What Dreams May Come

to die, to sleep
no more - and by a sleep to say we end
the heartache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to - 'tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished.


It's on your way back from wherever you wandered off to. You never see it on the way there.

A small, single-sized bed, neatly made with crisp white sheets under a drab grey blanket, and one pillow in a matching grey pillowcase. The mattress is supported by a functional wooden bedframe.

The simple bed appears in the evening, as you're hiking back to town. It might show up in the arid prairie and grasslands, on the lava rocks at the foot of a volcano, or on a sand dune within earshot of the ocean. Wherever you find it, there are two things that may or may not catch your attention: it shows no sign of exposure to the elements, as if it had popped into existence the moment you saw it; and if you happen to look around you, you'd see not a single pokémon.

Of course, you might not notice these things. (The bed understands how oblivious humans can truly be, and takes advantage of it.) What you might notice is how late in the day it's gotten to be so suddenly, and how tired you really are after all that walking. You yawn, and thoughts flit through your mind like, maybe I'll just take a short break, a little catnap before moving on. No harm done. Nothing to worry about.

You are, after all, your thoughts console as you yawn again and slip off your shoes, so very tired. It's understandable to want to seek repose in such a comfortable bed as this after carrying around that dreadfully heavy bag all day. You drop your backpack (or satchel or messenger bag) from your shoulders to the ground, subconsciously, unconsciously. You pull back the covers and climb in as your(?) thoughts continue. You've worked so hard today, you deserve a little rest. Your head hits the pillow, the softest, most soothing pillow you've ever felt. It's a good thing it's nice and dark already; your eyelids are just so heavy, you can't even keep them open. And listen to that lullaby, playing just for you. The sound of your breathing as you yawn, inhale, exhale, inhale... exhale... inhale... and exhale.

And listen to that lullaby, it thinks? says? as you fall into a deep slumber, playing just for me. The sound of your heartbeat...


You wake up in a room.

You sit up from your space in what appears to be the same bed as before. Though you're wearing your shoes, your bag and your pokéballs are nowhere to be seen. You can see a small television across the room connected to a red gaming console, and the only light in the room seems to be emanating from a simple desk light sitting on a wooden desk complete with office chair to your right. There is also a bookcase, some throw pillows, and an orange-and-red floor rug with a unique design. To your left, sliding glass doors protect a balcony area. It's impossible to tell the time of day from the sky outside.

You don't know if you've ever seen this room before. You don't know if this is something that should worry you.

To the right of the television set sits a door. The door waits patiently for you to open it, go through it, and hopefully close it behind you - what all doors want, but this one has more of a presence to it than most doors. You decide it would be best to go along with its wishes, and step into the next room.

But it's not a room, is the first thing you can think of. Black infinity stretches to everywhere around you on all sides: down, up, left, right, straight (behind you is, reassuringly, the door you just stepped through), though the floor seems solid enough.

To say you see nothing but nothing in this expanse would be untrue, however. In a circle around you stand more doors, in a manner reminiscent of fae meadow circles, or, if you are of the more logical-minded, the placement of numbers on a clock face. As you approach them to touch, they quite oddly seem to become more and more translucent the closer you come, until you are sure that you would be standing right in it from where you saw it before. The one in front of that one is the same, as is the next... until you walk the whole circumference and find they are all mirages.

All, at the moment, but three.


the doors

The Bedroom Door

This is the door you just came through. You're relatively sure it leads to the same place.

The Red Door

It's a door to your right if you've just exited from the room's door, designed with a red plaid pattern. It's standing with no obvious means of support, and lit with no obvious means of illumination.

It's said to lead to some sort of meadow, full of flowers.

The Orange Door

A few yards in front and to the left of the red door, it's mostly orange with little white polkadots.

It's said to lead to an endless stretch of deep blue ocean and fine-grained sand.

---

This is an experimental area. There's no money you're forced to part with, nor levels or stages. What is expected in lieu of payment is some role-play. Explore the world with me. Feel free to predict and infer and assume, and see how the environment reacts to you. You can always wake up at any time for whatever reason.

I've set up the board. It's time to let the game begin...

Gonna play in character, since that's what I think we're supposed to do

"Hmm, where am I," I ask myself, walking out of the bed room door. "Is this a dream?" Then I get a bad thought. "I've seen this before, In Canalave city. Darkrai." I gulped, and cautiously turned the handle to the red door, peeking at whats inside, and eventually gathering the courage to walk through.

