What Happens inside Is a Mystery

The Start of it All
===Okay, I’ll admit it; I’ve never really gotten into video games. While everyone else in my class would be talking about them all the time, I’d always have no interest in what they were saying; it all seemed stupid and pointless to me. I was always doing other things, since I had a life, unlike them. === It was the day of my fourteenth birthday, and we were having one of those small, low-budget birthday parties like we usually did whenever my birthday came up. I had already gotten most of what I wanted, a new basketball bat, some books, and a CD or two, but then I noticed that there was another gift on the table for me, one I was sure I didn’t ask for.

“It’s from your aunt Margot, Oliver,” my mom told me when I asked her about the present, wrapped in standard enough looking orange/yellow wrapping paper with a red bow and a small yet blank tag hanging on it. “She didn’t know what you wanted, so she got you this.”

I shrugged, hoping that it would be something at least a little promising, before tearing open the present to see that my aunt had purchased a video game for me, Pokemon Sapphire, to be exact. I frowned slightly, knowing that I could not play this game (as I didn’t own a Game Boy Advance) and didn’t really want to anyway, but faked a smile so my parents wouldn’t think I was a spoiled brat or anything like they usually do whenever I don’t like a gift.

Later that day, I went back to my bedroom to inspect all of the prospects I had earned from my party, but my eyes kept resting upon the game more often than they did any of the other gifts I had received. I had been wishing that I could return the game and get some money instead that I could probably buy something useful with, but the game had not come with a receipt, so I could not. Eventually I got annoyed that it kept crossing my line of vision and, since I have some anger issues, I threw the blue game box against my closet wall and slammed the door shut. Of course, since they had heard the noise I had made upstairs in my room, my parents came barging in to see what the commotion was about, but I just lied and told them that I had slipped on a stray jacket I had strewn on the floor. They seemed to buy my story and went downstairs again.

Since then, I had pretty much forgotten about the game, never noticing it underneath the constant layer of clothing at the bottom of my closet, until the day I was going to move out of the house. I was busy clearing my bedroom of all the clutter stored any and everywhere I could fit every trivial thing I owned, before I finally noticed the generally crushed box casing of the old forgotten Pokemon Sapphire game from over four years ago. I stared at it shortly, not sure whether to be angry it had come up again or to just shrug and throw it away with the rest of the worthless garbage piling up in my closet, before dropping it on the floor and deciding that I would choose its fate only after all the rest of my belongings had been taken care of.

Of course, it wasn’t long before everything was accounted for, except for the stray, forgotten box on the floor. I grabbed it and was bringing it towards the nearly full trash bag in the center of the room, but then I recalled something important that concerned the game; I remembered that my friend Alfred was into Pokemon.

Alfred and I met each other when I was a junior in high school, and we’ve been best friends ever since. I would always poke fun at him for being into all the stereotypical nerdy stuff (namely video games and comic books) and he would always tease me about being a ‘nonbeliever’ in the so-called ‘immersive’ world of video games. Usually two people with such a huge difference between them wouldn’t have any way of being friends, since they wouldn’t really have anything to talk about, but somehow Alfred and I found a way to befriend one another, no matter how unlikely. Naturally, I assumed that he would be into this game upon finding it, so I called him.

