I’m writing this story to get my thoughts down before I can’t. I’m in such a bad situation, I feel like I’m being watched at all times, like Im being hunted. Now I have to do what I must to. I’m writing this to help you avoid my fate, through example. It’s all because of that horrid game.
I’m not sure what to say… I’ll just go back to where this all started.
Video games have always been a part of me and my friends’ childhood, especially the Pokemon series games. We had used to have all of the games featuring all of our favorite adorable virtual creatures, Red, Gold, Silver, Emerald, Yellow, all of the games. My friend Leo (let’s just pretend that’s his name for his privacy) and I had fun battling and trading Pokemon every day after school, even after we lost our link cable, afterwards I just stole one from this kid named Kevin, but he deserved it because he stole my lunch money several times, what a jerk.
While I had always played through my Pokemon games just having fun training my teams and colletcing the badges and beating the elite four and the champion in that order, Leo found other ways to use the game. He always checked in corners of the game no one would ever think to check looking for glitches. He slowly combed through the games and on his on discovered missingno., a warp to the end of pokemon blue, a save corruption glitch in the second generation pokemon games that makes the overworld look very corrupted, and even a generation 4 glitch allowing him to surf through walls and even reach new moon island, and also a. In battles I always whooped him because I had spent more time training, but he always had fascinating pokemon and cool stories about the game to share with friends, so I was always a bit jealous of him. He had even spread a few rumors about the game saround school, some he still stands by and some he admits he made up just to troll people since he knew that, because he had a knack for discovering obscure crazy glitches, people would buy them. Later on, I told him that he should get a job QA testing games, which he is looking into.
Other than a short spell where we forgot about pokemon since we just figured we had grown out of a “kid’s game”, we stuck with the pokemon series. Overtime, though, we noticed that the games had drifted significantly from the originals, they were still good, but they just weren’t the same. We began to yearn for some good ol’ fashioned nostalgia that could only be satisfied by some good ol’ fashion generation 2 pocket monsters gold silver AND crystal (I had used to think that platinum was generation 2 because the name just seems to fit being a metal and all, how silly is that? Haha). We weren’t in any rush to get a game/games, but we were always on the lookout for when an oppritunity presented it’self.
One day we got bored, so we were trying to think of something to do. We thought about our old experiences with pokemon, and we decided to fill the desire by looking for the game. Only one place to go for that, the flea market.
Searchhing around, we saw old books, tools, antiques, and other such things, but alas not the games we had come for. We even found some old pokemon cards and dolls, but no old video game at ALL.
We were just about to leave, but as our luck would have it (unfortunately, as I would later come to find out), as we were just about to leave, we spotted one last vendor. He was an old man that seemed friendly. He seemed to have Nintendo comics and such on display, so we checked it out. We thought it was fastenating, but it still wasn’t what we had come for. Leo had decided to ask if he had any old video games.
“Yep, sure do, let me get them!” the old man said cheerily. He quickly came back with a big box of games. “These were my grandson’s, but he gave them all to me to get rid of them all for some reason. He seemed pretty upset about it, so much that he got depressed and killed himself. I think one game in particular had bothered him, but I can’t remember which…”
We didn’t care since we had just stumbled across many old games. There was super Mario 1, 2, and 3, ocarina of time, sonic the hedgehog games (I think sonic the hedgehog video games aren’t very good), super mario galaxy, super Mario galaxy 2, pokemon dash; so many old games from our childhood. After some digging around in the box, I found something special: pokemon generation 2 video games, particularly pokemon gold. The cartridge was a bit beat up, but I was willing to take that risk. So I took out the pokemon gold cartridge “can I buy this game sir” I told him?
“Of course!” he replied. “in fact, you can take the whole box if you want, for free! My son didn’t want them, so I have no use for them anyway.”