"Right, this is just weird." I say to myself, looking around. "I may as well find a way out of here..." I sigh, walking up to the red door and yanking it open. Whatever is in there...it had better be good. Or be bacon, I'm hungry.

I stick a hat on my head -- it's a dream, right? I can totally have a dorky hat! -- and check if I am wearing pants.

If I am, I wander off to the RED DOOR (is that kind of like red rum?) and punch it in the face. ... Or open it. It's the same thing, really.

BUT IF MY PANTS ARE MYSTERIOUSLY GONE I will return to the bedroom! and! find! some! pants!

You twist the doorknob (or yank it, or kick it), pull it open, and step inside.

Whatever it was you were expecting, this probably wasn't it. Beneath your feet lie all manner of small yellow and white flowers (dandelions and daffodils, clover and cat-ears) poking up past healthy light green grass. In the distance there's a few solitary trees scattered throughout the rolling hills, and from your vantage point at the top of one of the hills, you can make out a dirt road and a small collection of homes.

The red door remains behind you.


coolking49

You whisper the name of the darkness pokémon before opening the door. Behind you, unobserved by anyone, a shadow is created. As you close the door behind you, the proto-pokémon disappears, never having come to more than a fleeting thought.

Once in the meadow, a few meters away, you see a male pidgey peck at the ground. A female diglett pokes up and starts chittering at the pidgey, presumably to stop making such racket.

What do you do?


Ruffledfeathers

A nidoran trudges by without giving you a second thought; she seems to be aiming for that nice yellow patch of fresh dandelions to your right. A particularly skinny-looking ekans hides himself in the anomalous foot-high grass, staring at her intently.

What do you do?


James

Whether you were wearing pants or not before you thought to check and look down, you are now. Your hat is striped with multiple colors and has a little red propeller in the center. Trés chic.

In the meadow, your nose alerts you to something fetid and foul and perhaps a bit familiar. Covering your nose with your hand, you turn around and see a female gloom being chased around the hill valley rather pitifully by a skarmory, delighting in raising fear in his prey.

(Assume the unspoken question at the end of every entry is "What do you do?")

Been a while since I been in the SF. This looks fun, let's give it a shot.

-----------------------

Last thing I remember is a bed seducing me, beckoning me to get into it. I had wondered for a moment if that sandwich I'd eaten beforehand had traces of Parasect mushroom in it as I saw it, but before I knew it I was asleep.

Aaaand now I'm here. Don't recognize the place, but I get up all the same. After examining the bookshelves, I spin around in the office chair for a few minutes before dizzily getting up and examining the game system.

...Nothin' good.

So the only logical thing to do is leave the room 'cause I'm bored. I don't even think about the other door being behind me, I just go right for the red one and go in.

Zora of Termina

The bookshelves hold children's books, including The Very Hungry Caterpie, Go Growlithes Go!, Blu Apricorns for Sal, and others. The console contains the only cartridge you can see, with a picture of a pikachu adorning the sticker; a plastic microphone lies toppled nearby.

Once in the meadow, you spot a dugtrio plowing the ground around a flaaffy, who's trying her darnedest to shock him into submission. Apparently there's a land dispute.

"Wh-where am... I?" Lily sat up and brushed the white-blonde hair out of her face. "Where are my Pokéballs? Hatori?" She was, of course, referring to her trusty starter Pokémon, a Pikachu, who was always by her side. "HATORIIIII!" Lily saw a door, assuming it led out. She left, hoping to find Hatori, but instead found darkness. "H-Hatori?" she walked around, hoping to find Hatori. "Great, now I'm lost." She came back to two doors: a red one and a door that looked oddly like the door she just left. She chose toe door she just left, thinking it would lead back to the bedroom, where Hatori would just be playing hide-and-seek.

Mewtwo

You're back in the bedroom.

... Now what?

Lily looked around. She checked behind, under, and in everything possible and couldn't find Hatori. She sighed, and walked back out the door. She decided to see what was in the red door.

Mewtwo

After you walk in, you see a parasect being pockmarked with pecks from a spearow. The parasect waves his claws and runs (well, scurries) around in an attempt to get her off, to no avail.

