I’m fifteen now and had a rough life and was always the lonely kid that got picked on. Although my life was rough nothing was more terrifying than when I was ten and found a black game cartridge. If I knew back then what I know now I wouldn’t have even looked at it but every thing happens for a reason. That game took everything I held dear and forced my pure heart to turn cold, if only my best friend would have seen it.
The summer of two thousand was a great summer and my best friend and I just got done building a tree house and wanted to spend the night in it. We packed all of our fun toys and food to ensure an epic night. We got settled down and my best friend Dan pulled out a black game cartridge and said “I know you have a game boy and I got this from my older brother that died last year and I want you to have it”. I looked at the black cartridge and popped it into my game boy to see what he had in it and a Pokemon title popped up reading Pokemon black.
I couldn’t wait to play the game and it was my first time playing a Pokemon game, all the kids were stoked about it at school. I pressed start and the game took me to a page that had two options, new game or load game. I pressed load game to figure out what the person that played the game had but the game showed a headstone with “Harrison” on it. The name Harrison was Dan’s brother but when I clicked continue on it the screen typed “You can’t bring the dead to the living”.
I backed out of the screen and clicked on new game. The game said all the normal things until it came to the name part. I looked at Dan and said I’d put his name in because he gave me the game and he agreed. I typed in the name and press start and saw my character looked like Dan, I turned to show him but Dan was gone with his clothes laying on the wood floor. I looked back on the screen and the game said “You have three days before your friend dies in this game and at any point you don’t save in this game he won’t just faint, …he’ll die”.
I looked at the screen as Dan looked back at me with the screen typing “Help me! You have to beat this game or I’ll die!”. I made him run and get my fire type starter Pokemon. We ran through the first town pretty easy until the screen typed “I’m thirsty let’s get some water”. I went to the shop to buy water but I couldn’t give it to Dan, anything I bought for him to drink or eat I couldn’t give it to him.
I realized with a pain in my heart why I only had three days to save Dan, he’d die of starvation and thirst if I didn’t beat it. I ran him to the first Gym and saved the game just to be sure. I fought Brock and lost to his Pokemon and Dan fainted, I asked him if he’d want to go to the Gym again the screen typed “We haven’t gone to that Gym yet”.
Dan lost memory of the fights at the gym and everything after that save part was tossed out of his mind. I got my Pokemon a high enough level to learn Metal Claw and faced Brock again, luckily this time it worked. I got Dan to the next town and fought some other people with more Pokemon I caught along the way. Dan was getting hungry and I had already played for the whole night until I saw the sun come up.
We agreed I’d save and turn off the game boy so we can both rest. The next night I turned on the game boy and saw Dan in a corner of the map shaking. I asked him why he was shaking and the screen typed “…Never do that again”. I agreed but still wanted to know why and the screen typed “When you turn off the game boy everything goes dark and the ghost Pokemon come to take me away… they come to kill me”. I asked why the Pokemon would do that and the screen typed “I think they know I’m not suppose to be here and they try to destroy me to get me out of here”.
We raged against the time as we fought and fought until Dan looked tired and beat down. “I don’t think I can go any further” The screen typed. I told him we’d only been playing for half the night but we made good time and could take a break. I walked into my kitchen to pour a glass of milk when I saw a picture of Dan on the side of the milk box. The box read Dan had been missing since yesterday night and was kidnapped by someone unknown, but I knew… I knew he’d been taken by my hands.
