Pokémon Otpusti menya

Hello fellow readers.

There is no point in introducing the purpose of the present text. We all come to this Wiki because we have a need to satisfy our unnerving, troubling, hideous, and maybe even offensive, urges. This way we found splendid and renowned tales even in the field of the cute franchise of Pokémon, like "Pokémon Lost Silver" or "Buried Alive", among many others, whose extension between fans has ended up far exceeding its origin as creepypasta.

But even with the most elaborated "hacks", the paranormal events detailed in the stories failed to create in me a real sense of fear. Not are just some usual scenarios far beyond science and logic in their own universe - after all, we talk about the imaginary Pokémon logic and rules. But also the intricate mechanics that the haunted cartridges or "hacks" often displayed are just so implausible to give them a real degree of realism. They just cannot harm us.

So, once I got used to them, as with any other addiction, I needed more. And there is nothing scarier than something that can, actually, be true: a depiction of a real credible setting. That's what I liked from "Strangled Red".

And most of you could remember those "Anti-piracy" or random "Error" screens in the 90s, with nice games like Donkey Kong Country. No matter how legal your copy was, if you saw that appearing in your TV, you just wanted to leave softly the gamepad on the floor, turn off the SNES and escape discreetly, just in case that the police was on its way.

Obviously, we are not going to find anything new about the first Generation of Pokémon games at this point. Those games have been played incessantly for decades by million of players.

But at the same time, they have many small communities of fans, that even in the Internet-era, haven't really popularized their findings and creations with the biggest part of the fans.

The most evident way to find them was searching in languages other than English. That way I managed to find some interesting Creepypasta in Spanish - "Schwarzes Pikachu" - supposedly written in Spanish by some German guy or something.

It managed to give me the chills, and the bad translation or just plain bad writing gave it a plus. Still, even being a cool story, it didn't move from the "ghostly-hack", but it was a promising start for something else.

Finally, taking advantage of my Russian girlfriend, I swallowed my pride and asked her for help in order to look for what the Russians forums were doing about the Pokémon video games. She didn't understand why, but she helped with the search.

The first official Pokémon games weren't really successful in Russia, but pirated copies appeared everywhere. Who knew which Pokémon-related horrors could be discovered from them?

I looked for the usual terms in Russian - Покемон Крипипаста Форум - and started to click, helped by Google translator and a Russian keyboard website. Eventually, I ended in a traditional old-style forum, asking me if I'm older than 13 years old. The ugly orange background depicted the last posts in each section, and I could see that they had direct links to some old Game Boy roms.

Even if the Forum was still active in 2016, the last Pokémon Blue and Red posts dated from 2004. And they seemed to have explored intensively the hacking of the roms, much earlier than the Pokémon games created with RPG-Maker became really popular. So I chose one to start with. It was an url to a ftp server still active, in a topic with several pages of answers. It was called покемоны для неудачников - "Pokémon is for losers" or something like that.

Sadly, it ended being an exact Pokémon Red version rom, apparently translated to Russian by fans... and with the player's storage system swamped with 240 dammed level 1 DIGLETTS (Диглетт).

Which kind of people thought that it would be funny to start a game like that? What did they want to prove?

I decided to give another try to that community, but this time I would avoid the topics that had so many answers, as I cannot understand the Russian humour-hacks. I passed a few pages, and I saw a lonely topic with no title, just an "-". The op only posted an url, finishing in "otpusti menya.zip". I guess its presentation was so shabby that none cared to try it.

The file was also stored in a ftp server and I could download it. This time it was a Pokémon Blue rom. 100 mb for a Game Boy rom, how was that even possible?

The game started pretty normal. Good old Pokémon Blue. However, the music stopped when I skipped the intro to move to the title screen. The tittle had been slightly modified, replacing the "Blue Version" for some Cyrilic characters - отпусти меня, the name of the rom. As far as I could know, отпусти меня comes to mean something like "release me" or "let me go".

On first sight I couldn't remember exactly if Blastoise was supposed to appear in the tittle screen. But my eyes opened widely when he was followed by titans like Dragonite, Zapdos, even Mewtwo! Man, this game seemed to start with all the artillery.

There was no old SAVE GAME from a weird previous player, so the only option was to have a fresh new start. And there we come to Professor Oak motivating introductory speech.

Or wasn't it?

Wasn't it supposed to have a joyful music accompanying it?

It sounded very strange and definitely not happy. It was like if the creator of the rom had it reversed and slowed. I got the message. It meant that the playthrough wasn't going to be normal. But that didn't mean anyway that it was going to be creepy, or at least good.

