Glitched
I didn't want this. Nobody did. Everything that happened, everyone who was destroyed...it was all his fault. I can still hear their ringing words..."YOU LEFT US THERE TO ROT. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT."
It was a chilly Saturday afternoon in February. Snow and slush coated the roads, streets, and lawns. I was stuck inside. Nothing to do. Mom and Father were on a trip to Vancouver for the next week or so. (They had left yesterday.) I was a teenager, so they thought I was responsible enough to stay home alone.
I was downstairs, preparing myself lunch.
I looked through the fridge. I took a minute or so, but I eventually chose to eat Ramen Noodles.
Just as I was going to put the Ramen into the microwave (after doing everything to prepare it beforehand), I got a text on my smartphone from Max, my boyfriend.
"Hey, Lucy." is what it read.
"What's up?" I texted back.
"I just wanted to let you know that you left your Pokémon Sun here."
"Oh, God. It's been there for weeks, hasn't it? And you're now telling me? Sigh. I'm not allowed to leave the house unless for school, so can you bring it over?"
"Sure, babe."
Max arrived at my doorstep while I was enjoying my Ramen at my table.
I set my fork down and went over to the door.
I opened it, and Max was standing there.
"Sorry for not telling you about your game for weeks. I had lost it under all of my junk in my room, and I just now found it," he said.
To be honest, his room really was messy. A pigsty, to say the least.
Max handed me my game cartridge.
I took a look at it. It looked a tiny bit beat up and tattered, but all in all, it looked pretty good.
"Thank you," I said and then hugged him, and gave him a kiss also.
"I'll see you around," said Max.
"See you around," I said as he left.
I rushed upstairs to get my 3DS, and then went back downstairs. It had been so long since I had gotten to play Pokémon Sun, I had nearly forgotten what I wasd oing or where I even was.
Forgetting how I was in the middle of eating, I sat down on my couch.
I started the game up. The regular roaring Solgaleo showed, and the menu popped up like normal.
There was one thing that was a bit off. The time read '999:999'. From what I had remembered, I had not been playing Sun for that long. I had just gotten the game two months ago. I just shrugged it off and clicked continue.
In the grass of Wela Volcano Park. That's where I was, but, thinking back, it had been a long time since I cleared Kiawe's trial.
Suddenly, everything about my past gameplay flooded back to me. I remembered that I had already caught Solgaleo (except it wasn't in my party), and was about to enter the Pokémon league, so, why would I be here, of all places?
I checked my party, without going in to see the sprites. Every one of my party Pokémon seemed normal. There was:
Dusky (Alolan Persian) - Lv 39
Rocky (Lycanroc Midday form) - Lv 43
Summer (Lurantis) - Lv 41
Decidueye- Lv 45
Salazzle- Lv 40
And Jangles (Kommo-o) - Lv 44
I exited that screen and begun wandering aimlessly through Wela Volcano Park. I had no Pokémon that knew fly (I mean, Decidueye could learn it, but I didn't want to give up any of his powerful moves for a move I would only use once, until I got to a Pokémon center and got my Toucannon, Fruity). After about a minute or so of walking through dead, dry grass, I encountered a Pokémon. Or so I thought I did.
The creature that came before me was unlike any other one that I had encountered in any game. It seemed to have no face, no limbs, not even a noticeable torso. It was all colorful, static-like glitch blocks. Its name was an absolute mess. "üÓ¥‐‼a4M?" is what it read. I don't have the foggiest idea how to pronounce it, so let's just call it 'Glitch' for now.
Glitch's cry seemed to be a slowed-down version of a Lunala's cry (my cousin had traded me his once for a Bewear. He said that he needed to trade with an NPC for a Talonflame, and I let him. From then, I knew what a Lunala's crysounded like). It was level one and had no gender.
My character sent out Dusky since she was the first one in my party.
Unsure of what exactly I could do, I had Dusky use Fury Swipes. It didn't do much damage to Glitch, despite it being at level one.
"üÓ¥‐‼a4M? Used Night Shade!"
Night Shade did a reasonable amount of damage to Dusky. She only had a sliver of health left. How? That...that...thing was only at level one.
When I went to see if I had any medicine, I saw that everything was gone. All of my healing items, my Pokeballs, my battle items, berries- everything. Gone.
I just sighed and chose Dusky's next attack.
"Dusky used Power Gem!"
Still, barely any damage.
"üÓ¥‐‼a4M? (Glitch) Used Moongeist Beam!"
'Moongeist Beam'? That was a new one.
Dusky lost the rest of her health from that attack. She fainted.
"Dusky has gone."
Afterward, I was given the option to either choose another Pokémon to fight or to flee the battle. I tried to press 'Flee', but all that came up was a text box typing out slowly. "There is nowhere to run."
Wait, what? Didn't it usually say something along the lines of: "You can't escape!" or "Can't escape!"?
Feeling a bit suspicious, I chose my next Pokémon to fight. Summer.
"Summer feels anxious..." Is what the text box read.
