Lost Silver

You see, I am a simple college student living alone in an apartment. I was very enthusiastic about the release of Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver in the states. I have purposely locked myself out of all media and the Internet aside for school purposes, which means no 4chan or Bulbapedia.

As I was busy with school and being a poorfag at the time, I wasn't able to buy SoulSilver at launch. After my school year ended, I ordered SoulSilver on Amazon. However, it would take a week to arrive. I decided that during that time I would replay Pokemon Crystal on my Game Boy Color.

However, I realized that my mother threw it away long ago because I told her the save went dead. I was very upset about it then. She also threw away my copy of Silver, leaving me with just the Game Boy Color and no games. As such, I set out to GameStop and bought a used copy. It was $10, which is fairly cheap for GameStop.

I went home and started it up for the nostalgia trip. However, that's where things began getting bizarre. It's most likely the reason you're reading this, too.

The Game Freak logo showed up like normal, but the game froze. I thought the cart had an error or something, so I turned it off and on again. The same thing happened. I tried pressing all of the buttons, but nothing happened.

Eventually, the logo vanished and there was a black screen for about five seconds. Rather than going to the usual menu screen, I was suddenly placed in the game with a previous save file. It was odd, considering I expected all these carts to have been wiped clean by the poor battery. Either way, I wasn't complaining. I would've chose "Continue" anyway.

First, I checked the trainer information. The character's name was set to "...." This guy didn't have much originality. I checked the profile and apparently he had put 999:99 hours into the game. He had all 16 badges, the max amount of Pokedollars, and all 251 Pokemon logged in the Pokedex. I assumed he cheated or was a really hardcore Pokemon player.

I checked his party to see what sort of badass team he had. To my surprise, I saw five Unowns and a sixth Pokemon named HURRY. I thought it must have been some cruel joke played by the person who last played the game, but I decided to check the profiles of these Pokemon anyway.

As expected, they were different letters of Unown. All of them were level five. 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 Pokemon, it turned out to be a Cyndaquil.

It looked normal, but it was level five with only one HP left and only two attacks: leer and flash. I don't know why they named him "HURRY," but at the time I disregarded it. The most eerie thing about it was that, despite my volume being at max, none of the Pokemon had sounded their cries. There was only silence.

Having enough of the team, I closed that screen. I was parked at what appeared to be a room inside Bellsprout Tower, but without any NPCs around. Even stranger was that the 'pillar' in the middle didn't move at all and appeared to be leading on its side. There was no music, either, and there didn't appear to be any exit.

I walked around for a few minutes, but couldn't find a way out. This was certainly not a room I had seen in Bellsprout Tower before. I tried checking my items for an Escape Rope, but the bag was completely empty. There didn't seem to be any wild Pokemon, either.

Finally, I managed to find a ladder. It turned out to be behind the 'pillar'. The screen turned black and the music finally started. The music was that theme you hear when you listened to the radio at the Ruins of Alph where you catch Unown. I had a sudden chill when I recognized it.

Eventually, I realized that I wasn't in a loading transition, but a dark room and would need to use Flash. Before I took care of that, however, I checked my Pokegear to change the radio to something more pleasant.

Oddly, there was no Radio card; the Pokegear was even lacking Phone and Time Cards. There was only a map card, in which Gold ("..." from earlier, who I'll refer to as Gold from now on) was walking in a sea of black.

I recalled that Cyndaquil had Flash, so I turned off my Pokegear and made the Pokemon use the needed attack. I didn't see any message saying "HURRY used Flash!" or anything of the sotre; the room simply became lit just like that.

The room was a chilling blood red. Upon looking around, I noticed there was one way to go: a gray path. It didn't have one of those color changes for when you enter a certain area. One area was red and it cut off to a stark gray. The ladder to enter the room was missing, as well.

I had no choice but to head south. The screen got darker every twenty steps I made, but never dark enough to require the use of Flash again. I finally made it to the end, where I noticed a sign there. It said "TURN BACK NOW." I'm not sure what that meant, as there wasn't anywhere to go.

