I woke up with a gasp, my hand shot to my chest where the pain should have been. The crushing weight of the derailed train car, the twisted metal that stabbed through my chest. The moment everything went black - it all came back to me. I fought not to throw up. There wasn't any pain though. Only a slight feeling of wrongness in my chest where I clearly remember I'd been run through.

  My phone. Where was my phone? I patted the ground around myself until my fingers closed around the device wedged in my pocket. The screen was intact, battery somehow at full charge despite having been at twelve percent when I'd last checked. But as I looked up from it, things began to unnerve me.

  Grass. I was laying in the grass.

  Surely, I supposed to be on a subway platform? Or in a hospital? Or, more realistically given what I remembered of that train flying off the tracks, shouldn't I be dead?

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows and took in my surroundings. The clearing was maybe thirty feet across, surrounded by thick forest that looked like something in a documentary. The trees were huge, their branches and leaves so dense they blocked out most of the sky. Sunlight filtered through where it could. Just enough where I could see without much difficulty.

  This looked familiar. Kind of like the clearing we'd set up camp in during that weekend trip with Jake and the others. There was no camping equipment here. No tents, no fire pit, no coolers full of energy drinks and terrible gas station sandwiches. Just me, grass, and trees.

  And there definitely hadn't been any Pokémon at our campsite.

  Because I was pretty sure I just saw a Taillow. Yes, a literal god damn Pokémon fly out of one of the many trees.

  I blinked a few times, rubbing my eyes with my palms. Maybe, just maybe I was seeing things. I likely had a concussion. Perhaps I was in a coma? Possibly, this was all some elaborate dream brought on by too many late nights playing Pokémon until I passed out in the early morning.

  When I opened my eyes again, there it was, just sitting there, as if it was taunting reality. A small blue and white bird perched on a branch about twenty feet away, head tilted as it watched me. The orange beak and that distinctive coloring was unmistakable. That was a god damn Taillow. An actual, fucking, Taillow.

  Running my hand down my face I got to my feet slowly, brushing some dirt and grass off the back my jeans. My clothes were the same ones I'd been wearing on the platform. Dark jeans, black hoodie, beat-up old slip-on sketchers that had seen better days. Everything felt normal, felt real. Nothing about this was even close to normal.

  "Okay, I am okay." I rolled my shoulders to work out the stiffness, then started patting down my other pockets. My wallet was in my back left pocket. Inside still had my School ID, the plastic slightly warped from being in my back pocket one too many times. My subway pass, now completely useless if what I was starting to believe was true. As well as thirty dollars and seventeen cents. My other front pocket however...

  My fingers closed around something smooth and round. I pulled it out and stared.

  A Pokéball. What... The... Fuck.

  A singular, perfectly ordinary Pokéball sitting in my hand innocently, like it had always been there and isn't currently shattering my world. Deep breaths Lazarus... Deeeeep breaths... I definitely did not have this before. I'd have remembered something like that. Okay, this was okay, I am completely and totally okay.

  Out of curiosity, I pressed the button in the center and watched it expand to full size with that satisfying mechanical whir I'd heard thousands of times from watching the show. The weight felt odd in my hand, heavier than I'd expected but a perfect fit. I pressed the button again and it popped open.

  It was empty.

  The ball snapped shut after a few moments and I pressed the button to minimize it back to travel size. I turned it over in my hands, looking for any kind of marking or indication of where it had come from. Nothing, as far as I could tell. Just a standard Pokéball, the kind any beginning trainer might carry around hoping to catch a new partner with.

  I frowned and pushed it back in my pocket where I usually kept my 3DS, which is notably absent. The idea that my 3DS may have turned into a Pokéball? I'd rather not think about that right now. Plus, it wasn't like I could expect to have a Pokémon partner when I definitely hadn't had one before. Just having a Pokéball was way less than the typical start. One shot, but honestly? To someone like me, someone who'd memorized every encounter rate and catch probability in seven generations of games, just one ball? More than enough to get started. I nod to myself, still taking deep breaths. Yup, I got this. I can do this.

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  The question was, where and when the hell am I?

  I pulled out my phone again to check the time. 7:43 AM, same date. I had no signal, which wasn't surprising if I really was where I thought I was. The Pokémon world wasn't exactly known for having traditional cell towers.

