The Trade

Chapter 4 "Switch"

Ash opened his eyes slowly, trying to adjust slowly to the sudden
change in light. It didn't take too long because the room was fairly
dark. When he was finally focused, Ash looked around the room in
confusion.

"Where...?" Ash whispered. Everything seemed so strange to him. Was it
all a dream?

A sudden pain shot up his spine, reminding him that it was certainly
not a dream.

However, he couldn't fully convince himself that this was reality.
The pain was definitely real, but everything just felt..wrong.

He sat up, trying to shut out how his arms protested from the action
it took to support his body in sitting position with a back that
wouldn't cooperate.

He pushed aside the sheets that had been covering his lower body,
when he let out a small gasp that betrayed his true horror.

His legs were pale and bone thin to the point of grotesqueness, and
they were covered with long scars.

His heart thudded harder and harder against his chest.

"What happened to me..?" he whispered, barely breathing out the words.
He started to breath faster and faster, hyperventilating.

"No..no..NO!" he screamed, refusing to believe what he had seen. Ash 
tried to pull himself out of the bed and onto his feet, but his legs 
shuddered from a newly found pain.

Ash gritted his teeth, biting his lip hard enough to nearly make it
bleed. He wouldn't fall. He refused to.

Finally, his legs couldn't take anymore abuse as they buckled, and Ash
collapsed to the ground. 

Ash started to sob softly on the ground, not even making any attempts
to get up from the ground.

At the corner of his eye, he could see a mirror hanging over a large,
wooden dresser. The mirror was cracked at the right corner, but it
would still suit its purpose.

Ash half crawled, half dragged himself towards the dresser. For a
moment, he just sat there, breathing hard , the action taking a great
toll on him. Ash shuddered at the fact that he got tired so easily.
During his whole pokemon journey, he always had an abundance of 
energy.

Finally, he pulled himself up so that his elbows rested on the
dresser, and he was facing the mirror.

He gasped softly as all his denial faded at the image on the mirror.
He reached out toward the mirror, as though he wanted to touch it to
prove that it was real.

"It's..It's..me.." he whispered, smiling even through the tears. In a
strange way he was comforted by the familiarity of the image. His face
was the only thing that remained the same, aside from the longer hair.

Ash decided to try to walk again, but he suddenly stumbled forward and
hit the mirror with his arm. Ash bit back a cry of pain as the mirror
shattered, a few shards cut painfully into his right arm.

He grabbed his injured arm and curled up into a ball, trying to cradle
it softly, while pressing it tightly against his chest. He was almost
too wrapped up in his hurt arm to notice the doorknob jiggling
slightly.

"What's going on up here?!" a cold voice asked sharply. It was filled
with so much venom, that a cold shiver passed down Ash's spine.

"N-Nothing..." Ash whimpered after a brief silence.

He could hear a small growl from the other side of the door. *Don't
come in..Don't come in...* Ash begged in his head. He had a really
bad feeling about the person from the other side of the door.

"I don't believe you, boy!" the voice growled. The owner of the voice
pushed open the door.

"No...! Don't..!" Ash cried feebly, even though it was too late to
protest anymore.

A woman, appearing to be in her fifties, stood at the doorway, staring
down at Ash with an angry expression on her face. She carefully looked
around the room, noticing the glass shards on the floor with an
expression of rage and malice on her face.

"Making trouble, I see.." she grunted, kicking a shard of glass
harshly, making it bounce against the wall before shattering into
smaller pieces. "I can't believe you broke *another* mirror!" she
screamed.

Ash decided that denying everything would not be the right way to go.
This woman didn't seem like the type that would believe anything she
didn't want to believe. "I..I'm..sorry.." he stammered nervously,
wondering what the old woman meant by, *another* mirror.

The woman just stared at him with her cold eyes.

Ash fidgeted nervously under her dark stare. "I'm..sorry..?" he said
again, with a little confusion in his voice.

The woman just picked him up, and threw him not too gently back onto
his bed.

"Don't be fresh with me ever again." she said with acid in her voice.
"Just because you had to be smart, you won't be receiving dinner
today."

She slammed the door hard enough to make Ash envision the room
shaking.

The doorknob clicked as the woman locked the door.

"What the hell is going on?" Ash whispered, hoping that somehow the
answer could come to him, by asking this question out loud.

He was only answered by silence.

End Part

Yeah. I took forever. But now I finally got the plot rolling.....