Chapter 63
The room has a window. Light comes through. On the other side is sand and spiky kind of plants and other things. In the middle is a birdbath. It’s blue, except for where there’s a chip in the rim, and there it’s white instead. There’s no water. Sometimes little brown birds come anyway. They hop around and fly into the scraggly brush and cheep.
It must be hot on the other side of the window. But it’s cold in the room. The room has a bed with blankets on it, shoved up against one wall, but still Nobody’s always cold.
The room has a door. At first, a lot of people came through it. Mewtwo, and Absol, and sometimes even the dead people, like Leonard Kerrigan’s son and Nicholas Garrett and Heracross with her carapace all oozing. Now only the great Nathaniel Morgan comes through, sometimes. That was how Nobody decided he must be real: because he kept coming back.
Nobody isn’t sure how long ago it made that determination. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the great Nathaniel Morgan’s the only one who comes through the door now. Nobody doesn’t think he locks it when he leaves, either. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t want to find out what’s on the other side.
Nobody watches the birds in the brush outside. It watches the light from the window move across the dusty floor. It watches the ceiling shade into purple shadow, then lighten again. There isn’t much to see, but watching’s better than sleeping.
Nobody thinks it should be doing something, maybe. It thinks it might be able to remember, but it doesn’t want to try. There are a lot of things it could do, but it doesn’t see why it would. It can watch. It does that instead.
The great Nathaniel Morgan visits eventually. He has his pokéballs with him, close to hand. Nobody thinks he must have gotten attacked here once, or at least something must have made the gouge that goes down the wall and across the floor, wood buckled and peeling black around the edges. It would explain the bandage on the great Nathaniel Morgan’s arm, too.
He sets a bowl of soup on the bedside table and then sits himself on the far end of the bed. He’s probably going to try to make Nobody eat. Sometimes he just leaves food on the table, but usually he wheedles until Nobody gives up and has a little bit. At the very least he talks. Sometimes a lot, sometimes just a little. Nobody doesn’t know how long he’s been doing this. It doesn’t know why he bothers.
Today is one of the days when he talks a lot. “So it’s still boring as fuck out here in Desertville,” he says. “I thought I saw a wooper hiding out in some bushes today, but then it turned out it was just a plastic bag, and that was pretty much the most fucking exciting thing I’ve seen in weeks. Made my entire goddamn morning.”
He doesn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular. That would make sense, because who would want to listen to his boring stories anyway? Or maybe it only looks like he’s talking to no one because Nobody can’t see the other person, because they’re the other half of whatever hallucination the great Nathaniel Morgan’s a part of and just faded into thin air.
But no, Nobody can smell the soup he put down on the nightstand. Can smell him, too, for that matter. Alive. Human. Male. Young. It could sit there and untangle every facet, read every detail of him in his scent, but that’s not the point. The point is he doesn’t smell like something that isn’t there.
“So let’s see, what is it, uh, Wednesday, right?” The great Nathaniel Morgan goes on. “Yeah, so it’ll be Judge Braviary and Trainers tonight, and Raticate’s probably gonna want to watch that one cooking show with all the cakes and shit. But yesterday there were a couple episodes of Transformozords, lessee. Uh, in the first one, in the first one there was like this alien swamp planet, right? So the captain, uh, shit, you know, the red chick? Umm, Captain Rody, or whatever–”
“Roth,” Nobody says. It comes out as a croak.
The great Nathaniel Morgan stops with his next word half-formed. He turns to Nobody with a huge grin spreading across his face, and Nobody already knows it screwed up, it should never have said anything. “Hey!” The great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Hey, Kid. How’re you feeling? Here, you want to eat something? Have some water.”
Already he’s going to start in on that. Nobody takes a few seconds to decide, but it finally reaches to take the water. It doesn’t actually drink, just holds the cup between its hands. The chill of it numbs its fingers. Everything’s so cold. The great Nathaniel Morgan’s babbling, but at it, now, not just talking with it in the same room. He sounds so delighted it’s almost offensive how much Nobody wishes he would go away. Why did it ever say anything?
“What are you doing?” it asks, cutting him off mid-sentence.
“Uhh, well, I was just checking up on you, you know?”
“No, I mean, what are you doing… here? In Orre? In…?” Nobody gestures halfheartedly with one blanket-clutching fist.