This had us thrilled, so I chucked the games back into the box to take with us. We still gave him a $5 dollar bill so that we didn’t feel likse we were just stealing these games, and then we went back to Leo’s car to drive off. We loaded the box in the trunk and hopped in, but then we saw the old man running toward us and shouting.
“WAIT! I remember what game had bothered my son! Don’t take it! IT WAS POKEMON GO-“
We shut our doors and drove off before he could finish. I don’t know what he meant though. Pokemon go isn’t even a physical game cartridge or disc, and the only thing that could make someone kill themselves about that game is getting hit by a car because your an idiot that dosen’t know to look both way before you cross it, and the constant freezing of the app. We decided to just shrug this off and go home.
Once we got home, we decided to split the many many games so we would each have a bunch. We decided to split the video games so that we would each have video games that we weren’t that familiar with to introduce ourselves to new video games. Unfortunately, this means since I had pokemon gold and he had pokemon silver and crystal when we were kids, I ended up without gold, which was a video game I wanted more than any of them. Leo told me that once we were done we would trade off, though, so I wasn’t too upset. I took my share of video games and then we left home to go to dinner. We ate and talked joyfully, blissfully unaware of what events were about to transpire. Oh, how soon things would change…
Over time, we played our new used video games and introduced ourselves to new series. I didn’t change my mind on sonic the hedgehogs, but I just played Mario and other such games. Playing through pokemon silver and crystal was fun, but I really wanted to experience gold again, even though the games aren’t that much different, that was my favorite childhood game. However, since Leo liked to take his time and find glitches, he was taking FOREVER to get through his games. I called him constantly to ask how far along he was. He told me various things, like how he remembered some of these games so well, new glitches he discovered, and that he had changed his mind on Zelda games and decided to play through Ocarina of Time (which was probably why it was taking him so long, since that’s a big game and he couldn’t just play through it like a normal person). After that, he said he planned on finally playing pokemon gold next, which of course, he had saved for last.
Eventually, he finally finished the Zelda game and moved on to his last game, pokemon gold, which I was hyped about. However, soon after he did, things quickly changed.
After his first day with the game, he said it apparently was actually a hacked version of pokemon gold, which made me sad. According to him, the title screen said “Pokemon Buried Gold: Search for the Treasure!” After this though, he said the game didn’t look too much different than just standard gold.
Things weren’t bad at first, but the further he got in the game, the weirder he would sound when we talked on the phone. He talked about things he didn’t usually talk about, like how annoying people were in class, how he was sad that he got talked at for not doing his chores at home, and some weird thing about searching and digging occasionally… he also seemed to talk a lot less, like he didn’t want to talk to me…
I didn’t see him much in person during this time. He seemed to be missing school more, and more, until he practically never came. When I did see him, he looked really tired. He got sent home one day for falling asleep in class. He defiaintly wasn’t acting like himself. Soon after this, though, he took another turn.
He called me one day. This was weird, since I had always called him in the past few weeks since he didn’t want to talk. But he seemed more energetic... not really excited, more like anxious, almost like he was afraid… He told me that he found some new item, I can’t remember what it was, and found a glitch that let him get past walls in some city and access areas that he couldn’t normally reach. He said something about needing to find the spot where “IT” was hidden, and something about digging again. He was clearly obsessed with this game and was sort of losing his mind. After he said this, he just began repeating this mumbo jumbo, then he eventually said he has to go find “IT” and hung up.
After this conversation, I didn’t hear back from him for weeks. I tried calling him, but he never answered his cell phone. He had stopped attending school atlogether. After a while, I decide enough was enough and I decided to go to his house to check on him.
I walked to his house just around the block. I noticed his car was there, but the grass was long, like he just forgot about to cut it. I walked up to his front door. I rang the doorbell and knocked several times and waited. Even after like 10 minutes, nobody answered.I turned the doorknob, and the door opened, which was weird, since Leo was always sure to keep his door locked.
