The first sensation wasn't pain.
It was weight.
A weight unlike that of a tired body after training, unlike muscular fatigue. It was as if the air itself pressed down on him—dense, cold… ancient.
He opened his eyes.
He didn't recognize the place.
The ceiling was high, made of dark wood, with crossed beams that seemed to disappear into the gloom. The light was scarce, filtered through half-extinguished lanterns, and the air was heavy with a strange scent: old incense, dust… and something else. Something he couldn't name, but that made his skin prickle.
He slowly pushed himself upright.
His body responded.
That unsettled him.
It wasn't the body of a sick boy. It wasn't fragile. He felt… different. Lighter. More awake. His hands, pressed against the floor, were smaller than he remembered, but steady. Youthful.
—Where…? —he tried to speak.
His voice came out, but it sounded strange to his own ears. Younger.
He looked around. There were no mirrors. Only wooden pillars, staircases that went up and down, and walls covered in tablets engraved with inscriptions he couldn't understand, yet which conveyed reverence. Silence. A heavy silence, almost sacred.
Then he felt it.
There was no hostile presence. No threat.
A gaze.
He slowly turned his head.
Between the shadow of a pillar, floating a few meters above the ground, was a rounded figure wrapped in a violet mist. Two large, glowing eyes watched him with curiosity… and something else.
Deviation.
A Gastly.
His heart skipped a beat.
Not from fear. From recognition.
It was absurd. There was no logic to it. Yet something inside him fell into place the instant he saw it. As if an ancient door opened within him, letting through memories that weren't memories—echoes of other lives, other adventures.
—So… you were real —he murmured.
The Gastly reacted immediately.
It drifted closer, floating in slow circles, as if sniffing him. Its gaseous body shifted smoothly, expanding and contracting, playful. It didn't attack. It didn't flee.
It laughed.
A soft, mocking laugh that echoed through the tower's walls.
That sound.
It was the same one he had heard before dying.
The protagonist didn't step back. On the contrary, a smile formed on his face without him realizing it. He felt a strange, familiar pull. Not like trainer and Pokémon. Not yet.
It was something more primitive.
—You always came first… —he said quietly—. Even before any starter.
The Gastly tilted its form, as if it understood. It made a full circle around him, then stopped in front of him, at eye level. For a second, the world seemed to grow still.
Then it happened.
There were no words. There was no voice.
It was a sensation.
Curiosity. Antiquity. Loneliness… and playfulness.
As if two existences brushed against each other, just enough to recognize one another.
The protagonist brought a hand to his chest. He didn't feel the old pain. He didn't feel the failure. His heart was beating strongly, steady.
—I'm alive… —he whispered.
Or something very close to it.
The Pokémon Tower of Lavender Town remained silent, as if accepting his presence. As if something—or someone—had allowed him to awaken there, on one of its highest floors, surrounded by spirits, memories… and a Pokémon that wasn't there by coincidence.
The Gastly drifted away a few meters, then returned, floating insistently around his head. Inviting him.
Playing.
The protagonist stood up.
He didn't know who he was now. He didn't know what world he was truly in.
But one certainty settled within him with absolute clarity:
He wasn't alone. And he never would be again.
And so, amid the mist and the echoes of those who were gone, his new story began.