Pokemon Nightmare Stories

Easter Egg - Snow on Mt. Silver

Now, the thing is that I'd spent the last 24 hours at a friend's place. I had literally come home, dumped my bag in my room, and crept out into the sun with my GBA to play. I had no idea what he'd been up to. For all I knew he was done with the game and onto a new one... which, I figured, was all the better for me since he wouldn't need those Pokémon and I'd stand a better chance of nicking a few. So I got up and went into the house, and when I was crossing the living room I noticed all of his Pokémon games lying on the floor.

Some of the cartridges had been mangled, like they'd been hacked at with something sharp. Even his old Blue version, long ago dead and too sentimental to throw away, was lying with the plastic cut ragged, split almost halfway up one side, completely unusable anymore even if it would have worked. I was a little scared. This had to have happened this morning, otherwise our mom would have seen and they wouldn't be lying on the carpet. Tucking my GBA into my pocket, I crept over to his room and found the door unlocked. Somehow that was even more concerning.

I walked in and found my brother sitting on the edge of his bed. His GBA was in pieces on the floor at his feet, smashed to bits. Next to him on the bed were a hammer and our mother's gardening scissors. His face was paler than I'd ever seen it, even whiter than the time we'd gone corning and the old guy up the street, legally blind and a raving nutcase, had come and chased us into the trees with a shotgun. It was now I also noticed the GameShark on the ground, and a silver cartridge corner poking from under his bed. Somehow they had been spared the wrath of the hammer.

"Are you okay?" I asked. I remember the chills that ran through me. He was my little brother. Seeing him like this was horrifying.

"It was awful," I remember him rasping, and the way his voice rattled made my knees weak. "Oh god. White everywhere, and then BLACK..."

I remember running over and hugging him. And I remember, his limp arm fell and brushed the Gameboy in my pocket, and his sudden scream, right in my ear, making me jump and bite my tongue by accident. He ripped the handheld from my pocket and hurled it at the far wall. I cried out at the dent the plastic system made there, running over to collect it. The screen had gone dark, and though I feared the worst when I flicked the switch it powered up normally. I waited there in the corner, trying to pretend the GBA mattered enough not to go and run for our mom.

The volume was on.

The Pokémon theme started up, and he screamed again, picking up the hammer. This time I screamed, too, and ran from the room with my GBA clutched to my chest like a shield.

He ended up in the psyche ward of the hospital for two days. When we went to visit him, I left my GBA at home. No one could figure out what had set off his strange, manic behavior. There was some talk that I didn't understand at the time about some kind of disorder he may or may not have had, but even though mom and I had collected and brought in all the cut-up cartridges to be looked at (moms' idea, not mine), no one had even thought to tie it back to the game... maybe that was my fault.

I hadn't said a word about what had happened when he had accidentally touched my Gameboy, or the blind, white terror he had been thrown into when the music had started. On my last visit to the hospital before school on the second day, I was left alone in the room with him while mom had some private talk with the doctor about precautions to take should this happen again. I sat in a chair next to the bed where he was staring at the ceiling. But then suddenly he sat up, making me flinch.

"Hey," he told me, "Angie. Go in my room when you get home."

I didn't understand what he meant, and then I remembered the things we hadn't packed up and brought in... the game and the hacking tool under his bed.