[[Author's note: Have you ever wondered about the undesirable byproducts and aimless failures that came before the success of Mewtwo? So have I. This fiction is not about the glitch pokémon, Missingno. I realize the title is slightly misleading. Sorry about that.
It also sounds about ten times better if you read it in Morgan Freeman's voice, like most things.]]
Missingno.
They came – from the iridescence of the white abyss into the darkness of fluorescent lighting – shambling, struggling, crawling. Directed to sit upon the belt that spared them the torment of walking, they were whisked through that room and into yet another. Those that hadn't retained memories of their previous existence believed that this labyrinth of sterility was the outside world, while those that had knew they would never again feel their skin warmed by the nursing rays of the sun or call upon the comforts of sleeping in a bed of flowers. The greater indecency is debatable: is it worse to kill that which has never known life, or prolong the life of a fallacy?
Whereupon came the first stop on the ride, the blue room suspended above nothingness itself, came the selection of those immediately deemed unfit: those that found breathing to be a struggle, those that toppled when forcefully sat upright. The aforementioned were taken up by a great metal arm – the hand of God, perchance, or some other intelligent designer – and cast into the blackness.
Those at first forsaken by eternal respite where thus chauffeured into the next place of collection: a five-sided room painted a muted yellow, existing both between and outside of time and space. The ceiling was shrouded in light and below laid a seemingly endless web of inactive conveyor belts and warp tiles leading to far-off laboratories extending into darkness; facilities closed as the project driving their existence neared fruition. Here, betwixt and beyond time-space, the remaining were further scrutinized by cameras mounted upon pivoting joints. The belt would stop incrementally, allowing these eyes their minute examinations of each specimen, rarely picking one or two out of the crop to ride the opposite belt that carried them back to the start.
At last, those untouched by both the first and second trials were awarded a look into the tertiary dais: a round room with iron walls painted red by the fires raging below. These fires provided the only light here aside from what little poured in from the previous chamber. The belt continued rolling until its abrupt end, at which point its passengers would go on to marry the white-hot bier underneath. Some to die straight away, some to die in the moments to follow – but all to have died without truly knowing life.
Thus, one thousand deaths did breathe life into me – and from the moment I was born did I begin to die.