Snow on Mount Silver (Version 2)

Snow on Mount Silver

[Version 2]

[Alternate Title: The Huntsman’s March]

[DISCLAIMER: I am not the author of the original creepypasta, for I am merely a fan who wished to improve upon its storyline and its old writing. I do not claim ownership of the original pasta.]

Blake and I loved Pokemon. We were obsessed with it. The idea of catching and battling cute little monsters entertained us for years. Whenever we went out to play on the farm, we brought our Game Boys to relax together and return to our Pokemon adventures. Life was simple and full of happy memories.

We were always given the opposite games because the opportunity was there since there were only two of us. Mom thought it was clever, but that’s what every parent did. We appreciated her recognizing our love for Pokemon, though.

Days turned into years, and we found ourselves in the summer of 2010. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver had just come out in North America, and of course, we played the heck out of it. We had memorized almost everything from the original Gold and Silver games but were pleased with the many new additions the remakes gave to us. With nostalgia overwhelming our senses, we took it upon ourselves to find our old copies of Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver. We found them in a small box in Blake’s closet, with some various other games like Link’s Awakening, and the systems we spent so much time bonding over.

Later in the day that we found them, Mom took us to do some thrift shopping around town. We primarily just played Gold and Silver throughout the trip, but at one of these shops, we spotted a used GameShark. We had always been curious about cheating devices (I know Blake had used one that he borrowed from a friend), so we begged Mom to buy it for us. She eventually gave in to our pleading and bought it. I remember the look on my brother’s face when she handed it to us: lit up with glee and awe, as if this machine was a holy object he swore to protect.

At the time, I wasn’t too willing to cheat because I wasn’t very far in my current save file yet - I wanted to at least beat the League before doing so. Blake, on the other hand, wanted to use it right away. I was perfectly fine with it; who was I to judge how he played his game? For the rest of the day, he was searching up codes on the computer and entering them into the GameShark.

The next day I had spent over at a friend’s house. We didn’t do much except hang out, so I played Pokemon Gold as much as I could. My team was very underleveled when I reached the League. If my Pokemon managed to get past Will, they’d be immediately wiped out by Koga. I blamed it on my casual playstyle of using one or two Pokemon out of my entire party. Perhaps Blake would let me borrow one of his Pokemon to help me beat the Elite Four?

Later the next afternoon, Mom dropped me off at home on her way back from work and to the grocery store. I set my backpack down near the door and called, “Hello?”

There was no answer, only silence; I knew something fishy was going on - Blake was usually home at this time since there weren’t many other places you could find him. Oh well, perhaps he was in the bathroom and he simply didn’t hear me call. I dropped any suspicions and continued forward towards our rooms.

I suddenly stepped on something sharp. Looking down, I saw a trail of small, plastic shards leading to Blake’s room. I inspected the plastic closer and found pieces of circuit board scattered amongst the mess. Alarm raised in me, thinking that someone had broken into our house and left an evidence trail. I ran into my brother’s room to see him on his bed, head in his hands, with a hammer and our mother’s garden clippers right by his side.

His room was a complete mess. It was always a mess but never like this. Picture frames had fallen and shattered, his desk caved in, the dresser had fallen over, clothes scattered on the ground, and various pieces of multicolored plastic casing meshed with the rug flooring. I had never seen Blake that scared, and I never thought he could do this much damage. Panicked, I sat down next to him and called his name several times, trying to calm him down. He was shivering, but noticeably warm. I had asked him what happened.

“White, blue… orange… and then black, and then white and black and white and I’m so cold,” he responded, still shivering, “and I need to get rid of every game we have, I can’t see them anymore.”

“Blake, calm down,” I said to reassure him and convince him to talk normally. “Everything’s okay, Blake - Blake!?”

Without skipping a beat, he reached into my sweatshirt pocket with a firm hold on my Game Boy Color. I screamed and took it back, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Please, please - everything is okay, Blake. I’m going to call Mom and she can help talk to you. You can tell us what happened.”

