Down the street of a small city near the edge of nowhere, between nothing junction and dead dream boulevard, walked a young man wearing as unassuming a getup as a man could ever wear under the hot sun of late spring.

A black v-neck t-shirt, a pair of knee-length olive green shorts, and a grey cap. The only article of clothing that differentiated the man from any other run-of-the-mill person out on the street, was a steel chain necklace with a small Star of David attached, the tiny metal hexagram tucked under the man's shirt, away from the sun's rays.

And that man's name was Samuel Cohen.

And he was a piece of work...

Samuel Cohen, or Sam, sometimes Sammy, had a normal early childhood.

He grew up in a loving home with loving parents and had an adorable loving little brother who was just a bit over four years younger than him.

He had an awesome uncle and amazing grandparents, and everything was perfect.

Until it wasn't.

It was a foggy autumn day, sometime in the middle of October, when Sam returned home from school only to find the house empty.

That wasn't that unusual for the boy, his mom worked long shifts at some no-name warehouse, his father basically spent half his life at the local synagogue, and his little brother liked to visit his friends and hang out at their place instead of coming home from school, so Sam simply assumed to himself that that day was one of those rare instances where everything fit together to make him the only one home.

And you know what that means? He's got the television all to himself!

As soon as Sam finished his homework, he turned on the TV and entered the streaming service his Uncle decided to get the family, he opened up some random action movie about spies, a mission-impossible clone, and started his real study session.

Sam liked to watch these types of movies and also shows about police officers that for some reason have Ice-T in them.

He knew the movie sucked, you didn't need to be a cinematic connoisseur to understand why the film got 61 on Rotten Tomatoes, but Sam didn't care about the movie. As far as he was concerned, the real movie started when the characters started to run.

He watched that chase scene from that movie four times in a row, having to turn back the film every ten minutes just so he could rewatch that one scene, noting down in his mind all the little details he could about where the stunt performers placed their hands, the position of their bodies before they jumped, which actors had wires and which didn't, he noted it all.

That movie, that cheap 6/10 clone of a much more successful and better-directed movie, would end up being Samuel's most hated movie.

Not because it was that bad, it was a boring movie that would in any other case be a forgettable moment that he would not remember. No, the reason that the movie earned its place as Sam's most hated work of fiction is because 1 hour and twelve minutes into the movie, The phone rang.

"Hey, That ringtone's the same as our landline," Sam pointed out with a chuckle, And he was correct, the phone in the movie had the same ring as Sam's house's landline.

And it was because of that tiny little detail, that Sam did not hear the actual phone in his house also ring at the exact same time, and thus did not answer.

It was getting late, The sun was already setting, and his parents and brother weren't home yet.

Sam decided that they must have had some issues with wherever they were, and everything was fine. At times like these, it was Sam's duty as the eldest in the house to lock the windows and door, make sure the spare key was in its place, make his own dinner, shower, and end his day on his own.

It was the start of the weekend anyway, it's not like his brother's going to be late for school tomorrow if he doesn't come home in time.

And so Samuel Cohen went to sleep, seeing nothing wrong with the day.

When he woke up the next day, getting out of bed in order to turn off the alarm on his phone that screamed at him to wake up, Sam quickly entered the shower and got himself refreshed before putting on some sporty clothes and entering the living room.

Seeing that nobody was there, Sam assumed that his parents were still asleep and that his brother stayed the night at a friend's place.

Drinking a morning glass of water and putting on his shoes, Samuel went outside, grabbed the spare key to the house and put it in his wallet, before he started running.

"The Deli should be open," He told himself with a smirk as he made his way to his Uncle Moshe's Deli.

But not in any regular way, no, Samuel had to actually exercise this morning.

He started it off by running down the sidewalk, and when the turn in the road came, he kept running straight ahead, crossing the street and the sidewalk on the other side, onto the lawn on the house in front and jumped over the fence at the side of the house, entering the backyard.

"Good Morning Miss Mable!" Samuel yelled in greeting to the old lady who lived in the house he was currently trespassing on.

