, will have your liver on a paintbrush. I know I'm ugly, do I have to do a self-portrait to prove it?

Better get on with it. I checked the mirror we'd been given, remembered the details and turned to my work. Flushed cheeks, ginger hair, brown eyes, big ea- wait. My eyes are blue, aren't they?

I checked the mirror. No, they were brown, browner than before in fact.

Ok... ok. Don't panic. Don’t panic. This must be some sort of weird medical thing. I can get some of those coloured contacts you hear about. Just... don't panic. I could hear myself breathing in and out slowly. There will be a logical explanation for this, whatever it is.

Still... It seemed... familiar. Like in all those stories...

Unfortunately, Kieran demonstrated his skill at breaking trains of thought once again. 'By the way, be more careful with the paint' he said, and motioned to my arm. I looked. There was a bright yellow patch going down my wrist.

'Yeah. I'll... go and wash it off... or something...' I said, desperately trying to keep my steadily growing nerves out of my voice. But I think he noticed when I ran full pelt for the sink.

I wet the strange patch with water and scrubbed and scrubbed, but it wouldn't come off no matter what. As I rubbed I brushed it slightly, then in disbelief stroked it again. It was furry! I had fur growing on my arm!

When the bell went at the end of the lesson I ran for it. Didn't wait for Kieran, didn't stop to chat, just grabbed my bag, ran out the door... and straight into Rob from the other class. There was a loud bang and Rob collapsed, twitching. Somehow, without checking, I knew what had happened. I'd just given him a massive electric shock. I looked at my options, chose the best one and ran away even faster. The sooner I can go somewhere on my own and deal with… this, the better.


---


When I got home I didn't stop for anything. I just ran up to my room, locked the door, leaned on it and took a deep breath. What was happening to me? I was transforming, clearly (the fur kind of makes it a give away), but what into? Yellow fur, black eyes (they were now), electricity... Only one thing fits that description. But they aren't even real! And transformation never happens to anybody!

'No!' I muttered. 'This isn't real! This happens on the Internet! Not real life!'

But before I could stifle it, a treacherous little thought said But you'd always said it would be cool if it did.

Yeah, but not to me! I thought, aware I was basically arguing with myself. Despite my protests though, I heard a quiet rip and relief of pressure in my trousers as a small tail popped out. I gave a groan almost of defeat as my body refused to register my objection.

Funny, I thought dreamily, in that loose, unconnected manner you have after something too big for you to take in in one go, I'd have thought it would be Charmander... you know, my favourite... But again came the treacherous thought. Is it really? Remember how mad you were when your mate took your Lv. 100 Ampharos? And who said favourites had anything to do with it?

'Hi, is Cam in?'

'Yes, why?' Voices from downstairs drifted into the edge of my awareness.

'We were going to watch a film, remember?'

My hands flew to my mouth. Crud! We were going to meet up after school at the cinema! What am I going to do?!

My mind went into overtime. Pretend you're busy, act like you're - 'You in there Cam?' How did Sam get up here so fast? How did he do it? I thumped the bed and muttered, as if I was doing something and hadn't heard him.

The door flew open to reveal Sam stood there. Wha... Why is everything happening so quickly? Think Cameron, think! Cover for yourself!

'Strange thing to get in the post,' I said, as if he wasn't there, trying to cover desperately 'and there's not much of it, but this costume fits really-'

A thought jolted me to a pause. Wasn't the door locked?

'You're one of them.'

'...Hello to you too,' I said, turning to my friend as if for the first time.

'You're one of them.' Sam said in a flat, emotionless voice and pulled a spray can out of a pocket I could have sworn was empty ten seconds ago. I backed away to the window. Those eyes...

There was a knock on the window. I turned to look. There was... a Garchomp. Sat on the windowsill. Seriously. This morning I wouldn't have believed that was possible, but obviously things had changed since then and by now I was just willing to go with whatever. It was clinging onto the other side of the glass, making a 'come here' motion with its big, clawed hand. Fictional creature or attacking friend? I picked creature and climbed through the window.

‘Right, kiddo,’ the Garchomp said, ‘we need to get moving-‘

‘Shut up,’ I said as calmly as I could muster. ‘You’re probably just a hallucination anyway, but even if you aren’t I just want to try something.’ Ignoring him open his mouth to protest, I turned to the catch on my window, a big metal one. I could feel a small charge within my body (and it felt… kinda good, actually)... So if I feed electricity into the lock it might jam...

There was a loud bang, and I opened my eyes. Well, welding it shut accidentally also works.