<span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">After a few seconds, Alfred picked up. “Yeah, what’s up, Ollie?” he questioned. I could hear his controller clicking in the background and kept in a groan.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Hey, I found this game that I got about four years ago, but I was never interested,” I explained. “Do you want it?”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Sure, I’ll take it off of your hands. What game is it?” he asked.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Pokemon Sapphire,” I answered. “I think it says that it’s for the Game Boy Advance.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Oh, yeah, I used to play Pokemon when I was a kid,” he chuckled. “I’d be more than happy to take that game; I might get some nostalgia from it. Bring it over tomorrow, alright? I have to get to work later, and I’m kind of busy right now.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Busy playing video games?” I questioned. “I don’t see how you could possibly be busy doing something stupid like that. Shouldn’t you be out having a life?”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“How can you not be busy doing something awesome like this?” He countered; even though we both just had flip phones and I obviously couldn’t see him at the time, I could tell by his tone that he was smiling. Before I could reply, he hung up on me and I closed my phone.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">After a few more minutes passed while I watched a movie on the TV in my room, my mom eventually came upstairs to see how I was doing with clearing out my room. She noticed the Pokemon Sapphire game lying on my bed, and eyed it curiously. I prepared myself for her to start asking me about why it was so mangy and dirty-looking, but instead she just looked at me and the game as if she had never seen anything like either of us in her life. “Oliver, honey,” she began, while I looked on in confusion, “what is that?”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I hesitated, not really knowing why she didn’t remember the game, before replying, “It’s just something I found while I was cleaning. I’m planning on throwing it away later.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Oh.” My mom almost sounded disappointed or underwhelmed. “Well, be sure to get that done before dinner,” she said, before going back downstairs while mumbling odd things to herself. Baffled, I decided that she had most likely forgotten about the ill-fated game as I had and went back to watching my movie.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">

