TODD Burned (October 1st, 2017 - October 2nd, 2017)

Post #1 (Oct. 1, 2017)
Okay, guys, I need your help with this. This is not one of those "spoopy stories" you'd find on the internet, this is a long read, but I feel like my safety or well-being could very well depend on this. This is video game related, specifically Pokémon: Ultra Sun, and this is the creepiest shit that has ever happened to me in my entire life.

Having said that, I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a Sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo DS to play. I was stoked, to say the least, I could finally play all of those old games of my youth that I hadn't touched in at least a decade. And while beggars can't be choosers, needless to say it didn't take long until I became bored of beating up Pokémon with my Charmander.

But when I first clicked on the start button, I can see that someone had already been to a name rater in Heahea City on Akala Island, and I saw that the character's name had changed to simply "TODD". He has a little brother named "Todd". I felt bad for my college buddy, obviously a big brother and obviously becoming homesick, and Pokémon - for some reason or another - reminded him of his little brother "Todd".

Out of curiosity I looked at the save file. Eyeballing it, I could tell that he was pretty far in the game - he had almost all of fire Pokémon. I noticed that he saved his game on where you fight Necrozma. I remember thinking that it was a shame that he had come so close to beating the game but he never finished it. I made a new file and used the name rater - so that I can change my character's name to "Eric" out of tradition - and started the game, ready to relive my childhood.

For such a shady looking game file, I was impressed at how smoothly it ran - literally just like a retail copy of the game save for a few minor hiccups here and there (like textures being where they shouldn't be, random flashes of cutscenes at odd intervals, but nothing too bad). During my gameplay, I already got a new Pokémon, a Litten, and named it "Sparks". However the only thing that was a little unnerving was that at times the NPCs would call my Litten "Sparks" and at other times they would call him "TODD". I figured it was just a bug - a fluke in the programming causing our files to get mixed up or something. It did kind of creep me out though after a while, and it was around after I had beaten Iki Town that I regrettably went into the save files and deleted "TODD" (I had intended to preserve the file just out of respect of the game's original owner, it's not like I needed two files anyway), hoping that that would solve the problem. It did and it didn't, now NPCs wouldn't call me anything, where my name should be in the dialogue there was just a blank space (my save file name was still called "Eric", though). Frustrated, and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.

I started playing the game again last night, catching a wild Rowlet with my Poke ball and working my way towards Po Town. Now, some of you more hardcore Ultra Sun players know about the "New Shiny Ash Pikachu Glitch" - for those who don't, you can search for it on YouTube, but the gist of it is that when you save in front of the delivery man, you'll already obtain a Shiny Ash Pikachu. You'll know because of the star on the bottom screen of the menu, and the big star when you send the Pokémon out in battle.

However, when I saved in front of the delivery ma, instead of obtaining a Shiny Ash Pikachu, I found myself in the Necrozma boss fight room at the end of the game, and to my surprise, Giovanni was staring at Pokémon in front of me. There was no sound, just Giovanni standing there, and the background music which was regular for the area (but still creepy). Immediately my palms began to sweat - this was definitely not normal. Giovanni NEVER fought the player alone. I tried to pause the game, and no matter where I wanted to choose, Giovanni would always be facing me, looking at me, not saying anything. Nothing would happen though, and this kept up for around sixty seconds. I thought the game had bugged or something - but I was beginning to doubt that very much.

I was about to reach for the reset button when text appeared on my screen: "Well, well… I had been informed of the intruders, but not that they were kids like you!" I instantly recognized that text - you get that message when you go to defeat Giovanni, but why was it playing when I'm already in battle with him? I refused to entertain the notion that it was almost as if the game was trying to communicate with me. I started to click on the fight option, maybe I can still beat the game early. but I paused for a second, contemplating what I should press and how the game would react, when I realized that I couldn't select any of the other options. Taking a deep breath, I pressed Growl and the screen faded to white, with the subtext "||||||||". Where I was ported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I had ever experienced.

The only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression on a profound scale. I am normally not a depressed person, but the way I felt here was a feeling that I didn't even knew existed - it was such a twisted, powerful presence that seemed to wash over me.

I appeared in some kind of weird "Twilight Zone" version of Iki Town. I walked out of the town only to find that all of the inhabitants were gone. The trainers, the Pokémon that inhabit the town, they were all gone. What replaced them was the ominous feeling that there was something out there, in the same area as me and that it was watching me. My Pokémon were okay since they have all health, but at this point I wasn't even considered for my Pokémon, I felt that I personally was in some kind of danger. Perhaps the most chilling thing was the music - it was the Haunted Pokémon School music, ripped straight from the game itself. The music would get louder, building up so as if you should expect something to pop out at you, but nothing ever did, and the constant loop began to wear on my mental state.