'Right, now we’ve had our pyrotechnics display, grab hold of me,' the Garchomp said in a voice of mild frustration. 'We don't exactly have forever here, in case you hadn’t noticed.'

I had every intention of going (what are the choices? Jump off the windowsill?), but just to tease him, I said 'Mummy said I shouldn't go with men that climb in through my window.'

'I didn't climb in, you climbed out. Did Mummy mention that? No? Great. Hold on. And call me Max, by the way.'

I shrugged. If this is a dream, then I can go along with the ride until it ends. If this some sort of hallucination, I could do with something to snap me out of it. And on the miniscule chance that this was real and an actual Garchomp was convincing me to ride on his back before I finish transforming… then what the hell, the day can’t get any weirder now. With this in mind, I straddled Max’s back, and I have to say he felt very solid for a hallucination. ‘Right, so what happens now-‘


---


I don't recommend Garchomp travel if you don't like:

1.The cold.

2.Heights.

3.Strong wind or

4.Going so fast it feels like your face is peeling off.

I clung on for dear life, to afraid to open my mouth to ask questions in case my jaw want flying away, until Max said 'Well, here we are. Thank you for flying Land Shark Airlines.'

Carefully, I sat up and looked around at our landing site. We were in a field, one of many with a strawberry farm in the distance. 'Ok... Still alive... Phew... Don't panic... Ok, what's going on?'

Max looked at me. 'Well, I am what they call a Pokeuman. Asula'll explain all the details to you later, but for the moment, it's a person that transforms into a Pokemon. Yours looks like… Pikachu? No, too tall… Ampharos, I’d say.'

'...Right.' There was a deep breath. 'Ok.'

This was met with a frown. 'You know, you're taking this worryingly well for a normal kid. A lot of people freak out at this stage.'

'I think it's the adrenaline. I haven't had time to panic properly yet. Just breathing in and out will do it for me right now. Where are we, anyway?'

Max smiled. 'I'm glad you asked that...'


-20 mins later-


'So basically, it's like high school,' Asula finished and sat back in her chair.

My mind span like Klink on Red Bull, so the first response that got thrown out of its confused depths was 'But more fun?'

'You know,' Asula replied with mock indignance, 'some people have the decency to be confused.'

'No point, Miss,' I said. 'I mean, I’ve got an Ampharos tail and everything, Miss. To be honest… it sounds quite fun really, Miss.'

Asula looked at me, and if I didn’t know better I’d have said it was an I’ll remember that you’re that kind of person in the future look. ‘Really? And, er, are you ok with the prospect of your family?’

I looked at my feet, which already looked different to how they looked that morning. ‘Well… Yes, but if there’s a clone of me there, it’d be like I never left, really. And I’ll always remember them.’

'You wanted me for something, Miss Asula?' came a voice from the door. I turned in the seat to see a Togetic in the doorway, looking slightly nervous being in the headmistress' office.

'Ah, Jess. This is your new roommate, Cameron,' Asula said.

'Really?' Jess changed in an instant from nervous to excited. 'Brilliant! Hi, I'm Jess,' she said and stuck her hand out, which I took slightly nervously. 'Come on, I'll show you to the room!' and with that she dragged me out, half-pulling me down the corridor as I scrambled to keep up.

'Good luck to him,' Asula muttered.


---


'Danny! We have a new roommate!' Jess kicked open the door while I caught my breath. She wasn't fast, but she had just unstoppable mementum!

'Awesome!' came a small boy's voice from in the room. I couldn't see anyone, but then an Aron's head stuck over the top of the bunk. 'Nice to meet you! I'm Danny!' He jumped down and ran over to us.

'Me and Danny go back a long way,' Jess said, ruffling his head where his hair would be. 'So, now what? You want to explore the base? I could do a tour for you if you like.'

'Er, no,' I smiled. 'I'll just go to bed early. I need some rest.'

'Well, I suppose it really has been a long day for you. See you later!' Danny said, and walked out with Jess, quietly closing the door to Room 181 behind them.

I looked around the room. Down at my body. The fur. Looked around again.

'Well, I said to no-one in particular, 'I reckon I've got time now.'

There was a slight pause.

'Oh my fricking... I'm an actual... There are real... Ican'tleaveanymorewhatthehellishappeningI'mturningintoafictionalcreaturePokemonexistedallalongwhatamIgoingtodothisistooweirdohmy...'

Eventually I managed to calm down enough to stop freaking out. Then, taking deep breaths as I went, I considered the good points. This took longer than I'd expect it to. There were quite a few of them.

I smiled. Actually, this wasn't so bad. I had friends, things to do, potential control of electricity... And oh yes. No more glasses.

I sat back. It's a good life for some.