Something seemed… off when I entered his house. It wasn’t too off, but his house looked a bit uncharacteristically messy, lots of dirty dishes in the sink, a few candy wrappers on the floor, stuff like that. I don’t go to his house often, but I didn;t think this was normal for him. I went up the stairs (his house had a second floor) to go see if he was in his room.
When I went into his room, he wasn’t in his room, but his room was a mess. Sheets, pillows, books, etc. were strewn across his floor, his lamp was busted, and there was a couple holes in his wall, like, he had punched the wall several times… that was weird. At least, I don’t think those holes where there before then,,, after this, I decided to search the rest of his house. Most of the rooms seemed a lot like when I first entered the house, slightly out of order and messy, but the bathroom peculiarly, there were some slight red stains in the sink, shower, and the water in the toilet was tinted slightly red. Certainly, that couldn’t be what I thought it was…
But irregardless, these rooms/jallways all seemed the same, a bit messy, but no sign of Leo here.
There was, unfortunately for me, only one more place in the house to check for him… the basement (yes, his house also had one). I don’t like to go down there, because it was scary and dark, and I always felt like I was being watched down there, though I guess I wouldn’t know since I never went vack down there after the first time out of fear. But I felt like I had to do this, for Leo’s sake.
It was pitch black when I walked down there and since it was perfectly quiet I was extremely alert to sounds. Once I got down, I flipped the lightswitch and turned on the light, though it was pretty dim, giving the place a creepy atmosphere. The basement was also trashed, stuff thrown about the floor, though two things stood out to me: there was a shovel in the corner of the room that seemed to be recently used, and that box of games that we got from the old man just sitting in the corner fine, with his half of the games in there. Next to the box were a few smashed handhelds, including his old green Gameboy color sysytem, which he would never just destroy, and the pokemon gold cartrige was in it completely fine. Lying at the top of the box was a piece of paper. I took it out, and it was a letter from Leo. I read it, and it read as follows:
Hi Bill,
I played through the hacked Pokemon Gold game, and there’s something seriously wrong about it, like it holds a dark secret. It’s horrible. I’m so scared. But once you know, you can’t go back. I can never go back. I have to find IT. I have to dig it up.
That game isn’t meant for this world. DO NOT PLAY IT! Throw it away somewhere were no one will EVER find it, somewhere where it won’t be able to hurt anone ever again. I’d recommend you get red of the rest of the games as well. I can’t stress it enough to you to not play this game, or you’r basically throwing your life away. And don’t’t come looking for me. I’m as good as gone…
Thanks, in advance for helping save someone from my fate,
Leo
I didn’t know what Leo had saw in that pokemon gold game, but I decided it was best to do as he said. I took the pokemon gold game out of his smashed Gameboy and threw it in the box, then took the box with me out of the basememt.
I must have been searching for Leo for a while, because it was nighttime when I left the house. I took the box of games with me to a river right next to me house to chuck in, never to be seen again. I brought the box backwards and moved it forward, letting all of the video games fly out into the river. My friend’s will was done… or so I thought…
If only it was that simple, but when I threw the games out, one game got stuck behind a box flap. Of course, it was that gold cartridge. I took it in my hand, ready to throw it away as well, but before I did, though, I thought about what I was doing. This was crazy, what had probably happened was that Leo had just read Pokemon Lost Silver and a whole bunch of creepypasta and gotten scared. Maybe Leo had just fallen for all of that fake bull. I looked at the gold cartridge. If nothing else, I had to see what was in there that did this to my best friend. I put the gold game in my pocket and headed back home.
On my way home, Leo’s house came into view, and I saw something that alarmed me. Someone was leaving his house with a shovel in his hands. It was dark, so I didn’t have a clue who it was. I decided to sneak up on the person to get a closer look at them, but as I got closer, I got a horrible feeling, like I was in danger. I noticed he looked very much like Leo… When I got pretty close, I almost called out to see if it was Leo, but I felt like if I did, I would surely be killed. I chickened out and left, never finding out who it could be, but that really wasn’t right…
Once I got home, I took a look at the gold cartrage. It looked normal, except the official nintendo seal wasn’t there and the Ho-oh on the front looked a bit beat up and sad. I figured it must just be from when Leo trashed the basement and the games.