He glared into my eyes with a wide-eyed expression that stabbed me with icy daggers. Without breaking a sweat, he grabbed the hammer from the bed, raising it high above his head. I bolted out of the room with a shriek and immediately reached for the home phone. Locking myself in the bathroom against Blake’s cries and demands, I dialed Mom’s cell phone number and began crying.

Blake was admitted into a mental institution for about a week. He refused to tell us exactly what happened that made him go insane, but I didn’t want to believe it was just some sort of paranoid break with absolutely no explanation. We didn’t have a history of anything like that in our family, and he wasn’t that type of kid in general. Maybe a bit antisocial, but so was I. He got along with other kids as well as I did.

I decided to investigate the warzone of his trashed room, examining the damages caused by its single thirteen-year-old inhabitant. I was amazed at the absolute scale of destruction brought upon by whatever happened. Almost nothing was salvageable or possibly related to his sudden outburst. The only things I was able to find that were still in-tact were his Silver cartridge behind the TV, a stack of papers and the GameShark. I picked up all three, placed Silver inside the GameShark and proceeded to read the papers.

The papers were titled, “SNOW ON MT. SILVER (ENGLISH)” and contained not just one long code, but multiple codes that were numbered from one through two-hundred fifty-five. I was amused at the sheer dedication both the code-finder and Blake had to be able to find and memorize such things. It then came to my realization that these codes may have been linked to his breakdown, whatever they were. I wanted to find out if that was possible, and how and why.

Since his Game Boy had been one of the things that had perished, I replaced my Gold copy with the GameShark and the cartridge attached to my own. The boot-up screen was normal, with the star spiraling and forming the Game Freak logo. I gulped nervously, skipped the intro sequence (which appeared to be normal) and was prompted to pick a save file. Oddly enough, the only word displayed was “CONTINUE.” The “OPTION” and “NEW GAME” options weren’t there. I clicked on “CONTINUE”, and it showed me Blake’s current save file: 16 badges, 251 in the Pokedex (meaning it was complete) and 999:99 of playtime. There was no possible way he had logged that many hours and completed the Pokedex, so it led me to believe it was an effect of the hack.

I pressed A and arrived at a screen that simply showed a bunch of static. No map was visible, and neither was Blake’s character. Shortly after it loaded, I jumped because of the loud static noise that came from the speakers. I was confused and terrified but found out I was able to bring up the menu. There wasn’t much I thought to do except check his party Pokemon, which turned out to be a pretty standard team consisting of Typhlosion, Meganium, Feraligatr, Pidgeot, Lugia and Tyranitar. All of them were frozen, and except for Typhlosion, they were at half HP. All I needed to do was go heal at a Pokemon Center.

I closed out of the menu and it finally revealed a map, which I recognized as the final room before Red in Mount Silver. The static that had lessened was supposed to be snow, I figured, and it wasn’t treating my Pokemon well. There was a doorway to the south, which I attempted to walk through.

“BLAKE can’t turn back now!”

I was even more confused but wondered if this was a one-time thing. I tried again.

“BLAKE can’t go back anymore!”

This wasn’t good.

“BLAKE can’t get away!”

I got fed up with trying to use the door, so I went to my party. Pidgeot knew Fly, so I selected it but was denied with the message,

“The snow is blinding!

FLY can’t be used!”

I tried once more to go through the southern exit.

“BLAKE can never go back.”

That statement sent shivers down my spine more than I expected it to. Although I wasn’t Blake, I still felt the cold rejection resonate throughout my body. I felt helpless, but there was a path forward. There was no other way to go.

I begrudgingly trudged forward, noticing mysterious black smudges all around the map. They stuck out like a sore thumb because of the static. I didn’t even want to know what they were but judging from the highlights, they were possibly splotches of blood or oil. It wasn’t that long of a journey until I heard Meganium’s cry. My character stopped, and a textbox said the following:

“MEGANIUM

is frozen solid!”