Oak: Hello there! Welcome to the world of POKéMON! My name is... ... My name was...

Strangely, the lines started to differ in a very unexpected fashion. When I pressed the button to continue, the screen flashed, and that seemed to push OAK forward.

Oak: OAK! My name is OAK! People call me the POKéMON PROF!

Oak showed, as usual, the NIDORINO, while continuing his speech. However, the cry of the pokemon kept repeating itself. Each time a bit slower than the last. And each time more disturbing and menacing. But before it became really annoying, the sound just disappeared, along with the dialogue lines.

Pressing all buttons proved useless for a while and I thought that the game got stuck. Maybe it would had been better if it was.

However, the game showed me it first real trick. NIDORINO started to yell his cry again, as the screen was flashing, like if someone was poisoned. His sprite started to fade slowly.

His eyes were the first things to turn uniformly red, without iris or pupils. Afterwards, its horn, ears and even its skin started to crumble, leaving a pile of detritus beneath him.

His colour was now mostly red, with its inner flesh, blood and muscles exposed. But the animation didn't stop there. The poor NIDORINO kept crumbling, until there was more of him in the amorphous pile than on his vaguely-drawn skeleton. And when it was only a skeleton, the bones themselves crumbled to ashes. The 8-bit graphics leave almost everything to the imagination of the viewer, giving just the basic outline of what it's going on. But that evolution of the NIDORINO into a gruesome mass of melted flesh was genuinely disgusting.

It must have some meaning because after it Oak's speech got even further away from what he is supposed to say.

Oak: First, you are... ...

It stopped in the screen where I'm supposed to choose my name. Instead, when I pressed a button, the screen flashed again, and for a few frames I could identify Prof. Oak again in the screen instead of my character. Was Professor Oak poisoned?

Oak: ...you are BLUE, of course. Я тебя хорошо знаю.

What the heck? Now Oak mixes Russian characters with his English text. Using the tools at my disposal, I translated that last sentence as "I know you quite well".

It continued with a new set of flashes with the vision of Oak in the background. Somehow he seemed to be suffering in extreme, with his palette colour changing with each flash to a darker tone.

Then it came the turn for my rival. His sprite appeared on screen, but Oak didn't say a word about him. Instead, the text box down only showed an enigmatic sentence.

"I Love you grandpa".

The menu on the left didn't show the names I can use for him. It only had the options "YES" and "NO". Was I supposed to interfere in the relationship between grandfather and grandson?

None really liked GARY (known as BLUE in the game's canon, but RED in this one), so having him rejected by his grandpa sounded funny. That's why I chose "NO". However, the game didn't allow me to continue, showing me more Russian text.

"это просто неправильно". Translated, "This is simply not right", and more flashes with Oak followed. At this point the slow music had completely disappeared.

"We've always been happy together, grandpa".

After the last sentence, it brought again the same menu with the same answers. I thought that the introduction was taking so long and I wasn't really such interested in helping Oak's family with their communication problems, so I opted for saying "YES" and hoping to finally start the game.

"We will always be happy together, grandpa".

The game didn't start after this. We came again with Prof. Oak on screen. But now the flashes were constant, and for some reason pieces of the sprite of Oak had disappeared: his book, his hair, his ears... I would say the eyes too, but the quality of the game only showed a red semicircle where they were supposed to be.

"отпусти меня......отпустиотпустиотпустиотпустиотпустиотпустиотпустиотпусти" - the text box filled up with those Russian words.

As we've already said, отпусти меня happens to mean "let me go". Somehow Oak was asking vigorously to be released.

The hacker here showed his bad skills by filling up the text book with that nonsense until the game froze... or I thought it froze. Again. Even the emulator stopped to respond. However, I didn't have enough time to close it by force.

Suddenly, a loud pitch from the game scared me. Along with the sound, the sprite of Oak changed for the worse.

A square appeared, with a detailed, much more detailed depiction of Oak's face than what Pokémon in Generation 1 offered. The flesh from Oak's face started rapidly to melt until it was only an empty skull. Then the skull itself seemingly decayed.

Ok, they got me. A stupid jumpscare. I'm almost sure that the creator used as template the last part of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade video game. Not bad at all, but this jumpscare, along with the gruesome NIDORINO disfiguration, are precisely the kind of things that damage any horror rom with potential.

Anyway, I was finally in control of my PC. I started in BLUE's room as expected. But a clever player would do one thing before exploring this world: saving the game to avoid that annoying jumpcare again. However, the save screen showed some surprising stats.

