Hello! So, I wrote and posted this fic to AO3 back in early January, in the middle of the night. The state of mild sleep deprivation and mental haziness I experienced during its creation may have contributed to effectively conveying the story's disoriented writing style. I hope you find it enjoyable.
Content Warning: This story contains mild descriptions of temporal disorientation and nausea.
Summary: His molecules remember being here—no, will remember being here—no, are here now, again-before-after, and Lucas's brain squirms inside his skull trying to reconcile the doubled memory of this exact patch of grass...
Or, Dialga's first lesson in temporal mastery involves folding an hour around its student like origami, then watching said student's mortal mind experience, and attempt to comprehend, true simultaneity.
His molecules remember being here—no, will remember being here—no, are here now, again-before-after, and Lucas's brain squirms inside his skull trying to reconcile the doubled memory of this exact patch of grass, these exact clouds scudding overhead, this exact configuration of autumn leaves spinning down from the trees near the lake while Dialga's roar still echoes in his bones (will echo? is echoing?). He wants to vomit but can't remember if his stomach is empty or full because he ate lunch an hour ago. Except he hasn't eaten it yet, except he has, except he will, and somewhere nearby his past self is unwrapping a sandwich, completely unaware that in sixty minutes, he'll be standing exactly where Lucas stands now, experiencing this catastrophic reorganization of causality while time folds around him like origami being unmade.
The world keeps trying to sort itself into before and after but the categories won't hold—everything exists in a terrible simultaneity that a human brain was never built to process, like trying to read two books at once, both eyes focusing on different pages, different words, different stories that are somehow the same story viewed from impossible angles. He sees the Starly that will startle from that branch in forty-three minutes already taking flight, sees it still perched, sees it mid-leap, sees all possible positions of its wings overlaid like a stuttering film reel, and his consciousness skids against the contradiction like tires on ice. A nearby Bidoof pauses in its gathering of twigs, nose twitching as it scents something wrong in the air—perhaps it smells Lucas twice, his scent doubled and overlapping, or perhaps it senses Dialga's lingering presence, that vast and ancient something that just rearranged the universe around Lucas as though it were a curious child playing with puzzle pieces, pulling the puzzle apart and reassembling it at its whims.
His watch still works but the numbers mean nothing now—how can 2:15 come before 3:15 when he's already lived through both, when both moments occupy the same slice of existence, when his cells contain memories of future minutes layered over present seconds like sedimentary rock in reverse? He tries to ground himself in physical sensation: the soft texture of grass under his feet (unchanged), the pleasant and cool temperature of the air (the same), the light weight of his bag against his shoulder (identical)—but these constants only make the temporal vertigo worse because nothing has changed, except everything has changed, except nothing will change, except it already did change and he can feel his thoughts fracturing along these fault lines of contradiction.
A bead of sweat rolls down his neck and he remembers-anticipates-experiences it happening sixty minutes from now-ago-hence, and for a moment Lucas loses track of which version of himself he inhabits—is he the Lucas who first felt this drop of perspiration or the Lucas feeling it again or some quantum superposition of both, stretched across an hour like butter spread too thin on toast? His Pokémon shift restlessly in their balls at his belt, perhaps sensing his distress or perhaps remembering-anticipating-experiencing their own versions of this temporal seasickness. He wonders if they feel it too, this horrible doubling of memory and experience, this sense of time as something viscous and permeable rather than the clean forward arrow he'd always taken for granted.
Somewhere in the park (ahead-behind-concurrent), his past self checks his phone, sees it's almost time to head home, completely unaware that in minutes-hours-now he'll encounter a legend out of myth, a being that treats time like clay to be reshaped at will. Lucas wants to warn him, or congratulate him, or maybe just sit down next to him and compare notes on what it feels like to be normal, to exist in linear time, to experience moments in sequence rather than all at once. But he knows he can't—remembers-anticipates-knows that he didn't-won't-hasn't seen himself, that this hour must unspool exactly as it already has-will-is happening, each moment slotting into place, vertebrae in time's twisted spine.
The paradox of memory itches behind Lucas's eyes: he remembers not seeing himself here, therefore he cannot be seen here, but he is here, watching himself not see himself, and the recursive loop of it threatens to send him spiraling into some mathematical infinity of self-reference. He finds himself checking his pockets compulsively, as if he might have misplaced a moment or mislaid a memory like loose change falling through a hole in the fabric of causality. Everything is still there: his keys, his phone showing the wrong-right-impossible time, the half-eaten granola bar that he finished-will finish-is finishing at 2:47, and looking at it makes his head hurt because he distinctly remembers eating it but also distinctly remembers still having it and both memories insist on their own truth with equal vigor.