Change of Character
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The next day, after calling Alfred and ensuring that he was ready for my arrival, I got into my car and drove over to his house. The drive wasn’t too long, about ten to fifteen minutes, and I took the game from the passenger’s seat and knocked on his front door. Shortly after, my friend greeted me at the door and I entered with the game in my hand. “So, I think you should watch me play the game,” Alfred said as he led me to his room, the place in his house where he kept all his gaming devices and, of course, his games.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“No way, that would be a huge waste of my time,” I declined quickly, handing him the game as he dug around for a Game Boy Advance. “I had plans to go to the library later today to return an overdue library book I found yesterday.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Oh, but that can wait, can’t it?” he tempted. “It’s your game, so I think you should at least watch someone play it if you’re not interested in playing it yourself.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“I already said no, Alfred,” I replied sternly. “Put that kind of stuff on the internet if you want other people to see it. But anyway, I’ll see you some other time, okay?”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">He looked at me for a bit with an odd expression, before finally saying, “Okay, I guess.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">And with that, I left his house.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">About two months later, after I had gotten everything at my old house squared away and I had moved into an apartment a good way from my parents’ house, I got a phone call from Alfred. I picked up, guessing that he was going to tell me that he had finished the game and I had missed out, but was mistaken when I heard him say in a voice so dead serious that it made me believe that someone else was speaking, “I need you to come here right now.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“What is it?” I questioned. I had no clue what he was talking about, but it definitely didn’t sound good.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“It’s about your game,” he said, his tone steely. “Come here immediately.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I froze. “Okay, I’ll be there right away,” I eventually agreed, before I hung up and slipped my shoes on.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">During the drive to Alfred’s house, I couldn’t help but feel this off sense of foreboding, like something bad was going to happen. I’m not a superstitious type by any means, so I think this was just my imagination playing tricks on me, but it was almost like someone invisible was grabbing my forearms and guiding me to his home.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I parked in his driveway just as it began to snow gently outside, before approaching his front door and knocking. I got no response, so I tried again. Eventually, I got to the point where I wanted to leave and go back to my apartment, but I started to have that odd guided feeling again, and before I could stop myself, I had kicked the door open.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The house was a mess; discarded clothing was everywhere, as were empty plastic trays that you would get in a frozen meal and empty Hot Pocket casings, and the entire house smelled musty, dank, and rotten. I located Alfred’s bedroom, and started to look around. The first thing I saw in the room was Alfred’s Game Boy Advance, sitting on the bed with its lid wide open, and the opening animation for the game was playing on loop. His PC’s monitor was smashed in, and this room was no different than the living room had been and was a complete disgusting mess. Just as I reached my hand out to take the Game Boy Advance, I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head, and I fell over onto his filthy bed mattress. I could feel the consciousness leaving my body as I briefly saw Alfred standing over me with a baseball bat in his hands, smiling as my vision faded away.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">When I finally woke up, I was on the floor of his room, my nose pressed against a particularly smelly container of what seemed to be moldy macaroni and cheese. Displeased, I brought myself to my feet at once and went to leave the room. However, instead of actually doing this, my body felt again guided to some black object lying on Alfred’s bed. I was not able to see what it was at first, but it was eventually made clear to me that it was a handgun. I wondered what it was for and wanted to leave it be, but my hands were forced to the handle of the gun and my finger was adjusted onto the trigger beyond my control.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Suddenly, feeling like I was in a daze and like my entire body was moving itself, I threw open the door to the room and went back to the living room. I was looking around, not sure who or what I was searching for but suspecting that it was Alfred, until I heard a noise behind me. I spun my head around, and saw Alfred standing stationary, without any sort of movement, with the baseball bat he had used to knock me unconscious still in his hand. I was ready to open my mouth and speak to him, but I felt like a hand was covering my mouth as my arms were guided into the air until my handgun was pointing directly at Alfred’s chest, its aim hovering just underneath his left shoulder. I wanted to stop myself, and tried to move my aim towards something else, but my mind suddenly turned fuzzy and my head hurt wildly. I had no idea what was happening and no way of telling whether I had succeeded in stopping myself or not; I couldn’t feel or see anything until I heard Alfred cry out in pain and surprise nearby. I gained control of myself again and dropped the gun, before rushing over to him and looking over him.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The wound in his shoulder was bleeding out heavily, and he seemed to be himself again just as I was. “Did you shoot me …?” he asked me, looking stunned and afraid.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“I’m not sure, I think so,” I answered, anxiety and sadness washing over me as I noticed how severe his injury was. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what got over me, I’ll call 911,” I promised, bringing out my cell phone and turning it on.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Yes, please, hurry…” Alfred begged. He brought his hands us to where the bullet wound was, and started to pressure it. “I’m bleeding a lot…even though I’m using the tip I saw for bullet wounds on the internet two months ago…”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Yeah, yeah, I’m trying, don’t panic!” I said, panicking myself as I ignored the message popping up on my phone informing me about my contract expiring next month and starting to dial the numbers. I stopped when I heard Alfred speak again.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“I had no idea you were a murderer, Oliver….” he muttered, seeming to glower at me now as his mood suddenly changed; it sounded less like him, since he used my full first name instead of my nickname. “I guess we aren’t friends, after all….”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“I didn’t mean to, I was forced to! What’s happened to you all of a sudden?!” I cried, dropping my phone on the hardwood floor and watching as the screen cracked. Suddenly, the entire situation dawned on me. “What’s wrong with that game, Alfred?” I asked frantically. “Why are you—no, why are we—acting like this?!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Go play it for yourself,” he sputtered. “You deserve it….”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“What do you mean, I deserve it, Alfred? ALFRED!” I tried to get an answer from him, but I could already see that the life had left his eyes, and there was nothing I could do anymore. I tried to hide my grief but found it nearly impossible, and felt even more morose as tears rolled down my cheeks. Even if it wasn’t him speaking to me, I needed to listen to what he had told me to do before he had died; I had to play that game, if only to see what was so wrong with it.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I stormed upstairs to retrieve the Game Boy Advance. I couldn’t stand being in his house anymore due to all the memories of our friendship it held, so I went to the library instead and played it there instead, hiding in the teen romance section after making sure no one would find me. I took four lengthy black books from the shelf and used them as an ottoman so I would at least be comfortable for the inevitable playthrough of the game.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">

