As I sit here in my bathroom, soaking in a nice warm scented bath, I reflect upon my life, and how much it's sucked. I look down to my hand and stare at the sharp blade I hold delicately in my fingers. When I had first touched it, it had been cold, but now the warmth from the water and my fingers has changed that, and it feels like an extension of my body.

Sighing, I close my eyes, inhaling deeply the sweet lavender scent from the bath crystals. How long have I been in here? The water was scalding hot originally, but now it's the perfect temperature. Again, I look at the blade. If I want to do this, I should do it quickly. I start to lift the blade, and I hold it against my right wrist. No, maybe I should do my right wrist first, so I switch the position of the blade.

Suddenly, the door bursts open, and I see my little sister, only eleven years old. Curly blonde hair, bright blue eyes, she's the perfect picture of beauty and innocence dressed in a growlithe nightgown, all that I could never be. "What are you doing?" She asks me, eyes wide with surprise, her voice frank and clear, like a sweet little bell.

"Nothing, Anna, just go to bed, okay?" I tell her, not wanting her to see me like this. I'm very aware of the tear streaks down my face which is flushed from the heat of the bath.

She seems skeptical, but as always, she decides to be a good girl and listen to her older brother. "Good night Jaren! And happy Christmas Eve!" She says brightly as she slips out.

"Good night... how appropriate..." Again, I close my eyes, picturing myself slitting my wrists. Many morons slit them wrong, right where their hands meet their wrists. I, of course, know that you're supposed do it kind of vertically, directly along the vein.

Despite the fact that I'm nice and warm, I shudder. Why do I know these things? Normal people aren't supposed to know the 'right way' to slit you wrists!

But then, I've never been normal, have I? It all started with the voices, when I was only thirteen. I'm sixteen now, three whole years later... But back to the voices. At first, I just thought they were my conscience or something, telling me not to do things that were wrong, but then they started to be more vocal, dictating everything I should do, ruling my life.

Being the weak person I've always been, I listened to them, confused about what was going on. I'd known that there were humans who developed psychic powers every now and then, but they were psychic pokemon trainers, and normally their parents, or someone in their family had had psychic abilities. There's no history of it in my family.

So I thought I was just going mad.

This went on for a year. I'd be about to, say, call one of my friends to ask him if he wanted to go see a movie, but then the voices would tell me that I shouldn't, and that he'd been spreading rumors about me behind my back or something. Thankfully, it was just minor stuff like that, but then after the first year, they realized that I was under their complete control. I no longer had any friends, I was the weird kid with the spiky, dyed blue hair, who dressed in black and rarely spoke. When other kids planned on starting their first pokemon journeys, I was researching pokemon mythology, or trying to find out what was wrong with me by browsing the Medical section of the library. Eventually, I gave up on myself, and the voices took over me completely.

I started to yell at my parents for no reason, or during classes, I'd just get up and leave. I took up smoking, and eventually dropped out of school. Then the stealing started. Little things at first, like shoplifting. But then I started breaking into people's houses. I never got caught. I still do it.

It was only this year that I learnt that I was being controlled by psychic pokemon. There aren't many in this town, so I knew relatively nothing about them. But then I woke up one morning to find an abra in my room. Startled, I'd started to walk towards it, when, in a familiar voice, it had commanded me to stop. Immediately, I recognized it as the voice that kept tormenting me to kill the persian next door...

Frightened suddenly, I had backed into the wall by my bed, staring at the pokemon. It had smiled, then like usual, started to try to persuade me to kill the persian...

Mrs. Wallis found Slash gutted, eyes gauged out, and hanging by it's tail from her roof, right above her front door. Bright red blood from the poor pokemon, which had been alive while I had hung it, but just barely, had dripped onto the clean white snow at the door step.

From then on, I would often walk into my room and find a psychic pokemon sitting on my bed, or maybe my floor. Sometimes they just wanted to talk. Other times, they wanted to see how far they could push me. But what I found the worst, was when they would just watch me silently, observing everything I did with the piercing gaze of a hunting fearow.

I learnt to deal with this strange obsession with me that these psychic pokemon had. I even named them after I became more familiar with their appearances and voices. Jyx the Abra, the one that made me kill the persian, Klik the Alakazam, the one usually behind my stealing, Ria the Espeon, who had a strange disliking of my parents, Filix the Girafarig, who usually just watched me, or talked to me about the weirdest, most random, and morbid topics. The one I feared the most, however, was Dii, the Hypno... The one that's the main reason that I now hold a blade vertically over the vein in my right wrist, ready to cut through my skin.

Dii tended not to really do much to me, just watch. And watch. And watch. I eventually learnt that she wa reading my mind, learning about me, trying to figure out what would be the worst thing she could do to me.

