Arden was on his feet in a second, pushing his chair back so hard it screeched against the floor. He positioned himself between the intruders and his family, his arms spread wide. He was not a fighter, yet he was a father, Jim hated him for that, but at that moment he only felt fear.
"What do you want?" he asked, his voice shaking.
"The cash box," the one with the crowbar rasped. His voice was rough, uneducated. "The one from the shop. And any valuables you got up here. Now."
"Just take it," His mother pleaded, her voice high with fear "It's downstairs. Just take it and go. Please."
"Shut up!" the one with the pipe yelled, taking a step forward. The floorboards groaned under his weight. "We'll take what we want. Don't you tell us what to do."
Jim was frozen in his chair, his mind unable to process the violent intrusion. This was the stuff of TV shows, of stories trainers told about Team Rocket. It didn't happen here. Not in their home. Not on a normal morning.
"Jim," his father said, his voice low, not turning his head. "Go to your room. Lock the door."
The command broke the paralysis. Jim scrambled backwards, his chair tipping over with a crash. He crab-walked away from the table, his eyes wide with terror, never leaving the scene in front of him.
"The kid stays!" the crowbar-wielder snarled, pointing his weapon at Jim. "He stays right where we can see him. No heroes."
Arden's jaw tightened. "He's a child. This is between us. Let him go to his room."
"I said no!"
The man with the pipe lunged forward, not at Arden, but towards Astoria. Arden reacted instinctively, moving to intercept him.It was the opening they wanted. The crowbar came around in a brutal, sickening arc. It connected with the side of Arden's head. The sound was a dull, wet thud that Jim would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
Arden collapsed without a sound, a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"No!" Astoria screamed, a sound of pure anguish. She rushed towards her husband's crumpled form, all thought of her own safety gone.
The man with the pipe, his path now clear, shoved her hard. She stumbled, falling backwards, her head cracking against the corner of the kitchen counter. She lay still.
It all happened in less than five seconds.
The two men stood there, breathing heavily. They looked down at the two still bodies, then at the terrified boy cowering by the overturned chair. The energy seemed to drain out of them, replaced by a dawning, panicked horror of what they had just done.
"This wasn't… we just wanted the money," one of them stammered.
The other grabbed him by the shoulder. "Forget it. Let's go. Grab the box and let's go!"
They scrambled out of the apartment, their heavy footsteps thundering down the stairs. A moment later, Jim heard the jingle of the shop's bell, then the sound of them running down the street.
And then, silence.
A suffocating silence that was louder than the screams had been. The only sound was a faint hissing from the pancake griddle. The smell of burning batter began to mix with the scent of blood.
Jim crawled forward, his limbs trembling. "Dad?" he whispered. His voice was a tiny, broken thing. He reached his father, touching his shoulder. There was no response. He looked at his mother, lying in a heap by the counter, a dark halo spreading out from under her head. "Mom?"
He knew. In the way a child knows a final, terrible truth, he knew. They were gone.. He just knelt there on the floor, between the two people who were his entire universe, and sobbed.
The aftermath was a blur, as far as he can remember. An Officer Jenny,, had knelt in front of him and asked him questions he couldn't answer. He was wrapped in a scratchy blanket with antiseptic. He watched as two figures in white coats covered his parents with white sheets. They were loaded into a long white van. It all felt like a dream, a distant, horrible movie he was being forced to watch.
A woman with a clipboard introduced herself as a social worker. She used meaningless words like "transition" and "care." She took him from the only home he had ever known.
He was taken to the Celadon City Municipal Orphanage. It was a large, grey stone building on the industrial outskirt of the city.
Misery seems to have seeped in the building's very bones. The paint on the walls was the color of a dirty sky and was peeling in long strips. Even the air was stale.
Jim was assigned a bed in a long dormitory with twenty other boys. The beds were iron-framed cots with mattresses that were painfully thin. His blanket was threadbare. There was no color, no life. The windows were grimy, looking out onto a concrete yard surrounded by a high chain-link fence. This was his new home.
The other children were hollow-eyed and silent, their shoulders perpetually slumped. There was no laughter, no chatter, just an oppressive quiet. They ate their meals in a large, echoing refectory. The food was a grey, lumpy porridge in the morning and a watery, tasteless stew at night. The caretakers were not cruel, but they were exhausted, their faces etched with weariness from being overworked and underpaid. They managed the logistics of keeping children alive, but offered none of the warmth or love that made life worth living.
That night, lying in the lumpy cot, the blanket pulled up to his chin, Jim stared into the darkness. The sounds of the city were distant here. The only noises were the quiet sobbing of a younger boy in a nearby bed and the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet somewhere down the hall.
The grief, held at bay by shock, came crashing down on him. It was akin to a physical force, a crushing weight . He saw his father's smile, heard his mother's hum. He could almost smell the sweet perfume of Pecha berries. But the memories were not a comfort. They were daggers, each one twisting in the fresh, raw wound of his heart. It was the reminder of everything that had been stolen from him in a matter of seconds.
Tears streamed silently down his face, soaking into the musty pillow. A knot of rage and despair formed in his gut. His parents had died for nothing. For a few thousand Poké dollars in a metal box. Their warmth, their love, their laughter—all extinguished by a moment of stupid, desperate violence.
He curled into a tight ball, his body trembling. They had sacrificed themselves. His father had stood as a shield. His mother had rushed to his side. They had died to protect. .
I'll make it mean something, he thought, the words a silent scream in his mind. I'll pass that exam. I'll become a Trainer. I'll become strong. I'll become… great. I'll be so great that your sacrifice wasn't a waste.
But as the vow settled into his heart, it brought no comfort. It was just another weight. He was Jim, the orphan. . The boy who now lived in a grey building where misery was in every corner and the only thing to look forward to was another joyless, empty tomorrow. He had a goal, but he had no hope. He was twelve years old, and he was utterly, miserably alone.