Suddenly, the option to select yes or no appeared, despite no question being asked. I chose yes, as I didn't know what it was asking. The screen faded to black as the 'ladder climbed' sound played. The Unown Radio music stoppd and, in a few seconds, was replaced by the not-so-creepy PokeFlute radio music.

I was in another dark room, but I held my breath and used Flash again. Suddenly, it said "HURRY has fainted!" It was strange because, as I recall, there weren't any status conditions on him and I clearly wasn't in a battle. I checked my Pokemon quickly, but he was no longer in the party.

In fact, none of my Pokemon were there. Instead, they were all replaced with level ten Unown. I did the same thing as before and spelled out the Unown. It said, "HEDIED."

Either way, after that creepy change the room was lit to reveal myself in a very small room that was 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 Red and Blue. I walked around that small room and pressed A a bunch of times, but nothing happened.

By then, I had concluded that it was a hacked game some sadistic fuck sold to GameStop, but my curiosity kept going. I checked the trainer profile of "..." again only to find that the sprite of Gold was missing his arms. He also appeared less smug and more sad...empty in a way I don't know how to edescribe. He also had 24 badges, which is impossible.

After a few minutes of aimlessly wandering around the room, Gold suddenly did the Escape Rope animation. Instead of flying up, however, he spun downwards, as if sinking.

After that, the music stopped. After finally landing, Gold's sprite was colored differently. Instead of the usual red color he dons, he appeared completely white - including his skin. It was as if he came straight from the old Game Boy games and was placed into a colored background of a Game Boy Color game.

I checked his profile and he was as white as his overworld sprite. He had lost his legs and bloody tears appeared to come from his eyes. It also said he had 32 badges, which started to disturb me. This change of number seemed to represent something important.

I also checked my Pokemon. At the time, the party contained five Unowns and a level 100 Celebi without any kind of name at all. It was blank where a name should have been. The Unown, at that time, were level fifteen and spelled out "DYING."

I checked the Celebi's profile and it turned out to be shiny. Half of the sprite wasn't there; there was only one leg, one arm, and one eye. It only had one attack, too: Perish Song.

The area I was in was the Sprout Tower, with the same immobile pillar as before, but everything was read. I walked north for what felt like forever before encountering generic NPC characters. They were all lined up to the side, facing the pillar in the middle of the room. They were white like Gold and nothing happened when I tried to interact with them.

I paid them no mind afterward and kept going north until the pillar appeared to be chopped off. A transparent looking Red was in that spot and I walked up to him. Without even pressing A, I was suddenly engaged in a battle.

The music started again; it sounded like the Unown Radio music, but played backwards. Gold's battle back sprite matched the front one, while Red's was the same as before in Gold/Silver/Crystal, with the exception of it being transparent. The text simply said " wants to battle!" It was as if he had no name.

Both of us had only one Pokemon each, which was odd since I had six before. My shiny Celebi was called out, with the half-a-sprite for its back sprite as well. The 'shiny' noise and animationw as different and the sounds it made sounded like multiple screech attacks used consecutively. Red sent out a seemingly normal Pikachu at level 255 and a seemingly sad sprite with teary eyes.

Rather than the usual "FIGHT/ITEM/PKMN/RUN" menu, I was only given the option to use attacks. Because Celebi only had one, I chose it. Naturally, since Pikachu was level 255, he went first.

"PIKACHU used CURSE!" It lowered his speed and increased his other stats. I'm not even sure if it's possible for a Pikachu to learn that move.

"CELEBI used PERISH SONG!" In three turns, both Pokemon would be KO'd, but it wasn't like I had a choice. At this point, it didn't go back to the fight menu. The battle continued without me. It was at this point that I noticed there were no animations, as if the options were set that way.

"PIKACHU used FLAIL!" It didn't do much damage, despite his level. It didn't boost his health, either, since it was maxed out.