A child chases a balloon past him (past-future-present tense verbs tangling in his mind like fishing line) and Lucas sees-saw-will see it pop against a tree branch at 3:07, sees-saw-will see the child's face crumple in disappointment, but right now the balloon is whole and red and bobbing in the autumn air and the child is laughing and both realities coexist in Lucas's scrambled consciousness. He wants to warn the child, or prevent the pop, or do something to change the course of events, but he's beginning to understand that he can't alter what will happen because it already has happened because it is happening because it will happen, and his role in this hour is not to change but simply to observe, to experience, to endure this lesson in the malleability of what he once thought immutable.
The wind picks up and he smells woodsmoke from a barbecue that hasn't been lit yet but also has been burning for twenty minutes. The doubled sensory input makes him dizzy—or maybe he's dizzy because his inner ear is trying to balance in two different moments simultaneously. His eyes keep trying to focus on things that aren't there yet or aren't there anymore or are there twice, and the cognitive dissonance builds in his skull like pressure before a storm. He finds himself avoiding looking at his own hands, afraid they might be transparent or duplicated or somehow wrong in ways his mind can't process without shorting out like a circuit exposed to too much current.
Time must be healing itself around him, knitting the torn moments back together like a wound scabbing over, because gradually the doubling begins to fade—or maybe Lucas's brain is simply giving up on trying to process two timelines at once, choosing to accept this second version of events as his new reality while the first set of memories settles into the background. The Starly has taken flight, the balloon has popped, his past self has encountered Dialga and been sent back to become his present self, and the loop closes with the neat click of a watch being wound. He stands there for a long moment (singular, blessedly singular) after the doubling subsides, feeling time resume its familiar forward march with the same relief he imagines a sailor feels when setting foot on solid ground after months at sea.
Somewhere behind him (only behind him now, finally only behind him) Dialga's roar echoes across the surface of the lake, preparing to unmake an hour that has already been unmade, that will always have been unmade, that was unmade precisely so it could happen again.
...Well shit. If this was how Dialga was going to act as his teacher, Lucas had a lot more mental exercising to do.
AO3 Link
Content Warning: This story contains mild descriptions of temporal disorientation and nausea.
Summary: His molecules remember being here—no, will remember being here—no, are here now, again-before-after, and Lucas's brain squirms inside his skull trying to reconcile the doubled memory of this exact patch of grass...
Or, Dialga's first lesson in temporal mastery involves folding an hour around its student like origami, then watching said student's mortal mind experience, and attempt to comprehend, true simultaneity.
His molecules remember being here—no, will remember being here—no, are here now, again-before-after, and Lucas's brain squirms inside his skull trying to reconcile the doubled memory of this exact patch of grass, these exact clouds scudding overhead, this exact configuration of autumn leaves spinning down from the trees near the lake while Dialga's roar still echoes in his bones (will echo? is echoing?). He wants to vomit but can't remember if his stomach is empty or full because he ate lunch an hour ago. Except he hasn't eaten it yet, except he has, except he will, and somewhere nearby his past self is unwrapping a sandwich, completely unaware that in sixty minutes, he'll be standing exactly where Lucas stands now, experiencing this catastrophic reorganization of causality while time folds around him like origami being unmade.
The world keeps trying to sort itself into before and after but the categories won't hold—everything exists in a terrible simultaneity that a human brain was never built to process, like trying to read two books at once, both eyes focusing on different pages, different words, different stories that are somehow the same story viewed from impossible angles. He sees the Starly that will startle from that branch in forty-three minutes already taking flight, sees it still perched, sees it mid-leap, sees all possible positions of its wings overlaid like a stuttering film reel, and his consciousness skids against the contradiction like tires on ice. A nearby Bidoof pauses in its gathering of twigs, nose twitching as it scents something wrong in the air—perhaps it smells Lucas twice, his scent doubled and overlapping, or perhaps it senses Dialga's lingering presence, that vast and ancient something that just rearranged the universe around Lucas as though it were a curious child playing with puzzle pieces, pulling the puzzle apart and reassembling it at its whims.