The great Nathaniel Morgan glances at the ceiling, the walls, then crosses his arms over his chest and addresses the floor. “Look, I didn’t come looking for you or nothing,” he says, as if Nobody might somehow think that. “I’m here for Mew. I mean, I’m the only one who… who even knows what the fuck you and Mewtwo are after, right? And ain’t like nobody would believe me if I told them because I’m all, like, a gigantic fucking terrorist shithead or whatever.” He waves an exasperated hand, still talking to the floorboards. “Ain’t like I got much of a shot at rescuing her or whatever, I know, but… but I guess I gotta try. Because I’m the only one who can.”
He sits hunched over looking at his hands in his lap, kicking one heel against the leg of the bed in a distracted way.
“But you saved me.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan glances at Nobody, and it turns away fast, drawing the sheets in tighter around itself like it can disappear inside them. “I guess,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says.
“Why?”
“Why? The hell kind of question is that?”
“You wanted me dead before. You think I’m evil. But you saved me anyway.”
“Look, there’s a huge fucking difference between thinking somebody’s gotta stop your little shitshow and thinking it’s okay for people to cut bits off you to see which ones grow back.” Nobody flinches away from the anger in the great Nathaniel Morgan’s voice.
After a moment he goes on in a more normal tone, “I mean, I don’t really got a clue what they were–what actually happened in that place. I dunno if you want to tell me or what, but it don’t matter one way or another. It’s done now, and you don’t gotta worry about it no more.”
Nobody does not want to tell him. It feels like it’s standing on the frozen surface of a pond and underneath the water is dark and goes down and down forever. There are things swimming down there with sharp teeth and covered in spikes and hooks and snatching limbs to drag you under, to hold you beneath the surface. Nobody will be fine as long as it stays up top, as long as it doesn’t try to peer through the ice, doesn’t even think of what hides below.
So it won’t think, and it won’t tell. To fill the silence it asks, “Where are we?”
The great Nathaniel Morgan exhales sharply through his nose. “Bumfuck nowhere. Dunno if this place has a proper name, even. Just an old abandoned house out in the desert. Maybe they were trying to grow something out here. I dunno. There’s enough empty places around.”
“So you just showed up and took it?”
“Pretty much, yeah. That’s more or less how it goes around here. Ain’t like nobody’s going to go checking in on who properly owns all this fucking sand. Ain’t like the market’s huge for your extreme fixer-uppers in shit locations like this, neither.”
“Why?”
“Well, Cipher wanted me to bunk down in one of the bases like most of their grunts, but fuck that, you know what I mean? I ain’t looking to get smothered by a pillow in my sleep or some shit.”
“You think they want to kill you?” Nobody sits up a little at this, sudden alarm sending adrenaline sluicing through its veins.
“Nah, not yet. But I sold out Team Rocket, so they gotta figure I’ll turn on them too, you know? And they ain’t exactly wrong. So we’re playing a little game, right, how long do they think it’s useful to keep me around against how long it takes me to find Mew.”
Nobody’s heart pounds, its head woozy. “They cannot kill you. You cannot die.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan scratches the side of his jaw and gives Nobody a sideways look. “Uh, thanks for caring, I guess?”
“You cannot die.” Nobody’s breath comes faster, tears backing up in its eyes. “You are the only one left. If you die, I am going to be…”
“Hey, whoah, whoah. I ain’t gonna die, right? You don’t gotta worry about it.” But Nobody can feel his gaze on the back of its neck. “What do you mean, the only one left?”
“I mean you are the only one. My pokémon, they. I. I do not know. They wanted to get away from Mewtwo. But after that, I… I could not… I…”
“Jesus,” the great Nathaniel Morgan mutters. “Here, umm. You want a tissue or something?”
Nobody can’t stop. It started talking, and now it can’t stop, won’t be able to stop, not ever. “And the Musketeers. They got Hypno and they got Noctowl and I do not even know if they are with Team Rocket or Cipher or what, and Heracross is dead and Absol took Mewtwo away and, and…”
The great Nathaniel Morgan looks like he’s hoping if he presses himself against the wall hard enough he’ll sink through it and disappear.
“Everybody is gone,” Nobody says, or tries to. It can hardly get words out around its sobs. Who even knows if the noises it makes sound like words anymore. “Everybody. I am… There is no one. It is just me.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan watches warily from the corner of his eye, as though expecting Nobody to pounce on him or something. It tries to stop, tries to crush its despair deep down inside where it belongs, but it can’t hold in the sobs that wrench their way out of its body like they’re trying to escape.