I searched around and found my old Gameboy color. I put the gold cartridge in. I got a bad feeling about the game, like playing it would be a big mistake, but I figured I was just being childish. I just HAD to know. My curiosity made me flip the power switch on the game.
That’s a mistake I will forever regret…….
The game skipped the nintendo copyright screens and skipped to the gamefreak animation with the ditto transforming into the gamefreak logo. That was something normally in pokemon crystal, not gold. I tplayed the normal pokemon crystal intro, with the suicune and the unown. Accept when the unowns came up to spell out the word “CRYSTAL,” it didn’t spell out crystal, or even “GOLD”. It spelled out, “DIGGING”. I also thought that the unown that formed a circle around suicune near the end said “RUNAWAY”, but I couldn’t tell. It seemed like the suicune had been running from something, like it was scared. I assumed all of thaese errors was just a glitch or someone programmed the wrong intro in the cartrage. Then the game froze after the unown spelling out “DIGGING” faded and it stayed on that white screen for like 30 seconds. Eventually I realised it froze and turned the system of, thinking the game must be faulty. I should have learned my lesson after this, but I was more curious than ever, so I flipped the switch on the game to start it again. This time, I clicked a, b, and the start uttonb, but it never skipped past the intro, so I waited again. The game froze again. I tried taking out the game and blowing on the cartrage, then turned the system on, and this time it worked.
The pokemon crystal title screen came up, accept when the suicune was in a running pose, just frozen there, like it couldn’t move, and it had a sad look on it’s face, along with what looked like a bloody gash on it’s leg. Instead of pokemon crystal version, it said “Pokemon Buried Gold: Find the treasure!”, exactly like Leo had old me before he disappeared. The normal title screen music wasn’t there. It was silent at first, but then it played that creepy unown radio music. Not the ruins of alph, but that creepy music that plays when you open your radio app when you are underground int he ruins.ri clicked the start button on the screen, and continue, and new game, and options, options came up. I clicked on options to see if anything was weird, but it wasn’t, other than one option: PRINT. Instead of the normal options of DARKEST, DARKER, NORMAL, LIGHTER, LIGHTEST, it just said one option: MAP.I just dismissed this and went to check the other options. I had decided to click on continue, to see what Leo had saw that made him so spooked by this video game. His name was just Leo, he had 7 badges and like 90 hours on the game (probably because he looked for many glitches). I clicked it.
When it went to the game, it almost pitch black, but I cound faintly make out the outlime of my/his old trainer. It seemed to be a desolate, barren world, with a tree or destroyed house every so often, but it seemed like a shadow had consumed this land, and it was very dark. After walking around, looking for someone or something alive, I gave up, and just decided to check his inventory. I clicked on the “LEO” option, and it seemed normal, accept the trainers on the badges screen below looked sad and worried, even when I looked at the kanto ones. The trainer was near black, with red, almost evil eyes. I checked his bag, and he had only two items, “SHOVEL” and “MAP”, two items I don’t think are normally in the game. Finally, I checked his pokemon. He only had one, but it had no sprite, or health bar, just a name. It was “alone,” notably in lowercase letters this time. I tried checking it’s stats, but when I clicked a nothing happened. There was no pokemon, it was meant to symbolize him being completely alone. I had to know why. At this point, I was convinced that this was a hacked pokemon gold, or maybe crystal, video game, but I had to know what the point was. Obviously, it was deeper than it seemed…
I restarted the game. After trying and having it freeze again a few times (stupid old game), I started an ew game. It started normally,with asking if I were a boy or a girl and all that stuff, with Oak giving his speech and all, but when he talked about how there were mysteries about pokemon we didn’t know, he said some weren’t meant to find out. This scared me. It was like the game was mocking me for wanting to know, or even warning me, but I knew it didn’t matter. When it asked me for my name, both Leo and BIll came up. That’s weird, bill is MY name, and I didn’t think this was a suggested name in gold OR crystal, but maybe I just remembered wrong, or the messed up game creator hacked these name in. Other than that, the intro seemed fine, then my character shrunk into his overworld sprite like normal (I always was confused by this as a kid, like why did I get short? Ah, the memories…) and the game cut to black for like 30 seconds, but then it went to my house.