I already had 8 medals, the Pokédex was risen up to 151 (!!), and the time was 255:00. After saving, I got a quick glimpse to the rest of my stats. I already had a Pokédex: 151 seen and 151 owned - even Mew. I had all key items that I should have gotten during the main quest. And I was carrying 6 powerful Pokémon:

- Blastoise: Level 100. - Alakazam: Level 100. - Dragonite: Level 96. - Mewtwo: Level 98. - Articuno: Level 93. - Zapdos: Level 94.

I missed Gengar and Snorlax somewhere there, but it's undoubtedly an end-game party. What could oppose me?

Finally, I checked BLUE state. I was good looking, 999999 money, time and badges as already foretold by the saving... Just one weird thing. Gym Leader number 4, Erika, didn't have her sprite. It was changed into a hairless, eyeless, almost skeletal reddish face. Weird.

I walked down the stairs and tried to talk with mom.

MOM: BLUE! You worked so hard. I'm so proud of you. You should take a quick rest... a long rest with me...

The screen didn't fade to white like when you get healed. Instead, it flashed again like if someone was poisoned.

"Боже мой, отпусти меня" - continued mom. She was praying to God to let her go. The same as Oak in the introduction.

I walked around PALETT TOWN, and people there seemed to recognize me. One girl admitted her admiration towards me and that she wanted her Pokémon to grow as strong as mine ones.

RED - or JOHN, or however my rival ended being called - was in his house with his sister.

"My brother may not admit it directly, but he always knew that you would become the absolute POKéMON CHAMPION".

So it was confirmed, I was the absolute POKéMON CHAMPION! In your face, rival. Let's see what he had to add to what his sister just said.

"Don't get overconfident BLUE. I will keep training to beat you one day!"

The screen flashed. I was getting used to it. I double-checked that none of my Pokémon were poisoned and effectively, they were all in perfect shape. I wanted to verify then that it was triggered by my rival's conversation. However, the text box was changed radically after that last flash.

"этого просто не может быть. Я больше не могу этого выносить. Я хочу покинуть".

It was getting troublesome to translate so many Russian sentences. What he said seemed to be "it just can't be. I cannot bear it anymore. I want to leave". Afterwards, the screen flashed with every step I made until I was out of the house. Music now was gone for some reason.

Then I had an interesting thought. What happened to Oak? How is it that I haven't visited him yet after what I saw in the introduction? I went to the laboratory, where all the nerds around told me nice things about my Pokédex and my Pokémon, but Oak was nowhere to be found.

The only time when Oak is not in the lab is at the start of the game, so I decided to move north to the grass to force him to appear and protect me from wild Pokémon. At least he could appear if he was still alive.

Fortunately he appeared. I wasn't sure what he could tell me when I was having such a powerful party of Pokémon with me.

"Oak: Hey wait! Don't go out... yet".

Meanwhile, he was walking towards me, another flash shook the screen. But this time, I could see for a glimpse of a second that the background changed to a complete empty, gray place.

Only a cross, representing a grave in this game, could be distinguished. It didn't happen with previous flashes. Oak was already next to me after the quick glimmer, and he was occupying exactly the same spot where the grave briefly appeared.

"Oak: It's unsafe! You need your STRONGEST POKéMON".

I didn't even need to press a button to continue. A fight started, with music and everything. I started to feel sorry for the poor Pidgey that would be smashed by my Blastoise.

However, the screen flashed a few times before the enemy Pokémon appeared. And it wasn't a Pidgey, a Ratata nor any other Pokémon that you may expect on that road.

It was a level 100 Victreebel. Just what my first Pokémon, Blastoise, didn't need. The Victreebel sprite wasn't completely normal either. A tiny red spot could be distinguished from inside his mouth. Also, some reddish dots were pouring between his eyes.

"Wild Victreebel appeared!

...отпусти меня отпусти меня"

It seemed that those "let me go" screams were coming from Victreebel. A repugnant correlation finally came to my mind. Was Victreebel digesting someone? Someone who can, in fact, speak... - like a human?

That idea is simply gruesome. I felt excited to have the chance to finish this abomination of Pokémon. Unfortunately, my Blastoise's type failed miserable against the Victreebel strong "Razor Leaf". Blastoise fainted, but my turn didn't come directly. Victreebel could still use "Wrap", and only then Blastoise moved out of the screen, allowing me to choose my next Pokémon. I was shocked to find that Blastoise didn't appear anymore between my Pokémons, not even as fainted. He was gone... maybe forever.