“Look, that all fucking sucks, all right?” The great Nathaniel Morgan says while Nobody wrestles down its tears. It’s crying so hard it hurts, like everything it hasn’t been able to feel since it got captured is trying to fight its way out of it at once. “But I ain’t going nowhere. Promise. Even if you wish I’d fuck off. So that’s one.”
He rubs his arms, muttering. “God knows I probably should, after all the shit you put me through. Don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.”
Nobody wipes the tears away, sniffling, and stares at him. He’s pressed up against the wall, watching Nobody like he thinks it might explode. He gives a rather lopsided smile. “Well? Feel better now, Kid?”
Nobody lunges at him, grabbing him around the midriff and burying its face in his chest. The great Nathaniel Morgan flinches, starting to pull away, but when all Nobody does is sob into his shirt he relaxes just a little, letting his hand fall away from his pokéballs. He carefully drapes an arm across Nobody’s shoulders, making no sudden movements. “Damn. You’re really turning on the waterworks today, huh, Kid? Shhhh. You’re fine, all right? Shhhh.”
Nobody feels the words rumbling in his chest as much as hears them. The great Nathaniel Morgan’s wonderfully warm and solid–he’s real. Nobody reminds itself of this while it tightens its hold. He’s real, he’s really here.
“It’s all over, okay? You don’t gotta worry about those batshit scientists no more. It’s gonna be all right.”
Maybe it will. Nobody’s crying jag breaks down into scattered sobs. It hugs the great Nathaniel Morgan as hard as it can as the last spasms of grief shudder through it, listening to the buzz of his voice in its ear. For a little while, at least, it tries to believe that it really will be all right.
Some amount of time passes before Nobody realizes, blurrily, that the great Nathaniel Morgan’s trying to squirm away. It lets him pull free, tucking its knees against its chest while the great Nathaniel Morgan rubs his arm and works his fingers back and forth like they’ve gone stiff.
“Feel better, Kid?” he asks with a lazy smile.
Nobody shakes its head and stares at its feet. No, it feels wrung out, a headache coming on, and sore all over like it’s run for miles on an empty stomach. Crying did nothing but empty it out. It never should have said anything.
“Here, have some water,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, pouring another cup. He picks up the soup, gone cold and fat-clouded, and grimaces into the bowl. “And this is all gross now, but… you want anything? Anything you like, we got it. Just say the word.”
Nobody shakes its head.
“You gotta eat something, Kid,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Please. I mean, when I say ‘anything,’ I mean anything, get me? You want ice cream? Fuck yeah we got ice cream, like whatever goddamn flavor you want, you can have it. I don’t give a shit if you just want like a thousand cookies or whatever the fuck. Just something, okay? Please.”
Nobody watches its toes twisting in the bedspread.
“Look, you want to go to the hospital?” The great Nathaniel Morgan says, and Nobody shakes its head violently, whole body seizing in the grip of sudden fright. “Yeah, didn’t think so. But I mean, I ain’t got a clue what I’m doing here, and maybe they could help, you know?” The great Nathaniel Morgan sighs and sits clenching and unclenching his hand. “I don’t want to take you nowhere they’re gonna treat you like a science experiment, but for God’s sake I ain’t gonna just sit here and watch you starve to death either. You gotta eat, okay? You have to help me out, here. Otherwise I got no clue what else to do.”
Nobody pulls the blankets tighter around its body and hugs its arms against its chest. At last it nods, slowly, because after all if the great Nathaniel Morgan decides to take it to the hospital there isn’t anything it can do to stop him. Not as long as he has his pokémon. It’s exhausted now, so tired of trying to think, and trying not to think, not to think of the wrong things.
“Okay. I guess I’ll get you more soup, then?”
Nobody lets the hopeful question go unanswered. The great Nathaniel Morgan just sits there, fidgeting with the spoon, until Nobody can’t take his silent presence for one second more. “I killed people,” it blurts out.
The great Nathaniel Morgan gives Nobody a sidelong look. “I mean, I know,” he says. “I have certain fucking experience.”
“No. I… You do not know. I mean I really killed them. And I wanted to. Nobody told me to. I just wanted to. Because I did not like them.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn’t say anything.
“I helped Mewtwo. He wanted me to kill people, so I did. And worse. He hurt me if I did not. He did not tell me to kill all of them, though. Some of them I killed just because. I do not know if I can stop. If you keep me here, I am going to kill you next.”