I wasn’t in a battle, and the only status condition to affect the overworld was Poison. Concerned, I checked my party. From the menu, Meganium’s sprite was a dull light blue and completely stationary. Horror quickly replaced my curiosity as the summary screen showed a dull teal Meganium with two pitch-black eyes and a very similar mouth. The beautiful flower ring around its neck was now a wilted mess of withered skeletons, with frost sticking to almost every inch of them. To no surprise, it had fainted. I hadn’t bothered to check the moves before, but it had Blizzard in its first slot and nothing else.

Deeply inhaling, I backed out of the menu and continued onward. The black splotches became more frequent, and the static noise very slowly faded out as Blake walked. I didn’t want to keep going, but at the same time… I wanted to figure out exactly what’s happening here. I challenged myself to keep playing this game and figure out this sick code maker's deal.

It wasn’t long before I heard the cry of a Pidgeot, and a textbox appeared to notify me that Pidgeot was now frozen solid. It suffered a similar fate to Meganium, with most of its feathers plucked out and its beak missing. The feathers on top of its head were missing except for a small portion in the middle; and two long, blue feathers that formed the shape of a V.

I forced myself to move on and adjust to the grotesque depictions of Pokemon death. The front part of Tyranitar was completely split open and bone poked out of where the spikes on its back should be; Feraligatr lost an arm, a tail, and a single mangled spike was visible from its back; and Lugia was covered in blood with various features missing. Afterward, the only one of Blake’s Pokemon that had survived by the time I saw an exit was Typhlosion. After the loss of Lugia, I checked on Typhlosion.

Typhlosion was surviving with about 6 HP, and its sprite had changed. It was a more lively blue than the others, missing an arm and an ear, wrapped in bandages and appeared to be crying. The poor thing broke my heart, and I appreciated it staying with me. “Hang in there,” I whispered to it. I backed out and went through the exit I had noticed prior.

The static on the screen was still as harsh as it was before, but I was able to arrive at the top of the mountain - the location of the final battle in Gold and Silver. The game was completely silent. I wasn’t in any condition to face Red right now; but, I thought, perhaps it’s completely possible that they didn’t want to mess with just my team.

Quickly, however, I was disappointed. In the place that Red was supposed to be standing, there was a Poke-Ball. I blinked, suddenly feeling uneasy, but walked on. A battle initiated immediately without giving me a chance to press A, and the most horrifying Pokemon I’ve seen yet appeared on my screen.

A Celebi in a purple color scheme. The hand and antenna that were visible appeared to had frozen off, its wings were a scrambled mess, and blood leaked from a spot on its head that appeared to have caved in or fallen off. Its eyes were distinctly out of proportion, with a single purple pixel staring outwards into nothing at all. It looked dead, and I felt horrible for it. Worst of all was its cry; its terrifying, ear-piercing cry that seemingly never ended. It started and stopped at random, consisted mostly of static and random chirps. For an estimated one and a half minutes, I was forced to stare at this creature of the damned.

Blake sent out Typhlosion, who again broke my heart with its helpless, depressed face. Its cry was slightly lower-pitched than before. I wanted to stop playing just for the sake of this poor Pokemon, but at the same time, I wanted to end its suffering as much as I wanted to end mine from playing.

Typhlosion had moved first, but it was frozen solid, so it didn’t get to move at all. The opposing Celebi used Perish Song; its “song” turned out to be a gruesome series of glitched screeches that came out of my Game Boy, causing me to scream and drop it. The screen flashed white several times, eventually fading out of the battle entirely. It was a couple of moments before I realized the game had continued after that. I took a second to recollect myself and continue with the game.

This time, I was on an unrecognizable cave path. There were still many black splotches, with each of them becoming bigger and more frequent as I progressed. Blake’s sprite was now a dull blue, which made me assume that he was beginning to suffer a similar demise as his Pokemon. Oil barrels (which confirms the black stuff being oil) could be occasionally seen inside the walls and on the path. It wasn’t long before I was prompted by dialogue.

