Revenge

With HeartGold and SoulSilver’s release earlier this year, I tried looking for a copy of one of the original games, Crystal, to buy online. I hadn’t played this game in at least 7 years. It strangely went missing when I moved house as a kid. I saw the cart eBay. There wasn’t much information, or even a picture, but it had no postage and packaging price and only cost a dollar, so I was hardly losing anything if it didn’t really exist.

When the game arrived, it wasn’t in its original box, but instead, the cartridge alone was just wrapped up. It looked like a Crystal cartridge as it was shiny, slightly see-through and blue, but it lacked the sticker in which the game title is print on. However, I still put it in my pink Game Boy Advance SP. It was pink because I am a girl, of course.

I switched the handheld on. There was a loud beeping sound, and then the game began as normally. Once the menu screen was open, the only option was New Game, as it had never been played. The cartridge sure didn’t seem in that condition though.

So, I clicked new game. Instead of starting out with the Professor’s speech, it skipped straight to somewhere that didn’t exist in these games. Or at least, it looked like the place.

It was the Pokemon Mansion from the original games. The Pokemon Mansion on Cinnabar Island. The same Cinnabar Island that no longer existed.

I was the girl character, as I wanted to be, but I had no choice in this. On close inspection, her hair seemed a different color from what I originally remembered. It was a dark purple, and she also didn’t have her hat any longer.

I walked around the building. It wouldn’t let me up the stairs. The only other thing was a bed. I walked towards it and a scientist came along. He told me to rest, so I lay on the bed. The screen suddenly went pitch black. It stayed this way for a while. Before this transition, there was pure silence, but after, there were loud high-pitched noises, which almost sounded like screams. It was hard to tell though, as the sound was in 8bit.

When my character woke up, the place was covered in patches of red; blood. The character herself was drenched in it too. I tried to walk around, but I couldn’t. The scientist seemed to have disappeared, also.

I pressed all of the buttons to try and get something to work, and on pressing select, my character walked out of bed. Only, she was still in the bed at the same time. And unlike before, instead of walking, she appeared to float.

I pressed start, and my character turned into a Ghost Pokemon’s menu sprite. This shocked me slightly. I walked out of the door, when I suddenly teleported into Lavender Town. There, in the middle of town, was a gravestone. I clicked the “A” button to check it. It said “R.I.P. CRYSTAL”. I opened up my menu, and looked at my trainer card. The sprite of the trainer had turned into that of a Misdreavus’, and as I though, the player’s name was “CRYSTAL”.

The scientist came up to the tombstone, and it suddenly disappeared. He seemed to run at twice the speed of a normal game character.

My character, without my control, floated after him. As soon as she entered a patch of grass, a random encounter appeared. Only, this encounter was hardly “random”. The Pokemon was Mewtwo. Instead of attacking, a few lines were written.

“You let them get you, didn’t you, CRYSTAL?”

There was a yes and no option, I just clicked no, as I was unsure of what was going on.

“Don’t lie to me! I can see what they did! Look at yourself.” After this, the game paused for a few seconds, then the “battle” continued. “You’re just an object of science, like me. I’m not real, and neither are you. You were just made out of a tiny bit of DNA from something else, and when you weren’t perfect, they killed you. Would you like to seek revenge?”

I clicked no again, and I was sent back to the field, with Mewtwo still following my character.

I walked until the scientist appeared again, and suddenly, my bag screen came up with the only item there being “Knife”. I clicked it, and pressed use. Suddenly, the screaming noise appeared again, and the screen went black.

Suddenly, the screaming got louder and more frequent. When it stopped, I was in the radio tower. A text box appeared.

“Why did they destroy our home? We were meant to be here… Everyone who destroyed our home is gone. Everyone in the world is gone. We killed them all. We got revenge like you. Now all the world is gone.”

Suddenly, the screen went white, with my character still there. “Everything is gone. You also killed us. You’re the only one left. Why did we kill people? Why did you help? Now, you must get what you deserve!”

The character was replaced with a patch of blood, and then the game froze. I have never picked up this cartridge again.