A Journey Through Lies - Chapter I

Chapter I

Upon opening my eyes, an intense headache made itself known within my brain. Not only was my head in pain, my body felt as if it had been pummeled a multiple amount of times, and I felt extremely weary. I sighed, presuming that I must have had a rough time sleeping last night.

I noticed something different about my bedroom at that moment: the light was grey. Never in my life had I seen such a gloomy light cast itself into my room, it was always sunlight and the song of birds. This dreary colour was one I had never seen the sky emit, and this made me question my health. Maybe I was coming down with something that affected the colour in my vision...

Me head began to ache even more as I began to remember the dream I had had the last night; my mother had acted strangely, her reactions to my few questions throwing her off, then the moment in which she had flickered from human to a Gardevoir, which had been a light blue colour rather than the usual emerald green of the species. Upon falling unconscious in the dream, I had woken up, I think, or I may have slept longer, the dream ending and my sleep continuing.

As I made my way to my bedroom door, I felt small, shorter than I had been the other day. Or, was everything bigger than it had been? I was confusing myself, again pointing the cause to me feeling ill, or that I was coming down with something.

Upon opening the door, I noticed something else that seemed different: the walls weren't as they were yesterday. The colour was darker, more of a dark brown with nicks and scratches here and there. I frowned, wondering if my mother had done some decorating of some sort over the night, but it would have taken more than a night to make a change as drastic as this...

I hobbled down the stairs, too preoccupied in thought to wonder why I found difficulty in climbing down. I was beginning to worry about my health even more now, but Mother would know what to do, she always did.

I stopped halfway down the stairs, suddenly feeling overcome with sadness and regret. I felt as if it was hitting me, wave after wave of negative emotions washing over me. I felt as if I wanted to crawl up into a ball, to stay there until this 'storm' of emotions died down. The thing that puzzled me, while I sat on the step, catching my breath, was that they weren't my emotions, almost as if they were somebody else's – and I could sense them.

Raising my hand to my head, trying to calm myself from this sudden attack of emotions, I felt something strange. My hair... it was gone! What I could feel was a hardened cap, a helmet rather, and it felt as if it was a part of my skin! Reaching my hand up, my body filling with fear and worry, I felt a smooth horn-like structure sticking out from my forehead. I screamed.

*

Within a matter of moments, a Gardevoir had appeared at the bottom of the stairs, worry on its face. I looked at it in fear and horror, what was happening?

"Akito, please calm down. I... I can explain all of this," it informed me, the voice sounding just like my mother's, but, although usually very soothing, it made me panic even more. I slowly backed up to the step behind me, my heart beating quickly as I began to grow both afraid and confused.

"Who are you?" I cried out, wanting to know if my thoughts were correct. If I was right, it would say that it was...

"Your mother," she announced, worry emanating from her voice, clearly afraid of my reaction. Only very slightly, I began to relax. If she was my mother, she wouldn't harm me at all. She approached me, very slowly, crouching down on the step below be, so that the two of us were face to face. I saw a tear roll down her face as she reached a hand up my cheek, rubbing it as she said the words, "I'm so sorry," to me. I looked at her in confusion, and, in reply, gulped hard. She stood up, making her way towards the bottom of the stairs. She beckoned me towards the table, implying that I take a seat. I followed, slowly, but cautiously. I was too confused to understand what had happened, why we were different, why everything else was different...

Sitting down on one of the worn-out chairs, I looked up at what may be my mother. I waited in silence, awaiting her to speak. She took another gulp and looked at the wall to her left, while she spoke, she never looked away from that wall, as if she couldn't look at me in the eyes.

"Everything, all that you have experienced, as a human, has been..." she trailed off, worry reaching itself out from her to me. I stared at her, as if I was pushing her on to finish off her explanation. "Do you remember your tenth birthday?" she asked me, her topic changing. I stared at her blankly, my mind racing to try and find the memories. There were none. "Of course you wouldn't," she explained, finally turning her head towards me, her eyes locked onto mine. Tears streamed down her face as she spoke, "ever since we started, past memories have had to have been erased, or you would have been lost in the reality forever. All that you have lived out as a human has been... the reality you lived within was fake. An illusion, created by me. Your friends, they were fake. Family were fake, this house was fake..." she explained, trailing off as tears streamed down her face. I stared into space in disbelief.

*

Slowly, objects within the room began to lift up into the air. The table, the worn-out sofa, every item that wasn't rooted to the ground began to lift up. My mother jumped back, fear in her eyes as she realised what was happening. I stood, my hand clenched into a fist.

"My life... was a lie?" I asked, looking at her in question. "You were a lie... You were fake!" I stated, my voice raising as I glared at my mother in anger. "I was fake! My life was fake and everything around it!" I shouted, loud enough over the multiple sounds of cracking wood, the house itself beginning to move and, quite possibly, collapse in on itself. The objects within the room began to fly around, pummelling themselves into the walls, into the ceiling and then the floor. Mother stepped back a few more steps, fear racking her body and tears flooding down her face.

"They made me do it! It wasn't just me! They needed a child, and they chose you! I didn't want you to be used, to be-" I cut her off, the anger inside of me rising to a boiling point.

"-used like a puppet? You had the choice, you could have said 'no'!" I thrust my hand out towards my mother, a table leg reacting with the command, the piece of wood flying towards her direction. However, before the aerial weapon reached its target, a pink beam shot out and reduced it to splinters. I turned towards the direction in which it had been generated from, ready to attack anyone without hesitation.

I saw a two long furry ends, resembling a moustache on the mysterious figure that had generated the attack that had saved my mother's life. Before I was able to react, I felt myself being thrown across the room, landing into a wall, the wood cracking upon impact. I landed onto the floor with a 'thump', my consciousness slipping away the second time that day.