“HELLO?”

I had no choice but to keep on walking. Barrels formed a neat line inside the walls on both sides, parallel with each other.

“Is any-

body there?”

The walls began to fill up with barrels, and the path itself was now pitch black except for sporadic white highlights.

“Can anyone

help me?”

The walls had narrowed into a single black line leading forward, and the “cave” was now made entirely of oil barrels. At the end of the path, a single figure awaited me, facing north into the sea of containers. I quickly realized who it was: Red. My Typhlosion wasn’t healed since I last checked, but I was fully prepared to lose against the ultimate trainer.

When I talked to him, he displayed his signature “...”, and the battle commenced. There seemed to be no changes to Red’s sprite (for the moment), but Blake’s face and arm were missing. There was something about the color pallet that gave away his deadpan expression without needing to see his eyes. Red decided to lead with Venusaur; where was his Pikachu? The lack of order wasn’t the absolute worst of my worries, however.

Oil sprayed everywhere from the pistil of its flower, completely coating the petals and its leaves, combining with leakage from its mouth and its pitch-black eyes to form a puddle of black beneath it. Its color scheme wasn’t exactly the most surprising (a deep icy blue), but it did look barely alive as if it were a zombie. It was level 0, with no cry.

Blake had sent out Typhlosion, who didn’t change. It was more relieving to see a living (even if barely) Pokemon. The turn played out like this:

“TYPHLOSION

is frozen solid!”

“VENUSAUR used

STRUGGLE!”

Due to the level difference, it only knocked one point off from my bar. The Venusar’s bar, however, depleted entirely.

“VENUSAUR

is frozen solid!”

I can’t explain how unnerving it is to see a Pokemon being “frozen solid” when they faint.

At once, the battle continued onward. Red’s next Pokemon was his Snorlax, which horrified me more than anything than I had experienced. Its head was lobbed clean off, and the entirety of its body was covered in black. It was, again, at level zero; the battle played out similar to the previous turn. Snorlax was frozen solid, leaving my Typhlosion at four HP.

Charizard was sent out next. Its lower jaw was completely ripped off, oozing black. The upper part of its head looked like a skull. From the neck down, the entire lower half of its body was doused in grim liquid. The flame on its tail no longer burned. I desperately wanted to find the sick twat that made this and chew them out - even pixelated monsters had feelings, too! The turn repeated itself, and Charizard went down. Three HP.

The following Pokemon was his Espeon. This Pokemon looked more lifeless than the rest of his party but wasn’t completely drenched. Only two legs were covered, about half of its tail was still intact, and mordant ink leaked from its gem and eyes. The unnerving grey-purple hue made me shiver; it didn’t even look like it could stand up properly. Espeon used Struggle, leaving Typhlosion at two HP.

Next was Red’s Blastoise, which had a more saturated color scheme when compared to the rest of the team. More of the rich man’s blood poured out from the cannons on its back and a gash in its head. Only one foot was visible, of which a big black puddle formed under. Blastoise seemed the most alive out of Red’s Pokemon. It even looked like it was doing a silly handstand because of how its paw was positioned.

As predicted, it used Struggle and sacrificed itself. Typhlosion was now at one point, and I could feel my heart racing.

I anxiously awaited his last Pokemon and speculated how anything could be worse than what this sick code has shown me so far. My predictions were no match for what followed, as a Poke Ball appeared on the screen and released the horrible, nightmarish monster from its home.

It was his Pikachu - Red's supposedly most trusted partner - or was supposed to be. It was a heavily saturated blue, deformed and covered in oil; its face was entirely blacked out. With two white, beady eyes, it stared straight past the wounded Typhlosion and toward the screen as if it was gawking at me. A long, sharp-toothed smile ran from cheek to cheek, distorting the initial proportions of its face. The cry was ear-piercing and stretched way too wide, and was glitched like Celebi's cry from earlier. I was appalled and began to cry.