"Are you going to the Deli? Bring me something vegetarian! Okay?" The old lady called to him, a soft smile on her face as she sat in the rocking chair, watching the teenager jump out of her backyard over the fence on the other side.

On the other side of the fence was a small slope, Sam pulled into a roll as his feet touched the ground before he jumped back up and kept moving as if he wasn't on the floor moments beforehand.
The slope led to a small river that passed by, Sam jumped onto a stone that someone, definitely not Sam a few months back, placed in the stream to act as a way to pass the river without getting his feet wet.

Jumping off the stone, still running, Sam made his way up the slope on the other side of the river, jumped over a shorter fence that led to another street, He turned left the moment his feet touched the sidewalk, running down the street before taking a sharp turn to the right, sliding over the hood of a parked car and running over the road and into an alleyway between two buildings.
His eyes took one glance at the metal fence in the middle of the alley before they looked for his path over the fence.

Without slowing down, Samuel jumped, his right leg landing on an old pipe jutting out of the wall, using that as a springboard to go even higher, Samuel landed on top of a metal dumpster, running on top of it from the right side of the alley to the left before jumping again, his hands latching onto a fire escape ladder which he quickly pulled himself up on, taking two steps up before jumping back down, over the fence, and dropping on to a roll on the other side of the alley from the side he entered in before calmly standing up and checking the time on his phone.

"Tch, so close to a new record," Sam complained to himself before he pocketed his phone and exited the alley, mentally taking a note of the time it took.

Stepping onto the sidewalk and turning right, Sam reached his destination for the morning.

"Hey! Uncle Moshe!" Sam said loudly with a smile, uncaring of the looks he was getting from the other people inside as he walked up to the cash register, "Two cheese and veggie sandwiches," Sam made his order and waited for his uncle to get it for him.

Moshe Cohen was your stereotypical Deli worker, and he wore that badge with pride. He was middle-aged, balding, single, and Jewish, and he didn't care about what anybody said about him.
But most importantly, he always wore a smile on his face.

"Why aren't you smiling? Did something happen yesterday? Is it Jerry? Did you have to fire the guy?" Sam shot rapid-fire questions at his uncle, taking note of the look on his face, the fact that some of the workers weren't there, the missing voices in the back, and other easily identifiable clues as to why someone like Moshe might not be smiling this morning.

"You-" Moshe started to speak before he paused, took a look at Sam's face, and shook his head with a sad exhale, "You know what, It's not my place to ruin your morning today Sammy," Moshe tried to give his nephew a smile, but his lips couldn't quite make it, "Take your sandwiches, they're on the house today, Just go home,"

"Huh?" Sammy sounded, already halfway in opening his wallet, "Why?"

"Just... Just go home Sammy, Get Ms. Mable her breakfast, and then go home..." Moshe shook his head sadly, placed the two sandwiches in a bag, together with a complimentary Bagel, before he turned his back away and walked into the back of the Deli, leaving Samuel confused as to what just happened.

"Okay..." Samuel whispered as he took the bag and left the Deli, taking the long way back to his house, crossing the bridge over the river, and stopping by Miss Mable's house to give her the Sandwich before he finally made it home.

Samuel was hungry, his morning workout made sure of that, and the smell from the bag he was carrying wasn't helping much.

However, instead of opening the door to his house, ready to eat sit at the table and eat his breakfast, Sam found his parents already sitting there.

Sam Froze.

Their clothes and the look in their eyes told him all he needed to know.

Samuel Cohen wasn't hungry anymore.

Sam hated that movie.

No, Hate is a strong word.

Sam wished that movie never existed.

The phone call he missed? It was from his parents. Calling him to tell him to get to the hospital as fast as he could. But he didn't hear it.

That movie... That stupid ringtone... He wanted it gone.

If the ringtone was different, he would have heard his parent calling him, telling him about what happened, he would have dropped everything else he was doing and he would have ran as fast as his legs could take him.
But he didn't hear it.

He didn't hear the phone.

And he didn't hear his last words.

His younger brother, Daniel Cohen, was run over by a drunk driver and rushed to the hospital in critical condition. He wasn't hanging out at a friend's house, he was laying in a hospital bed.
His parents weren't out late at work, they were with him, holding his hand in his final moments.

