Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter

A Pokémon Black and White Creepypasta

It was at the end of summer when my husband finally got the job of his dreams: He became a scientist at the Season Research Lab. Due to that we had to move from the small village we used to live in to Driftveil city, where my parents resided. But since I have had an impaired immune system for all my life and I got ill very easily, we decided to move into a house nearby Route 6, somewhere between the Laboratory and Driftveil City.

"It's the perfect domicile for us.", my husband, Adrian, had said when he'd told me about this place, "The air is very clean and pleasant, so it's good for your health. And as for Finn…", he had said and stroked our young son's head, "Since there is nothing but beautiful nature around us, many room to play, and lots of friendly Pokémon. He'll have a great time." Finn, not really getting what his father was talking about, was just cheering and shouting: "I wanna go there! I wanna play!"

And so we moved. Adrian was walking over to the laboratory every morning, leaving the house to Finn and me. We did the chores, did the shopping, played games and had a nice time.

Well, at least for a few weeks.

It was the beginning of autumn when Finn had his sixth birthday – and I realized he'd have to go to school soon. He'd have to leave the house in the morning, just like his father did, and wouldn't be back before afternoon. I know it sounds silly for a grown woman to be like that, but I really did not want to be alone at home for so many hours… Yeah, pretty silly…

I told Adrian about this, about my worries. But he just smiled at me – and took me for a walk.

"You see", he had said and showed me a herd of Deerlings, those cute Pokémon the scientists were researching, "You'll not be alone. They are always here, and if you want me to, I'll catch you one of them… so you'll have a pet and you won't be alone. How does this sound?"

I couldn't help but smile, and he took me in his arms, telling me not to worry. I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of his body.

But when I opened my eyes, I saw something strange.

A few metres away, standing in the bushes behind Adrian's back… there was a Sawsbuck. But not just any Sawsbuck – it was in its winter form. I starred at it, and closed my eyes for just a second – but it wasn't there anymore.

"Weird…", I mumbled, ignoring Adrian's bewildered gaze, and decided not to tell him, since my mind was probably just messing with me – which was in fact nothing new. Also, I didn't know anything about those Pokémon – except the fact that they had different forms, and that they were pretty rare around here due to the fact that Deerlings usually migrated to other routes before they evolved. But since this was everything I knew, I didn't want to bother my husband with my silly imaginations.

A few weeks later, Finn wanted to accompany his father to the laboratory, "helping" him with his work and "survey" their research. Adrian was fine with that, too, and so I thought it might be a chance for me to prepare myself for being without them the whole day.

But in the evening my husband called me.

"Did Finn come home already?", he asked, and his voice sounded kinda worried, "He's not here anymore. Hm, perpaps he's still playing outside…" But I barely had time to answer before I heard a cheery voice from the other side of the phone line. It was Finn, no doubt.

"Oh!", Adrian sighed, "The matter has resolved itself. He's back." And then he hung up.

Finn had to hear some scolding from me afterwards. We had agreed he wouldn't go too far away from the laboratory, but while he had played with the Deerlings, he got distracted. Or so I thought.

"But mommy!", he had said - still smiling happily, even though I had just given him a lecture, "I met a very nice deery, and I played with it the whole day! It was so much fun!" With sparkling eyes, he had faced his father. "Daddy, let me play with the deery tomorrow, too."

And in fact, Finn was playing outside very often the next days. I couldn't find a reason to bar him from playing outside, since he always came home at noon and before it was getting dark. But still… I had a bad feeling about this.

And I was right.

One day, in the middle of autumn, Finn didn't come home in the evening.

I got very worried, and Adrian proposed to go outside and search for him ourselves. We couldn't find a trace, though. That's when we called the police, but since the missing person was our son, we continued searching for him.

And two days after our son had gone missing – Adrian and I still hadn't given up our hopes – we saw it: There, standing in the thick forest, was a beautiful, but out of the ordinary Sawsbuck. It was in its spring form, its antlers standing in full bloom.

This reminded me of the Winter Sawsbuck I had seen a few weeks ago…

"Linda…!", Adrian called out to me in surprise as he saw the weird but beautiful Pokémon, "Why is it…? It's fall, so why is it…?"

"It's not the first time I've seen something like this…" The words were finally slipping out of my mouth, and I told my husband about the Winter Sawsbuck I had seen back then. And without any evidence, we both thought it would be the same. It was our intuition which told us that, I guess.

