The world woke in shades of grey and muted green, but it was the silence that clawed at my senses. Not the peaceful quiet of early morning, but a heavy, suffocating stillness. No Pidgey cooed from the branches, no Rattata rustled in the undergrowth. It was as if every living thing had been smothered under a thick blanket of dread.
"It's like the forest itself is holding its breath," Lila whispered, her voice a small, fragile thing in the oppressive quiet. She hugged her arms, her usual bright-eyed determination replaced with a nervous frown. Her Eevee rustled in her arms it's eyes completely closed.
I knew what she meant. I could feel it in my bones, a low hum of wrongness that vibrated up from the soles of my boots. This wasn't nature's silence. This was the silence of fear.
We pressed on, the path ahead choked with overgrown ferns that didn't sway in any breeze. Twenty paces later, Butterfree stopped dead in the air. It flitted back and forth, its wings beating a frantic, uneven rhythm.
"Butterfree, what's wrong?" Lila asked, reaching a hand out.
The Pokémon didn't respond. It just shrieked a soft, terrified cry and released a glittering cloud of yellow powder. Instinct. Pure, unadulterated instinct. Sleep Powder drifted harmlessly to the ground, a defense mechanism triggered by something it couldn't see but could feel with every fiber of its being. It was deeply, fundamentally unsettled.
"Easy, girl," I murmured, not to Butterfree, but to the forest itself. I knelt, placing a hand on the damp earth, trying to read the story in the soil. And then I saw them. Tracks.
Pokémon footprints, but twisted into grotesque parodies. A Rattata print was there, but nearly twice its normal size, the claw marks gouging the dirt as if the creature were dragging an immense, unseen weight. A set of Pidgey tracks were splayed and uneven, one foot digging in deeper than the other. They looked sick. Mutated. As if the very essence of what they were had been warped.
A cold knot formed in my stomach. This was more than just an unwell Pokémon. This was a sickness in the land itself.
Following the distorted trail led us to a place where the scent of pine and damp earth was replaced by the acrid stench of ash and ozone. We'd found a campsite, or what was left of one. The skeletal remains of two tents lay in tatters, fabric shredded and one pole snapped clean in two. A cooking pot was overturned, its contents spilled and crawling with insects. Pokéballs, cracked and empty, were scattered like discarded shells on a beach.
This wasn't a storm. This was violence.
Deep scratch marks were carved into the trunk of a nearby oak tree, gouges far too deep for any normal Rattata or Pidgey. They were frenzied, desperate. Signs of a struggle against something with immense, unnatural power.
Then Lila gasped. She was kneeling by a half-burnt log, her fingers brushing away a layer of soot. Beneath it lay a plastic card, scorched at the edges. A Trainer ID. The photo was melted into an unrecognizable smear, and the name was smudged, but the letters were just legible in the pale morning light: "Aiden Vale – Research Assistant."
Lila's face went pale. "Aiden… I know him. He was an intern at the Silph Co. tech lab, just outside the city. He was always talking about wanting to do field research." Her voice trembled. This place was no longer just a creepy forest; it was now the last known location of someone she knew.
My attention was snagged by something glinting in the mud near the shredded tent. I dug my fingers into the cold earth and pulled it free. It was a shard of metal, no bigger than my thumb, with an intricate, circuit-like pattern etched onto its surface. It was cool to the touch, but it hummed with a faint, contained energy. I brought it to my nose. It smelled sterile, faintly of chemicals and electricity. Man-made. Utterly alien to this forest.
Before I could show it to Lila, a sound sliced through the silence. A rustle. The tall grass at the edge of the clearing was moving, but not with the wind. It swayed in jerky, unnatural waves, as if something was pushing through it with convulsive force.
We froze. Lila recalled her Eevee, her hand hovering over another Pokéball on her belt. From the grass, they emerged. A pack of Rattata, their fur matted and dull. A flock of Pidgey, their feathers ruffled and askew. A single Ekans, slithering with a twitching, spasmodic motion. They were common Pokémon, the kind you'd see a hundred times on any journey.
But their eyes… their eyes glowed with a sick, crimson light.
Their movements were all wrong. A Pidgey would hop, then seize up, its head jerking to the side. The Rattata didn't scurry; they advanced in a disjointed, stumbling line. They were puppets, their strings pulled by an unseen master.
Lila raised her Pokédex, her tech-savvy instincts kicking in. The device whirred, its lens focusing on the lead Rattata. A string of garbled text flashed across the screen before it crackled with static. Then, for a single, chilling moment, two words appeared in stark red letters:
BIO-SIGNAL CORRUPTED.
My first instinct wasn't to fight. It never is. The wild speaks a language older than commands and Pokéballs, a language of intent, of presence. I knelt, planting one knee in the dirt, and deliberately slowed my breathing. I closed my eyes, pushing aside my own fear and reaching out with my mind, sending a wave of calm, of peace. I mean no harm. This is my territory, but I will share it. Be at ease.
For a heartbeat, it almost worked. The red glow in the Pokémon's eyes seemed to flicker. The lead Rattata trembled, its jerky advance faltering. A low whine escaped its throat, a sound of profound confusion and pain. They were still in there, somewhere, beneath the corruption.
But then something snapped. The red light flared, brighter and angrier than before. A silent command seemed to ripple through them, and they attacked.
