I can't begin to explain how horrified I am about today's events. I feel nauseous just thinking about it. Or maybe it's just that ringing in my ears causing it. I finally fell asleep an hour after writing my last sentence in this letter. I'm not sure how long I slept, but it didn't feel like long.

I woke up to a very sweet, pleasant smell. I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the concrete, the dim lightbulb still casting an eerie glow on my prison. Everything was the same as when I went to sleep.

Except there was a plate of pancakes resting a few feet away from me.

Having not eaten anything since yesterday, my mouth watered as i stared at the three fluffy pancakes stacked on top of a ceramic plate and covered in syrup. Next to the plate was even a fork and a glass of water. But I knew better. I was positive this was a trap. The pancakes were probably poisoned. I sat there for about an hour, staring at the plate of pancakes, as they got colder and colder. Eventually hunger took over my mind and I decided to take the risk, since I was probably going to die here anyway. I cautiously crawled towards the plate, picked up the fork and cut a small piece of a pancake. I inspected the piece. It didn't seem the least bit suspicious, so I tried it. After finishing the piece, I waited a while before daring to try another, waiting for any side effects; dizziness, nausea, drowsiness, etc. After five minutes, I felt perfectly normal, so I gracefully proceeded to stuff my face with pancakes. They tasted genuinely amazing. The food was gone three minutes later (In hindsight, I probably should have savored it). I washed it down with the glass of water.

Several hours passed. I sat there in the dim light, staring blankly at nothing to pass the time, when suddenly a loud pop broke the silence. I was startled at the sudden noise, being it the first aural sensation I experienced during my time here that was not caused by myself. "Hello?!" I screamed. "Let me out, you sick bastard! Whoever you are, let me out!"

Another pop emitted from somewhere, followed by a continuous mechanical hum. I noticed that the black boxes in the corners of the ceiling now had little red LED lights glowing on them. So they really are speakers, I thought. I was right. I waited for a response. A full minute passed.

"No." A voice replied with a deep, gravelly undertone.

So my captor had a voice after all. "Show yourself!" I commanded, my outward anger hopefully masking my inner fear.

Another pause. "No."

"Who are you?" I asked.

I'm not sure if the voice laughed, or it was simply static from the speakers. "As if you don't know who I am, Ketchum." He growled, and he spat the last word like poison.

"Catch.. Um? What? No, I don't know who you are." I was beyond confused.

"It's Ketchum, you idiot! Not catch-um! Don't you know your own name?!"

"My name is Ron Peterson! I don't know who you are or what you want, but I-"

"You are lying."

What? "What?" I vocalized.

"I told you I would be better than you. I told all of you..." the man yelled, in a somewhat desperate voice. "But you never listened! You laughed at me!"

"Who are you?" I asked again.

This time it was definitely a maniacal chuckle that emerged from the speakers on the ceiling. "Oak. Gary Oak."

I am sorry but what no I am done.

"Like... From Pokémon?"

I had played the original game a couple times and beaten it once, and I watched the anime as a kid, so I knew enough about Pokémon to know who Gary Oak was. But he's fictional. This guy's a madman.

"I wanted to be the best Pokémon trainer of all time, and I was gonna do it, too! But nobody believed me. You laughed at me, Peterson."

"So now we're on real-name terms? What changed your-"

"You said I was a delusional little nerd," he continued. "An insignificant insect? Well..." The voice made a small chuckle. "Now who's the insect?"

A realization struck me. "Oh my god. Are you Terrence McCormick?"

"Do not use that name! That is not who I am anymore!" he screamed.

Terrence was a Pokémon supernerd in high school. He hung around in the geekiest of groups and brought his custom Pokémon card deck every day to battle at lunch. I can remember him saying something like, "When I grow up, I'm gonna be a Pokémon master!" at one point. The poor kid was just asking to get bullied. And sure enough, bullies went after him like moths to a flame.

And, unfortunately, I was one of those bullies. I only bullied the kid because I had finally found someone who was weaker than me. I dealt with bullying a lot and it was nice to finally direct the attention to someone else. I never did it because I enjoyed it, only to be in the safe zone with the bullies, so to speak.

Poor kid... He went nuts.

"What do you want with me?" I asked.

"You are going to serve as a lab rat. Time to initiate the test."

"What?! What test?" I was very alarmed now.

He didn't answer. Instead, a third pop emerged from the speakers, and the humming seemed to get louder. It stopped. The room was silent for a moment.

And then the music started.

It was the strangest music I've ever heard. It was some kind of 8-bit track. The melody sounded a bit like the theme to Lavender Town from Pokémon Red, but this version was just... Different. The frequencies weren't controlled and easy to shrug off like the normal version. No, this one sounded like it was made deliberately for hurting people's ears. The high pitched frequencies were unbearable, and at the volume Terrence played it at, I bet dogs in the next county could hear it.

At one point, the music resounded four notes over and over, going up one octave each time, first at a typical 8-bit square wave pitch, then up to a very uncomfortable level, then a dog whistle level. Directly afterwards there was a medium-low-pitched loud buzz, that exploded and faded out. Then the song looped. My ears wanted to explode and my head was pounding. The horrible noise continued to play over and over. I'm not sure why I keep referencing it in past tense. It's still fucking playing. Same volume as before. Somehow I managed to block it out so I could write this. I don't know when he's gonna stop it, but I hope it's soon.


God, make it stop! It's been hours! Please...