It’s not working. The great Nathaniel Morgan is still here. “Mewtwo was kicking the shit out of you if you didn’t murder people like he wanted?” he asks.
“I did it! I did it because I wanted to! I will do it again!”
The great Nathaniel Morgan says nothing.
“I already tried to kill you, did I not? That is why you have that bandage on. I attacked you, and I am going to keep attacking you until you die.”
“I dunno, you’ve simmered down a lot over the past couple weeks,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “You’ll get better, Kid. You just gotta give it time.”
“You are stupid,” Nobody says, and is rewarded by a tightening around the great Nathaniel Morgan’s eyes. “Why will you not listen to me?”
“So you’re gonna murder me, huh? Gonna fuck me up? Well, go on, then.” The great Nathaniel Morgan spreads his arms. “Come and fucking get me already.”
Even thinking of it makes Nobody feel sick. Sicker. It stares at the bedspread and says, “It is not like that. I do not know when it will happen. When I will be the person who would do that.”
“Whatever the fuck that means.” The great Nathaniel Morgan crosses his arms and glowers at Nobody. “You’ve tried it enough times before. Dunno why you’re all acting like this is all some fucking surprise.”
“I still do not understand why you are even here.”
“Since apparently sticking around is the thing that’s gonna piss you off more than anything right now.” The great Nathaniel Morgan jerks his chin towards the door. “You ain’t chained up in here or nothing. If you’re tired of my fucking face, then go ahead and leave already. I figured you’d crawl on out of here when you felt better anyhow.”
Nobody does genuinely want to hurt him then, just for a moment. Just for a flash. Then it leans back against the wall and closes its eyes, exhausted all at once. “Just leave me alone.”
And the worst thing is, he does.
The great Nathaniel Morgan leaving doesn’t solve the problem, of course. He knocked a hole in the cocoon Nobody had spun to protect itself, just a tiny one, but big enough that all the things it hadn’t wanted to think about came leaking back in. The world’s leaking in, too. Nobody notices things now, things it saw before but hadn’t thought about, rated no more interesting than the play of light across the ceiling.
There are noises from the other side of the door, faint scuffing footsteps and the clank of unseen dishes. Muffled hum of conversation. Canned laughter on TV. There are tectonic rumbles, too, that shiver the windows and buzz through Nobody where it sits in bed while Steelix moves around outside.
And the great Nathaniel Morgan doesn’t even leave permanently. It’s not long before he’s back again with another bowl of soup. This time he doesn’t set it on the nightstand. He doesn’t talk, either, which is at least some small favor. He holds the bowl between his hands and watches Nobody for what feels like a long, long time.
It does not watch him back. It wishes it could tell him to go away, but saying something would only make things worse. It always does.
Finally the great Nathaniel Morgan passes Nobody the soup, wordlessly, and it accepts in equal silence. It eats a couple spoonfuls, ignoring the disgusting fatty, salty taste, because maybe if it does a little of what the great Nathaniel Morgan wants he’ll be satisfied and leave.
He doesn’t, of course. He wants to talk. Always talking. If he shut up more, maybe he wouldn’t get into trouble all the time.
“So I ain’t gone, I guess,” he says. “I dunno if that’s what you were going for or if you were just freaking out or what, but yeah.”
He considers his hands. Nobody stares into the bowl of soup and thinks about nothing, hard.
“I don’t know what the fuck you and Mewtwo’ve been up to the past few months. I mean, obviously.” This minor stumble is enough to throw him off for a moment. “And I dunno if you want to tell me, neither. I mean, of course if you do then you can. I’ll listen, you know? But if you don’t want to you don’t gotta. The point is, it doesn’t matter, okay? Whatever happened… I don’t care if you killed people, or–well, I mean I care but not like that, you know? It don’t matter now, is what I’m saying.”
“I mean, look, sometimes when you’re down you’re down, and the things you gotta do to survive ain’t so great. Like people pretend, oh, if it was them in that situation, they’d never do that, right? Because they’re like, good and shit. But anybody who’s starving, they’ll totally steal a piece of bread, you know? Or beat the shit out of someone for it. Or murder someone, even. You do what you gotta do to survive. Ain’t pretty, ain’t right, but you can’t blame people. Or you can, but… Nobody knows what it’s like to be down like that if they ain’t been there. They don’t know what it can make you do.”