I couldn't allow any mistakes. Mewtwo, the most powerful Pokémon of Generation 1, would avenge Blastoise. But I was afraid that he would also end devoured by that monstrosity, so maybe it was better at least to weak him with someone else first. Alakazam could make a good work, being a Psychic Pokémon and Victreebel a type 2 Poison.

Alakazam appeared from his Pokéball. Nevertheless, the only attack that it had was "Teleport". Not just one, but all his four moves were "Teleport". I didn't put so much attention on my Pokémon stats before the tight, but I highly doubt that Alakazam had that movelist. Was he scared? Was I scared and taught him that? Is he trying to tell me to escape? How can a mighty Alakazam be scared of a Victreebel?

I tried to change Pokémon, but the text box said that I cannot switch pokemon, like if I was affected by "Bind" or some other trapping move. There was neither any useful item for this kind of situation. Finally, I understood that I can only run or let my Alakazam to teleport. I opted for the latter.

It worked halfway. The fight was over, but I wasn't back at Route 1. I ended in a completely dark place, like a cave without flash. I tried to walk but my character seemed to be stuck, judging by the sound it made from every direction, like if hitting an invisible wall. I started to press buttons.

"отпусти меня".

"отпусти меня".

"отпусти меня".

"отпусти меня".

The same text popped up from all four directions, followed by the now common flashes of the screen. I remembered that I had all items, including the HM05, "Flash", that could be interesting to try in this dammed dark cave. When choosing the Pokémon to learn it, I noticed that Blastoise was really missing.

Alakazam was the obvious receiver of the move, eliminating one of the four "Teleport".

"Побег невозможен" - no escape.

Beside the clichéd text, "Flash" worked as expected. I was going to escape no matter if the game wanted it or not.

I could see that I was really in a cave, and I was surrounded by rocks in the center of the screen. At the bottom left there was someone else in a similar situation. It was Red, my rival. At this point I wasn't sure if I should save the game or my adventure had already finished. I was anyway curious of my state. 5 Pokémon, ll key items, 8 medals... but wait.

Erika's portrait changed again. Now it could be described as a skinless skeleton shattering, quite sickening if you focused so much on its details. Moreover, other Gym Leaders started to show the previous signs of decay than Erika - Brock, Misty and even the undisclosed Giovanni looked now like jelly pink barely-human things.

It was enough. I needed to check if I was really trapped there without escape. I trusted again my luck in Alakazam's "Teleport". And again, it worked.

I ended up in Viridian City, the first and last city normally visited during the 8th medal's quest. That meant that the last Pokémon Center visited was there. My Pokémon, the 5 remaining, were in perfect shape, but I wanted to check if I had more Pokémon in the PC - after all, my Pokédex was complete. So my first visit in the city was there.

The center was quite ordinary, occupied by the usual NPCs. I tried to heal my Pokémon and the nurse took care of them as expected. I headed towards the PC... and yes! My Blastoise was in Box 1. The box was full of many other Pokémon. However, as soon as I recovered Blastoise, flashes started to appear again on screen.

I thought I logged off by mistake from Bill's PC, but as soon as I noticed the new screen, I found out that it wasn't, obviously, the case.

Now the Pokémon Center got a dark-red palette. It had rubbish in many tiles, including where the nurse of the Cable Club should be. The plants lost their leaves, half of the computer was rubbish too, and everyone seemed to be gone.

Only the left nurse remained, and luckily she is the only one that I really need during the game to heal my team. I got curious about why she was the only one staying and tried to talk to her.

"Welcome to our POKéMON CENTER! We... ... we cannot heal your POKéMON... We cannot heal you..."

Besides her words, she took my 6 Pokémon to heal, and surprisingly the healing machine still worked. When she was done, she continued with another adulterated text.

"Пожалуйста, выпустите меня. Мы уже заплатили за наши грехи."

All what I could get was that she was also begging to get free.

I checked the Pokémon she gave me back and noticed that my Blastoise had been replaced by $€#@ or something: a glitch Pokémon. It didn't have any sprite nor cry, his type was "99||9" and all his stats, including the level and HP, were 0.

Blastoise was for all that mattered erased and I guessed that this glitch Pokémon would eventually disappear from my party. To avoid a completely corrupted game, I moved Mewtwo to the first position of the party.

