The air still smelled like summer rain even though the storm hadn't started yet.The kind of smell that told you the sky was loading something heavy.
The boy stood on the cracked basketball court behind the park, his phone raised, the AR map glowing against the twilight. A cartoon Pidgeot flickered across the screen, circling the glowing digital outline of his avatar.
"Last round before we call it?"That was Drew—loud, competitive, perpetually sweaty even in the evening chill.
"You're just scared I'll wipe your whole team again," the boy said. His voice was light, teasing.
"You wish!" another friend, Kai, yelled from the bench. He held his phone at arm's length, spinning like a broken compass. "The server lagged when I threw my Poké Ball. That loss doesn't count."
The boy smirked. "It counts when the game says Defeat."
Their laughter bounced off the empty court.
They'd been doing this every weekend since the new Pokémon AR expansion dropped—scanning the park's "gyms," throwing virtual Poké Balls, pretending they were real trainers. For Boy, though, it was more than a game.
He didn't catch every Pokémon he saw. He never had.
He liked to build teams that felt right. Partners, not trophies.Catching them all just felt… wrong. Like stuffing something alive into a USB drive and forgetting about it.
"Hey, let's go!" Drew called, waving him over. "We're hitting the diner before the rain hits. You in?"
"In a sec." The boy flicked another Poké Ball at the screen, catching a Vulpix. The phone chirped, pixel confetti raining down. "I'll catch up."
"Suit yourself," Kai said. "Don't get struck by lightning!"
The boy snorted. "Ha. As if, Like I'm that unlucky."
The others laughed, gathering their bikes and skating toward the streetlights. He stayed behind, looking out over the park.
Clouds were rolling in from the west—slow, bruised purple clouds with flashes of light deep inside them. The kind that growled more than thundered.
He pocketed his phone, but the AR display didn't shut off. The Pidgeot was still there, hovering in the corner of his screen like it didn't want to leave.
"That's weird," he muttered.
Static prickled up his arm. He shook the phone once, twice. The battery indicator flickered from 80% to 0% to 100%.
Then the ground trembled.
Lightning forked across the horizon, distant but sharp. The clouds glowed for a heartbeat, like something was stirring inside them—alive, not just electrical.
"Okay… cool effects," he said to no one. "Skybox update confirmed."
He started walking toward the exit path, but something made him glance back at the court. The AR gym marker over the basketball hoop was pulsing, brighter than before.
A shimmer rippled through the air—like rain starting to fall, except every droplet glowed faintly blue.
Boy hesitated.
His phone buzzed again. A message flashed across the screen:
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
"What challenge—?"
The screen glitched. The pixel-Pidgeot stretched, distorted, and screamed—not the cheerful game cry, but something deep, metallic, and far away.
He took a step back. "Okay. Nope. I'm officially done. Creepy event over."
He turned to leave, but the air felt wrong now—thick, humming, almost breathing.
Another flash of lightning tore through the clouds, closer this time. Thunder chased it immediately, shaking the court.
The AR map flickered again. For a second, he saw not the park but a different world overlayed on top of it—towers, forests, oceans. Pokémon moving in the distance. Too big. Too real.
His stomach dropped.
"What the hell…"
The sky opened.
It wasn't a single bolt this time. It was a web of white light crawling downward, branching, searching.The hum grew louder until it drowned everything else. His hair lifted. His skin buzzed.
He looked at his phone one last time. The screen was no longer showing pixels—just a symbol, glowing gold. A circle with a tail, spinning slowly.
It pulsed once. Twice. Then—
CRACK.
The world went white.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Everything was sound and color and pain, but also—not.He felt weightless, like his body had been peeled away.
Something enormous moved in that white void. Not seen, but felt. A presence that hummed like thunder and sang like data.
A voice whispered through the noise—clear, distant, ancient.
Balance lost… worlds merged… vessel found.
Then came another, softer one. Younger. Curious.
This one still dreams.
He tried to speak, but there was no voice left to use.
He saw flashes—wings of light, a gleaming tail, the curve of an eye that looked at him and through him at once. A heartbeat that wasn't his own.
The air folded around him, pulling him down, down through clouds that weren't clouds.
When sensation returned, it was in pieces.
Cold rain. Grass under his palms. Smoke.
He opened his eyes—if eyes were still what he had—and saw the park again, or something that resembled it. The basketball hoop was a black silhouette. His phone lay shattered beside him, screen spider-webbed but still glowing faintly.
On it, one final notification blinked.
Connection Established.
He reached for it. His fingers passed straight through.
"Wha—?"
The wind howled. Another lightning flash lit the clouds, and for just a heartbeat he thought he saw it again—That shape in the storm. Long, feline tail curling through the light, eyes calm and endless.
Everything blurred. His body felt weightless again.
Do not fear, child of thunder.Your journey begins anew.
The light swallowed the park whole.
And Boy was gone.