It wasn’t playing the normal new bark town music like it usually did, but instead the ruins of alph music (not the spooky unown radio music like before), just the slightly unsettling regular ruins music. Other than this, the beginning was completely normal. When I got my pokegear, I had remembered that the word “MAP” had come up several times beefore, so I checked my map card, but it seemed normal.
I went to the lab to get my pokemon. It played the underground ruins theme, the one from where the unknown are at. But other than that, again, it seemed normal. I got my starter, totidile, because he’s the best, and named him mr croc (Im bad at nicknaming). The game was playing fine, after all of this, other than weird music occasionally playing, but not everywhere. I went to mr pokemon’s house and got the pokedex (should’ve checked Leo’s now that I think about it…) and saw oak there. He said what he usually did, except added one extra thing, “don’t poke your nose in things not meant to be messed with…” then he left, and the game continued noramally-ish. Notably, as I played through the game, I felt compelled to take all the nuggets that were in the game, so I did as I went.
I played through the game just like any person would, training pokemon, beating trainers, winning several of badges, and forgot about the weird things and Leo’s behavior. That is, until I reached Goldenrod City.
The first thing I noticed was that instead of the city sign saying what it normally would, it said “Goldenrod City, the city of treasures!” It was fairly normal, but when I talked to people in the city, they all said something about the magnet train. “those train tracks hold a terrible secret,” “never go past those train tracks, they’re dangerous” “if you go on those train tracks, you’ll likely be hit by the magnet train! Bad idea…” stuff like that. It’s like they didn’t want me going anywhere near those tracks, like they knew something I didn’t, and they didn’t want me finding out. But I didn’t know why, since you couldn’t go past those tracks. One person said “there’s nothing to hide on those tracks! But it is dangerous, you shouldn’t go near them.” He said this like he was trying to make me believe there was no secret to search for there, for my own good. It got annoying when people talked about how it so much, and apparently, it wasn’t just me, since some kid said “all these people won’t stop talking about that stupid train. I just want to go ride my bike. I hope they fix it soon.” There seemed to be nothing else I could do, so I kept going forward in the game.
Once I got to ecruteak city, things got weird again. The kimono girls referenced some “MAP”, but nothing about it too much, like they didn’t want me to get too curious, but I already was determined to find out. I found some man in an old house who spun tales about the old days in jhoto. Eventually, he said there was a map at the center of the burned tower, but he said not to go looking for it, and that the three legendary dogs defend it. But, again, I was determined. I headed out towards the burned tower. That’s when things went 100% south.
Aside from it being a destroyed tower, it was also now a bloody mess. There were bodies scattered throughout the tower. People had been stabbed, shot, decapitated, ripped in two, and other gruesome deaths. This happened to many more pokemon as well. This was way too morbid for a child’s video game. They obviously didn’t want to battle me, but also there were no wild pokemon as I went through the cave. There was no battles at all.
As I got near the middle of the tower, my rival came out, covered in blood, to challenge me to a battle. He said words I would never forget. “That map is cursed. They all want that treasure, but it’s not really a treasure at all. It’s horrible. I HAD to kill them, you see? For you. For me. FOR US ALL. You’re not getting your hands on that map. I”LL RIP YOUR EYES RIGHT OUT OF YOUR HEAD BEFORE YOU CAN EVER READ IT!”