"Butterfree, Stun Spore! Oddish, Sleep Powder!" My voice was sharp, cutting through my shock. My Pokémon burst from their capsules, brave and determined. A cloud of paralyzing spores met the first wave of Rattata, and Oddish released its own gentle powder, but there were too many. The corrupted Pokémon moved with a singular, violent purpose, shrugging off the status effects with unnatural speed. An Ekans lunged, its fangs dripping with a dark, viscous fluid, forcing Oddish to dart back. A Pidgey swooped, not with grace, but with the trajectory of a thrown rock, slamming into Butterfree and sending it spiraling.
They were being overwhelmed. Lila was shouting more commands, but it was like trying to hold back a tide with a sieve. This wasn't a battle. It was an extermination.
I watched Oddish take a vicious scratch, its small body tumbling through the dirt. A rage, cold and ancient, began to uncoil in my gut. I couldn't win this by playing their game. I couldn't win this as a Trainer. I couldn't even win this as me.
The world narrowed to a single point of decision. Protect them. Protect my pack.
I closed my eyes. A low growl rumbled in my chest, a sound that didn't come from human lungs. The change began as a ripple under my skin, then a searing heat. It was agony, a symphony of torment as my body broke itself down and remade it in an older, wilder image. Bones ground against each other as they reshaped and elongated. Sinews stretched, muscles bunched, and my skin prickled as thick, green-black fur erupted from my pores. My world, once a haze of human senses, snapped into razor-sharp focus. I could smell the fear-sweat on Lila, the sickness on the corrupted Pokémon, the tang of ozone from the metal shard still clutched in a hand that was now becoming a paw.
I threw my head back, my human cry twisting into the howl of a wolf.
When I opened my eyes, they were emerald green, and I saw the world through them. I was larger, a great wolf crouched where a boy had been moments before.
And I saw Lila.
She had stumbled back, her face a mask of pure terror. Her Pokédex had slipped from her trembling fingers and lay forgotten in the mud. The boy she had just started to trust, the quiet companion who felt the forest's pain, was gone. In his place was a monster. A beast. The sight of her fear was a sharper pain than the transformation itself.
But there was no time for that. The corrupted Pokémon, momentarily stunned by my change, renewed their assault. They didn't see a boy anymore. They saw a rival predator.
I didn't attack to kill. That is not the way of the wild. I lunged forward, a blur of fur and muscle, and met the lead Rattata not with claws, but with a snarl that was a physical force, an aura of ancient dominance that screamed get out. I let loose a roar, a sound that was half howl, half primal decree, and it reverberated through the trees, shaking the very leaves. It was the sound of the forest given a voice, and it was furious.
The red-eyed creatures recoiled. Their programming, their corruption, was powerful, but it was no match for the raw, undiluted will of the wild. They broke, scattering in every direction, fleeing not from a Pokémon or a trainer, but from an apex predator that had just claimed its territory.
The silence that returned was different. It was empty, hollowed out by the echoes of my roar. I stood panting, the adrenaline of the fight slowly draining away, replaced by a profound exhaustion. The transformation reversed itself, a painful, shuddering collapse as fur receded and bones snapped back into their human configuration. I fell to my knees, breathing heavily, my eyes flickering faintly green before settling back to their normal color.
Lila was still frozen, gripping Oddish's Pokéball so tightly her knuckles were white. Her eyes were wide, locked on me, seeing not the boy she knew, but the ghost of the wolf I had become. The space between us felt like a chasm.
"Lila," I started, my voice hoarse. The words fumbled out, clumsy and inadequate. "I… I can explain. I'm… not like other people, Lila. I'm part of a different world."
She didn't respond. She just stared, a thousand questions warring with a primal fear in her gaze. It wasn't just fear of what I could do, but the terror of not understanding it. I had shattered her world of types, abilities, and predictable rules. I was an anomaly, a monster hiding in a friend's skin.
That night, we made camp by a small, gurgling stream. The silence was back, but now it was personal. A thick, aching wall of it stood between us. She sat a few feet farther away than she usually did, the campfire casting long, dancing shadows that kept us separated. Butterfree hovered uncertainly in the air between us, its gentle soul torn, unsure which of its companions needed comforting more.
I said nothing. Instead, I took out one of Lila's Potions and quietly tended to the gash on Oddish's head. My movements were gentle, deliberate, a desperate, silent plea for her to see that I was still the same person. The one who cares.
The forest was calm again, the natural sounds slowly trickling back in. A distant Hoothoot called out to the moon. But a thought lingered in my mind, a whisper that had taken root during the fight. The feeling of wrongness from the corrupted Pokémon, the way they hesitated when I reached out, the way they flinched from my true form. That wasn't nature. The glowing red eyes, the jerky movements, the glitch in the Pokédex… they weren't natural.
They were made.
I looked up from Oddish, past the fire, past Lila's guarded silhouette, and up to the pinpricks of stars in the inky black sky. The reflection of those crimson eyes still flickered at the edge of my thoughts, a stain on the beauty of the night.
Nature doesn't turn on itself without reason. Someone's tampering with the wild—and if I don't stop it, everything that connects me to this world, everything that makes me who I am, will rot from the inside out. And I would have lost more than just a forest. I would have lost myself.