I exited the Pokémon Center in ruins, expecting to find something like the apocalypse outside. On the contrary, Viridian City looked as bright as before. Some event was triggered when I came out. It was Red, my rival, coming to meet me. Wasn't he trapped in that cave from where I teleported just a while ago?

"RED: What is taking you so long? We are all waiting for you at the Gym".

My PC followed him direction to Veridian Gym. Along the way, the screen flashed a few times and I could notice briefly the cave from where I escaped.

The vision still showed Red there, trapped between four stones. It was difficult to say in such short glimpses, but his hair and the two dots representing his eyes were further down than they should, like if the head was bent forward. Either he was sleeping, unconscious... or dead.

Anyway, in the "main" world, Red entered the Gym, and I opted for following him. Inside it was very crowed. It was shocking to find every single Gym Leader and the Elite Four gathered in one room.

However, suddenly I noticed a mistake in the sum. Red and the Four of the Elite were present, but one Gym Leader wasn't there: Erika. I remembered then about the disappearance of her sprite in the medal's screen and got a chill.

Everyone was waiting in line behind the two statues at the entrance. Red was one step ahead, so it was to whom I talked to first.

"RED: I admit it. You are the only and true Pokémon Champion. Only you... ... Only you can stop this nightmare".

The now-usual shimmering of the screen began again. However, this time the vision stayed still for a while. We were all back at the cave. All the 7 leaders remaining, the Elite Four and Red. We were in an V formation and I was in the apex. It looked like a total war against an undisclosed enemy.

The screen flashed back to the Gym. Now it was a terrible place.

The palette changed to reddish. Red was in a corner, showing the same emaciated state than when he was trapped previously in the cave. Three more Gym Leaders were now gone: Brock, Misty and Giovanni. Lance was also gone. The rest were on the floor.

The Gym was now full of debris, obstructing the path to most places, but I still managed to reach Lt. Surge.

"LT. SURGE: BLUE, we won the war 30 years ago and we need to win this. You must do it. ... эфирное проклятие. Мы все обречены" - Ethernal dammnation... doomed.

The conversation triggered some unusual animation in LT. SURGE. His silhouette started to fade and lose colour, and ended as a pink amorphous mass. The game wanted to show me again something repulsive.

Concurrently, the remaining Gym Leaders - Koga, Sabrina and Blaine - and even the three of the Elite Four had the same state as him. How could human beings be turned into that?

I checked the menu of my state, knowing already that I wouldn't like how I was going to find it. Erika was completely gone, without any trait left. 4 Gym Leaders were now crumbling skeletons. There was no salvation for them anymore. The other 4 were almost-skinless abominations.

I tried to talk again with the senseless Red, to who I had a clear path too. "BLUE осудил всех нас. Бесконечное наказание". In his babble Red seemed to be blaming me for condemning they all to an infinite punishment.

I saw enough there by then. It was making me very uneasy. I wanted to escape and clear once and for all whatever my role was in all this. When I was at the door, Lance suddenly entered. At first glance he was unharmed.

"LANCE: BLUE! It's time to prove that you are a worth Pokémon Champion. I really hope you are...

... We all hope you are."

And finally, a Pokémon battle started. My Mewtwo was lacking action since long. But why against Lance? Which kind of test is this?

Lance sent out his Gyarados level 100.

I sent... Victreebel? A level 100 Victreebel? Where the heck is Mewtwo?

I tried to switch to one of my actual Pokémon, but it didn't allow me - it seemed again that my Pokémon was somehow stuck in an attack that didn't even happen yet.

It was useless to try to run or use any item. The only way out was definitely to fight Lance with that monster that was assigned to me. Being a grass type against a water one it wouldn't last to long.

The attacks of Victreebel were:

- RAZOR LEAF.

- WRAP.

- ACID.

- STUN SPORE.

I went with LEAF ATTACK, hoping to end this fake fight soon. It would be super effective on the Gyarados. However, Victreebel didn't obey me. It used "WRAP" instead, that it's not totally bad, but would prolong the fight a bit longer.

Gyarados was trapped, so I tried again RAZOR LEAF in the next turn. Luckily this time worked and Gyarados HP went to 0.

Strangely, he wasn't removed after fainting. It was again my turn. Victreebel ended using "ACID". I wish it wouldn't had done that. With it the loathing came back.

That poor devil's skin started to liquefy in the same manner as previous victims. The mass of blue flesh beneath him allowed to recognize his two eyeballs, that somehow managed to fall from its orbit prior of getting rotten.

The now pinkish Gyarados kept changing and decaying. The game didn't include a sprite of its skeleton so it just kept crumbling. At some point, all of the former water-Pokémon that was left was a pile of dust and it finally moved out from the screen.

