Pokémon Lost Silver by unknown author[]
Art by SUCHanARTIST13.
You see, I'm a simple college student living alone in an apartment. I was very enthusiastic about the release of Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver here in the states. I've purposely locked myself out of all media and the Internet aside for school purposes. That means no 4chan, no /v/, no Bulbapedia, etc. As I was busy with the school year and being poor at the time, I wasn't able to buy SoulSilver on its launch date. After my school year ended, I ordered SoulSilver on Amazon. Unfortunately, it would probably take a week for it to arrive. I decided that during that time, I would replay my Crystal version on my Gameboy Color.
However, I realized that long ago, my mom threw it away because I told her the save went dead, and I was very upset about it then. She also threw away my Silver version, so all I have is my Gameboy Color. As such, I set out to GameStop and bought a used Silver version, as it's the only Pokémon game left that they have for the GBC. Ten dollars - fairly cheap. I went home and started it up for a nostalgia trip. However, that's where things started getting bizarre, and most likely the reason you're reading this. The Game Freak logo started up as normal, but it just froze there. I thought the cartridge was just errored or something, so I turned it off and on. The same thing happened. I tried pressing A and Start over and over, and all of the buttons. Eventually, the logo vanished and there was a black screen for about five seconds.
Suddenly, rather than going to the usual menu screen, I was already in the game in a previously saved file, which was odd as I was expecting all of these cartridges to have been wiped by the poor battery. Either way, I wasn't complaining, as I would have chosen the "Continue" option to see what the previous guy did anyways. First off, I checked his trainer information. His name was just "..." - He didn't have much originality. I checked his profile, and apparently, he had 999:99 hours put into the game, with all 16 badges, 99999.9 Pokédollars, and all 251 Pokémon registered in the Pokédex.
Seeing as he apparently had Mew and Celebi logged also, I'm guessing he either used a Game Genie or was a really hardcore Pokémon player back then. I checked his Pokémon to see what badass team he had. To my surprise, I saw 5 Unowns and a sixth Pokémon named "HURRY". I'm thinking that this must be some cruel joke by the person who last played this game, but I decided to check the profiles of those Pokémon anyways. As expected, they were different letters of Unown, all Level 5. I was a bit shaky with my Unown alphabet at the time, but I identified the word spelled out to be "LEAVE". As for the sixth Pokémon, it turned out to be a Cyndaquil (mind you, this is before there were individualized Pokémon icons). The Cyndaquil looked normal, but it was Level 5 with only 1 HP left and only two attacks: "Leer" and "Flash".
I don't know why they named him "HURRY", but at the time, I just disregarded it. The eeriest thing was that despite my volume being at max, none of the Pokémon had said their usual cries. Just pure silence. Having enough of the team, I closed it. I was parked at what appeared to be a room inside Bellsprout Tower. However, for some reason, there were no NPCs around. Even eerier was that the "pillar" in the middle didn't move at all, as if just leaning on its side. There was no music at all, and there were no exits or ladders, or at least I thought there wasn't. I walked around for a few minutes but can't seem to find a way out. This was certainly not a room I've seen in the Bellsprout Tower before. I tried checking my items for an Escape Rope, but the bag was completely empty. There weren't any Wild Pokémon either.
Finally, I managed to find a ladder, which turned out to be behind the "pillar". The screen turned black and the music finally started playing. I had a sudden chill as I recognized that melody. It was the theme you hear when you listen to the radio at the Alph Ruins where the Unown are at. I immediately realized that it wasn't a loading transition, but rather, I was in a dark room and would need Flash. Before I took care of that, though, I immediately checked my Pokégear to change the radio to something more pleasant, but it turned out that there was no Radio card, or even a Phone nor Time cards. There was only a Map card in which Gold ("..." from earlier, and I will call him Gold from now on) was just walking in a midst of black.
I recall that Cyndaquil has Flash, so I turned off my Pokégear and made Cyndaquil use Flash. I didn't see any message saying, "HURRY has used Flash!" or anything like that. The room just became lit just like that, and I soon regretted it. The room was a chilling blood-red with a linear gray path heading south. The ladder I used to go up/down was not there at all. I had no choice but to head south. The screen got darker every 20 steps I took until I finally made it to the end, which appeared to be a sign. I read the sign, which said, "TURN BACK NOW". Suddenly, I was asked to answer YES/NO, but there was no question asked. I chose YES as I didn't know what it was asking, and the screen went black again, making a "ladder climbing" sound. The Unown Radio music stopped, and in a few seconds was replaced with the not-as-creepy Poké Flute radio music.
