Forgotten Red
One day, I was walking home from a friend's house after his birthday party had ended. I could've have taken a shorter route home, but instead I decided to take the long way, past the liquor store. I still regret that decision to this very day.
Upon making it to the store, I noticed something sitting between the sidewalk and the street. It was near the gutter. Upon leaning my head over a few inches, I found that the object appeared to be a red Gameboy game cartridge. As there was only one red colored cartridge that I had ever seen in my life, I ran over to it. Much to my excitement, it was a copy of Pokémon Red.
However, the game seemed to be in pretty bad shape, what with its ripped label and slightly cracked case. Upon looking at the back, I saw a label that I had assumed the previous owner had stuck on the game to keep track of it (much like I did upon owning more than one of each version). On the label I could see some words written, but the label was too scratched to read.
At first, I questioned why anyone would just toss a copy of Pokémon Red to the ground and forget about it, as if they wanted to get rid of it. At the time, I ignored these facts and was just happy to have another Pokémon game to play.
As I returned home, I quickly ran into my room and grabbed my Gameboy Advance SP from my dresser. I inserted the battered game into the system and hit "On" so that I may relive a classic game from my past.
As the game started, I saw the traditional opening scene and title screen as a wave of nostalgia blew across my body. I entered the usual menu and a proceeded to click New Game… or so I was, however to button did nothing. Already feeling this odd, I scrolled down to Options. Just as with New Game, that didn't work either.
By now, I thought to myself that the game was broken and could not be played, but what did I expect from a game sitting on the side of the street? However, I decided to give the Continue option a go, before making any official proclamations. Without showing any player data, I was sent into the game.
Upon entering the game, I was in the space where you normally are when you start the game, in your room in Pallet Town. I decided to check the player options to see what was on this file. The first thing I noticed was that the player's name was RED (yeah, really original kid). I checked his trainer card which revealed his $999,999 and 8 gym badges, nothing completely unusual. Finally, I moved up to his Pokémon team.
My eyes grew wide when I saw that the team was indeed Red's team, his team from HeartGold and SoulSilver. Pikachu, Venusaur, Blastoise, Charizard, Snorlax, and Lapras were all there.
Interestingly, Lapras only had 3 moves and one of them was Surf.
Having enough of this, I decided to go downstairs to see if everything was normal. I walked over to my mom expecting to see the usual text, however it was indeed different:
"Oh RED, PROF. OAK is looking for you. He wants to give you something for your victory in the league."
Victory in the league? Did I already win? This definitely seemed like a hacked game at this point, but I was just getting started and wanted to explore more.
I walked outside into a normal Pallet Town and walked into Oak's lab. As I stepped in, my character walked up to him without me controlling him (Like at the beginning of the game when he brings you there).
At this moment, Oak just went on about how he was proud of me and all that jazz until he finally gave me an item, HM00. Quickly checking my items, I only had the HM, so I booted it up. It contained Waterfall.
However startled by the unexpected HM, I felt that it must have just been part of the hack, so I continued on. I remembered that my Lapras had a free space, so I taught him the move.
Upon leaving the lab, I walked up toward Route 1, only to find it blocked off by CUT trees. Knowing that there was another way out of Pallet Town, I ventured to the bottom, to the water. I went to my party and chose to surf on Lapras.
Shortly after I began to surf down, I saw what appeared to be 2 sideways water tiles, replacing the game's border to the left. I moved over toward them only to realize that I could not pass. After a small amount of thinking, I decided to see what waterfall would do.
After using the move, I was able to pass over the tiles and ventured westward into the new area. The path I followed was very linear for about a minute, before I was told to surf north. Shortly after that, I found myself in what I could easily recognize as New Bark Town in Johto.
Now I know what you're all thinking, what's so creepy about this story? The hacker edited part of the Johto region into Red version, so what? Just wait for it.
I decided to explore the devamped town to judge it for detail, only to realize that none of the buildings had working warps. Disappointed that the hacker had seemed to forget the warps in the town, I decided to continue west onto Route 29, or so I believed I would.
What I think was one step away from entering the route, my controls locked. I soon saw what appeared to be the sprite of Gold, except in GBC monochrome just as the rest of the town. He simply spoke these words:
"…
Why are you here?"
Just then, a battle initiated. On the other side of the screen, I saw the monochrome sprite of Gold from the 2nd Gen games, except he seemed angry.
He sent out his Typhlosion, level 100, which immediately made me concerned as it had its sprite hacked in as well, but just as Gold had, he dawned an angry look on his face. I sent out my Pikachu, level 88. Without knowing how he seemed to One-hit KO all of my Pokémon with just Flamethrower (including Charizard and Blastoise!).