A battle ensued with my rival. His name was changed. I had typed it in as “JIMMY” but it said “HERO JIMMY”. Some hero he was, he was covered in blood and crazed-looking. He sent out his haunter. It looked angry and evil,with a horrifying twisted grin on his face, though wasn’t covered in blood because he was a ghost and it would fall right through him. I wondered why he was so mad over a map. This was pure evil. My croc made quick work of his haunter. After this, instead of fainting, the game said haunter died. I thought this was creepy since it was a ghost and should already dead. His next two pokemon were much the same, but covered in blood since they weren’t ghosts. Again, I made quick work of them and they were “KILLED”. Lastly was his bayleef. This pokemon was very different. It looked very depressed, like it was mourning and regretful for all that had happened, but determined to do what was right… to keep me from the map. I almost felt regret after killing it. Bayleef died with tears in it’s eyes.
After this, it said I defeated hero Jimmy. He said his last words: “don’t take the map… please…” Then, something I never would’ve expected happened.
My character model moved towards him and pulled out a knife. Jimmy’s face changed in pure fear and sadness, tears coming from his eyes. It said “BILL MURDERED JIMMY.” Right before my character stabbed Jimmy, the screen cut to black and stayed that way for a minute. I sat there in shock, crying myself. But pretty soon, the game came back.
Jimmy,s body lied on the ground, his face permanenently contorted into fear. Blood was everywhere. After a quick visit to the pokemon center, which healed my pokemon and removed the blood from my body, I went back in. The music had now changed to the underground ruins of alph theme. I reached the center of the tower, and initiated the cutscene with the three legendary dogs. Something looked a bit of about them though. They looked mad. Something weird happened. Instead of the dog’s scattering into the overworld like normal, I got into a battle with entei. Before it cut to the battle screen, I took note of an item ball in the middle.
Entei looked very enraged and covered in blood, but also beat up like he was fighting pokemon. Maybe the three legendary pokemon were also responsible for some of these killed trainers, fighting them off to keep them from the map. Now he was trying to keep me from it. Since entei was a fire type, it wasn’t hard to “kill” him with my little crocodile pokemon, though I didn’t want to kill him, just to get past him. It cut back to the overworld, and there was a bloody entei sprite next to me with one of it’s legs cut off. Next was raikou. It looked even angrier. He used a move called “Thunder boom”, a move that I could swear wasn’t in the original gold. It did a lot of damage, but I lived through it. I killed him again. It cut back to the overworld and there was a raikou sprite ripped in half so you could see it’s skeleton. Then, finally, I was fighting suicune. I thought about running away as the battle screen came up, but I had to finish what I had started.
It didn’t look quite like the others, but a lot like Jimmy’s bayleef. It looked sad beyond normal, but determined to stop me, an intruder in his eyes. He didn’t have much fighting spirit left in him, though. So, though my Croconaw had little health left, I managed to pull through. Suicune died. Before it cut to the overworld, it showed my croconaw approach suicune and raise his arm, ready to strike, but it cut away again right before he killed suicune. The game froze for a good while after that. Then, it cut to text that said “SAVING, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK”. I was freaking out at this point.
Eventually, it cut back to the tower. Instead of all the bloody sprites, the tower was completely empty now, almost like it was all a dream. There were no music, just pure silence. Just an item ball in the center. I walked towards it like a moth to a flame. I clicked “a”. It said, “Bill obtained Treasure Map! Bill placed the treasure map in the bag.” I was speechless. Treasure map? This is what everyone was trying to keep me from? Maybe they just wanted it for themselves. I opened my bag to check it.
What I saw was very strange. It was showing me a layout of a specific part of… Goldenrod City. It led past the train tracks on the right side. It had directions of where the “treasure was hidden” and a spot to “dig”. I was finally going to get to the bottom of all this.