Pikachu's level was "?55", unlike Red's other Pokemon, and its health bar wrapped around the screen. I was almost certain this Pokemon would defeat Typhlosion, and I held that thought close to my heart. The sooner Typhlosion got knocked out, the sooner this torture would end. I braced myself for Pikachu's action as I clicked Flamethrower.

"RED used HYPER POTION

on PIKACHU!"

Through my tears, I noticed that Red decided to... heal his Pikachu? Out of sheer confusion, I began to sob harder. I didn’t understand why the game wanted to make it harder for me than it should.

My heart skipped a beat when I realized Pikachu's HP bar began to go down bit by bit. From the amount of HP Pikachu had (due to its high level), it took approximately two and a half minutes to finally fully deplete. For a moment, I had stopped crying. The beast was slain... for now.

I stared in disbelief at my screen for a few moments, regaining focus when Red’s sprite appeared. Now, however, he was kneeling with the same black ooze dripping down his face and a missing arm. The only response he gave was “...”; I felt mocked by his silence. I whimpered as the screen faded back into the overworld.

The background behind Blake disappeared, and an Escape Rope animation played. As much as I wanted this to be over, courage rose from the ashes of fear. I wanted to see how the entirety of this would play out and figure out whatever this person was trying to show me. When the screen faded back into a map, it appeared to be the Indigo Plateau with a very sullen color scheme that heavily contrasted with the light blue of the character. It seemed damaged, too, as if it were in ruins after an accident.

I moved forward, stopping at the door only to be met by the PokeGear phone ringing. When the text box popped up, it was blank with no contact to be seen other than the phone icon. It rang for longer than the initial time as if Blake was hesitant to answer it. When I pressed A, the notification disappeared with no dialogue to be seen. Perhaps it was good that I wasn’t all too curious to know what it would have said.

Entering the door led straight to Will’s room, skipping the Pokemon Center and the Poke-Mart. That meant I had to go through this challenge with just my frozen Typhlosion by my side. Several tiles seemed broken off of the initial platform and floated in the water below. The room was a dull grey, with various hints of blue and purple. In front of me was the pitch-black sprite of what was supposed to be Will. Engaging with it resulted in seemingly nothing.

A click was heard and the gate to the next room unlocked, and a sense of relief washed over me. I didn’t need to fight with my poor Typhlosion. I didn’t have to cause it any more pain than it already had to suffer through. By now, it was my only Pokemon (the others had disappeared from my party). I pulled up its summary screen to check on it, lifting a finger to pet the screen. Sympathy for Typhlosion welled up in me. It was alone, suffering and bound to reach its finale in due time; but at the same time, I was proud. It was able to survive this long, running purely off of its bond with Blake.

The phone rang again right before I walked through the door. This time, the notification stayed instead of immediately disappearing. No text was visible, but I could hear something faint from the speakers. Right after a click, it vanished, and control was given to me again.

Koga’s room was a pale, dead brown in all colors. Unkempt flowers and grass littered the floor, and there was scarcely any space to move around. Once-flourishing trees were now just stripped-down trunks left to rot like everything else. It seemed cold and abandoned, but was inhabited by a single black blob near the center. Due to the abundance of flowers, the game began to lag slightly. I was able to make it to the shadowy Koga without losing my patience (I had a lot of it by now) and the gate on the other side opened. The phone rang again, and this time mild static played. Repetition was tedious and eerie; I didn’t like where this was going.

Near-complete darkness filled the next chamber, with a white narrow path stretching up the screen. Everything was completely still as if the path was simply floating on nothing. Walking forward revealed that the path eventually thickened, and revealed the silhouette of Bruno looking out towards the darkness, refusing to face Blake. The door, this time, was automatically open. Blake picked up the phone before proceeding through, but I was shocked witless once a loud, processed “scream” of sorts blared through the speakers. In a daze, I repeatedly pressed A until it stopped, and continued forward.