Early December, it seemed she had decided what that would be. Carefully, she started to remind me of Kyle. He had been my best friend since kindergarten, until the voices started, and by the end of the first year, we had seperated, never talking to each other again. Mid-December, she started putting images of him tied up in my mind, soon to be followed by images of him dead and tied up, images of him dead, and bleeding... I would wake up int he middle of the night, screaming, and find the Hypno looking at me. It would dissapear immediately, and then my parents and my little sister would run in, asking me what was wrong, and as usual, I would snap at them, tell them that nothing was wrong, and go back to my tortured sleep.

I couldn't stand the fact that they stilled cared about me. Especially Anna. Why did she still love me? Still make me Christmas and birthday presents... On my sixteenth birthday in July, she had made me breakfast in bed, and gave me a stuffed mew, which coincidentally, was the only psychic pokemon I was, for some reason, not afraid of. As a matter of fact, it's perched on the towel rack on the opposite side of the tub where I can look at it.

Two days ago, however, Dii finally got through to me. I'd started doing drugs recently, but I'd run out, and I was trying to satisfy my drug cravings by chain-smoking. Dii appeared, and in my state at that time, I was unable to fight off her mental coercions as she led me to the garage, instructing me to get my father's gun. Then off to Kyle's house.

He was home alone, watching TV. It was so loud, he didn't even hear me coming in, he didn't know I was there until I appeared at the door to the rec room, holding the small gun pointed at him.

"Jaren?" He exclaimed, surprised. He was about to stand, when I narrowed my eyes, and he immediately stopped. "What are you doing man?"

"I'm going to kill you." I replied, walking over to him and gagging him with a clothe napkin that had been lying around. With the rope that was draped over my shoulder, I tied him to the wooden rocking chair he was sitting in, standing back briefly to admire my work.

I won't got into what I did to him. It was too brutal, too un-like me... And I'm too ashamed of what I did, too disgusted of myself. But let's just say that when his parents found him, they didn't recognize him, for he was too bloody and cut up to be immediately recognized as even a human...

His death had been slow and painful. Mine isn't going to be as bad... I'd hang myself, but I have no rope left...

I'm done reflecting over what I've done. I can hear them in my mind, trying to tell me to stop, but with a sudden strength I never had, I shut them out of my mind, ignoring them. Carefully, I slit my right wrist, bringing the sharp blade down and pressing it deeply into the skin, slicing along the vein. Trying to ignore the pain, I put the blade in my right hand and slit my left wrist in the same, deliberate way.

Satisfied, I lower my wrists into the water, sighing as the warm water somewhat relieves the pain as my life runs from my body in crimson streams. The water slowly starts to redden, and I marvel at the deep red of my blood, still fascinated by how beautiful the shade of red blood is...

But then, much to my surprise, the door opens. Strangely enough, I just look at the person, my eyes starting to droop as I've lost way too much blood now.

"Jaren!"

It's Anna? What's Anna doing still up? And she never used to come in the bathroom while I was there!

"What are you doing Jaren!" She demands, reaching into the water and lifting one of my wrists. "Jaren!" She shrieks as my eyes close, and my head rolls back, my body slipping into the water.

Everything's dark... I can't really see anything now... So peaceful... Am I dead yet?

/No... You shall not die. Anna has pulled you out of the water and is binding your wrists with strips from her nightgown. She's called 911. This was a nice Christmas present for your parents./ The voice tells me in a wry tone.

/Who are you? I don't recognize your voice.../

/You shouldn't./

Suddenly, instead of black, a bright pink light fills my mind, and slowly takes the form of the great, legendary pokemon Mew. /Mew? But, why?/

/Your heart is good, but it's been tainted by some of my brothers and sisters... They are dead now. I was busy elsewhere, I did not notice their antics until now. I appeared to your sister tonight, and beckoned her to come save you. A few more minutes, and I would have been too late./

/I still don't understand.../

/You're a strong psychic, and you have a good heart. You have it in you to be one of the best psychic pokemon trainers, if you get the mental help you need. Those pokemon hurt you badly, probably scarred you for life./ She floated, seeming to smile kindly at me. /You will have to go through a lot. They will never find that it was you who killed Kyle, or committed all those other crimes, but you must re-start your life./

/Re-start my life? But.../

She started to float away. /Goodbye Jaren. I must leave now, you're waking up. It's Christmas morning. I'll see you later.../

My eyes open, and I see Anna standing by my side, her eyes red from crying. "Jaren? You're awake?" She throws her arms around me, wrapping my in a fierce hug. "Thank Mew you're awake..."

I smile, something I haven't done for a long time. "I love you Anna."

"I love you too Jaren..." She lets me go, then runs to the chair that is near my bed, picking something up. "Look what I brought!" She hands me my stuffed mew, and I start to cry again. "What's wrong?"

Through my tears, I manage to smile. "Nothing's wrong, everything's right now..." I take the mew from her, then hug her again. "Thank you Anna."

Mew is right. It is time for me to re-start my life, and I am going to do just that, starting with being a good big brother to Anna, and showing my parents how much I really love them.

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