What surprised me even more was the lack of a "whited out" or "blacked out" text box. Instead, I returned to the overworld with another textbox appearing:
"…
Why are you here?
Why are you here?
Why are you here?
...
Get out."
Just then, the screen cut to black. When it returned, I was floating in what appear to be a black void, however my sprite was visible. I was unable to move at that point, so I decided to check my party to see if they were all still fainted. Upon opening the menu, my jaw dropped.
Sure my Pokémon were all at full health, but they had all decreased in level by ten (I.E. Pikachu at level 78).
This began to worry me as I went to check my trainer card. Luckily, there was no disgusting sprite change at this point as I had expected and everything looked normal. Normal, until I looked at my badges.
To my dismay, I now had only 7 badges, and the 8th was replaced by a bloody letter Y.
Upon returning to the overworld, it seemed as the black background had been replaced by Route 1… or so it appeared to be.
In reality, it was shaped like good ol' Route 1; however the borders were now replaced by Lavender Town tombstones and the entire route had the palette of Lavender as well.
Nervously, I walked upward and through the tall grass, half-expecting the Marowak Ghost to appear. At the top of the route, instead of Viridian City, was just a door. No, not attached to a building, just a standalone door.
Seeing as the way up to Viridian was blocked the same way as Route 1 was from the beginning, I had no choice but to enter the door.
The moment I warped into the new, dark room, a text box appeared:
"Lapras fainted."
Instantly, flashbacks to reading that Lost Silver creepypasta were coming back, but I regained composure and checked my trainer card again. Once again, everything seemed normal until I checked my badges.
Now, I had 6 badges. The 7th had been replaced by another bloody letter A.
Remembering that my Lapras had fainted, I checked my Pokémon. To my horror, Lapras was no longer there and, just as before, my remaining team had leveled down another 10 levels.
As I continued to play through this game, I continued to enter new rooms; my Pokémon continued to "faint", the survivors continued to decrease in level, and my gym badges continued to disappear. That is until, I reached the end.
Upon entering that last room, the process that I had become familiar with had happened again, on my second to last Pokémon:
"Venusaur fainted."
I checked my usual data, now realizing that I only had Pikachu left, level 8. This seemed very discouraging toward any possible good ending to this freaky little game I was playing. Just as before, I checked my badges.
They were now all gone and spelled out two 4-letter words:
STAY
AWAY
My heart was now racing, and I was desperately trying to bring myself to shut off the game, but to no avail, as if something wasn't letting me turn it off.
I was now in the normal Hall of Fame room, but I was able to free roam in it. Upon walking to the top of the room, I realized that it began looping, as if I was walking through and endless hallway.
After about 5 minutes of walking, I reached a downwards ladder, which was the only way out, so I took it.
I was now in New Bark Town again. Without taking a step, I was immediately facing Gold. He spoke:
"…
I said GET OUT!"
The battle began, each of us now with one Pokémon, him seeming even angrier than before.
Suddenly, he sent out a Ho-Oh, level 255. I sent out all I had left, Pikachu, now level 1.
His Ho-Oh seemed to have more of an evil grin than an angry face, but I think I knew why.
I had no items, I could not run, and I had no other Pokémon. I could only select FIGHT. My fate was sealed when it was shown to me that Pikachu didn't have any moves left.
"Ho-Oh used Sacred Fire."
As the obvious states, Pikachu fainted after one hit… but fainted isn't how the game said it:
"Pikachu died."
As this message appeared, a distorted fainting cry from the Yellow version Pikachu played as if he was dying slowly from the fire.
However after that, I still didn't black out.
My trainer sprite appeared on screen again and I was given the battle options. I chose the only thing I could choose, FIGHT. Just like Pikachu, I had no moves.
"Ho-Oh used Blast Burn."
As the move hit, the screen began to turn red as an extremely high-pitch sound that sounded like screaming started to play. I couldn't take it anymore and managed turned the game off.
I grabbed a sledgehammer from the garage and proceeded to walk to the city dump. However, once there, I remembered the label on the back of the game.
Upon looking at the torn label on the back of the cartridge again, I actually could read it:
STAY
AWAY
I tossed the game to the ground and smashed it with the sledgehammer until I couldn't recognize it as a game anymore… than hit it again for good measure. From that day forward, I promised to never play another used game ever again. However, at the same time, I don't think I could remember the 1st generation of Pokémon as the flawless time that I once did. I am also now afraid of battling Red on my HeartGold version, fearing that his spirit would come back to kill Gold (or at least my player in his place).