"But… do you remember? Finn told us something about a nice and beautiful `deery´ everyday. He said it wouldn't look like those other `deeries´ we are researching. Maybe… he didn't mean a Deerling, perhaps he was talking about a Sawsbuck."

"This Sawsbuck?", I had asked, thinking this would be a little bit too far-fetched, but Adrian just shrugged.

"At least it's a hint. Perhaps we should trace this Sawsbuck?"

But just like the last time, it was already gone.

Back at home, Adrian showed me pictures of Deerlings and Sawsbucks, and that's when we realized there was something else that wasn't normal about the Pokémon we had seen before: The fur of this Sawsbuck has been brighter than the others' was, so Adrian guessed it might be a shiny.

"I'll have to research that as soon as Finn is found…", I heard him mumble, but according to the sound of his voice… it seemed like he had already given up hope.

The following day changed my life completely. The same morning Adrian had promised me to search for this Pokémon and Finn the whole day, the police officers had come over to our house, telling us they found our son.

Dead.

I'd already guessed that in my mind, but I didn't want it to be true.

But when they showed us the small body, lying on the ground deep in the forest, covered in blood… there was no doubt.

This had been our son. Our one and only son.

"The weird thing is…", the officer told us after a few minutes of silence, "His head is crushed and he was bleeding to death, but he probably… did it himself. Or at least it seems like this. Do you have any idea why?"

I couldn't answer. We couldn't answer. The moment the police man had stated our son had been bleeding to death, while suffering unbearable pain, my mind had stopped thinking properly and was just filled with sad and mad thoughts. Adrian just shook his head, not knowing why Finn should have done something like that. Really, this was ridiculous… it must have been an accident…

"Li-linda! Look, over there!", Adrian suddenly pulled me out of my thoughts, pointing his finger towards a few prints on the ground. And when I took a closer look, I realized what he was so stirred up about: It were the footprints of a Sawsbuck. Yes, defenitly a Sawsbuck's, not a Deerling's. I knew that… without really knowing it. Intuition again, I guess.

The day after Finn's body had been found, Adrian had quit his job. He wanted to find the shiny Sawsbuck, since he was sure it had something to do with our son's death. He went out in the early morning, and didn't come home before midnight. He left me all alone at home, left me there in grief and despair. But he didn't care. It seemed like he didn't care about anything at all – except the Sawsbuck.

The few times I had still been awake when he came home, he hadn't done anything else than rambling about how he hated Deerlings and Sawsbucks – the Pokémon he had once loved. He said he knew it was their fault that Finn had died, even though I knew he had no proof he was right. He had told the police, but they had told him there were probably no interrelations between those two incidents. And even I thought so.

But one day, a few months after our son's death, my husband came home in the late afternoon and told me he had seen the Sawsbuck again.

"It was in its spring form, so it must have been this one special Sawsbuck. I have seen our son's murderer, and I couldn't do anything!" He banged his fist on the table and stared at me with an angry gaze. I didn't know why he looked at me like this, and why he just shouted at me whenever he told me something. It made me sick. Literally.

I was ill the next day. I couldn't leave my bed, coughing and breathing heavily. Usually Adrian had stayed at home when I was sick before, or he had at least looked after me as much as possible. But this time he left the house like every morning, still searching for that Pokémon out there.

And that's when I realized: It wasn't just a search anymore. He didn't carry a knife with him for his own protection. He was obsessed with the shiny Sawsbuck, and he was obsessed with the thought of killing it.

Yes, he wanted to kill it. That was more important to him than his own wife.

I planned to finally tell him my worries and complaints, and wanted to talk with him about his weird obsessing. When he would come home this evening, I would still be awake, waiting for him, even though I was ill. I waited for him. For hours. He didn't come home.

And when I woke up the next morning, he still wasn't there.

Since everything reminded me of Finn's loss, I called the police right away. Due to the fact that something like this had already happened a few weeks ago, they immediately started another search, this time for my husband. He wasn't found, though.

Some days later, my health was slightly getting better again, and so I decided to take a walk, looking for my husband myself. I must admit, I had already given up my hope, since two loses in such a short time were way too much for me. I'd rather accepted the fact that I was all alone now than feeling the pain of my false hope dying at last.

Though, I was still looking for him. At least for his dead body.

