As I walk through the door, I immediately smell smoke.

“Mama, Papa, where are you?” I cry out as the flames lick around me. The mansion, the only home I've ever known, is swiftly being burned to ash.

And I am only six years old.

Was it Entei, my surrogate papa, who did this? No. No, he loved me as much as my true father, Spencer Hale, ever did, perhaps more. Papa, my real papa, loved us...both of us.

Both of us? Who is my other half? More to the point, do I even have another half? I can't think now, not with the flames rising as high as they are. I must make sure those that I love are safe. Mama and Papa have already raced to the front steps, I can hear them calling my name. I want to be near them, to tell them I'm fine and unharmed, and yet...an unspeakable force is driving me into the upper part of the mansion. I feel the searing heat of the flames, but I'm not worried...Entei is guiding me.

“Molly, Molly!” The cries of my parents are fading, replaced by the voice of a young boy, ten years old by the sound of him. There, the door on the right, just across from mine, a door I scarcely touch anymore.

“Molly, I can't get out!” the boy cries and the contact of a shoulder against wood is heard as he tries to break free. There's something familiar about his voice...is it Ash? No, he's someone much closer, as Entei's spirit tells me. The presence of Entei is so strong about me that I know I must help the troubled boy trapped inside. I push the searing hot door open and step onto the burning carpet.

I barely have time to get my bearings when I feel the strongest of hugs crush me against the boy's chest. My eyes are shut against the flames, but when I open them again I finally see the cover of his hooded jacket. It's a gray jacket, a jacket only one person I know would wear.

My brother...Joey's jacket. How could he be hugging me now, I sent him away a year ago when the Unown came to me! “How did...?” I manage through my tears.

“Shhh, there's no time, Molly. Stand still a minute...” Before I can react he scoops me into his arms, something he hasn't done since I was three, and races down the corridor, the dark wood floor melting underneath our feet. When we reach the top of the stairs, the fire has reached its full strength, but the sight of the Wartortle attempting to put out the flames brings us a few seconds of relief. The fire is too strong even for water Pokemon to withstand. One of the firemen races to the bottom of the stairs.

“Are you kids okay? We're coming to get you!” he reassures us.

“Yeah, Molly and I didn't breathe any smoke, we're-”

Joey doesn't finish his sentence. The flames that have been creeping upon us are behind him, until they encircle his feet. He sets me on the ground, fresh tears prickling his eyes. “Go, Molly,” he says. “The firemen will come, they will come, they will come...” I stop on the stairs, transfixed, as Joey is swallowed by flame until his whole body is gone forever.

“Come on, sweetheart, just slide down the stairs...” the fireman says coaxingly.

“Giving her sweet words won't do us a bit of good, I'm getting her myself!” a second fireman says, racing up the stairs and carrying me down into the crumbling front hall. Do they see, do they care? My brother's gone, someone could've saved him, why did you wait, why?

“JOEY!” I yell as I watch the flames that are now burning brightly in my bedroom window...

“JOEY!” My scream startles me as I sit up in bed, trying to calm the racing of my pounding heart, but I am even more startled to feel the pink bedsheets I know so well tucked around my small form. My blue eyes wide, I stare around my bedroom. Everything is in its proper place, my stuffed toys in the corner and my computer aglow on my desk. There is no smoke, no fire, no flames.

No Joey either.

It is in that moment that it all begins to sink into my mind, just as fresh as when it really happened a year ago. I had been five years old, Joey was ten, and it was just after Papa disappeared. We had been trying to find out what happened when I was suddenly distracted by a box on the table. As I was spelling the names of my family, I began to cry, wishing for my father to return to me.

But not without a price. The Unown took my brother, my best friend, my protector, away instead. I will never forget the agony I went through the moment his hand was pulled unmercifully from mine, all the tears I've cried since then.

In some respects my father did return; Entei was enough to fill the void of loneliness that was in my soul for awhile. After Mama and Papa came home, life went back to normal for everyone but me. Teddiursa is my only friend now, and I can only hope and pray that the brother I still love will remember me.

“Teddi?” Teddiursa inquires sleepily as I let go of him and slip out of bed, walking across the room to the desk. The only time I ever saw Papa get angry was the day I told him Joey was missing and he threw a framed photograph into the drawer. He didn't blame it on me, I know, it was just that he was frustrated for not spending enough time with us.

I didn't dare look at that photograph since then...until now. I pull the photo from its shattered frame and look at it long and hard until I feel the tears pouring. It's a photo Mama saved for our family album since she was worried I might break it. The picture is of me and Joey in front of our stone garden walls, ivy curling behind us. Joey's in a formal suit, his black hair ruffled, while I'm in a yellow dress with a big blue bow in my brown hair. We're smiling happily, drowning in our own innocence. That was when we were a real family, when he was seven and I three years old.

I put the photo on the desk, my attention on something else: an ornate music box, dusty from being untouched for so long. I wind it up slowly, pulling up the lid as I watch the two blond children holding hands rotate in front of the small mirror. For years I'd begged Joey to come up with words and he finally sang it the night Mama disappeared. I close my eyes, shut the music box, and reach for the photo instead. Holding it close to my heart, I step over to the largest window in my bedroom, looking out at a starry night over Greenfield. I study the picture for a few moments more, then turn my gaze back to Greenfield, a song in my mind as I think of the one person who meant so much to me.

“How will I start
Tomorrow without you here,
Whose heart will guide me
When all the answers disappear?
Is it too late?
Are you too far gone to stay?
Best friends forever
Should never have to go away.
What will I do,
You know
I'm only half without you.
How will I make it through?”

“If only tears could bring you back to me,
If only love could find a way.
What I would do,
What I would give if you
Returned to me someday,
Somehow, some way...
If my tears could bring you back
To me...”

I know there is more to the song, but the loss of my brother is too much to bear. I crawl under my bedsheets and hug Teddiursa close.

Entei...Papa...I turn it over to you now. Can you grant my final wish...?