Every now and then I would hear the cute high cry sound of a Litten in the background, just quiet enough so that I wasn't sure if I just hearing things but just loud enough to keep me determined to find it. I looked in all four zones of Iki Town, only to find nothing.... No one. Textures were missing, the town had me walking on air, the entire area felt... broken. Hopelessly broken. As the Haunted Pokémon School music repeated for what must have been the 50th time, I just remember standing in the middle of the town, realizing that I had never felt so alone in a video game before.

As I walked through the ghost town, I don't know whether it was the combination of the out of place textures and the atmosphere and the haunting melody, but I was literally on the verge of tears and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, something had gripped me here and this powerful sense of depression that was both foreign and crippling.

I tried leaving Iki Town, but every time I attempted to leave, the screen would fade to black and I would just zone in to another part of Iki Town. I tried resetting the game, I wanted to escape, and I did NOT want to be here, but something finally happens! It was a text box that says: "Your cries echo far, but nothing happens". By this point, it was obvious the game didn't want me to leave, but I had no idea why it was keeping me here. I didn't want to go inside the buildings, I felt that I would be too vulnerable there to whatever I was terrified of. I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that maybe if I touched the fire in the Iki Town festival, I could spawn somewhere else and leave this place (a glitch maybe).

As I ran towards the fire pit, that's when it happened.

My avatar react as if nothing happened, but the screen flashed for a brief moment of Giovanni smirking at me - not Eric - me with what sounded like a child's scream playing in the background and when the screen returned I was staring at the face of my avatar, burnt like a sausage. I screamed as the fleshy corpse just stared back at me with that skeletal facial expression.

By this point, I was on the verge of hysterics, but not even once did the thought of turning off the console occur to me, I don't know why, I was so wrapped up in it - the terror felt all so real. Eric started to begin to make weird animations I had never even seen him do before, he would flail his arms around or spasm randomly and the screen would cut to the Giovanni smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with my burnt trainer again.

Then it all cut to black.

I ended up running into Po Town back to normal, I don't know why, but in my panic I just wanted some kind of assurance that I'm not alone here. To my dismay I found no one, but as I turned to leave, I was in a random encounter with a wild Pikachu. I tried making Sparks attack the Litten with Growl, but to no avail. Confused, and didn't know what to do, I just stared at the screen waiting for it to attack me. Suddenly, the screen flashed again to Giovanni and Sparks turned to face my screen, looking at me along with a look of malice. Literally staring at me. Whatever was left of the 4th wall was completely shattered while I leaned back in my seat terrified. As it flashed, I heard screaming. Loud and full of pain. To me though, it sounded a lot like Skull Kid's scream from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. But, it couldn't be, it was too high pitched and sounded like it came from someone much, much smaller than a child.

Upon getting back to the title screen and starting again, I noticed my save file was no longer there. Instead of "Eric", it was replaced with "NO MORE". "NO MORE" had 3 Pokémon, and 0 badges. I selected "NO MORE" and immediately when I did I was returned to the battle scene of my Eric dead and the Litten glaring at me with a wicked smile, with the sounds of Skull Kid's laughing (again from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask; only high pitched) looping again and again. I quickly hit the reset button and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added, below "NO MORE", entitled "TODD". "TODD"'s save file is right back where it was before I deleted it, at Iki Town.

I turned the game off at that point, I'm not superstitious but this is WAY too fucked up even for me. I haven't played it at all today, hell, I didn't even get any sleep last night, I kept hearing the Haunted Pokémon School music in my head and just remembering the sense of dread I felt exploring Iki Town. I knocked on my friend's dorm room door today to ask him some questions with my roomate (no way I was going there alone), only to find that no one was home - so to say.

So now I'm back here writing down the rest of my thoughts about what happened, sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot, I'm running on no sleep here. I'm terrified of this game, even more so now that I relived it a second time writing this all down, but I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye, and that there's something calling to me to investigate this further. I think "TODD" is something in this equation, but I don't know what, and if I could get a hold of my friend then I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to recuperate before tackling this game again, its already taken a toll on my sanity I feel like.

I'm going to stay in this thread for a little while longer before I fall asleep to answer any questions you guys might have, or hopefully listen to your ideas or theories to help me shed some light into this, or maybe things I should try to do, I think I'm going to play TODD's file tomorrow to see what happens, maybe I was supposed to do that all along. I don't believe in paranormal shit, but this is a little fucked up, but maybe this TODD guy is just a really good hacker or programmer, I don't want to think about the alternatives if he isn't.

That's the end of the copy/paste, I'm hoping that maybe this is some kind of running gag the developers had and that other people have gotten "gag" or "hacked" copies of the game like this. This just really scares me.

Post #2 (Oct. 2, 2017)
Last night everything got too real for me. I think I'm done messing around with this. I passed out pretty much immediately after making that thread. But last night, that Litten, I had a dream about it. I dreamed that it was following me in my dream, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end. I would turn around that thing... that horrible, demented Litten would be staring with those yellow, jaundiced eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream I remember calling it Todd, and never before had I had a dream that I could remember so vividly. But the important thing is I did get some sleep, I suppose.