He's twelve, again.

God, it's been years since he's slept in a bedroom. A real one, anyway; the type that has desks and rugs and meaningless trinkets and your bed made even though you're just going to mess it up again because your mom wants some sense of tidiness in her household. One that has a bed. He's been sleeping on grassy patches and makeshift cots in caves for too long and attaching the tag 'tough' to the throbs of pain in his back and legs. It's funny, though, because the first thing he notices when he gets out of the bed is that it just hurts worse and he understands with a bit of a cringe that he's used to not having a home.

But then his shoes don't fit and he's walking barefoot and the reflection in the glass doors is too sweetly scrawny to be him, and he's twelve, again.

He doesn't remember being twelve. It pins a small clenching fear to the bottom of his stomach.

He can't handle the bedroom much longer -- can't handle wondering if this is how he remembers it or if this is just how he is making himself remember it -- and he has a doorknob in his hand and he's standing on nothing. Not even a black floor, just a nothingness, and he wonders if this is how it feels to be flying. No, he doesn't; he just wants to, wants to have some sort of interesting emotion.

Instead he just feels normal. Like he's always on tangible emptiness. Maybe that's his fuel. It's what gets him through days on little food and dry attention and dark unsheltering shelter.

He doesn't like it. He turns back for the bedroom -- even if he hates not remembering, it's better than not knowing.

The place has lost a bit of its warmth because he's thought too much. Which is funny, he guesses; him, thinking too much. He's supposed to be women and carefree and adventure, and who needs to think when you're showing off as often as he does? And then he remembers he's twelve, again, and what type of twelve-year-old thinks. The see-through boy in the glass doors glares at him and his gut says to smack the look off that punk's face but it's him. He doesn't know how long he's been so angry and so unhappy. He feels a little sick but it passes too quickly for him to really acknowledge.

He tries the balcony doors. Maybe people usually look at clouds, look at the sky -- he's seen too much of it and he stares at his feet and the handles all at once. Bare feet, calloused. Bare handles, sparkling clean. Moving the doors might throw ripples in the watery reflection of the boy he doesn't want to know.

It occurs to him, as he tries the doors, he has no idea where he is.

((I'm a bit new to this stuff, so bear with me))

"Well, this is wierd"
Eonrider stood in the void of nothingness. Well, not quite nothingness. There were two doors there with him. There was a red door in front of him, and a seemingly ordinary one behind. He was very sure the door behind led to the bedroom he'd been in, he'd even peeked back to make sure.

He turned to his right and was about to say, "Well, what do think, Fire Fist?" but he realized the Blaziken wasn't there. This brought a flutter to Eonrider's heart. He hadn't been without the Blaziken for a while, years in fact, not since he'd started his Pokemon journey. Yet he was sure Fire Fist was in the room with him when he'd fallen asleep in the bed. He peeked through the door and checked again. Nope. No awesome fighting chicken to be seen.

Eonrider licked his lips. The last thing he remembered doing was falling asleep in the bed. So this must be a dream. That would explain why Fire Fist wasn't there. But it felt so real.

Eventually, maybe it was a few seconds, maybe years, no-one could tell, Eonrider decided that he probably shouldn't stand around for ever. He tried the red door. To his surprise, it wasn't locked. He went on through.

I wasn't exactly sure what to do at that moment. I was observing a natural scene and I almost felt as though I was intruding upon nature. While I am used to it when entering the safari zone areas, those pokemon are used to being interrupted by humans... Wearily, I walked towards the pidgey and diglett, and subconsciously reached for my pokeballs, only to realize they weren't there. I kneeled down at the pidgey, wondering how pokemon with no experience of humans would react. Better friend than foe, right?

Lyly looked over at the Parascect and the Spearow. The Spearow would make a nice addition... she thought as she reached for a Pokéball. "Dammit!" she muttered as she realized they weren't there. She decided to step a little closer - but she stepped on a twig. "Damn damn DAMN" she muttered.

((That's right, Mewtwo cussed :O))

I step over to the Nidoran and start randomly petting it. I then walk around this garden, looking for other Pokemon that are around. I already have both Nidoran and Ekans.

I wake up, and immediately know I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I'm in a strange room. Looking around, I see the game system. I pay no attention to the fact that my Pokemon are missing. I walk over to the system to play some games as expected, but I change my mind at the last second.