He’s quiet again for a while, and Nobody starts to worry he might stay here forever, just like this, and it will never have peace again.
“Anyway, the point is, you did some bad stuff, right? Like, stuff you’re sorry for?” He shoots a sidelong glance at Nobody, who tenses, confused as to what that means. Why won’t he leave, why won’t he ever leave? “Right. But. The point is, the point is, that don’t got to be you, okay? You don’t got to forget about it, you don’t got to pretend like it never happened, but you don’t got to beat yourself up over it forever, neither. It’s in the past. All that really matters now is what you do next, get me?”
It’s in the past. Nobody digs its fingers into its arm, harder and harder, just to feel the pressure. It’s in the past, but it’s not done, no, because the past never stays buried the way it should. The past doesn’t know it’s over, doesn’t know it’s dead and supposed to be long gone. Nobody tries not to think, but it can smell the blood, and the fear, and when Mewtwo stands over it glaring it knows what it has to do.
“You got a choice, see? You always got a choice. You don’t want to hurt nobody, you don’t gotta. Everybody fucks up, and look, yeah, there’s fucking up and then there’s fucking up, right, and you really stepped in it, I mean I know my fuckups, but still. But still, you–you know killing people ain’t right, don’t you? I mean obviously, or you wouldn’t have been all weird earlier, but…” He gives Nobody a pleading look, searching for something. “So don’t do that shit no more, okay? Just–just don’t, and, and that’s what really matters, what you do from now on.”
He doesn’t understand, of course. Nobody isn’t someone. It’s not a real person; it’s a crammed bunch of people pretending to be one. Maybe it can look back now and say yes, it shouldn’t have done that, but the point is that when it happened it didn’t care. No one made it kill anyone. That was simply what it wanted to do.
Even now, playing the memory back, it doesn’t care. It can see the fear in the humans’ eyes, can watch them run, and it is nothing more than fact. Nobody knows it’s wrong, knows it’s supposed to feel it’s wrong, but after all they’re only humans and that’s all there is, it’s bad, it’s bad, it’s disaster like Absol said because even now Nobody doesn’t care.
It gulps a sobbing breath and digs its fingers in deeper and shakes, shakes with the effort of holding back tears. The great Nathaniel Morgan says it has a choice, but he’s wrong. Nobody can’t even tell good from bad, so how can it choose right? What is even going to do from now on? What is it going to do besides choose wrong again and again and again?
The great Nathaniel Morgan is still rambling on, talking to the floor like he does. “So I guess you fucked up in your old life too, right? But Mew gave you a second chance or whatever. And yeah, you kind of fucked that one up so far too, but that ain’t got to be the end of it.” His voice takes on a hard edge. “I mean, a second chance is a lot more than most people get, so you–hey. You okay?”
He reaches towards Nobody, and it jerks away so fast it thuds into the wall with enough force to set its head throbbing. The great Nathaniel Morgan lets his hand drop and sits quietly, watching Nobody, and it curls up tight, trying to shield itself from his gaze. It wishes he weren’t watching, wants nothing more than to be alone, to never have to be anyone ever again.
“I ain’t gonna hurt you, Kid,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says softly, and he sounds sad, but not sad enough, because he doesn’t realize the danger he’s in. Someday Nobody will be a person who doesn’t care again, who will kill people for no reason, and it could easily be him.
The great Nathaniel Morgan rubs his hands together and looks at Nobody sidelong, still frowning. “What I mean to say, Kid, is I ain’t given up on you yet. So… So don’t you do it neither, okay? I mean, look, I’m shit at this kinda thing, but that’s all I wanted to say. It’s gonna be all right, Kid. All you gotta worry about is getting better.”
And about what happened to Hypno and Noctowl. And Nobody’s pokémon. And what Mewtwo’s doing. And, still, about finding Mew.
The great Nathaniel Morgan has no clue, and his words can’t help. At least it seems he recognizes that now. After a long cold span of silence, he finally leaves again.
Nobody gradually becomes aware of routine. In the morning, before the sun even rises, the great Nathaniel Morgan leaves to do Cipher things. Steelix stays behind, singing songs to himself while he guards the house. In the evening, when the sun’s about to set, the great Nathaniel Morgan returns. Usually he eats dinner with his pokémon and then falls asleep in front of the TV, but sometimes he falls asleep right away instead. It’s simple.
