Part 1
My childhood had been mostly centered around playing Pokemon Pearl on my DS lite. I never had many friends as a child so those little pixel creatures were always treated like cherished friends. But you know how it goes, Nintendo comes out with new games and you start playing those old games less and less. When Pokemon Black and White came out I decided to send all my Pokemon from Pokemon Pearl into Black and White (as I had neglected to do so when Platinum came out). After that, the game basically became sort of useless. I hadn't played Pokemon Pearl for almost 5 years that day and I'm not even sure what caused me to pick the game back up. Perhaps, it was the boredom of a rainy Sunday when nobody else was around, perhaps, I had just been craving to get my old childhood back without realizing it. I'm not sure. Whatever it was I certainly didn't get it.
Since all my Pokemon and Items had long since been transferred into other games, I decided it was about time I restarted my game. I really had no regrets resetting the game, I knew that the only Pokemon I had in there was some lame Pokemon I had left in there to fill the required one space in my party. As soon as I deleted my data, the very first warning sign came up. The game played the opening just fine ... but as soon as I clicked start when Palkia appeared on the screen ... my blood ran cold. The entire screen turned blue and an error message popped up "Your save data has been corrupted. The game can no longer be played." Had I somehow broken my childhood game? I felt a rush of anxiety at this, I hoped I didn't. I figured it was an old game I must need to blow some dust off the cartridge. There was no save data anymore so it couldn't possibly be corrupted. I ejected the game card and blew on it before putting it back in and restarting the game. The opening sequence went by again and this time after pressing start the game let me play.
Professor Rowan showed up and started welcoming me to the Pokemon World just like normal. That's when the next strange thing happened. Rowan asked me to click the Pokeball at the bottom of the screen to release the Pokemon inside. I grinned remembering the Pokemon inside the Pokeball would be a Munchlax. Snorlax was one of my favorite Pokemon so it was always nice to see part of it's evolutionary line. But when I clicked the Pokeball instead of a Munchlax coming out...a Duskull came out. I figured it was just a sprite glitch, once again it's an old game. Munchlax's cry rang out when Duskull appeared so that seemed reasonable I guess. I still couldn't help being a bit unnerved by it though. I really hoped my old game wasn't breaking or something. I tried to brush it off but the reminder of all that was happening stayed in the back of my head. Next I got to choose if I was a boy or a girl. I picked a girl and went to go named myself. I typed in my name "Kiera". However, much to my surprise when I finished typing Rowan's script said "Your name is X?". I found that a bit weird, something was wrong with my game I had no doubts about that. A bit frustrated and a bit sad I clicked no and typed my name in again, but much to my annoyance after I finished typing once again Rowan's script came up "So your name is X?" I rolled my eyes and clicked yes. Apparently there was no getting out of this. Rowan moved on to naming our rival. I had always just named this boy his default name, Barry, so I decided to just stick with my uncreative ways and keep him at his default name. But (at this point I wasn't really surprised) Rowan once again decided to be a jerk "X.X, is it? That's your friend's name?" I didn't even try to fight this time. I just clicked yes. Trainer names didn't really matter I guess so long as all my Pokemon weren't named X I was perfectly fine.
Finally, we had finished the opening and I got to enter the game. I almost completely forgot about the antics of the game earlier, it was just so exciting to be beginning my old game over again. I couldn't wait to get my first Pokemon! But once again the game had to spoil that for me too. As soon as my character shrunk down into the overworld sprite, the game froze and my DS played a staticy version of Twinleaf Town's theme. It sounded more like static than anything. Now I was going to have to go through that entire opening sequence again. I sighed and shut off the game close to giving up. I restarted it and mashed down the A button to skip through the opening. To my surprise instead of having to go through the beginning of the game again my save file was already there. Player X with no badges and no time played. I was actually pretty happy. Maybe the game automatically saved once you finished the opening. I wasn't sure but I didn't really see it as weird, this had never happened to me before so I had no way of knowing if the game saved automatically after the opening or not.
I opened my save file and the TV displaying information on the red Gyarados appeared just as it normally would. I smiled recalling the excitement I had felt when I was just a little 7 year old starting this game for the first time. That seemed like so long ago. But once I clicked out I was once again greeted with an annoying glitch. The colors seemed to be glitching up...just a little bit. The entire area seemed to have a reddish tint to it. It wasn't really interfering with my gameplay but once again it annoyed me a bit. I just wanted to play the stupid game why couldn't everything just run smoothly? I walked downstairs, I expected my in-game-Mom to appear and tell me that Barry (or .X) had come over to look for me. But she didn't. She stayed sat in her seat it didn't look like she was going to walk over. I sighed and walked down and talked to her. What she said I don't think I will ever forget, it was the beginning of the horrors I had to endure that day.
"Oh hello there X, I've been waiting for you. You've been upstairs for such a long time. You never spend any time with me anymore. You should leave. Go away."
That didn't seem normal at all. The moms in Pokemon Games were supposed to be overly happy and basically idiots or something. It didn't make sense for her to want me to leave. A bit confused I left and headed off to Barry's house where I would usually go next in the game. The screen seemed to have turned redder...I was beginning to get nervous and wanted to turn off my DS but I wasn't about to let this stupid glitched game stop me from doing something I want to do. I walked up towards .X's stairs and the game seemed to play normally again. Once again he bumped into my character with the giant text "THUD!" But...that was about the only thing normal about our meeting. The Twinleaf Town Music began to get to a lower pitch, I tried to mute my DS but it wouldn't let me. I bit my lip and started reading what .X had to say.
"Oh hi X!" he said, this script seemed slightly normal... "I thought you hated me. We haven't talked in so long. You haven't talk to anyone in so long. I was worried. You were gone for so long..."
I blinked and looked at my DS. Did my game somehow know how long I had gone without playing? I continued on playing the game becoming more and more freaked out and confused.
"We should go play X..." .X continued "I've missed you so much...Have you missed me?"
I was a bit shocked when I got the options to choose yes or no. From reading those scary "videogames come to life" stories I knew no matter what I did .X would still be mad at me...at least...that's what I figured. I immediately powered off my DS taking Pokemon Pearl out and vowing never to play my childhood game again. I shoved it in the back of my old desk drawer almost hoping the cartridge would get smashed up and break. That was a pretty freaky experience even if it was nothing as graphic or horrifying as something in a scary story...