I walk through the bedroom door and into the darkness. Two choices. Back to the room, or to the meadow. "Well... I'm always up for an adventure," I say aloud. I slowly open the door, and walk through it, not knowing what to expect. As soon as I walk through, I realize I may never see the Feraligatr I had again.

Gary Oak

The doors pull open with a clatter of wheels and a rattle of the white blinds that were pushed to either side. As you step from the hardwood floor to the metal doorframe to the concrete balcony, you see... well, more concrete. Usually these things have wrought-iron bars you can stick your fingers through, but for some reason it's a solid grey wall, up to about nose height.

Nose height of a twelve-year-old, anyway.

What you can see (standing on tippy-toe) are tall buildings and tall buildings, glass and metal and more concrete. To your right and left is more of the same building with similar protruding concrete boxes, and directly overhead (if you choose to look up) is more overhanging concrete.

little boxes on the hillside
little boxes made of ticky-tacky
little boxes on the hillside
little boxes all the same.

On the balcony itself are some scattered kids' toys, for real little kids - there's a little push mower, the kind with multicolor beads that pop when you push the handle; a little wooden pull-eevee on tiny wooden wheels, connected to a red string (and it actually looks handcarved, handstained); a little yellow sit-'n-spin decorated with the smiling, colorful faces of bulbasaur and charmander and squirtle.

A section of the leftmost side of the balcony seems devoted to the care of four white flowers, green vines wrapped delicately around red stakes. Next to the white plastic rectangular potting box sits a small half-filled purple toy watering can and a little box of plant food. The soil in the box is dry, and the heads seem to be drooping a bit.


Eonrider

Once in the field, you see a doduo nearby, the left head pecking at some grass while the right takes a nap. The grass she pecks at wiggles and uproots to reveal a male oddish, rather irritated at the thought of being a meal for the twin bird.


coolking49

((You and blazheirio889 have taught me not to judge a member by their name! :o))

The pidgey looks up when he notices you, and the diglett plunks back below ground, grateful for the reprieve. Cocking his head to one side, he hops toward your nice, thick, pink, wiggly fingers... but once his beak touches your hand, it shimmers silver. In a wave traveling from his beak to his tail, the pidgey disappears in a burst of light and sparkles.

Back in the real world (but what is real? can you tell?), back in the world you are familiar with, a pink ball with a heart decoration quietly comes into existence right next to the bed and your bag, containing a sleeping bird pokémon.

[ Obtained one (1) male pidgey! ]

Continue or wake up?


Mewtwo

The spearow looks up, but decides her current prey is tastier than you would be. On the other hand, the parasect runs up to you, presumably pleading for you to stop this crazy thing. His claw knocks at your leg, and then in a swoop of silver luminescence and glitter, disappears. The spearow falls to the ground with a squawk once deprived of its perch, looks at you funny as if thinking what the crow was that, and takes flight to a far-off tree.

Next to your pokéballs (miles away? years? light-years? how do you measure distances between dreamscapes), a newly-created love ball similarly filled with a sleeping bird pokemon lies waiting.

[ Obtained one (1) male parasect! ]

Continue or wake up?


Ruffledfeathers

Right after you pet the blue poison pin pokémon (with poison) and right before you think that maybe it's not a good idea to go around randomly petting poison pokémon (that can poison), the surprised nidoran bursts into so much crystal light and brilliance, and vanishes. The similarly surprised snake pokémon hisses in irritation of his stolen prey and slithers away.

A sparkling pink ball rolls to a stop at the foot of the bedframe.

[ Obtained one (1) female nidoran! ]

((And assume the unasked question at the end of every capture is "Continue or wake up?"))


Ninja Chatot

In the field, a particularly strong wind blows your hair and the grass, revealing a nidorino looking with anger up from the wild grass to the blue sky. A male pidgeotto seems to be the source of the gust, cawing down to the nidorino with vitriol.

"Well that's just a tadbit unfair." I mutter to myself, walking toward the scene. Ain't no use tryin' to catch 'em from afar if I ain't got nothin' to throw at 'em.

...

There goes the accent again. Aw well. My target is the Flaafy, because she isn't going to get anywhere with that Dugtrio.

((It's short, it sucks, I know ><))

Continue I guess. I already had a nidoran.