The Playthrough
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Since I’m not a video game critic by any means, I couldn’t tell whether the opening sequence was changed at all; basically what I saw was a kid riding a bike when a dragon thing flew past him, and then there were some animals fighting before it cut to the main screen again. I pressed the start button when it told me to, and it gave me some message about dryness and batteries and internal clocks or whatever, before I saw that there was no save file from when Alfred had been playing the game. I didn’t know whether he had erased the file or what, so I just started a new game and watched as the game unfolded.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">This man, named Professor Birch, apparently, started to introduce me to some different Pokemon or something, but I didn’t really care about introductions; I just wanted to see what was so weird about this game that made Alfred and I go crazy. I got to the part where he asked whether I was a boy or a girl, but it dictated that I was a boy by default for whatever reason, which even I, a ‘noob’ to the series found odd, and I chose one of the default names for the kid, but kept getting this glitch where I would choose the name ‘Sean’ and keep getting ‘Alfred’ instead. Eventually, I just decided that I would have to deal with this depressing yet necessary name before the ‘adventure’ began.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">It started with the professor standing between these two trees, with a little girl standing nearby. I could hear the noise of something bustling into the town south of me, before a moving van eased into view and the boy who I was supposed to be in control of came from the back and entered a house with a woman, presumably his mom. The Professor guy went up and dropped a bag on the ground in the middle of some clearing, before entering some grass and wandering around a bit. I found the game to be ridiculously boring, but it suddenly took a little bit of a turn when some weird raccoon came from nowhere and started to chase the Professor. If this was out-of-the ordinary or not, I wouldn’t know, of course, but I guessed it was real enough when Alfred came along and took a ball from the bag upon the Professor’s command and started to battle.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I didn’t have any control over the battle, but I didn’t really mind, since I didn’t know what any of the commands said, anyway; they were all in Japanese and random computer gibberish. Whoever or whatever was playing the game had selected a Pokemon called Dusclops, but I could guess that wasn’t supposed to be the first Pokemon you got since it looked a lot different from the usual ones I’d see in the television commercials for the show. Anyway, the player I was watching chose the attack Bind (which was written in English, since it seemed that only the menu for battles and stuff was in Japanese), and it used the attack. But instead of doing what the name of the attack meant it was supposed to be doing (supposedly, like I said, I don’t know anything about Pokemon), the raccoon-thing flickered shortly and disappeared after the game said that Dusclops had used the attack. Suddenly, I heard something sound from the speaker, despite the fact that I had the volume down to the point where I could just barely hear the game:

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Huh? This game must have glitches or something.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I froze, my eyes wide; I couldn’t believe it. I may sound crazy when I say this, but I could swear I heard Alfred’s voice saying that, but it was mingled with about four other voices. Before I could react (or leave the library before the librarian got on my case), it said something else. “And that Dusclops seems like a hack. I’ll need to ask Oliver about that.” Instead of the unison the last phrase had, the part where the game said my name had some of other names crammed in; I could make out, I heard Zack, Julie, Felix, and Willy. A message popped up on the screen, describing Dusclops. Apparently it was the Beckoning Pokemon, and there was a few lines below it that said;