Within the fourth and final room, Karen was nowhere to be found - not even a shadow. The floor tiles were deep blue and sporadically black, with cracks and crevices that lead up to an enormous hole in the wall where the final door should have been. Streaks of light blue surrounded it, which I presumed to be frost. The phone did not ring this time.

Lance’s room was entirely a blinding white, with blemishes of indigo shades dappling the walls and floor. The statues that normally ran parallel through the hall were now scattered in indistinguishable pieces. I reluctantly trudged on and was surprised to see a normal Lance in his normal position, waiting for Blake. I held my faith close to poor Typhlosion and approached the Champion.

"WINTER. Ice. Cold.

Life is a never-ending

series of WINTERs.

Years begin in WINTER

and end in WINTER.

I do not expect you to

understand it.

You don't know

what it feels like to

be WINTER.

You don't know

what it feels like to

waste away by your

own hands.

You don't know

what it

feels like

to play

God."

Actual music played for the first time: a slow, hypnotic rhythm that blared through the speakers accompanied by a soft melody. The screen faded into battle, revealing a de-limbed and decayed corpse of a discolored Lance. As disgusted as I was, I tried my best to keep my focus.

Lance’s Gyarados didn’t look much better than its owner. Half of its body was missing (including its lower jaw), dripping with some sort of dark-colored blood. Blake sent out Typhlosion; a little bit of false hope made its way into my mind like a parasite, knowing that it was fighting for Blake and me.

I selected a move for Typhlosion to use, hoping it would thaw that turn. Suddenly, Lance did the same thing that Red had done to his Pikachu: used a Hyper Potion on it. I clutched the Game Boy Color in my hands so hard that I began to lightly shake. This hell was never going to end until it wanted to. Abhorred, I watched Gyarados’ HP slowly drop down to zero, each painful second being a grim memento. I began to cry again out of desperation.

The second Pokemon Lance sent out was the top half of a dull blue Dragonite that was cut at the waist, and the third was the matching bottom half. His Aerodactyl exposed bone and was missing various features, such as a wing and part of its tail. His Charizard gaped at me with its circular white eyes and its dark, wide mouth; pairs of spikes lined its back and its neck was separated from its torso. All of these Pokemon were “healed,” with no text displaying that they fainted or were frozen solid. They simply disappeared with the game not acknowledging they existed in the first place.

His sixth and final Pokemon was his third Dragonite but distorted in such a way that made it look like a Dragonair. Its wings and limbs had been removed and replaced with stitches. A mysterious substance dribbled from its hollow, soulless eye sockets. A cheeky, disproportionate smile was sewn across its face. This Dragonite affected me more than the prior Pokemon and made me pause to stare at it through teary eyes.

I snapped back to focus, determined to finish albeit horribly disturbed. I felt mixed emotions when the Dragonite used a move to break the pattern.

"The opposing DRAGONITE

used CURSE!

But it failed!

The opposing DRAGONITE

is frozen solid!"

Two whole minutes was how long it took for its bar to go down as if it had some abnormally high amount of HP. By the time it had finally “froze,” I was convincing myself to not cry again and that it would all be over soon. I’d be able to relax and take a very long break from video games.

The battle cut immediately to the overworld once the Dragonite had gone down. Lance was now missing, leaving the doorway open in his place. The only thing left to do was to walk through. However, it didn’t work.

Past the door, I continued through the nothingness. None of this made sense, and I was so confused that I started laughing. My already-exhausted brain couldn’t comprehend the fact that the game was potentially broken now, possibly because of an unintentional glitch.

After what seemed like forever, Blake stopped walking while I was holding down up on the D-Pad. It took me a second to notice and lift my finger off. A few long, mysterious moments went by before the flying animation played without any bird icon. Blake’s sprite zoomed around the screen before being placed in a white background. I realized it was the top of Mount Silver, but covered in snow. The doorway to turn back was blocked off, so the only path was forward.