Lance was going to use DRAGONITE. None asked me if I wanted to choose another Pokémon. Lance's Dragonite was at level 100. It would defeat Victreebel once and for all.

I had to choose an attack but I wasn't sure what was the best against Dragonite. I went again with RAZOR LEAF, but Victreebel used STUN SPORE instead.

The whole screen got full of spores.

The text box showed that VICTREEBEL won a "ゥァぇ" experience points, in spite of no Pokémon having being defeated. The music didn't change, but Lance's sprite appeared as if the fight was over.

However, it was a different sprite. He had no cape and his eyes were dark grey. He remembered me to Oak in the introduction, before he completely decayed.

"VICTREEBEL DEFEATED LANCE! LANCE: That's it... I understand now. I lost. Blue... we all lost. ... судьба намного хуже смерти. Наше наказание за то, что не слушал Профессор Оук."

A destiny much worse than death. A punishment for ignoring Oak's advices...

OAK, of course! He hinted me to use my strongest Pokémon, and he even forced me to see what could happen to living beings like that Nidorino from the presentation. He knew it but none acted accordingly to his advice. Sadly, Oak was probably the first victim.

Back at the Gym, Lance felt to the ground too. He had been the last one to fall. I was the only one standing. It felt very disturbing to see all those former human beings, still barely alive, now turned into digested material in different stages of the process.

I checked my Pokémon... I had none. It was possible to enter the party screen but it was empty. What happened to the 5 Pokémon I was carrying?

But another thought worried me even more. Why, from all the Pokémon Masters here reunited, was I spared from their fate?

I went out of the messed up Viridian Gym, not sure about how the outside will be at this point. I became stunned when, instead of the city, I found myself again in a dark cave. And this time I could move. However, if I had no Pokémon, I was going to suffer to find anything useful, like the exit.

I checked my party... and here it was. ALAKAZAM was my only Pokémon. It had sense.

Alakazam could teleport and teleport me out. That's how I escaped. BLUE even managed somehow to teach him 4 times TELEPORT to be sure that he could escape. All the others trainers, even the psychic-expert Sabrina, failed to bring a Pokémon with such a useless attack like Teleport for a high-profile battle.

I used "FLASH" and found out that the cave was actually a huge, horizontal corridor. At top and bottom there were Red, the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four that I met at the Gym. But this time I didn't see rocks trapping them. There were bushes, like the ones that you can cut. But it was impossible to cut them with Alakazam, and I wasn't even sure if a Pokémon with the "CUT" attack could do it.

I kept walking west, and more, random people appeared trapped. Even MOM was there!

Some places were empty. Probably digestion was over for them, leaving nothing behind. If a Victreebel was feeding upon us like this, its size must be ridiculous big.

Close to one of the empty places something got triggered when I approached it. The screen didn't blink. Instead, my character started to spin around, like if Teleport or Dig was used.

I was now in Oak's Laboratory. Oak was there, safe and sound yet. We were alone.

"OAK: BLUE, you are the only one who can understand. When I gave you the Pokédex we had only detected 150 Pokémon, including artificially created ones. You came with 151, and we have received words from other regions, just a few hundred kilometers away, talking about hundreds of different Pokémon."

"It is crystal clear that they adapt, diversify and evolve at an absurd high rate, impossible for humans and human technology to follow. Eventually, a Pokémon would trap and use us. And I have a hunch that this Pokémon is already in Kanto".

"I'm not a Pokémon Master as you are. I beg you to follow me and help me put a stop on this before it's late. If I'm mistaken you would just have an intense training for your Pokémon. But if I'm right..."

Oak walked and disappeared through the door. Afterwards, I ended again at the cave, next to that empty tile between bushes.

That's probably where the last pieces of Oak remained. Maybe the smell made me to remember that scene. In the fight with Lance, the Stun Spore filled up everything. All those strange visions must have been produced by the Victreebel's spores.

It was actually the perfect trap: keeping the victims in a Matrix-like state, making them to confusedly walk deeper and deeper into its clutches, not even noticing that they are going to the exact source of their limitless pain.

I kept walking, until another scene was triggered. This time I was, surprisingly, in the Celadon Gym. Erika's Gym. I couldn't stop thinking now in how Erika was the first Gym Leader portrait to decay and disappear.

I was with all 8 Gym Leaders and Red reunited in a circle at the Gym. Around the circle there were several police officers, like the one you find in Cerulean City on a normal game.