His watch still works but the numbers mean nothing now—how can 2:15 come before 3:15 when he's already lived through both, when both moments occupy the same slice of existence, when his cells contain memories of future minutes layered over present seconds like sedimentary rock in reverse? He tries to ground himself in physical sensation: the soft texture of grass under his feet (unchanged), the pleasant and cool temperature of the air (the same), the light weight of his bag against his shoulder (identical)—but these constants only make the temporal vertigo worse because nothing has changed, except everything has changed, except nothing will change, except it already did change and he can feel his thoughts fracturing along these fault lines of contradiction.
A bead of sweat rolls down his neck and he remembers-anticipates-experiences it happening sixty minutes from now-ago-hence, and for a moment Lucas loses track of which version of himself he inhabits—is he the Lucas who first felt this drop of perspiration or the Lucas feeling it again or some quantum superposition of both, stretched across an hour like butter spread too thin on toast? His Pokémon shift restlessly in their balls at his belt, perhaps sensing his distress or perhaps remembering-anticipating-experiencing their own versions of this temporal seasickness. He wonders if they feel it too, this horrible doubling of memory and experience, this sense of time as something viscous and permeable rather than the clean forward arrow he'd always taken for granted.
Somewhere in the park (ahead-behind-concurrent), his past self checks his phone, sees it's almost time to head home, completely unaware that in minutes-hours-now he'll encounter a legend out of myth, a being that treats time like clay to be reshaped at will. Lucas wants to warn him, or congratulate him, or maybe just sit down next to him and compare notes on what it feels like to be normal, to exist in linear time, to experience moments in sequence rather than all at once. But he knows he can't—remembers-anticipates-knows that he didn't-won't-hasn't seen himself, that this hour must unspool exactly as it already has-will-is happening, each moment slotting into place, vertebrae in time's twisted spine.
The paradox of memory itches behind Lucas's eyes: he remembers not seeing himself here, therefore he cannot be seen here, but he is here, watching himself not see himself, and the recursive loop of it threatens to send him spiraling into some mathematical infinity of self-reference. He finds himself checking his pockets compulsively, as if he might have misplaced a moment or mislaid a memory like loose change falling through a hole in the fabric of causality. Everything is still there: his keys, his phone showing the wrong-right-impossible time, the half-eaten granola bar that he finished-will finish-is finishing at 2:47, and looking at it makes his head hurt because he distinctly remembers eating it but also distinctly remembers still having it and both memories insist on their own truth with equal vigor.
A child chases a balloon past him (past-future-present tense verbs tangling in his mind like fishing line) and Lucas sees-saw-will see it pop against a tree branch at 3:07, sees-saw-will see the child's face crumple in disappointment, but right now the balloon is whole and red and bobbing in the autumn air and the child is laughing and both realities coexist in Lucas's scrambled consciousness. He wants to warn the child, or prevent the pop, or do something to change the course of events, but he's beginning to understand that he can't alter what will happen because it already has happened because it is happening because it will happen, and his role in this hour is not to change but simply to observe, to experience, to endure this lesson in the malleability of what he once thought immutable.
The wind picks up and he smells woodsmoke from a barbecue that hasn't been lit yet but also has been burning for twenty minutes. The doubled sensory input makes him dizzy—or maybe he's dizzy because his inner ear is trying to balance in two different moments simultaneously. His eyes keep trying to focus on things that aren't there yet or aren't there anymore or are there twice, and the cognitive dissonance builds in his skull like pressure before a storm. He finds himself avoiding looking at his own hands, afraid they might be transparent or duplicated or somehow wrong in ways his mind can't process without shorting out like a circuit exposed to too much current.
Time must be healing itself around him, knitting the torn moments back together like a wound scabbing over, because gradually the doubling begins to fade—or maybe Lucas's brain is simply giving up on trying to process two timelines at once, choosing to accept this second version of events as his new reality while the first set of memories settles into the background. The Starly has taken flight, the balloon has popped, his past self has encountered Dialga and been sent back to become his present self, and the loop closes with the neat click of a watch being wound. He stands there for a long moment (singular, blessedly singular) after the doubling subsides, feeling time resume its familiar forward march with the same relief he imagines a sailor feels when setting foot on solid ground after months at sea.
Somewhere behind him (only behind him now, finally only behind him) Dialga's roar echoes across the surface of the lake, preparing to unmake an hour that has already been unmade, that will always have been unmade, that was unmade precisely so it could happen again.
...Well shit. If this was how Dialga was going to act as his teacher, Lucas had a lot more mental exercising to do.
AO3 Link