I made my way back to Goldenrod City finally. Even though it played the normal Goldenrod City theme the last time I was there, this time there was no music. The npc’s said the exact same thing they did the last time I was here, but they seemed a little more desperate. Quickly, I noticed that there was no way past the train tracks; there were walls everywhere around where the map said to go. Maybe it really was just nothing. I decided to just play through the game normally.
Nothing of note happened for a long time, until I reached lavender town. First, the music wasn’t the normal music from generation 2, it was the creepy generation 1 theme. I went to the pokemon tower, and there was a basement, something not normally there. I decided to take the stairs down.
When I checked the basement, I immediately knew something was wrong, like it was familiar. It seemed trashed, withthings scattered about… just like Leo’s basement… there was a piece of paper in the basement. I read it. It said “FIND ME”. I knew what I had to do.
I forgot about the game for a while and went over to Leo’s house. I had to go down into the basement. On top of being extremely creepy during the day, it was night, so it was even worse. I felt like I was being watched constantly. I flipped the light switch, but it didn’t turn on. I got out my flashlight and searched around. I found a piece of paper scattered about the debree. I tried to read it, but it was hard to see with just a flashlight, and I found a few rats gathering in a corner, so I just decided to get out of there with the paper as fast as possible. I took note that I saw no signs of Leo, and the shovel that was there before was gone.
I went back to my room and examined the paper. It had a diagram of the PC box system. He had notes to rename the PC boxes very specific codes and then to quit the game while saving. Apparently, after restarting when you do this, it would get you past the magnet train tracks. This must’ve been the glitch Leo had found, the last thing he saw before he disappeared and apparently lost his mind. I won’t list the PC box codes… I don’t want anyone to gain access to this ever again. No one must find what I found.
The purple Gameboy color was still on my bed after this, turned on. I didn’t remember leaving it on, and I thought if I did, the battery surely would have been dead by the time I got back. I decided to take the magnet train back to goldenrod city (though in hindsight, I regret ever having even gone near that train). When I got back, the music had changed to that messed up unown radio theme, like the game knew I was about to uncover it’s secrets. When I talked to the npcs, they didn’t say what they had said before. They said things like “don’t do it,” “you’re making a big mistake” and “we’ve warned you”. I made my way to the pokemon center and to the PC. I typed in the codes Leo had written down. Then, while the game was saving, I turned the system off.
I turned it back on, and I was on the other side of the railroad tracks, just like Leo had written down… though the city on the other side of the wall seemed pretty corrupted. The treasure map had told me to continue to the left, so I did. Before I found where it said to go, I came across a house. I had to go inside.
Inside, there was a young man npc. I walked up to him and clicked a.
“Finally, you made it here. You seem to be quite the treasure hunter to have gotten all those nuggets (I had collected all the nuggets, even past lavender town)… just the kind of talent we need. Just like the one before you. Now you must search for this one last treasure. Now you must do HIS will. Take this and fulfill your duty!”
When he said this, it said “Bill obtained a shovel! Bill put the shovel in the bag.” Then, I nervously pressed a, and the boy continued.
What’s wrong, Bill ****? (he said my actual last name, there’s NO way the game could’ve known that unless it was programmed in, so that REALLY got my attention) You should have known playing this game was a bad idea. After all, that man told you there was something messed up about this game before you left that flea market!”
I thought about what the old man was yelling at me before we left that fateful day. “Don’t take it! IT WAS POKEMON GO-“ He didn’t mean pokemon GO… he meant Pokemon GOLD.
“You should have listened to Leo, too,” he continued, “but it’s too late for that now. You have to follow me now.”
We left through the front door and he led me left, then up through a route gate. When we entered the creen after the route gate, the area popped up as “Dark Crater”. It was just a desolate circle-like area, no grass or anything, just rock. We walked to the center of it, where the map had told me to go.
“It’s time. You must do what you must. Free him. It’s time you DIG FOR YOUR LIFE!”