I was in another dark room, but I held my breath and used Flash again. Suddenly, it said that "HURRY has fainted!" which was odd since I recall that there were no status conditions like Poison on him, and I clearly wasn't in a battle. I checked my Pokémon quickly, and suddenly, he was no longer in my party. In fact, after a bit of investigating, none of my Pokémon were there, but instead all replaced with Level 10 Unowns. I did the same thing as before and spelled out the Unowns. My new team of Unowns spelled "HEDIED". Either way, after that creepy change, the room was lit to reveal myself in a very small room that appeared to be only four squares big. The walls of that room were gray bricks, as if I was inside something that was hollowed out. Outside that room appeared to be a bunch of graves similar to the ones in Pokémon Red/Blue. I've walked around the small room and pressed A, but nothing happened.
I've already concluded that this was clearly a hacked game and some sadistic fuck sold it to GameStop. However, my curiosity kept me going. I checked the trainer profile of "..." again only to find out that the sprite of Gold was missing his arms. He also seemed less smug. He was just sad and empty in a way that I do not know how to describe. For some reason, it also now said that he had 24 badges, which was clearly impossible. After a few minutes of wandering aimlessly, my character suddenly spun and did the Escape Rope spinning animation. Instead of flying up, though, my character spun downwards slowly, as if sinking.
After that screen, the music stopped. After finally landing, the overworld sprite of Gold was colored differently now. Instead of the usual red color he dons, he appeared completely white now, including his skin. It's as if he came straight from the colorless Game Boy games placed into a colored background of the Gameboy Color. I checked his profile, which was now as white as his overworld sprite. He lost his legs and had what appeared to be bloody tears from his eyes. It also said he now had 32 badges, which started to disturb me as this change of number seemed to represent something important.
I also checked my Pokémon, which this time contained 5 Unowns and a Level 100 Celebi without a nickname. The Unowns were this time Leveled 15 and spelled out "DYING". I checked the Celebi's profile. It was a shiny Celebi, except there was only half of the sprite. One leg, one arm, one eye. It only had one attack: "Perish Song". The area I was in was the Sprout Tower with the immobile pillar as before, except everything was red. I walked north for what felt like forever. Eventually, I finally encountered some generic men and women NPCs. They were all lined up to the side just facing the long pillar in the middle.
They were also white, and nothing happened when I tried to speak to them. I kept on going north until eventually the pillar finally appeared to be chopped off, with a transparent Red in that spot. I went up to Red, and without even pressing A, I was suddenly engaged in a battle. The music started again, which sounded like the Unown Radio music, but played backwards. Gold's battle backsprite matched his front one with the bloody eyes, white skin, and lack of arms, while Red's sprite was the same as before in GSC, except transparent. The text simply said, "wants to battle!" as if he had no name, and both of us only had one Pokémon each, which was weird as I could've sworn I had six with the Unowns.
My shiny Celebi came out, conveniently with half-a-sprite for the back sprite also. The "Shiny" noise and animation were different, as the sounds it made were like multiple "Screech" attacks used consecutively. Red sent out a seemingly normal male Pikachu, except he was Level 255, and his sprite seemed to be sad and had tears in his eyes. Rather than the usual "FIGHT/ITEM/PKMN/RUN" menu, I was only given the option to use the Attacks. Since Celebi only had one, I chose it. Naturally, since Pikachu was Level 255, he went first. "PIKACHU used CURSE!", lowering his Speed and increasing his other Stats. I'm not even sure if Pikachu could even use Curse. "CELEBI used PERISH SONG!" In three turns, both Pokémon get KO'd - not like I have a choice.
At this point, it didn't even go back to the Fight menu, as the battle just continued without me. Also note that there were no animations at all for some reason.
