I woke up to a gentle touch. I opened my eyes to see the small child Zeraora standing over me, its bright blue eyes twinkling. It nudged me again with its nose, asking me to get up. The mother Zeraora was sitting a few feet away, watching us with a calm and smiling look. I sat up and groaned. The dull ache in my leg reminded me of the previous day's fall.
The child Zeraora, however, did not care. Or rather, had no intention of caring. With a quick, short, and playful cry of
"Zera!"
It sent a tiny jolt of electricity through my body. I yelped, a laugh escaping me as I scrambled to my feet. The little one giggled, a series of high-pitched
"Zera zera!"
"Zera"
"Zeraa !!!" sounds.
The mother Zeraora just gave a low chuckle, a soft
"Oraaa"
That was somehow both amusing and knowing.
That was the beginning of my new schedule. The days were filled with a simple, quiet rhythm. The mother Zeraora would leave for a few hours at a time, returning with an armful of berries and fruits, some of which tasted like apples, and others that were completely new to me.
The child Zeraora would spend its time playing with me, always close to the maintenance shaft, always curious. It would pounce on my shadow, chase after stray leaves, and try to teach me how to climb trees, which always ended with me in an undignified heap on the forest floor.
The little one seemed to find my lack of agility hilarious, its chittering
"zera zera," a sound of pure glee.
It would then use its incredible speed to zip around me, leaving a faint, static charge in the air that smelled of ozone and energy.
The younger Zeraora's powers were a bit unpredictable, a constant source of adorable chaos. One moment, it would be a warm, purring ball of electric energy on my lap as I rested, and the next, a stray thought would send a static shock through my body, making my hair stand on end. I'd yelp, and the little one would look at me with wide, apologetic eyes and let out a soft
"Zera..." before trying to fix my hair with another, gentler shock, which only made it frizz more.
It was clear it didn't mean any harm; it was just a child trying to control its extraordinary powers, and I was its personal training dummy. I started to learn the little monster's tells a faint sparkle in its fur, that would warn me of an impending shock.
I started to pick up on their language. It was more than just their sounds; it was the tone, the rhythm, the gestures.
"Zera" was a name or a greeting, a way of getting my attention.
"Ora" was a confirmation or a deeper expression of feeling.
A quick,
"Zera zera!" was a call to play,
while a low, drawn-out
"Oraaa" from the mother Zeraora was a sound of comfort and reassurance.
I found myself responding in a similar way to make up for my lack of linguistic sense in this new world, a simple
"Zera" becoming "yes,"
and a soft
"Ora" becoming "thank you."
I developed my own little vocabulary, a mix of their cries and my single-word replies. I'd point at a berry and say
"Ora?"
And the mother Zeraora would nod, a soft
"Ora," as if to say, "It's safe."
We were a strange bunch, an other-worldly college student trapped in my own younger version's body, a mythical Pokémon mother, and her energetic offspring, living in an abandoned building in a forest.
It wasn't the heroic, grand adventure I had dreamed of, but it was something even better. It was safe, it was warm, and it was the beginning of a life I never thought possible. We spent our days exploring our small pocket of the forest, me stumbling and bumbling, and the Zeraora effortlessly gliding and leaping.
But as the days passed, I knew this peaceful existence couldn't last forever. The outside world was a mystery, and I was still a stranger in it. I had to figure out how to get out of this place to find human civilization. It was then that it hit me, are humans even there in this world.
I had asked Jirachi for a world of Pokémon, but I never thought of humans. What if this is a world of only Pokémon, but then who built this electrical maintenance shaft?