The path stretched much farther than it should have, narrowing down to a single tile wide. At the end of the mountainous path was a blue bird Pokemon, perching on the edge like a king sitting on a throne. When approached, it said,

“WELCOME,

my prey.

Are you here

to ask for

FORGIVENESS?

Unfortunately,

there is nothing

I can do for

you.

You must REPENT

and deal with

your punishment

as a result of

your selfish

BELIEFS."

Another battle began, and the haunting face of the most hateful, predatory Articuno I had ever seen stared straight into the depths of my soul.

“ARTICUNO

appeared!”

I didn’t want to continue; not after having a staring contest with a computerized nightmare for five minutes. With massive reluctance, I gained the strength to press on. Seeing Typhlosion again made me calm down and regain my senses. It occurred to me that it was never going to thaw, so I just absentmindedly pressed A. Instead of attacking, Articuno spoke every turn.

"Do you think

you HUMANS

are deserving

of my MERCY?"

"Do other

beings not

EXIST to

you?"

"HUMANS

are only selfish."

"The only things

that drive HUMANS

are their BELIEFS."

"There is NOTHING

you can do to

CHANGE your-

self."

"Your partner is

DYING."

“You are

ONE OF THEM.”

"You are HUMAN."

"You are SELFISH."

The last few sentences hung heavy in my mind. Suddenly, I didn’t want to feel like myself. I was questioning my humanity. I didn’t want to be there playing this dumb hacked game. I wanted to just float away like some spirit being released from its shackles of a physical form.

Articuno had fled the turn after it spoke for the last time, fading the screen back into the overworld. Blake’s sprite fell as if he had just stepped into a hole. He landed inside a part of the cave I didn’t recognize, and a pale blue Lance stared towards him. Without any animation, Lance “floated” downward and stood in front of another pit.

"What does it

mean to be

FORGIVEN?"

He fell through, and Blake followed. The regularly-colored sprites of the Elite Four members lined the walls of the next floor and interacting with each of them only displayed a question mark. Lance, again, stood at another drop.

"Are you free

from all SIN?"

Third from the bottom held a mangled sprite of Red, who only said “...” when interacted with. Lance continued when approached.

"How can you be

free from SIN

if YOU ARE

SIN?"

On the next floor, the walls were lined with dull-colored Pokemon sprites. Interaction revealed them to be, in order: Meganium, Pidgeot, Tyranitar, Feraligatr, and Lugia. At the very end, in front of the last hole, was Typhlosion patiently waiting for Blake.

“TYPHLOSION: Phlo…

TYPHLOSION is

staring warily into

BLAKE’s

dying eyes.”

Typhlosion’s sprite disappeared and I lost control of the game. On his own, Blake fell down the last hole and dove into a wide-open river of orange. The screen began to flicker and static blared from the speakers. In between the black and white flashes, I saw his sprite disappear into nothingness. The screen went black, the static continued for a few seconds, and then the entire system shut off.

Reality snapped back to me just moments afterward. I was in my brother’s bedroom - my brother who was in a mental hospital - sitting on his bed, with cold hands firmly holding my teal-green Game Boy Color.

I stood up and walked over to the window facing the bed, carefully and slowly opening it and the screen. I stuck my head out and took as many deep breaths as I could, preserving every ounce. The wind felt cold on my tear-stained cheeks.

When I had enough, I closed the window, walked to the bathroom and vomited.

Blake got out of the hospital later the next week after, and I eventually found a comfortable time for us to talk about what happened with that code. He said he found it on an obscure Japanese website while looking for different things to do, and that he didn’t know what it was. The title sounded cool to him, so he decided to give it a go. When I told him that I played it too, he began to cry. For an hour and a half after that conversation, we cried together in his bedroom.

That winter, we received a cryptic letter from Hokkaido, Japan. It consisted of a single sheet of paper, with the following written in bold, blue Sharpie:

“ハンツマンズマーチ

SNOW ON MT. SILVER

さよならリチャード・カーキンスキー・アイスマン”