"PIKACHU used FLAIL!", which didn't do much damage despite his Level and boost as his health was maxed. "CELEBI used Perish Song!" Nothing happened as it was already used. "PIKACHU used FRUSTRATION!", which did a shit-ton of damage, knocking Celebi down to less than 10 HP. "CELEBI used Pain Split!", which surprised me as Celebi didn't even have that attack in the first place. Now Celebi and Pikachu had about 150 HP. "PIKACHU used MEAN LOOK!" Not like that did anything. As expected, due to the effects of Perish Song, my Celebi fainted. Except in the text, it said "CELEBI has died!" and instead of the ordinary drop off the screen animation, the CELEBI backsprite just vanished. For some reason, the Pikachu was still up even with Perish Song and it didn't count as my loss. Pikachu used one more different attack beyond the 5 attack limit: "PIKACHU used DESTINY BOND!" Afterwards, it said "PIKACHU has died!", with a slow fade-out animation. Apparently, I was the winner, as the transparent Red Sprite showed up and said ".........."
At that point, I just freaked out, as that transparent Red sprite was suddenly beheaded, leaving nothing but his transparent body. The battle then ended at that point and faded out along with the music. I was back in the overworld, with another change to the Gold sprite - he was now as transparent as Red's overworld sprite. I quickly checked Gold's profile, where this time, the only thing that remained of him was his head, with transparent skin. The head was zoomed in a bit, showing a black void in his eyes. It stated that he had 40 badges. I then backed out and checked my Pokémon. They were all Level 20 Shiny Unown, which spelled out "NOMORE".
I was at what I now know is next to the end. There was apparently no music playing, but for some reason, I still felt like something was there that could be heard. I was back in my room in New Bark Town. Maybe finally I would get to play the game properly, but who am I kidding. I knew that sadistic fuck who made this must have done something. I "walked" around my room to interact with things, as I was a bit afraid to go down the stairs to see what was awaiting down there. Note I said "walked", as while the background was moving, Gold was not moving his transparent limbs at all while doing so, just floating like those ghosts you see in Diamond/Pearl.
The radio, computer, and TV didn't work, so I had no choice but to go down the stairs. I ended up in the same lower-level room of my house. Everything appeared normal, except mom wasn't home. After failing to interact with anything in that room, I decided to go outside. To my surprise, that door leading outside at the south didn't work, and instead, I just walked straight through it into a void. I continued moving south to see what the fuck was going on. My house vanished as I headed south into the void. It was creepy as when I entered the void, the outline on Gold's transparent sprite turned white to contrast with the pitch black. Eventually, I reached a white area and Gold's sprite turned black and transparent again. I continued south without thinking of stopping at all.
After a long trek south, I finally encountered something. It was GOLD's regular sprite. I talked to it. He said "Goodbye forever ...." (notably with a space in between forever and ....), and vanished. As that happened, it said "??? used NIGHTMARE" which at that point, I would not deny that being possible. Gold did another Escape Rope animation spinning slowly downwards like before. I was back into that small hollowed-out room surrounded by graves earlier. Or at least I say I was back there, as there was no sprite anymore. I tried to walk around but nothing moved - not even wall bumping noise. I checked my trainer profile with absolutely no Gold sprite left. It said I have 0 badges and all the pictures of the Johto Gym Leaders at the bottom were replaced with skulls. I checked my Pokémon, which were all Level 25 Unown. As expected, it spelled out a phrase that I dared to read: "IMDEAD".
As soon as I went back to the overworld, the room I was supposedly in was then covered with the same blocks as the walls. I then figured out what exactly that room was when the final text was said: "R.I.P. ..." That room was a big grave, surrounded by other graves. Gold has already been dead. He died presumably a few years after he defeated Red.
He was a young trainer who, despite his efforts in collecting so many badges and attempting at becoming a Pokémon master, was still unable to avoid the inevitable fate of death, and his efforts were eventually forgotten by the next generation. I was unable to escape from that text no matter what I pressed. I tried resetting the game, and the same thing happened, at which point, I finally decided to give up on that horrible game. After that experience, I will never look at the "gimmick" Unown the same way again. They say that only the first generation has folktales and legends, but the second generation has shown me how unpleasant the truth can be. I eventually enjoyed SoulSilver immensely, but I still can't unthink what that rigged game has told me.