And Sam wasn't there.

His older brother wasn't there.

Sam didn't hate that movie... He simply wished it never existed.

After the Shiva, during the Sheloshim, when Sam returned to school, it wasn't with the deductive wit and sharp banter his friends knew him for.

He was quiet, detached, lost in his own world almost.

After the bell rang, when the students started going home, Sam stayed in class, just... sitting there, doing nothing.
As if he was looking for any way to delay his return home.

His friends started to distance themselves from him. Screw them, he doesn't need them.

It was near the end of the Sheloshim, 22 days after the funeral, that Sam returned home.

His mother was home, he could tell by her shoes near the entrance, and his father was at the synagogue as usual.

"I'm home..." He grumbled as he took off his shoes and walked inside, dragging his feet on the ground as if he were wading through ankle-deep mud.

He entered his room and slowly started to go through his homework.

He hated it. This feeling. As if he was stuck in a swamp and each day the mud he was standing in was reaching higher.

No, Hate is a strong word.

Sam merely wished that feeling didn't exist.

Once he was done, he exited his room and took a look at the hallway, hoping to catch a glimpse of his mother. She wasn't there.

She was probably sleeping.

Sam turned to his parent's bedroom, noticing the door wasn't closed the whole way.

It's going to be hard to sleep like that.

Sam grabbed the door handle, planning on closing it for his mother, but first... He wanted to see her.
To see if it's normal to cry yourself to sleep sometimes.

Sam opened the door-

He couldn't get that image out of his head.

Even after his father came home and tried to get his attention.
Even after he woke up in that hospital bed, having blacked out.
Even after seeing the second casket enter the ground.
Even after the Shiva and Sheloshim.

He could not get that image out of his head.

That image of the kindest woman he ever knew and a jute rope.

Four years passed, Sam was now 19, Graduated from school, and on his way to the University of Michigan.

Or at least, he would be if he accepted that athletics scholarship.

"I can't leave Dad alone here," Was what he told Moshe when his uncle asked.

"But what about your dream? Didn't you want to be a Stuntman? On a Big screen in Hollywood, doing backflips for action movies?" The Deli owner asked his nephew, the two sitting in the back of the Deli, wearing the uniform of the place.

"Eh," Samuel shrugged, "It is what it is, Maybe I'll try and get a job as a fitness instructor in the future, God knows anybody can get that job," he stood up, ready to resume his shift.

"You know, This might sound a bit annoying coming from me, a man in his early fifties running a Deli, but you need to start dreaming a bit, Become a Stuntman, if anybody has the work ethic to make it, it's you," Uncle Moshe tried to speak with him, give him a familial pat on the back and push him in the right direction.

God knows his father wasn't doing that.

Samuel merely shook his head, ignoring his Uncle's words as he grabbed a mop and started cleaning the dining area.

Sam was making his way down the street, wearing a black v-neck and olive green shorts, a Star of David necklace halfway hidden underneath his shirt, and a grey baseball cap on his head.

"Become a stuntman," Samuel thought back to that dream he had, all those years ago, where he would practice parkour by running through his neighbors lawns and jumping over fences.
He smiled at the memory of those times.

Better times. When Samuel could enjoy his life without needing to worry about if his father would stop eating, or washing himself, or just sit on the balcony alone without moving for hours at a time.

Uncle Moshe comes by to check on him, he is his brother after all, but Sam can't just leave his father behind.

He already left his Brother and Mother, it would be cruel of him to do the same to his father.

...Sam hated it.
This feeling.

This feeling of walking through a swamp, the mud up to his hips, his legs barely responding as he forced them to wade through the pool of mud and filth.

"Hey, Dude, are you okay?"

This feeling of drowning, of suffocating, as if the mud was climbing ever higher, over his shoulders, and his arms could barely move as they tried to push through the walls of mud.

"Hey, My Guy, Blink twice if everything's fine,"

Going home, just to see his father stare into the distance as if there was something there, passing by a room where everything was covered in white sheets, pass the family photos, that just looking at made him want to puke.

"Dude! Hold on, I'm calling an ambulance, everything's going to be fine!"

