CreepyPasta Stories

Story 21: Pokémon Blue

I love Pokémon; It was the first game I ever really got into when I was young - maybe sixteen or seventeen - and it stayed with me as I grew up. I always thought I'd play Pokémon all my life, because I could never put it down. It just has that effect on you. You already probably know what I mean, right?

I guess I was a bit older than the average Pokémon fan when I got my hands on my first game, which I remember being a copy of Pokémon Blue. Like a million other kids that year, I received it as a Christmas gift. Across the country, countless Pokémon games were being unwrapped, that very morning. They all came from the very same factory in Japan, crafted together by the same hands. They were all stuck in shiny new Game Boy handhelds and turned on for the very first time. I remember I had the biggest smile on my face when I began my adventure, nestled beside the Christmas Tree, decked out in full winter pajamas.

I selected Bulbasaur as my starter, caught a Pidgey, and caught a Caterpie. I brought my strong three-man team through the first couple of gyms without a hitch. I thought everything was going well. Brock and Misty were a piece of cake - Bulbasaur IS easy mode. Rock and Water types bow down to Grass. Admittedly, Lt. Surge gave me some issues, but I eventually triumphed after a bit of grinding. It was one after the other.

Eventually, I came across the HM Cut and was given access to Route 9 and soon after, Rock Tunnel. It took me a day to navigate through the darkness, but I did it. By then, the month of December was reaching its close. I'd shut myself up in my room for a few hours every day playing Pokémon, grinding Pidgeotto, Butterfree, and Ivysaur up a few levels each time. I didn't care. I was having a blast. A friend of mine even traded me a Sandslash for a Charmander, which brought my team up to four strong. I didn't think the game could get any better. Then I stepped foot into Lavender Town.

For a few seconds, I stared at my Game Boy's screen as the color scheme turned gloomy. The music began playing and I made a face. Lavender Town's melody was melancholy and sad - completely unlike all the other themes I'd heard so far. I immediately realized this place was something else, something the developers wanted to set apart from the rest. I didn't know any other reason they would have gone to the lengths they did to make Lavender Town seem so dark. The haunting music followed me into every building, even the Pokémon Center. No longer smiling, I waited impatiently for Nurse Joy to heal up my pals as the depressing sounds wore on. I thought they'd never end.

Having hung around Lavender Town long enough, I made my way to the Western exit. Everything was going according to plan until I realized I had majorly goofed and forgot to check out the town's main feature: the Pokémon Tower. Lying back on my bed, I pulled the Game Boy close to my face and squinted. Pretty much everything was hard to see because the Game Boy obviously didn't have a backlight, so I turned on my room's lamp and glanced at the window. It was maybe nine or ten PM about then. Everyone in my house was going to head off to sleep soon.

I decided to play on. As I walked into the Pokémon Tower and talked to the depressed NPCs, I began to lose some of my focus. My eyelids were getting heavy and I was mashing buttons subconsciously. I talked to the same girl over and over without realizing it. Her dialogue filled the bottom of my screen a few times. "Growlithe, why did you die? Growlithe, why did you die? Growlithe, why did you die?" It was weird how the characters always say the same thing over and over again. You'd think it was an error or something - that these poor NPCs are glitchy fragments of real people, doomed to say the same thing over and over until the end of time. Here, at least, it seemed fitting. They were only mourning.

I progressed up the levels of the tower, beat my Rival, and entered the floor with the mystical healing pad. I walked over it a few times, tentative to breach the edges, let another unidentifiable 'Ghost' appear. I was getting tired of my Pokémon being immobilized with fear.