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black;background:white">‘Dusclops' body is completely hollow - there is nothing at all inside. It is said that its body is like a black hole. This Pokemon will absorb anything into its body, but nothing will ever come back out. What happens inside is a mystery.’ <span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">As I had expected, the librarian came over to my hiding place, scolded me, and told me to leave. I nodded, leaving the four books in their place half-mindedly, and decided I would simply play the game in my car instead as I went across the parking lot.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The second I got back into my front seat, I opened the Game Boy Advance again and continued to watch the game getting played out. Alfred went around, making all the Pokemon he came across disappear mysteriously. It wasn’t until he got to a town called Petalburg before he encountered a girl with a red bandanna. She apparently challenged him to a battle or something like every other person in the world, because shortly after the two started to fight.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">There, the girl’s name was revealed to be May, and she sent out her first Pokemon, which was a pink Pokemon called Celebi. It made a glimmering sound affect after May sent it out. “No way, a shiny Celebi?!” the game suddenly exclaimed excitedly. “This game must be hacked! Cool! I didn’t know Oliver hacked games! Why didn’t he tell me before?” Once again, the audio on the name and ‘he’ was mixed up with other voices saying other names and either he/she.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">So, that was when I was able to comprehend that Celebi must be a rare Pokemon or something that you wouldn’t normally find. Even then, I still expected it to disappear the second the game chose his next attack like any other thing the player had encountered, but I was mistaken.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The Celebi tried a move called Heal Bell, and went first instead of Dusclops wrecking it all up before the Pokemon could raise a single finger/hand thing. A somewhat loud noise sounded from the GBA which sounded kind of like trumpets, and a message appeared saying that Dusclops had fainted. “That’s not what Heal Bell does,” the game said warily, as it described me giving this May girl some money and her talking about how Alfred needs to care more about others and stop hurting other Pokemon.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Alfred and May left the battle stage (I guess that’s what you’d call it) and were back on Route whatever now, and May started to talk about how she needed to continue stopping people like Alfred from hurting defenseless wild Pokemon and slaughtering the Pokemon of other trainers just so he could get what he wanted. An unnecessary amount of ellipsis followed, apparently said by Alfred, and May said, “Pfft! Soon your Pokemon will stop doing whatever you say and turn against you for being so mean to it! I hope you’ll be happy when it sucks you into that void like the other Pokemon!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Following this threat, she promptly walked away. “Silver all over again,” the game said. “Just switched around, I guess. Cool.”

Intentions Revealed
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I had no idea why voices in the game were suddenly talking about metal, but I figured it was just a ‘Pokemon thing’ and continued to watch as Alfred helped some kid catch a Mew or some kind of Pokemon like that out in the wild. The voices coming from the game seemed to go nuts over the appearance of a ‘wild’ Mew, so I assumed that this kid was capturing a ‘special Pokemon’ like that red bandanna girl had. Alfred’s dad in the game had given him a Pokemon called Banette or something like that to get the Mew with earlier, and the kid used a Pokeball (one of the only things in the game I actually know about) after the Banette used a move called Night Shade. The Mew Pokemon got caught pretty easily, and the boy and Alfred went back to Alfred’s dad’s gym.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Alfred’s dad asked for his Pokemon back, but the boy, who had been addressed as Oliver, asked if they could trade Pokemon. Alfred’s dad pondered it for a while, before agreeing to the idea and a message appeared on the screen, stating, “OLIVER traded his MEW for NORMAN’s BANETTE!” accompanied by a happy jingle. “What an idiot!” the game voices laughed. I bit my tongue to stop myself from replying to the fake voices; although the character wasn’t me, I felt like it was an insult directed toward me for some reason.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Anyway, Oliver thanked Norman for the Banette, and then turned to Alfred and asked if they could travel together. What followed from Alfred was a number of ellipses, and Oliver said, “Oh. Well, our Pokemon seem to like each other, so we should meet up again sometime!” And with that, Oliver left, and Norman faced Alfred. He started to talk about what Alfred needed to do, fight the other gym leaders and defeat the Elite Four or something like that, before sending him off with good luck.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I watched as Alfred adventured a bit more, until he reached Rustboro City. “Roxanne, right?” the game recalled as Alfred approached the gym and read the sign hanging outside, which did mention a girl named Roxanne being the gym leader and that she specialized in Rock-type Pokemon. I didn’t know what would usually be considered ‘good’ against a Rock-type Pokemon, which was why I was kind of glad that Dusclops could take out anything immediately.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Alfred entered the gym, and made quick work of the two trainers before the apparent gym leader. Alfred approached her, and she began to speak. “Oh, it’s you, ALFRED,” she said. “NORMAN told me that you would be coming soon. I’m ROXANNE, and I hope that you’re ready to denounce your horrible ways now. I’m not afraid of your DUSCLOPS like everyone else is.” And with that, they engaged in battle. Like usual, Dusclops took out the entire team very easily, and the battle ended immediately.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif""> There was nothing left where Roxanne should have been, except for two things on the ground. The game wondered with a somewhat humored tone, “Is Roxanne dead? Well, makes a bit of sense, I guess.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The question was soon answered, however, when a text box coming from Roxanne even though she wasn’t there said, “You may have defeated me, but I swear that the others will defeat you before you can harm anyone else! Your deplorable ways will not go unpunished, ALFRED!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Soon after, another text box appeared, this one saying, “ROXANNE was fully taken in by DUSCLOPS!”, accompanied with a happy jingle.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">A few seconds later, Oliver walked up to Alfred and said, “Nice work of ROXANNE. She shouldn’t be stopping us from becoming champions anymore. If this is how we want to use our Pokemon, no one can tell us we can’t!” And with that, Oliver left and Alfred picked up the two items on the floor, which ended up being a Stone Badge and something called a ‘TM’.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“That was weird,” the game observed.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">