I chose Summer's attack. Petal Blizzard.
The attack did nearly nothing.
"üÓ¥‐‼a4M? Used Hyper Beam!"
Hyper Beam took out Summer in one shot.
"Summer has gone."
I pressed the flee button over and over, but the same message kept popping up.
"There is nowhere to run."
Next was Jangles. Despite her being one of the strongest Pokémon I had, she fell to Dream Eater.
"Jangles has gone."
Rocky fell to Night Shade.
"Rocky has gone."
Salazzle fell to Moongeist Beam.
"Salazzle has gone."
And Decidueye, the strongest one of all (hence him being at the highest level) fell to Hyper Beam.
"Decidueye has gone."
Withou a single word about my defeat against this glitch being typed out in a textbox, the screen went black, and- in a few seconds- I was back in Wela Volcano Park.
How could that be? All of my Pokémon fainted. Why wasn't I at the Pokémon Center?
An eerie silence filled the area. The original music that had once played while exploring Wela Volcano Park was gone. Nothing remained. Just silence.
I checked my party, this time, actually looking at the sprites. What I saw filled me with unparalleled horror.
The usual red blocks that would appear by a Pokémon's HP bar when it fainted didn't read 'Fainted' anymore but instead read 'Gone'. However, that wasn't the worst part.
When I checked each one's sprites, I saw that, first off, Dusky had small glitch blocks on her face, torso, flanks, and legs. She was frozen in place. No movement. Not even her cry played. This was the same with all of them.
There were pixelated gashes in her throat and across her left eye, causing her to shut it. Her left paw was sickeningly torn apart, showing blood and muscles. It was almost if somebody had cut up her paw, and tore the flesh and fur off completely.
Rocky's tail was one large glitch block, along with his front and back paws. He had no eyes, and minor exposed organs in the middle of his torso.
Summer's eyes were large glitch circles made up of smaller glitch blocks. Her scythes looked burned off, with only a small stump of them being left. There was a nauseatingly bloody gash in her right thigh.
Decidueye's head was infested with glitch blocks, and half of his left wing seemed to be torn off, as if an animal bit it and ripped half of it off. Blood coated the section around the tears of his wing.
Salazzle's snout was glitchy along with her tail, and she was missing her hands and eyes. Blood soaked her burned, torn stumps that were once her hands. She had no eyes. Just black pits.
Jangles entire torso was covered in small glitch blocks, like tiny bugs infesting a rotting animal carcass. Half of Jangles' tail was torn off, and the end was a bloody stump. Like the others, her eyes were empty, deep, soulless black pits.
I felt sick from what I saw, so I exited out. I tried to walk around and leave Wela Volcano Park because I couldn't do anything else. I didn't want to turn the game off just yet. I wanted to know what was causing my Pokémon to look sickeningly glitched and bloody.
With every step I took. I text box showed up.
Why did you?
Why did you?
Why did you leave us there?
He didn't like us.
He wanted something new.
He did this to us.
...
And you let him?
How could you?
Did you want this to happen...?
My heart continued racing as I quietly read the text in silence.
Did you?
.....
YOU GAVE US UP TO HIM.
HE WANTED TO DESTROY US.
BUT YOU LEFT US THERE.
WE WERE SCARED.
SO SCARED.
DO YOU NOT LOVE US?
...
.....
..........
.................
YOU LEFT US THERE TO ROT.
IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.
Just then, everything froze. I couldn't move my character. The silence finally broke, but it became a high-pitched, screeching buzz.
After a few seconds of the buzzing, the screen went black. My 3DS had turned itself off.
Hesitantly, I turned the power back on, but the area where the Pokémon Sun icon would be was empty and said: "There is nothing inserted into the game card slot."
With that note, I closed my 3DS and took out the Pokémon Sun game cartridge. I noticed that there was a split running down the sides and across the top. As much as I just wanted to get rid of it, I wanted to open up the split. So, I did.
The inside of the cartridge was rotted. I can't entirely describe it, except for the board looking like it was covered in mold. I didn't want to touch it. So, I closed it, picked it up quickly, and clutched it in my palm as I ran out through the front door.
I ran as fast as I could over to the woods behind my house. I ran deep into the woods until I couldn't see the entrance anymore. I chose a section on the ground and began digging through the snow and dirt with my bare hands. Once I thought the hole was deep enough, I literally threw the game cartridge into the hole and covered it back up.
That night, I asked Max if he knew anything about my game being 'destroyed'. He told me that he had mistaken my game for his game (we both own Pokemon Sun), and wanted to test out a hack he found online to find a wild Lunala in the game. The hack made the game buggy and a bit glitchy. Once Max had found his actual game, he tried to rid the game of the hack. He thought that he did, so he told me that I left my game at his home, not mentioning the hack to me.
I'm not exactly sure how he couldn't see that the Pokémon weren't his or that the character wasn't his. Maybe he thought that was part of the hack. I don't know. Maybe I will never know.
I'm just glad that it is over.
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