Catch

As dusk settles, I enter the clearing, the town’s distant lights promising rest ahead. The air is chilled, the silence, heavy.

With each cautious step, a sense of dread mounts. There is a subtle, unsettling tremor beneath my feet.

Before me, the ground erupts. From the depths emerges a massive serpent, a monolith of rock against the darkening sky. Its eyes burn with a malevolent fire in the encroaching darkness.

I calm my breath and pull the ball from my bag. “I choose you, Pikachu!”