The game then gave me control. It let me walk back towards the exit of this area, but if I tried to leave, the boy said, “You must do what you came here to do.” Deep down, I knew I had to. I walked back to the center. I clicked a, and the game said I was digging. Finally, a hole appeared in the ground.
This is where everything went wrong. A black shadow began to rise from out of the hole. It was small at first, but then, slowly, it seemed to consume all until everything was almost black. Text then appeared on the screen. It said, “this is my world now…” everything stopped for a second, then another text box appeared. Slowly, the text appeared.
“I’M COMING TO CONSUME YOUR SOULS”
I was scared almost to the point of being frozen in place. I had to get out of there. I tried talking to the boy, now almost impossible to see because it was so dark, though his eyes were red with some evil spirit (so were mine…). He just said, “…it is done… we are his…” no matter how many times I talked to him. I got out of there and went back to goldenrod city. The walls blocking the train tracks were gone, so I could enter again. The other npcs weren’t like me or that young man. They were white, like all color had drained from them, and they seemed to be completely frozen, just like the suicune on the title screen... Their faces were frozen in terrified expressions. Some of them seemed to be frozen in walking animations, and none of them would talk to me. Everywhere I checked, people, and pokemon, were like this. Everything was consumed by this terrifying shadow. This was something evil beyond comprehension.
At this point, the game system turned off on it’s own. Not even like it ran out of battery, the switch had flipped it’self. I was terrified and crying in fear. At that point, I knew I had to destroy this game.
When I went to take out the cartrage, I noticed that when I had taken it out to blow on it, I had never put it back in. It was never even in the Gameboy all that time I was playing. It had done something to my system, maybe even cursed it.
I took it and the game and tried stomping on it. The system broke, but the game was fine. I got a hammer and took the game into my basement to smash it, but it didn’t make a dent. I got out a saw and tried sawing it, but he thing just would not break. As a last resort, I got some fireworks, tied them to the game, and lit them, then got the hell out of my basement. They blew up, and hopefully took the game with it.
I went back down to assess the damage. The game was shattered into several pieces, and there was a piece of paper on the floor, seemingly that was hidden inside the cartrage. I was too tired and scared to deal with it right now, though. I decided to go to my room and get a good night’s sleep, or at least I would try to. I ended up crying my self to sleep eventually.
When I woke up, it was still dark outside, like I had slept through the entire day, but I felt rested. Something didn’t feel right, though. I got up and turned on my bedroom light. Something in the corner of my room terrified me, something that was never there before…
It was a shovel.
I ran out of my room terrified and went into my basement to see if the remaines of my game were still there, I was shocked to find the game there, completely intact, and the paper still on the folor. I picked up the piece of paper and looked at it. My heart skipped several beats.
It was a map. It seemed to indicate some kind of “treasure” hidden in my local woods.
I took the game, paper with the codes from Leo, went back to the river that I got rid of the rest of my games at, and threw everything awat. I never wanted to see it again.
That bring you to right now. The game is gone, hopefully forever so it can’t hurt anyone ever again. But I know I can’t hide from my fate for any longer. The map says to dig, and I must do what I must do. I have to find the “treasure,” just like Leo was, or is doing, maybe as I speak… and I fear that treasure isn’t just “treasure” treasure. It’s, just like in the game, the underground prison of someone… no, something more evil and dark than any of us realize. And it wants our souls…
Let my tale serve as a warning for you. Don’t go searching for this game. Don’t go looking for the codes. And don’t come looking for me: I’m as good as gone.
The scariest thing about it all, is that while the game was a slightly altered version of Pokemon Gold, I know somehow that all that I saw past those railroad tracks is real, something that you can get to in any copy of Pokemon Gold. Somewhere out there, there’s going to be another person smart enough to glitch there way past those tracks; there will be another Leo. And if they find a shovel, and the right place to dig...
... It will be the end of our world...
... Please be wary of the magnet train. It holds a terrible secret, just like they said… Getting run over is the worst of your worries...