Slowly, Nobody starts to believe that the next day will be like the last, that no scientist is going to come and drag it from its cage. This whole world might be real.
The great Nathaniel Morgan still brings it food, and more than just soup now; sometimes he brings pizza or rice or chicken nuggets, and Nobody wonders if he’s experimenting, trying to see what it will accept. It still doesn’t know why he’s keeping it around, what he’s expecting of it. Not knowing makes it nervous, but it’s too afraid of the answer to ask.
Nobody muffles itself in pillows and blankets when it wants to scream and cry, so no curious human comes by to see what’s going on, not when it might do anything, to the great Nathaniel Morgan or anyone else. There are all sorts of people inside of Nobody, the ones it used to call up when it wanted to think differently, and a lot of them are terrifying. Sometimes it wakes not knowing where it is, who it is, and it’s only lucky it hasn’t done anything really bad while in that state. It thinks. It’s still missing time here and there.
So Nobody tries to distract itself, watches out the window or hovers near the door, listening, trying to tell what’s on TV or catch snatches of conversation. It may be boring in Nobody’s room, but as long as it stays here, it’s safe. When it turns that handle and opens the door, it will be part of the world again. That means getting hurt more, hurting more people, even. The great Nathaniel Morgan should have left it to die.
Nobody can hear the television out in the living room, and it stands a while with its head resting against the back of the door, listening. It recognizes commercials, but the voices in the actual program are mumbly and muted, too broad to make sense of.
It opens the door as quietly as it can and walks out. The hallway’s covered in balding carpet, which feels nice when Nobody squeezes its toes in it. Television light discolors the blank wall up ahead. Nobody wants to go–it wants to get out of its room, it wants to watch TV, it wants to do things again. But it isn’t ready to deal with anybody else. It doesn’t want to feel their eyes on it, to know that they’re thinking of how weak it’s become. It doesn’t want to be seen.
Nobody could wrap itself in camouflage, maybe, or an illusion, but it hasn’t done that sort of thing since coming here, and it doesn’t want to start. So it stands quietly in the hall rolling its toes in the carpet, listening to the television and feeling cold all over.
What good is it, if it can’t even work up the courage to watch TV? It’ll never find Mew, if this is what it’s become.
Nobody goes back into its room and hides under the covers, pillow crammed firmly over its head, but it can still hear the TV, faintly, and sometimes even laughter from the people watching. It lies there alone and swears off leaving its bed ever again.
But another day comes, and another. Boredom, if absolutely nothing else, drives it again and again to the threshold, listening, looking out, fleeing back to its bed if it hears anyone coming. Boredom, and maybe the fact that, in the absence of anything else to do, it spends time chewing over the past, which is more terrifying than anything out in the hall.
One evening Nobody hears the unmistakeable chords of Transformozords’ opening theme, playing loud and jaunty. Mightyena says something, and the great Nathaniel Morgan laughs, and for a second the loneliness and the wanting is so bad that it doesn’t care anymore. Before Nobody properly appreciates what it’s doing the door is open and it’s outside.
Then it hesitates, paralyzed just over the threshold. The noise from the TV is louder out here, the opening theme winding down and the actual episode starting. When the announcer comes on to say that Captain Rubina Roth has come to the fierce jungle planet of Skwalek to find Transformo-Gray, Nobody realizes that it knows this episode, it likes this episode. It takes a step, and then another, silent on the carpeted floor, and it takes almost no time at all to reach the noise’s source.
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s sprawled out across a couch with one arm over Raticate and a beer in his free hand. Mightyena’s lying across his legs, and Graveler lurks off to one side. The coffee table in front of them is a mess of bottles, candy wrappers, dirty plates and glasses. The room’s practically bare aside from the TV, its walls blank and discolored, its only window with a plastic sheet taped over it instead of glass.
Every single pair of eyes turns to stare at Nobody.
The pokémon scatter, and the great Nathaniel Morgan puts a hand on the back of the couch to lever himself to his feet. “Oh, uh, what’s up, Kid? You need something?”
Nobody takes a step back, dropping its gaze to the carpet and shaking its head as hard as it can.
“Umm, okay. You want to watch the show?”
Nobody would have fled if it wasn’t too terrified to move. It never should have come out here, should have never even strayed near the door and let itself be tempted. It never should have spoken, not one word. That was what made all of this happen, that’s what brought it to this moment, standing in this spot, shivering, wanting to flee but too scared even to do that.
