The Struggle Within CH.3
".....Did you just speak? Quickly say something else!"
"Ok?Ok ok!"
"Looks like Taylor's gonna have to give you speech lessons. At least you can say something. Come on, lets get back to the farm." They start walking towards the barn.
"So... Why'd you wonder off?"
Shadow just looked at the ground
"well tell me later then" she smiles, making shadow's heart fill with joy.
Suddenly, he starts getting dizzy. He sits down. Alice turns around "hey you ok?"
Shadow looks down at his stomach. He feels the red liquid dripping. "oh, man your bleeding. Shit! You didn't take your pills! Oh man. Oh maaaaan. Do you think you can make it back?"
Shadow stands up, nods and starts walking. 2 minutes later, he collapses on the ground and blacks out.
* * *
"needs help! Get Rick!"...... "God,What ha-"....."shhh. Watch him."....
"is he gonna be ok?" " I'm not sure." [voices... Barley aware of whats going on....]
"NEVER AGAIN! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!"
* * *
Shadow finally awakes. He sees Taylor sitting next to him, but not looking at him. He steadies his breathing so she still thinks he's asleep. She looks up.
[crap. And as for the weather here comes lectures and heavy rain]
" Oh I see your awake." He looks down.
"Now listen to me. What you did was unacceptable, so from now on someone will accompany you at all times until you can be more responsible. Not only that but I will give you speech lessons." He put his ears down. "But what were you thinking! You could've gotten yourself killed! Luckily alice found you! But what if she hadn't. You've been here two days and you've already got everyone on their toes when there around you." He felt the tears running down. He tried to control it, then felt more running down. "What compelled you to do such an idiotic, stupid thing!" He looked at her. She saw his tears and felt a soft spot for him. Listen. I like you I really do. I feel like your my son. I just don't want you to get hurt or anything." Shadow nodded In agreement. He hadn't noticed that he was In the barn. "Come on, let's go out and eat" He wipes his tears and follows Taylor as she leads him outside. It's starting to get dark out.The rest of the group Sits around a fire, eating their Food. Immediately, he feels all eyes on him. He looks down, following Taylor's feet. She leads him to his bowl. He eats while the adults converse. Suddenly he hears "Hello" he turns around to see a squirtle, a shinx, Alice and Anthony sitting nearby.
" I don't think we've properly met. I'm Charlie, this is sparky, and I'm pretty sure you met Alice and Anthony. Also that Pidgeot is Ace, the growlith is Dan, and I'm sure you know Taylor by now from that lecture. Yeah... We heard it. Don't sweat it though, were all cool here" he smiles. Shadow smiles back. He turns back to his food and continues eating. When he finished, he saw another bowl slide next to him with a little more food In it. He looked up to see Alice smiling. "Told ya I'd sneak you a little more food." He smiles, and continues eating. [Wow, I cant wait to talk. It will be so much more easier to communicate!]
One he finished, he looked at his new friends. "Hey I got an idea. Let's go play with the ball. Hey mom!" Anthony says
"Yes honey?"
"Can we go play with the ball?"
"Ok, for a little"
Alice leads the way followed by Charlie, sparky, anthony and shadow. "Psst." Anthony says. Shadow looks at him. "Would you like to be my best friend?" Shadow looks up, Thinking. After a few seconds, he nods. "Great! Now when we play with the ball, we'll ask for teams. The goal is to get it into the other teams net. The humans call it Soccer."
They walk into a huge field with 2 nets on each side. Sparky walks up to shadow and says "I trust anthony told you the rules." Shadow nods. "Great. Anthony asked for teams. So well play rookies against pro's. Alice, you, and Anthony are one team. Me and Charlie are the other team. First to two wins. Let's play!" Charlie and Sparky go to one side and everyone else goes to the other side.
Alice gets the ball and passes it to Anthony. Anthony runs with it near the goal. He almost makes it, but sparky takes the ball. He almost makes it, but shadow steals the ball and runs as fast as he can to the other side. Charlie's blocking, but he see's Alice open. He passes it to her, and she makes the shot. "pfft. Pure luck."
They continue playing. Sparky starts off with the ball, runs towards it, and makes the goal.
It's the last round. Everyone runs for the ball except shadow. He stays back on guard. Anthony gets the ball, but charlie takes it and runs towards the goal. Shadow hits the ball and passes it to Anthony. Anthony makes the goal. "We won! We won!" Alice says. "Yay Woohoo!" anthony yells and jumps In happiness. Shadow smiles. "Ok guys time for bed!" Taylor says. "Yeah hurry before I fly myself over there and lock you In the barn!" Ace says. Everyone runs into the barn. But before shadow runs in, he turns back. He see's a caterpie climbing up a tree. He shivers, whimpers, then runs inside. He settles down In a hay pile and closes his eyes. He hears someone whispering to him, but by then, he's drifted off into blissful sleep.
* * *
Shadow wakes up. He walks out of the barn and looks towards the woods.
[Yeah, let's not get a repeat of last time] He walks towards Taylor, getting ready for speech lessons. She looks up. "Hey. Ready to speak?" He nods. "Great. Lets start on easy words. I want you to say ok."
"ok"
"Good. Now say hello. Hello is a greeting."
"hel...he...hello?"
"Good,good. Your getting better then I expected. Let's try some more. Can you says is?"
* 7 hours later *
"Hello, I is shadow. I live with a farm" shadow says, noticing his mistakes.
"It's better. Needs more work but at least people get the jist of it. Well practice more tomorrow ok?" Taylor asks.
"Ok Taylor!" he says and scurries off to go play with his friends.
He loved words. He loved communicating. It was so much easier. But he didn't know much words. And he didn't have...what did Taylor call it? Gamma,gain...Grammar! That was it! He didn't have good grammar. Hopefully he'll learn it later.
He sees Alice and Anthony. He walks over to them.
"Uh...Hello."
"Wow cool! You can talk now." Alice says In amazement.
"Not best gamma, mean grammar."
"it's ok. At least u can talk" Anthony says happily.
"Yeah. Should we play with ball?"
"Uh, sure."
They walk over to play with the ball.
* * *
It's night. They walk over to enjoy their dinner. Halfway through, taylor announces something. "I have good news. Shadow can talk" there are cheers from the mini-crowd. "And I have one more announcement. Anthony and shadow will be going around this region and battle gym leaders with there new leader, Crystal!"
More cheers from the crowd. Except from Alice, Anthony, and shadow, who look at each other, dumbfounded.