Terrible Night for a Curse
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I noticed that it was starting to get dark, and I closed the GBA so I could drive home and continue watching the game there. As I drove, I contemplated the game a bit, wondering why all the voices were playing so clearly on the relatively primitive-looking speakers. However, Alfred had sent me this weekly video game song in the hopes I would stop calling it weird, and most of the songs from this game system were actually pretty impressive compared to the stereotypically simple Mario theme from God knows which of the seemingly tons of game systems there seems to be. After I decided to be flexible with him and start to enjoy some of the music he’d send me, I realized that the music from this system was nothing compared to newer songs and of course, you know, real music. So, of course, it was completely impossible for clear voices to be sounding from the speakers of the Game Boy Advance as if the people speaking were circled around me and watching me play.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">To finally get on with the story and stop talking so much about video game music, I got to the apartment building I lived at and went up to my room, which was relatively near the roof of the building and had a fantastic view. I sat down on my bed, opened the Game Boy Advance, and discovered that the game had still been going on while I was travelling the approximate twenty minutes back home. It seemed that Alfred was now encountering the next Gym Leader guy, someone with weird-looking blue hair named Brawly, apparently. His speech started a few seconds after I had opened the system again. “ALFRED! I heard about what you did to ROXANNE! I, BRAWLY of DEWFORD GYM, find that despicable! You can’t do something like that without harsh consequences! I challenge you to a battle to stomp you and your ways out once and for all, and I promise to you that I won’t lose!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Yeah, right. Eat some glitched One-Hit KOing Dusclops,” the game laughed.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Like Roxanne, the battle started and ended quickly, and Brawly disappeared from his spot after he had been defeated, leaving two items. He said, “You won’t get away with this! I know of at least two POKEMON who can and will defeat you; MAY’s CELEBI and your own DUSCLOPS! Both of them will oppose you, and you will never live or rest in peace after they’re done with you!” Afterwards, the ‘taken in by Dusclops’ message came on screen. Once again, Oliver appeared and said to Alfred, “I was too late to see the battle! It looks like you took care of BRAWLY, though. There’s no opponent we can’t crush, is there? Well, anyway, we’d better get a move on. We still have six GYM LEADERS to go!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Alfred emitted ellipses again, and Oliver said, “Oh, come on, ALFRED. We can’t leave your DAD alone just because he agrees with us! You need to get over yourself; you can’t have him as a crutch if you want to get a move on! We can’t spare a single GYM LEADER if we want to become the CHAMPIONS!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Huh. Dark,” the game said as Alfred collected Brawly’s stuff and left the gym. I gave a sideways glance at my alarm clock, and saw that it was getting kind of late. I knew I would have to go to work tomorrow, and I couldn’t spend all night watching a video game, no matter how important the game may be to my case. However, I assumed that the next six hours until I was supposed to wake up at six in the morning would just be gym battle after gym battle involving the same thing, so I decided that I would close the game system and go to sleep for the night.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">My dreams were odd, to say the least. All night, all I was dreaming about was the game. What was happening underneath the closed GBA was in my head, and I was dreaming about every aspect of it, as if I had never fallen asleep in the first place and was still watching the game play through. While I slept, the game took care of all of the rest of the gym leaders in the same way Brawly and Roxanne had been dealt with. There was some odd dialogue while Norman was being defeated about how he wished he never had a son and stuff like that and the last gym leader guy, Wallace, didn’t have Oliver running up to me after I won, but otherwise it was all the same and I found it boring.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">