“Well, that’s okay.” The great Nathaniel Morgan still hovers half-risen. “Here, come sit. These assholes’ll make room.”
Nobody shies away from the pokémon’s gazes, concentrating even harder on the fibers of the carpet curling around its toes. It shakes its head again, quick, and then bulls forward, making for the shadowy place under the arm of the couch and wedging itself between the wall and the rough fabric of the couch’s side. It can only see about half of the TV from here, but that’s okay. It’s enough. And it doesn’t want to go out there, it doesn’t want to be up… there. With the rest of them.
“Uh, hey, Kid?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks, leaning out over the couch’s arm. Nobody looks down immediately, tucking itself even tighter into its corner. “You okay down there? You sure you don’t want to sit up here?”
Nobody squeezes its eyes shut and shakes its head, hard. It knows Raticate and Mightyena are peering at it over the great Nathaniel Morgan’s shoulder. Why can’t they leave it alone? Why do they have to keep looking at it?
“Right. Well. Whatever you want. Just letting you know. And if you want to watch something else, just say the word, okay?”
Nobody doesn’t look up again until it hears a bunch of shifting around overhead, the great Nathaniel Morgan settling back into place and the pokémon cramming in around him. And when they’re absorbed in watching the show, then nobody can raise its head and watch, too.
It’s a familiar episode. Not Nobody’s favorite, but still a good one. It watches the bright colors and familiar characters moving around onscreen more than it thinks about what’s actually happening, and time passes. Some other programs come and go, none Nobody is particularly fond of, but it feels almost comfortable here, not having to think about anything.
Eventually the television winks off to black, and Nobody tries to make itself small again. Mightyena and Raticate jump down, stretching and shaking themselves while the great Nathaniel Morgan rises. Nobody ducks its head, because of course they won’t stop looking at it, not even saying anything, just watching, and all it wants is for them to go away so it can go back to its room to be safe.
“We’re going to bed, Kid,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, and Nobody doesn’t want him to look, either. “You can watch more if you want.” He waits, but when Nobody does nothing else but wait, too, wait for him to go away, he finally adds, “It’s good to see you, Kid. Feel better, okay?”
Like it could somehow make itself better just because he’s said it. But at least the great Nathaniel Morgan goes away after that, and his pokémon with him. Nobody’s left in the warm yellow circle of light from the lamp the great Nathaniel Morgan left on, and everything around is dark and quiet and peaceful. It takes a long time for Nobody to unfold from its place, stiff and achy and unsteady on its feet when it races back to its room, but still. It feels… better, somehow. It feels almost at peace.
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s cheerful, which is different. Different is worrying. Nobody watches him from the corner of its eye while it takes the soup from him and starts to eat. It’s not really hungry, but refusing would only make the great Nathaniel Morgan focus on it more.
“You feeling better, Kid?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks. “Showing up to watch TV and all. You know you can come out whenever you want, right? You don’t gotta be cooped up in here all the time.”
Nobody shrugs.
“We can watch something you like next time. Everybody else gets to pick a show, so, you know, if there’s something you want to see, just say the word. I mean, I keep up with the Transformozords stuff for you, but I don’t really know what else you’re into.”
Nobody thinks of the pokémon’s flat gazes and shivers. Not everyone would welcome it taking control of the television programming.
“Well, that’s fine,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Standing offer.” His words are light and breezy. He seems almost offensively cheerful.
There’s something Nobody wants to ask him. Something it’s been wondering about for a long time, and right now the great Nathaniel Morgan seems like he’s in a good enough mood that he might answer. But talking is always a mistake.
“You can eat with us too, you know,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “I’m serious, you’re not stuck in here or nothing. You can grab something from the kitchen whenever you want. Or, like, go outside or whatever the shit. I don’t know why the fuck you’d want to, since it’s a hot-as-balls fucking desert out there, but I guess sunshine is supposed to be good for you or some shit.”
He’s going to start rambling, isn’t he? “Have you seen a noctowl?” Nobody asks, before he can really get going. “Or a hypno?”
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s smile falters. “What? Noctowl?”
“Or hypno.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan’s looking concerned now. Concerned is halfway to angry. A mistake. Saying anything is always a mistake.
“I don’t think so. Why?” And that “why” doesn’t exactly sound friendly.
“Because Cipher took them,” Nobody whispers to the bedspread. “I wanted to know if you had seen them since you have been working for Cipher. If they are okay.”