But that's where his family was. His father lived there, and his Uncle lived on the other side of town, he can't just throw it all away to follow some silly dream of being a stuntman.

"Is he okay?"
"I don't know! I think he's having a stroke or something!"

Heh, A Stuntman, as if he could ever make it in that field. Yeah, UMich wanted to get him, but he couldn't accept, and he was fine with that.
He hated it.
He could work at the Deli, help Uncle Moshe run the family business, stay close to home, and keep making sure that Dad was fine.

It was basically the perfect job for him!
He was drowning in a swamp.

And there was no way that Sam was ever going to leave his father behind just to follow some silly dream like becoming a professional stuntman.

"My Guy, hold on! The ambulance is on its way! You're going to be fine, just hang on a bit longer!"

He hated it.
No.
Samuel Cohen didn't hate it.

He just wished it never existed.

Samuel Cohen let out a nice and relaxed sigh escape his lips as he felt the morning sun hit his body.
He turned his body and pushed himself out of his bed, He rubbed his eyes and-

"...What the fuck?" Samuel said, his eyes opening, all semblance of tiredness and sleep disappearing from his body as he took a look at the world around him.
"What the fuck?!" He repeated, louder than before, his breath starting to quicken as he took in the scenery surrounding him.

Green Leaves and large trees, roots the size of his forearm piercing through the ground, bushes the size of buildings towering over him, the blue sky above the treetops, where the fluffy white clouds sat in the air like sheep in a flock.

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck-" Sam started to panic, he looked at his arms, seeing two brown paws where his hands were supposed to be, "-fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-" He looked at his legs, seeing a pair of large nails where his toes were supposed to be, his feet replaced with light brown paws.

"Heya! You're new around here!" Samuel turned to look at the voice, it reminded him of a plucky kid, like one of those cartoon characters you would see carry a skateboard everywhere.
It was a small white rabbit, "Name's Angel! But there are like four of us named Angel around, so everyone just calls me Angel Bunny, because last I checked, I'm not a Dove,"

Sam stared blankly at the talking rabbit.

"I didn't see ya arrive, so you probably got here in the middle of the night while we were still sleeping! What's your name?"

Sam took a deep breath to try and relax himself, before he opened his mouth in order to answer the question.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"
Never mind, he was screaming in panic.

"AAAAAHHHH!!!!" Surprised at the loud yell escaping the new animal he found, Angel the bunny also started screaming.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"
"AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

"Angel Bunny, is everything okay- AHHHHHHHH!!!" Even the Yellow pony with the pink butterflies on her flank started screaming once she got close enough.

Samuel Cohen was in a nightmare.
That was the only explanation his mind could think of.
And so, instead of thinking of a more realistic explanation, Samuel Cohen's brain decided that it would be a good idea to go back to sleep.

The Wild Chespin has Fainted.

Author's Note

Yo, Many of you probably read my Original run of 'A Walking Chestnut' and so I'm happy to introduce this rewrite! Things are going to be different! No more of that unfunny meta-comedy, this is serious business.
There will still be some comedic moments here and there, but what I'm really going to change here is how I dealt with characterization.

Sam was really flippy-floppy in the original, and I didn't like how his character ended up.
There are going to be many changes from the original run, but I'm telling you now, the other humans-turned-pokemon are going to stay, this story has the Mystery tag after all, they are integral to the plot.

Another thing I didn't like was how fast the plot seemed to be going, I want to take things much slower this time around, and really get to flesh out the characters and their interactions with one another.

The world does not revolve around Samuel, with him as the Axis, I'm going to try my best to make this version of the story feel like a breathing world, with the humans being as human as I can make them, no two-dimensional characters here!

This chapter had some dark themes, but I promise you, things will be a lot lighter for a lot longer before they reach this same level of dark and depressing.

I really hope you all do enjoy. I'm not planning on getting too graphic with any descriptions or details of things, so I can probably keep this Rated-T, but I might change it to Rated-M down the line when serious things really start to hit the fan.

Thanks for Reading!

Edit: We made it to features on the first chapter! Let's fuckin' GOOOOOO!!!!!