  The Taillow chirped once and took off, disappearing into the sky. I watched it go, still trying to process internally what I was seeing. If this was real, and I'm starting to think it is, then I needed to think clearly. I needed to figure out where I was, when I was, and what the hell I was supposed to do about it.

  I started walking toward what looked like a gap in the trees, keeping my footsteps light and my head on a swivel. Since wild Pokémon really were out here, I didn't want to stumble into something I couldn't handle. A single Taillow was one thing, but I had no interest in running into a territorial Ursaring or a pack of Mightyena within twenty minutes of getting my shit together.

  The forest was quieter than I'd expected. In the games, you couldn't take three steps without running into a wild encounter, here? I could definitely hear the distant calls of bird Pokémon but not much else. Maybe wild encounters weren't as common in reality as they were in the games. Maybe Pokémon were actually smart enough to avoid humans they didn't know, which made sense. Never know when a human has a Dragonite in their pocket.

  That would make catching one significantly harder, however.

  I pushed some hanging vines out of the way and found myself on a dirt path. Not much more than a narrow trail, really, but it was clearly used often enough. Someone had been through here recently, that is if the boot tracks were any indicator. The path went in two directions, left toward what might have been deeper forest where the boot tracks were heading, and right toward what looked like it might be opening up into another clearing further up.

  Right seemed like the better choice. If I was going to find a town or city, it would likely be in the more open areas rather than the deep woods. That is unless I was unlucky enough to be near a specific town in Hoenn. The grass doesn't look quite long enough for that though and it isn't raining.

  As I walked, I took note of everything I saw. I could hear running water somewhere off to my left, probably a stream or small river if I had to guess. No wild Pokémon except that Taillow just yet.

  A rustling in the bushes to my right made me pause. Something small and brown poked its head out, tiny black nose sniffing in my direction. Brown and cream fur in a ruffled pattern, that tilted head that managed to look both curious and cautious of me.

  A Zigzagoon. It had to be. It was probably a bit smaller than what I could recall of its Pokédex entry. These adorable trash pandas are normal-type and known for being skittish but curious if they are anything like their real-world counterpart.

  My hand drifted toward the Pokéball in my pocket. I wouldn't mind a Zigzagoon even if they are rather basic. Problem was I didn't really have another Pokémon to weaken it so it would be more luck than anything. Plus, it wasn't like the games where the catch would be possible even at full health. I'd have to catch them off guard to have a chance.

  Should I try and catch it? My odds weren't all that good.

  And if I failed, I'd be down to absolutely nothing.

  The Zigzagoon chittered at me, a sound somewhere between a bark and something I couldn't explain, then disappeared back into the bush. Smart little guy. Probably wasn't what it was looking for, or at least determined I wasn't interesting and left.

  I pulled my hand off the Pokéball in my pocket and kept walking. Better to wait for a better opportunity than to waste my only chance on a low-probability capture. There would be other Pokémon, other chances. I just had to be patient and smart about it. After all I have to remember Pokémon have a reasonable level of intelligence. Maybe I could convince one to join me?

  The path continued through the forest, with a slight incline. Uphill I went. Every now and then I'd catch glimpses of movement in the corner of my eye. A flash of color that might have been another Pokémon or the wind making the branches shift, causing light to trick my eyes. This was rather nerve-wracking, but I could manage.

  After a few minutes longer, the trees were far less packed. The path widened, becoming more of an actual hiking trail, and I could see the open sky ahead. A couple more yards brought me to the sight that stole my breath.

  Rolling grassland stretched into the distance, with the occasional tree and crossed by a river that didn't look all that deep. Near the end of the plains, maybe two or three miles away, I could see buildings. Not a big city, but definitely a town of some kind. Red roof, white walls, the unmistakable structure of a Pokémon Center rising above the other structures. Yup, it was definitely a named town, which one I wasn't entirely sure yet. Between me and that town, scattered across the grassland, were Pokémon at least a dozen going about their lives. The scene was beautiful, something I could only have dreamed of.

  I could see them even from this distance. Small shapes moving through the grass, some grazing, others darting about in what might have been play or hunting. A flock of bird Pokémon, it looked like Swellow leading a small group of Taillow.

  This was it. This was really happening. I was standing on a hill in the Pokémon world, looking down at wild Pokémon living their lives in their natural habitat, I had my knowledge and one empty Pokéball to my name. I'd say that was a fair handicap. After all they had to nerf me somehow. If they didn't it likely wouldn't be fair.