How could they possibly be okay? Stupid question. Stupid to have asked.
“Oh. Well, uh, no. Not that I remember. I ain’t exactly paying that much attention to whatever random pokémon I come across, though. There’s a lot of them.”
Whatever random pokémon. Sick grief wells up in Nobody’s chest. That’s all they would be to a human. And to someone from Cipher… Like Eskar said, Noctowl isn’t even any good at battling. Unless they made him Shadow again. Can they even do that?
Eskar. “What about a sableye?” The great Nathaniel Morgan raises an eyebrow. “Yes, Eskar. She was down in the Rocket base, and somebody from Cipher caught her. Snagged her, I guess. Do you think… What do you think they would do with her?”
“I dunno,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, sounding uneasy. “I mean, as far as they’re concerned, she’s just some pokémon, right? What do they do with all the other pokémon they get their hands on?”
The two of you sit in silence for long seconds after that.
“Yeah, so, that’s fucked up,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says at last, rubbing his arms as though suddenly cold. “I mean, that sableye was a real piece of shit and all, but that’s still fucked up.”
Nobody doesn’t have anything to say to that.
“What about that absol of yours, then? Did Cipher get her, too?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks. Nobody shakes its head. “Where the hell is she, then? I keep expecting her to turn up, like just to give me a fucking heart attack if nothing else.”
“She will not come,” Nobody says. “Absol, she talked about a child, the one she was supposed to protect, and I thought she meant me. And she did not, she did not lie, I just… did not understand. It was always Mewtwo she was protecting. I was just somebody she thought could… could be useful. I am nobody.”
“Kinda melodramatic, don’t you think, Kid?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks with a halfway-sad smile. “Course you ain’t nobody. You’re still you, ain’t you?”
Nobody shakes its head. “No. You were right. I am not special. I am not… anybody. I am a freak who is supposed to be dead.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan winces. “Ah, Jesus, Kid. I was just being a dick when I said that. That shit ain’t true.”
“Is it not? Just because it is mean does not mean it is not true.”
“Well, maybe the bit about ruining my fucking life was.” The great Nathaniel Morgan scowls at the floor.
“You were right about everything,” Nobody croaks. “I should never have come here. It was stupid.”
“Well, maybe. I didn’t have to be such an asshole about it, though. I…” The great Nathaniel Morgan trails off, then gives his head a shake, violently dismissing some thought. “Look, can we just try again? You know, like, forget all the shit that happened before. Start over. Like, what’s your name? Since I never actually asked.”
“I do not have one.”
That seems to throw him. “Oh, uh, no? Well, then I guess… I guess you get to pick then, right? You can have whatever name you fucking want.”
That just sounds exhausting. Nobody’s spent years picking made-up names for made-up people. That’s all Nobody is: someone who isn’t real. Any name it chooses will be as much of a lie as any other.
“I mean, you don’t gotta decide now or nothing,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “But if you want to, think about it, you know? And all this… all this shit about destiny, or your mission, or whatever, listen: if you ain’t got no special destiny or whatever, then you get to choose your own, right? That’s pretty sick.”
He doesn’t understand. Nobody wasn’t expecting him to–he didn’t understand what it meant to be special in the first place. But that’s all right.
“The point is you ain’t nobody even if you don’t got a special destiny or whatever the fuck. You still matter. Everybody matters. You’re still you. Maybe different than you used to be, but you ain’t less. You ain’t nobody.”
Who is it now? What is it now, if not the child, Mew’s child?
Weak. Hollow. Empty. Nothing. Nobody.
“Think about it, Kid,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “You got options. But that’s enough out of me, ain’t it?” He slaps his hands down on his knees. “I gotta go stock up on grub. You want anything?”
Nobody shakes its head.
“Right. Pizza and wings, then.”
Nobody lets him go. In the great Nathaniel Morgan’s absence, the house is once again silent. Empty. Boring. Nothing to do besides sit and think about his words.
A name. It doesn’t even deserve one. “Nobody” suits it just fine.
Except.
A name isn’t really more than a thing other people call someone. That they respond to. Nobody already has that. And it’s not such a bad name, really. It’s familiar.
It doesn’t change anything. It’s only a word. Still, Kid feels better than Nobody. A name more real than anything it could have come up with for itself.
And with that matter settled, Kid sits back, and actually entertains thoughts of pizza and wings.