"CELEBI used PERISH SONG!" Nothing happened, as Celebi had used it in the previous turn.

"PIKACHU used FRUSTRATION!" This did a ton of damage and knocked Celebi down to less than ten HP.

"CELEBI used PAIN SPLIT!" This surprised me, as Celebi didn't have that attack in the first place. Both Pokemon ended up with around 150 HP.

"PIKACHU used MEAN LOOK!" It did absolutely nothing.

As expected, due to the effects of Perish Song, Celebi fainted. In the next, however, it said "CELEBI has died!" and, instead of the ordinary fainting animation, the Celebi sprite vanished. For some reason, the Pikachu was still up, even with Perish Song, and it didn't count as my loss. Pikachu then used one more attack, going beyond the four-attack limit.

"PIKACHU used DESTINY BOND!"

Afterwards, it said "PIKACHU has died!" with a slow fade-out animation. Apparently, I was the winner. The transparent Red sprite showed up and said "... ... ... ... ..." At that point, I freaked out. The transparent Red sprite was suddenly beheaded, leaving nothing but his transparent body. The battle 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 just as transparent as Red was. I quickly checked Gold's profile and it showed the only 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 also stated he had 40 badges. I backed out and checked my Pokemon. They were all level 20 shiny Unown that spelled out "NOMORE."

I was at what I now know is next to the end. There was no music playing, but for some reason I still felt like something was there that could be heard. I was back in Gold's room in New Bark Town. I thought maybe I was able to play the game properly, but what I was I kidding?

I knew some sadistic fuck must have done something. I 'walked' around the room to interact with things, as I was afraid to go down the stairs to see what was waiting there. Note that I said 'walked,' but while the background was moving, Gold wasn't moving his transparent limbs at all. He was floating like the ghosts in Diamond/Pearl.

As expected, nothing worked. I had no choice but to go down the stairs. I ended up in the lower level of Gold's house. Everything appeared to be normal, but Gold's mother wasn't home. After failing to interact with anything in that room, I decided to go outside.

To my surprise, the door leading outside didn't work. Instead, I walked straight through it into a void. I continued moving south to see what the fuck was going on. Gold's house vanished as I 'walked' away from it.

It was creepy. When I entered the void, the outline on Gold's sprite turned white to contrast with the pitch black. Eventually, I reached a white area and Gold's sprite outline turned black again. I continued south without even thinking of stopping at all.

After a long trek south, I finally encountered something: Gold's regular sprite. I talked to him and he said, "Goodbye forever ...." (notably with a space in-between the forever and the ....) and vanished. As that happened, it said "??? used NIGHTMARE!" At that point, I didn't deny that to be possible. Gold did another Escape Rope animation afterward.

I was back in that small hollowed-out room surrounded by graves...or, at least, I say I was back there. There was no longer any sprite. I tried to walk around, but nothing happened, not even a wall bumping noise. I checked my trainer profile and there was no sprite. It said I had 0 badges and all the Gym Leaders were replaced with skulls.

I checked my Pokemon, which were all level 25 Unown. As expected, it spelled out another phrase I dared to read: "IMDEAD."

As soon as I went back to the overworld, the room I was supposedly in was covered with the same blocks as the walls. I figured out what that room was when a text box popped up that said, "R.I.P. ..."

That room was a big grave surrounded by other graves. Gold had 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 attempts at becoming a Pokemon Master, was unable to avoid the inevitable fate of death. His efforts were eventually forgotten by the next generation.

I was unable to escape from that text no matter what I pressed. I tried to reset the game, but the same thing happened again and again until I decided to give up on that horrible nightmare. After that experience, I will never look at the 'gimmick' Unown the same way again.

They say only the first generation has its folk tales and legends, but the second generation has shown me how unpleasant the truth can be. I eventually got my copy of SoulSilver and enjoyed it immensely, but I still can't unthink what that rigged game has shown me.

(This hack was made by dabr1dg3. You can download it here.)