Hey there. I’m Ajax. Ajax Univia Jones, if you’re wondering, though I dunno why you would be interested. I dunno why anybody would be interested in me for anything, really. I’m the definition of a nobody. 19 year-old college dropout, working the cashier at a Black Palace, and overall… I'm just not satisfied with my life. Never even left Michigan before. It seems like the only way I can get away from my pathetic life (and I know sounds really childish, but bear with me here) is to flip open my old Gameboy Advance SP, fire up some Pokémon, whether that be FireRed or LeafGreen, and play for hours on end. Even that, though, isn’t cutting it for me lately. I’ve done everything I can do, battle everybody I can battle, catch everything I can catch. Just yesterday, however, something happened that changed my life forever.

  It was just another mind-numbing Wednesday for me. I had settled into the usual routine, so much so that it was near involuntary at this point. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, do that for a ‘coupla hours, go home, eat dinner, sleep. The moment where everything changed happened when I was walking back from work, in the blink of an eye. I was crossing a very quiet road, when suddenly, I saw it. A little piece of paper. Now, usually, I would’ve just left it there and finished crossing. But I didn’t. Something in the back of my head was telling, no, ordering me to pick up the paper and read it.

  So I did that.

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  It had the message “HAVE FUN!” hastily scribbled on it, along with a very crudely drawn Pokéball near the bottom-left corner of the page. Before I could even register what that meant, a pickup truck seemed to materialize behind me, traveling way too fast and way too close to even try to jump, or dodge, or duck, or do anything at all. The only thing I could do is close my eyes and hope that someone identifies me proper when they discover my corpse somewhere down the road.

  But as you can probably tell, that didn’t happen.

  The headlights were so bright that even with my eyes closed, it was still blinding. I can’t understand why I felt the way I did, though. You would think that I would be scared, or terrified, or anything, but I felt… Nothing. Just apathy. Like I was missing the part of me that felt. Then everything in my body exploded with pain, and I was flung forward, like some kind of ragdoll. I somehow managed to stay conscious for a few seconds afterward, but everything felt all hazy and detached, like it wasn’t me who was just run over by a truck.

  -X-

  My right arm and leg were bent in all the wrong directions, I couldn’t feel any of my fingers, there was a constant buzzing in my ears that made it sound like I was submerged underwater, and I felt myself drowning in my own blood. I could make out somebody yelling something, although I couldn’t discern what.

  -X-

  “Just had to be me…” Was the last thought I had before everything went dark.