I don't need friends...

It was a normal Tuesday; I was in my room, playing on my laptop, checking email, Facebook, listening to music while writing a little bit. My mother ran into the room to tell me we were going out for dinner.

“Why? We have gone out for the last week.” I asked.

“Just get ready and let’s go.” She replied quickly.

We were discussing a few topics like jobs and maybe some jokes now and again. When my mom brought up that it was my birthday in a week, I immediately remembered and started shaking. I always forget my birthday because it's normally not a big topic to me, and my dad told me we need to get groceries and we need to go out. This was the perfect opportunity to ask if I could get a few games for my birthday, and surprisingly, my dad said yes.

The next day I went to the store to browse the games on sale in Wal-Mart when my mom was busy getting groceries, when I found nothing of my interest, I went to the nearby used game store when we got out of Wal-Mart. I went straight to the on-sale section, as I didn't have that much money left. I was amazed at my findings, I found Pokémon Yellow version, but I could hardy read the label and identify the game, as it seemed like there was permanent marker scribbled all over it and then wiped off to hide the label underneath. We went to the checkout counter,

“Kid, you can have it. No pay. There have been some complaints about this game and I want to see if it’ll work for you.” said the cashier.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Positive.” He replied.

I always kept my old Gameboy in my closet, so I decided to buy the game. When we got home, I ran straight upstairs to my room to dust off my Gameboy and play my new game. I was so excited, when I figured out that my Gameboy didn't work, I screamed half a dozen cuss words.

I took the cartrage out of the Gameboy and put in another, and it seemed like that one worked.

“What is going on with this game?” I thought to myself.

I was confused for a moment, and then I thought the permanent marker on the game was the problem. I went to the bathroom to wet a face cloth and wipe off the marker. It took a while, but all of it was off. I dried it and stuck it back in my Gameboy, it still didn't work. I took it out, blew on it and put it back in, but it still didn't work. I quietly cussed and looked at the cartrage; I saw that there seemed to be a tiny piece of paper stuck into it.

“Why would someone stick paper in a Gameboy game?” I thought.

I grabbed a spare paperclip and picked at it until it came out, and then put it back into the Gameboy. It finally worked! I whispered to myself, "Thank god." I started up the game and there was already a game saved on it. Thinking that the person that sent it to the secondhand store forgot to delete the save, I went ahead and deleted it and started a new game. I picked Pikachu for my starter Pokémon, as electric types are my favorite type of Pokémon. The adventure started normal, caught a few Pokémon, but when I made them faint, it didn't seem right...

“Caterpie is dead.”

I thought this was just normal Gen 1 Pokémon, since I didn't play it often, so I just kept playing, slightly thinking about that certain quote. When I got to the first gym leader, Brock, I beat him easily, but it took a while, since electric types aren’t that strong against rock type Pokémon. Although when the text boxes come up saying that the opposing Pokémon should have fainted, it still said the Pokémon is dead.

At that point I was straight out confused. Normally games like this are not very violent. I decided go on my laptop and check a few things before I went to bed, since it was almost midnight. I turned off my Gameboy for the night and went to sleep. The next morning I grabbed my Gameboy, put it in my backpack, and headed on to school. My friends wished me an early birthday and gave me some gifts like a bouncy ball and a pair of trippy glasses from the nearby toy store. As the day went on, I could not stop thinking about playing that game, finally the end of school came along, I decided to go to a friend’s house for a couple of hours then went home. The Gameboy in my backpack was still there, so I got it out and turned it on.

Something wasn’t right when I opened my save…

All of my Pokémon were gone except my Pikachu. Thinking I didn’t save properly, I proceeded with playing the game, catching the same Pokémon that I caught before I shut off the game, still getting the same text boxes.

I suddenly became intrigued with a certain thing about this game. The NPC’s were silent, they never talked, the trainers never noticed when I walked past them, and the only thing that would talk was my Pikachu for some reason.

It usually gave rude remarks like,

“You did horrible beating that Pokémon.” And,

“You should have used me for that last fight.”

This really set something off inside of me. I set the Gameboy down and started up my laptop, taking a break from playing that game. I suddenly heard a high pitched ringing sound coming from my Gameboy, I threw it against the wall thinking it would stop, but it didn’t.

“What is this?! What’s with this god forsaken game?!”  I screamed loud enough to travel through the house.

I looked at the display, it was still where I was when I set it down on my desk, but why would it make that sound? It started to make the sound again, without thinking, I shut off the game. Thinking of what I did, I turned it back on and opened the save.

I can’t believe it. All my Pokémon are gone again.

The next day, my dad and I went back to the store that I got the game from and I asked what the complaints were.

"They all said that there were some glitches or stuff like that."

I started up my Gameboy for the clerk, and explained what happened when I turn it off and on again. He said that he hadn't seen anything like it. I only caught one Pokémon, saved, shut it off and on again. It was gone.

He exited the menu and a text box showed up with large, bold letters.

"I DON'T NEED FRIENDS..."