"ERIKA: How dare you come to my Gym to persuade me to do something like that? Shame on you, who call themselves Pokémon Trainers. I will never cooperate with TEAM ROCKET".

"GIOVANNI: I already confessed my sins and I'm ready to receive sanctions for them. But this transcends all of that. Trust me, Erika... I saw it. I pushed TEAM ROCKET to capture and use it for our own purposes. Fatal mistake. Dozens of my subordinates are still there... melting slowly... during years, centuries... who knows how long... in a long and indescribable pain. Our Pokémon failed miserably. The Master Ball was useless. We need to fight together. And we must kill it, for our own sake and the sake of the Pokémon as we know them."

"ERIKA: TEAM ROCKET deserves that fate. I will always be in the side of the plant-Pokémon. I will make it understand."

"RED: Listen, Erika. We need all the help that we can get now, even if it comes from TEAM ROCKET. If Oak's predictions were right, soon all biomass will be part of it. No plant or animal will exist anymore. We cannot communicate with it. We are just insects for that thing. Your skills as a Gym Leader and your knowledge about plant Pokémon are extremely valuable for the incoming fight."

"ERIKA: I will fight on my own terms."

Erika left the Gym.

At the same time, I appeared back at the cave. Seeing the empty tile that triggered that memory one could only guess that Erika failed in her attempt to deal with the Victreebel.

I continued walking until I noticed that there were no Pokémon captured in the vines, despite having seen that Pokémon were at least as vulnerable as humans to it. I thought that maybe it evolved specifically to feed on human's organic compounds. Or maybe because Pokémon Trainers came already to its lair with other Pokémon and humans, giving extra feeding material, so it was more practical to specialize on capturing us.

I eventually reached an end. I opted to use TELEPORT to escape from the cave and go back to the surface.

To my horror, I didn't bring me outside. I was back to the point where I began in the cave. Why did Alakazam bring me back here?

I pressed buttons around "my" vines, and to my surprise, I found back something. My Pokémon! That's why I got teleported back there. I lost Blastoise, but I recovered Mewtwo, Zapdos, Articuno and Dragonite.

Dragonite can learn "CUT", so maybe I could even save the others. It was worth a try at least.

I ran to Red and used cut. It worked! The path to his grass-prison was cut. I just wasn't sure if he was still alive...

"RED: BLUE, is that you? Aren't we in Viridian Gym?

...мы свободны! мы свободны! мы свободны! мы свободны!".

Red kept repeating "we are free" for a while until he seemed to come back to his senses.

"RED: I understand. My oldest Pokémon also perished against that monster. But my other Pokémon are still fit to fight."

An exclamation point appeared over Red's head.

"RED: Dammit! It detected your intrusion when you cut the vines. We won't have any other chance, BLUE. Fight for the future".

So here it came again. A wild Victreebel at level 100 appeared.

Mewtwo went first.

I used PSYCHIC. It was super-effective. Victreebel responded with WRAP. It dealt a good amount of damage, much more than it should. But not enough to defeat my Mewtwo.

I repeated the attack PSYCHIC, and Victreebel's HP went to 0.

The text box showed the message "Enemy VICTREEBEL is no more! Blue defeated VICTREEBEL", instead of fainted; but the music was the usual tone for winning a match. No experience or whatever for winning.

So this was all. The big fight that we were preparing since the start of this hack-game was over. Just a simple mistake in the order of the Pokémon proved to have fatal consequences, for myself and for the rest of inhabitants of the Pokémon world.

"RED: Yes! We made it BLUE! Let's save as many as the others as possible while we are on time!".

Red disappeared on the left, so I guessed that I had to cut all vines by myself. Most of the prisoners didn't have anything to say. The text box just showed that they were unconscious... but still alive.

However, it wasn't the case of Brock, Misty and Giovanni. When I tried to talk with them, the text box showed:

"It's so late for them...".

I remembered that MOM was also trapped there, so I skipped everyone else to reach her. And she was alive!

"MOM: BLUE! I came as soon as I saw your mission on TV... I just wanted to help you, son... I'm sorry, I'm useless...".

I guess she was who the game expected me to save, because after talking with her, Red appeared back.

"RED: I rescued everyone else. Let's let the Pokémon dig a path out of here."

In a blink of the screen, everyone who was trapped and still alive in the corridor appeared on screen. Lance took the lead.

"LANCE: The attack of the monster has been brutal. The cities have been devastated and the dead of humans and Pokémon are countless. Be ready for the images that we are going to witness, but don't let that depress you. Now it's back to humans to reign".