Celebi used Heal Bell!
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Eventually, I woke up and glanced at the clock, and gasped when I realized it was eight o’clock, and I was two hours late for work. My boss was already angry at me for accidentally leaving my alarm clock off and being late for work once, and said that if I was going to slack off and sleep too long, I might as well stay home so that he doesn’t have to waste his time and energy on me. So, I sulked a bit about the fact that I was probably going to lose my job if I ever did anything like that again and got the GBA.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">I saw that Alfred was in a long tunnel, a maze of sorts, utterly destroying any trainer in his path, until he reached the end of the tunnel. There, two trainers were standing at the entrance; May and Oliver.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“It’s about time that you got here,” Oliver said. I expected some sort of snide comment to come from the GBA, but I was surprised when none came.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“We’ve been waiting for you ever since we learned you had taken down WALLACE in SOOTOPOLIS,” May said. “Now we’re both here to stop you once and for all.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Alfred spouted ellipses.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“I was never on your side, ALFRED, are you really that much of an idiot?!” Oliver laughed. “My BANETTE and I have been plotting your downfall ever since you found that DUSCLOPS in LITTLEROOT, found out about its capabilities, and decided to use it in this way! I gave NORMAN the MEW I had found in hopes that he would defeat you with it, but obviously he failed, and MAY and I will have to take care of you ourselves!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“I hope you’re ready,” May said. “When you lose this battle, your DUSCLOPS will finally turn on you and you’ll get what you deserve for hurting so many people!”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Abruptly, the battle with both Oliver and May at the same time started. I sent out Dusclops, as usual, and they both sent out their only Pokemon; May had her Celebi, and Oliver had his Banette. I guessed that neither of these Pokemon would go down the same way as the others, and I was right. Alfred managed to go first, but his usual way of doing things didn’t do a single thing to the other Pokemon. Then, May came onto the field and said, “Prepare to get what you deserve, ALFRED!” For some reason, the game showed Celebi and Banette attacking Dusclops at the same time, both using Heal Bell. Instead of killing Dusclops instantly like Heal Bell had the first time May had battled me, instead Dusclops faced Alfred, and the game stated, “DUSCLOPS used BIND!” before the screen cut to black.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">