Suddenly, I heard rustling in the woods. I followed the calming sound of the wind in the bushes, and walked deeper into the forest. And then I saw it again, standing on a glade in the middle of the forest. Its fur was shining and shimmering in the light of the sun.

It was the Sawsbuck again, green leaves grown all over its antlers. It looked at me, then turned around and walked away.

I knew what to do: I followed it without hesitation. It led me deeper into the thick forest, where the trees' branches were quasi reaching for one another. It almost made it impossible to follow the Pokémon.

Under a great tree the beautiful Pokémon suddenly stopped. And within a millisecond, it had disappeared. I looked around, trying to find out why it had led me here – and I instantly found it.

Lying on the roots of the tree, there was Adrian. I came closer and realized the wounds he had on his arms and his throat. His blood had already curdled, but it was still a terrifying sight. It seemed like he had tried to slice his own throat and wrists, and had then decided to stab himself into the heart with the knife he had always carried around since Finn's death. But I couldn't imagine he had really killed himself. Why? Why should he have done that?

Next to him were footprints in the crimson red earth.

It were the footprints of a Sawsbuck again…

Linda had always been a physically and psychically weak person. But since she had met and married Adrian, everything had gotten better. She hadn't had depressions anymore, and her health was getting better with every day.

Her husband and her son had been her cure, her salvation.

And then she'd suddenly lost everything.

Both her son and her husband had died, and Linda had been found in the woods a few days later. She was almost starving, was psychically distressed and seemed to have hallucinations. She was babbling about a shiny Sawsbuck – just like her husband had before he had killed himself in the woods.

Being greatly worried, Linda's parents took care of their depressive daughter and took her in. Linda moved back to her hometown, Driftveil City, and lived in her old room again. But she completely isolated herself from everyone else, she didn't even talk anymore. Not to her parents or anyone. She cried in the night, and suddenly started to laugh like a madman. The poor widow was driving crazy.

One night, at the end of autumn, I left the house and walked through the night, like I sometimes did. I staggered into the forest, not knowing where I was heading nor what I was looking for.

"I'll know it if I am there.", I told myself, smiling for some odd reason I didn't even know, "I will know."

I was strolling through the deep forest, my bare feet were hurting and almost bleeding – but I didn't care. There was just one thing that mattered, and I didn't even know what it was.

And while I was stumbling through the woods, I suddenly caught a glimpse of green between all the red and brown leaves of the autumnal forest. I immediately knew what to do: I followed it.

In the middle of the forest, there was a river flowing by. The beautiful Sawsbuck was standing there, waiting for me. The moonlight made its fur shiny and sparkling, and the green leaves on the deer's head were mirrored by the surface of the water.

I smiled and stepped closer. And now I'm standing here, face to face with this special Pokémon.

"I was looking for you all along. Now I finally know it."

I take one more step towards the Sawsbuck. And then another.

"I understand it now. You were showing them the right way, weren't you?"

The mysterious Pokémon stares at me with his beautiful, black eyes. And then it nods.

A few seconds of silence later, it finally turns around and walks away. I follow it.

At last I'll find my peace. I can't help but smile.

Show me the way out of this, Sawsbuck. Show me the way…

A few days had passed since Linda had disappeared from her parents' home, and it was starting to get colder. Winter had just begun as a young scientist was taking a stroll through the forest and along the raging river, looking for Deerlings, since the Pokémon seemed to avoid both forest and river lately.

As he was sitting on a branch that was reaching into the river, he caught a glimpse of red hair in the water. When he took a deeper look into the water, he realized it was the hair of a young woman, who's body was drifting in the water. Her skin was pale and shriveled, and her red hair was floating in the water like silk. But there was something odd about this drowned body: The young woman's face.

She was smiling.

The young scientist looked at the beautiful dead body floating in the water, not knowing what to do, when he suddenly heard rustling in the woods.

He turned around to face the living being that was standing there behind him.

It was a Sawsbuck.

Its fur was shimmering and brighter than normal. And the leaves on its antlers were red.

Sawsbuck (Kronjuwild):

Does not change its appearance with the seasons but with its "victims"

Its fur is brighter than other Sawsbucks' - shiny?

A mysterious and lonesome Pokémon that leads humans to death

It's not bloodthirsty or anything, it just leads people who are sick of their lives or who are searching for a better world towards their death

At the beginning of the story: Winter form - Son's death: Spring Form - Husband's death: Summer form - Linda's death: Autumn form