The screen blinked again and suddenly I was in Pallet Town, just as the start. Was this the game over? No Hall of Fame nor any other End?

I thought that the first person I should visit was mom. She was at home, in her innocent and calmed pose.

"MOM: You became undoubtedly the best POKÉMON MASTER that history has ever seen".

However... a flash on the screen shocked me. Something wasn't right. The screen was again flashing with every step I made. I checked my state in the menu. All 8 Gym Leaders were now gone.

But even more... Whoever made this hack managed to include a sprite-change of myself in the state menu. Now it was a bald, flesh-melting, vaguely human, sickening image of a former boy.

I wanted to check my Pokémon, but the menu wasn't responding. Just as in the beginning, before you have any Pokémon. I went out of my house, but somehow the exit door brought me to another house directly.

It was actually still the same house, but now it was devastated. Rubbish blocked almost everywhere, including the stairs to my room. Mom was nevertheless sitting at her place, and I could reach her.

"MOM: So this is... The end of everything... ... выхода нет. Бегство никогда не было вариантом."

It meant that there is no escape. Escaping has never been an option.

I tried again to go out of home. This time I did appear outside of Palette Town. However, the same rubbish that flooded the house was now covering the town. Doors and windows were broken all around. I couldn't count on entering any other house.

The only path possible was north. I didn't think that Oak would appear this time to protect me from wild Pokémon. And I had no Pokémon to protect me neither.

The screen kept blinking the whole time with every step. At the first tile of grass that I stepped on, a battle started.

It was the Victreebel, as it was expected.

I had no Pokémon, as it was known.

BLUE sent a Pokémon by the name "99999999999", with the sprite of Charizard.

The name may change, but it was the glitch Pokémon that appears when you enter a fight with no Pokémon. I could not do anything else, so I tried its only attack: "PETAL DANCE". It was almost useless against Victreebel.

Victreebel responded with WRAP. My Pokémon fainted and the battle was over. But instead of blacking-out, the text box showed something in Russian:

"служить или страдать" - serve or suffer.

When I came back to the overworld, it was again dark. It seemed that I was back at the cave. I tried to move in all directions, but I couldn't move an inch. I was stuck between four vines.

It was again my place, my prison; and the screen was still flashing with every step I tried to move. I had no Pokémon with me. I had now no items neither. Mom was right: I was never remotely close to escape. No matter what I tried, Victreebel would digest me during the next several years. I could only determine if I was going to be completely conscious along the process, or if I was going to live in a perfect dreamt world.

The spores of the predator allowed everyone to live a particular utopia concurrently with the pain. I guess that made them much easier to capture and handle.

Sadly, I broke through it. I refused to believe the lie and I was going to suffer a terrible fate because of it. Further thinking brought even more questions.

Was I really that unstoppable POKéMON CHAMPION on a quest to save the world?

Or was I just a dreamy boy who went carelessly to play on the grass without protection, got attacked by a wild Pokémon, and imagined himself battling his hero Lance when his father tried to save him?

That didn't matter anymore. It was impossible to know at this point what has been real and what induced through the drugs of the Victreebel.

I kept still moving for a long time. I wanted either my character to finally die from the poison or the game to progress to something else. At some point the sprite started to fade, and it finally disappeared.

I tried to check my status again, but only a disgusting picture of my crumbling skeleton appeared on screen, accompanied by some noisy and annoying cry of an unidentified source. Maybe some Pokémon cry backwards? I couldn't say. The sound was repeating, each time slower, until it was constant.

A text box appeared down:

"отпусти меня" - let me go.

The game got stuck with that ending screen. That was it. I got enough of that game.

I can deal with the nauseating. I can even survive one or two jumpscares at inappropiate moments. But what instilled on me a feeling of fear it's the possibility of losing our sense of reality for a never ending nightmare.

Isn't it, after all, what characterizes some psychiatric patients? They notice something that doesn't seem right or fitting with the other elements of reality. And as much as they start explaining the subject, more inconsistencies appear, creating horrific chimeras in their minds that brings them down through a spiral of madness.

Which of us is safe from it?

I could start another play of "Pokémon: Otpusti menya". I'm sure that I didn't explore all the options that the game allowed and I regret it. Maybe it had even better endings that the one I got.

Sadly, I lost the rom in my old hard-drive when I changed my laptop, and I had been unable to find that particular hack anymore online. If anyone finds it by any chance, please let me now. But play it at your own risk.