Messages to the Lost
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The speakers on the GBA started to make all sorts of noises; many voices were speaking at once, and text boxes stating what each of the gym leaders had said before being fully taken in by Dusclops were appearing on the screen in order, before the screen turned fully black again and the voices lined up into order and started to be more clear and easier to understand. As the first person spoke, a tiny annotation-like text box appeared on the screen, saying ‘Layton’. I guessed this probably indicated who was speaking at the time.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Zack, I have no idea what’s going on,” the voice said in a frightened manner. I briefly recalled Zack to be one of the mingled names whenever my name was mentioned by the in-game voices and recognized Layton’s voice to be one of these voices. “My head’s getting cloudier, and I’m starting to think a lot differently. Whatever you do, Zackie, don’t play this game. I-I think it’s like a virus, and soon enough, there won’t be anything left in me but the game…”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">The text box changed its text so it read the name ‘Addie’.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Jules, I’m sorry,” she began in a sobbing, hard to comprehend voice, and again, I recognized her voice as one of the in-game voices distinctly. “I know from the other person here that soon, I won’t be myself again for more than three seconds if only to say goodbye to you, and I know that it’s all going to play out the same with us as it did with them. In advance, I apologize for anything I do to you in the state I’ll soon be in. At this very moment, my memories and being are slipping. Don’t forget any of this, and never play this game, whatever you do. I don’t want you ending up like me.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Again, the text box changed, and it now read ‘James’.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Your mom was right, absolutely right,” he said disdainfully. “I am a bad person, and I should never have started to hang out with you. Everything we’ve ever done together, every video game we’ve played with each other, they’ve all been bad things, and now I’ve been dragged into a situation where I know soon I’m going to die, and I know you’re going to follow me. I can’t stop you now, so I can only hope you can stop following me now and forever for your own good. But hoping won’t be any good, because the others have been telling me exactly what will happen to us once the game takes hold, and nothing will keep us from following the leader then.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Then, the box read ‘Nirvana’.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Willy, I know I should have never strayed from our usual gameplay together,” she said. “I never played without you, and now that I’ve played solo, I realize what a mistake I made. I’m going to die now, Wills. My mannerisms and maybe even my voice will be in the game, but truly from what I’ve heard, I’ll be dead and you’ll be my killer. Don’t get worked up. No matter how sad I seem when I’m shot in the shoulder like the rest and when I’m in the process of dying, don’t feel bad about it. I know that then, on the inside, I’ll want to die anyway. And if there’s only one good thing to come from this experience, Wills, it’s that you’ll be the one who will put me out of my misery once and for all when I’m finally gone.”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">My heart skipped a beat, when the box finally transitioned and ‘Alfred’ was written in it.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">“Ollie, the others have told me what’s going on,” he said, sounding unusually calm and somewhat happy for whatever reason.”When and if you hear this, I’ll be dead. Like Nirvey said, don’t get worked up about it. There won’t be police, I’ll just disappear and no one will know I existed except for you. However, you won’t get to live with the information for long. From what I can gather from the others, soon you’ll be in here, as well. You’ll only have about a week from now, but it won’t be easy living. Your mind will slowly dissolve until you’re nothing but an empty shell, but I need you to do one thing for me in that week; warn everyone you can. You’re a skilled writer, and I know that you write for a textbook company, so I’d recommend writing it and posting it on the internet if anything. I just want to know that the trend this game has will stop once and for all. And please, please, destroy the cartridge. Get over the fact that you’ll never hear me again or anything like that. It kills me to know that this game can and will take more lives, and I want to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. I’m sorry, Ollie…I can’t talk for much longer, but for what it’s worth…you were, are, and always will be awesome, despite the fact that you don’t play video games…”

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">His voice trailed off, and the GBA powered down. The second I put down the GBA, I got a splintering headache and my mind got foggy. I forgot a lot of things, mostly things like where I work and what my address is. I did remember Alfred, though, you I yanked the game out from the GBA, and ignored the game system’s sickening crack as it slammed into the ground and its screen cracked. I went outside, feeling my mind slowly dwindle, and threw the game out into the middle of the street. I sat down, and waited for a truck to come by and crush it, leaving it as a mess of blue shell fragments. I then ran back inside, and powered on my computer. I started up Microsoft Word, and instantly started to type up every detail of my story.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">As I write this, my head is hurting so badly I feel like it will explode at any second, and it’s only about an hour until I’m supposed to die. I’m afraid to discover whatever my death will bring to me, but all I know for sure now is this; whatever happens inside of Dusclops is a mysterious story best left untold.

==<span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Author's Note == Hello, everyone! My apoligies for the story being so long, but I guess it's not a problem, right? This is my first creepypasta and I often go overboard when I try to write a short story, so I hope I didn't goof up on this too much and make it unreadably long. I can't exactly trim it down, but summarizing it, I feel, would be relatively easy.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">