Darren stared at the lapping water before him, the dappled sparks of sinking light blurrying into the soft smell of chlorine and leaving him adrift in his thoughts. This was his favorite place to go to after his classes were finished for the day, though he could not exactly say why. The smell of the treated water was not exactly pleasant to his sensitive nose and staying in the pool for too long often left him feeling slightly burnt despite how nice the water felt.

No...looking around he noticed that there was simply no one else there. The empty state leaving him both simultaneously relieved and saddened at the same time. Normally there were a lot of PCA students in here. Mostly water types who used the small pool area as a place to relax and hang, but this late into the day, it was just him.

His finned tail splashed at the water beside him, spraying up doplets that soaked into his swimsuit and shirt. It was not that he did not want to be around others. It was just-

He stared at the little nicks and scars that decorated his thick appendage as it drifted within the lapping surf, each wound a reminder of his recent evolution.

To meet with others right now was just simply too much. To him, it felt almost like as if he were talking to people in a costume. A facade. A fake. Initially, he had been excited to become a Vaporeon. Who wouldn't enjoy becoming a creature who could swim where it wanted or explore the depths without a care?

The idea at the time had captured him so utterly that he felt like he had been in a dream. Just skipping from one situation to the next. He remembered clearly what had allowed him to make his decision between the various eeveelutions, his eyes spying a nautical magazine with themes of underwater exploration and how the beauty had caught his eyes. Then his memory jumped to telling his parent's whose faces had beamed so bright they almost became hard to look at, then he was at the party and being gifted that clear blue stone. It had felt cool to the touch and he remembered trembling as the hidden power within pulsed in his hand. Then, almost like letting the flood gates of a dam open, he had allowed that energy to enter his small eevee body.

There was not much to remember of the change itself. All he knew was that when it was over, his family was cheering and he had felt so proud of himself. Then, almost immediately after, he was enrolled into the PCA and shipped to the school. Soon after, once the excitement had died off and his realization that what he had done was permanent had sunk in, he withdrew into himself. It was not something he had done on purpose. It had just simply happened.

He really didn't know if he wanted to be a Vaporeon anymore.

Pulling his legs out of the water and curling them against his chest, the waterstone necklace he kept hidden within his shirt pressing against his blue skin, he could feel tears coming to his eyes. He really missed his old body and there were so many other eeveelutions he could have turned into. What had he thrown away by haphazardly changing his body like he had? What futures were now gone forever?

A drop fell onto his shirt, the salty stain mixing in with easily with those made of pool water.

He just really really wanted to wake up from this dream now.

---

When it comes to the eeveelutions. There's a real feeling of choices to be made and lost when it comes to their evolutions. If you could go in any direction, how might you feel when you finally make the permanent choice? For some, it might just be too much to handle alone.

A friend was gracious enough to allow me to practice my art skills with a sketch of their PCA character Darren Macleod. A lonely fellow who, unfortunately, seems to be paralyzed with a sense of the weight of his evolution choice. Hopefully he feels better.

Sketch by and Darren Macleod belong to  BradleyFox

Lines, Color, and Shading by  Umbreon07