Today, I'm putting off playing the game as long as I could, I went to the dorm to see if my friend came back. As I expected, no one was there. As I was walking back to my dorm, a jock asked me if I was looking for someone. I told him that I was looking to talk to a Sophomore that stayed here, to which he told me what I already knew - he was moving. Trying a different college, I asked if the guy had any family or relatives I could talk to. I discovered that this guy had never dated, nor did he have any brothers or sisters through adoption. Starting to become worried, I asked one final question, one that I should have asked from the beginning - who was Todd? The jock's expression turned grim and I learned that in some avenue around eight years ago on November 3rd - the jock informed me that it was the same day as his parents anniversary, that's how he knew the specific date - there was an accident with a seventeen-year-old named Todd in that specific neighborhood. Shortly after his parents moved, and despite any further attempts to talk to the jock to get more information, he wouldn't divulge anything else.

I went back and started playing again, I loaded up the game and immediately I jumped at the title screen - the sound that played was not the normal sound, it was something much more higher pitched. I pressed start, bracing for the worst, but just like two nights ago, the files "No more" and "TODD" were displayed (truth be told I looked at the TODD file earlier, it seems to fluctuate between displaying the Save and not). I brought up the TODD file, hesitated for a moment noticing that the stats were not the same as they original were two days ago, it seemed like he had already completed Volcano Park this time... Summoning my courage I selected it.

Immediately I was thrust into complete and utter chaos. Sure enough, I was in Volcano Park, but that's about all that was expected. The zone itself wasn't called Volcano Park, but rather "V o l c a n o", and immediately a dialogue box of complete gibberish that I couldn't make out greeted me. Eric's body was distorted - his back was cocked violently forward, where his posture was permanently disfigured. Eric's expression was dull, almost monotonous, he had an expression on his face that I didn't recognize before, it was a blank look - as if he was dead. As Eric stood there his body spasmed irregularly back and forth I examined what had become of my avatar and noticed I had a C button item I had never seen before, some kind of note, but pressing it did nothing. Sounds played back and forth that I didn't recognize from the game - almost Luciferian in nature, and there was some kind of high-pitched yip or some kind of laugh or something playing in the background. I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another one of those fucking Littens appeared and immediately after I was teleported to Iki Town, except this time it was without the "||||||" subtext.

Everything was back to normal, but I might as well not have been playing the same game anymore - I was being warped around and there was no sign of a Pokémon Center or anything. I took a moment to get my bearings as I looked around the town and immediately I could tell that this was not normal. There were no wild encounters and a twisted version of the main theme song was playing. I decided to run towards the Iki Town festival before I noticed a gathering of three figures off to the side - one of them being Professor Kukui. As I approached them, to my horror I saw Giovanni, Professor Oak, and Sparks just standing there. I figured maybe they were bugged out, but by now I told myself that I should know better. Nevertheless, I approached them carefully and found that Oak was playing some kind of idle animation on loop, same with Kukui, and the Litten was doing what it has been doing all along - just standing there eerily. It was Giovanni that scared me more profoundly than the other two.

He too was idle, wearing that shit-eating grin, but where-ever I moved, his head slowly turned and followed me. I had not engaged in any dialogue with him nor was I in combat with him, yet his head still continued to follow my movements. Reminded of my first encounter with him, I pulled out my Pokedex and tried to find out what the hell is going on. I remembered collecting some Alolan Unknowns, and they'd spell out stuff like they're original predecessors. I scrolled down to every single one, I went from "T", to "O", to two "D"'s.

Goddammit! It spells "TODD" all together!

I went back to the game, and as I did, a ear-piercing shriek blasted on my DS, the sky immediately started flashing, the theme song's twisted melody sped up, intensifying the fear inside me, and Eric exploded into flames and died. The three figures stayed lit up during my death scene as they watched my lifeless body burn. I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from eerie to terror it is. That same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago started to grip me again as I was met with the text "Scared you, didn't I?" I was thinking that this "Todd" guy, this asshole, is doing all of this as a gag, to try and scare me half to death.

I didn't re-spawn this time, I was booted back to the main menu as if I restarted the console. The "press start" screen was before me, I knew the only reason why it would put me here is because the level had changed again. Taking a deep breath, I pressed start, and I was right. As I began in Iki Town, I went to the Pokedex, and the rest of the Alolan Uknowns told me about Todd. Now it made sense why the Litten looked at me all funny - the game must have anticipated how I would have tried to escape the Hell I'm in. The Unknowns told me his fate. As I suspected, Todd was dead. He had burned. The game obviously isn't through with me - it taunts me with the new Unknowns - it wants me to keep playing, it wants me to go further, but I'm done with this shit.

I'm not playing this "Cat and Mouse Game".

This is already way too horrifying for me and I don't even believe in the paranormal, but I'm running out of explanations. Why would someone send me this message? I don't understand it, I just get too depressed thinking about this, maybe there's some kind of coded message in the gibberish or something symbolic in what I went through - I'm too emotionally and mentally drained to fuck with it anymore.