Darkness.
Heavy silence.
Then suddenly... a blinding light pierced through my eyelids, and the sound of crying filled my ears. A strange pressure wrapped around my tiny limbs. Wait... tiny?
I'm... small?
I tried to scream, to move, but all that came out was a loud, embarrassing wail — the universal baby alarm.
What the hell is going on?!
Blurry faces hovered above me, some smiling, some crying... or maybe shouting? I couldn't tell. Everything looked scrambled, like an old TV with broken reception.
(Where am I? Who are these people? Was I kidnapped? Wait — am I dead? Is this... birth?!)
Panic twisted inside me. Smells of antiseptic, rushed footsteps, and some weird hospital background noise surrounded me. Someone picked me up — someone who smelled vaguely of mint and stress — and yelled excitedly:
"He's healthy! He's perfect!"
Oh great. Congratulations to me, apparently... I'm a newborn.
I was placed into the arms of a beautiful, exhausted woman. Her smile was warm, her eyes glistening with tears. Somewhere behind her, I heard a deep male voice grumble,
"Are we sure he's a baby? Not some rare Pokémon in disguise?"
Pokémon?!
Everything in my brain just froze.
(Pokémon?! Hold up, HOLD UP — am I... in the Pokémon world?!)
My last memories rushed back like a bad movie montage — the road, the blinding headlights, the speeding truck... and nothing.
Oh, and that stupid book I bought just before the crash: "Spiritual Farming for Lazy Losers — Beginner's Edition."
Yeah, very promising.
Now here I was: freshly dead, freshly born... freshly humiliated.
I glanced around helplessly, my tiny arms flailing like limp noodles.
(Okay... stay calm. Breathe. Figure it out later.)
The woman — my new mother? — whispered softly, "Leo. His name will be Leo."
"Leo, great choice!" said the big man proudly... right before he promptly fainted face-first onto the hospital floor.
Honestly?
Best. Entrance. Ever.
Someone wrapped me in a warm blanket with Pikachu patterns all over it. I almost gagged at how obnoxiously cute everything was.
(Awesome. I'm a baby in what might be the Pokémon world... with no idea how to talk, walk, or even scratch my nose. And somewhere deep inside my brain, there's a farming manual mocking me.)
My fingers twitched uselessly in the air, while inside I screamed:
(WHERE is the 'Start' button for this damn book?! I need at least a tutorial or something!)
Nothing happened.
The book was there — I could feel it — but it stayed stubbornly locked behind a wall of... infant uselessness.
(Alright, Leo. Chill. You have a whole new life to figure this out. No reason to panic... yet.)
A nurse gently placed me back next to my mom. The lights dimmed, and the noise of the world faded into a soft hum. Warmth, comfort, and exhaustion pulled me under.
Just before sleep swallowed me, a ridiculous thought crossed my mind:
(If I ever get a Pokémon... it's gonna be a Grass-type. I'll build a dragon farm or something. Anything but a normal life.)
And then... darkness.