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Writing Contest: Halloween Afterparty Creepypasta (November 1st - 14th)


Eggplant

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IGN: Feravyne

~1936 words.

I apologize for length.

 

tTkNsdA.png

G i n g e r

[spoiler]

“Don’t forget we’re going to the lab to get those tests this afternoon,” Mom said as she passed me my bowl of cereal.
 
“I won’t forget,” I told her, grabbing a spoon and taking a bite out of my breakfast.
 
Mom smiled and went to put the dishes away.  I swallowed hard, not really tasting the food, trying to ignore my headache.
 
An orange blur flew into the room.  Ginger, my Growlithe, sprinted toward me, her claws making gentle taps on the linoleum until she slid to a stop in front of my chair.
 
She barked, her bushy tail wagging in greeting.
 
“Morning, Ginger.”  I scratched the soft fur on her head, before turning back to Mom.  “What time’s my appointment?”
 
“A little after three,” she said without looking back.
 
I checked the clock, and frowned.
 
The second hand was ticking backwards.
 
Mom followed my gaze, then turned away quickly and shut her eyes, drawing a deep, slow breath.
 
“We’ll figure this out, Aaron,” she said, smiling, but her face was tired.  She didn’t want me to know, but I knew all the same—about the sleepless night, the worry.
 
I nodded and made myself smile back.  My head was throbbing, but I couldn’t let it show.  The doctors would figure everything out soon;  it was going to be okay.
 
I tossed my nearly-full bowl in the sink, my hunger forgotten, and headed into the living room.
 
Ginger hurried along behind me.  When I took a seat on the couch, she galloped to the corner and scooped up her favorite yellow ball before leaping into my lap.  Despite the headache, I felt okay.
 
She was my starter, my partner, and my best friend.  We’d beaten five gym leaders together before my headaches started getting worse.  We’d been forced to cut our journey short and come home to Cerulean, but she’d helped me through that too.  As long as I had her, I could handle anything.
 
I grabbed the remote and switched on the TV.  A beauty contest was being broadcast from the Lilycove Master Contest Hall, and I settled in to enjoy the spectacle.  Ginger curled up, chewing on her ball.
 
By the time the contest was at the third round, my eyelids were getting heavy, and my headache was better than it had been all day.  I decided to let myself doze off—
 
And then the pain was back, sudden and instant, throbbing in time with my heartbeat.
 
Ginger whimpered and licked my face.
 
I wrenched my eyes open, petting her head so she’d know I was okay, when the TV caught my attention.  Static covered the screen.
 
“Where’d the picture go?” Mom asked from the kitchen, trying to sound lighthearted, but I could feel the tension she was trying to keep out of her voice.  She walked into the room, drying her hands on a dishtowel.
 
A shadowy figure appeared on the screen, staring out through the static.
 
“Not again,” she whispered.
 
Ginger growled.
**********
 
We left hours early for the lab.
 
It was a little place in Saffron City, a short walk from home, and an even shorter drive.  Mom was oozing anxiety the entire way there, but as soon as we arrived she breathed a sigh of relief.
 
The walk toward the plain, gray building near the center of the city made me wish I had Ginger by my side.  She made me feel so much stronger.
 
The sign on the glass doors read Extrasensory Research Laboratory, Silph Co.
 
A woman in a clean white coat carrying a clipboard came down to meet us only a few minutes after we checked in with the receptionist, even though we were early.
 
“You must be Aaron,” she said, smiling, greeting me before she said hello to my mother.  I nodded.
 
“We’re going to figure out exactly what’s happening with you, okay?”  Her confidence was contagious, and I grinned back despite my headache.  For once, I thought there was chance everything really would be okay.  The woman with the clipboard would fix me. 
 
The feeling of hope was overwhelming, and it took me a second to respond.
 
“Okay,” I said.
 
I turned back to Mom, excited.
 
A man in a similar white coat had pulled her to the side and was speaking to her in a quiet voice, but I thought I caught bits of the conversation. 
 
Strange occurrences.  A few tests.  Brain activity.
 
Was Mom telling him about the ghost in the TV?  What did that have to do with my headaches?
 
“My name’s Vivian,” the woman said, pulling my attention away from my mother.  “Follow me and we’ll get you checked out.”
 
She led me through a door and down a hallway before stopping in a room that looked very much like my usual doctor’s office, except with a collection of strange machines against the walls.  I hopped up on the table, the thin paper cover crinkling under my weight.
 
“When did the headaches start?” Vivian asked.  She flipped a switch on one of the devices and it awoke with a dull hum.
 
“Dunno,” I said, frowning.  “I don’t remember not having them.”  I squinted at the gray tiles on the floor, counting them, trying to block out the dull throbbing in my temples.  When had it all started?  “They got really bad when I left on my journey, when I was ten.”
 
She nodded and scribbled something on her clipboard.  “Did your other doctors give you anything for the pain?”
 
I shook my head.  “Medicine never works and makes me feel sick.  They told me to relax and do breathing stuff, but that doesn’t help either.”
 
Vivian rolled the humming machine closer to me, and pulled out some electrodes from a panel on the side.
 
“I’m just going to attach these to your head so we can monitor what’s going on up there.  It won’t hurt at all.”
 
Mom and the man she’d been talking to appeared in the doorway as Vivian stuck the wires to my head.
 
“How’s everything going?” he asked, and I smiled.  Vivian flipped a switch on the machine.
 
The humming intensified, and my headache worsened.
 
I opened my mouth to point out that she’d been wrong, that it did hurt, but the pain spiked again-- the machine went silent.
 
No, it wasn't silent.  The machine was off, but I could hear a buzzing, faint at first but growing louder.  It drowned out everything else, and I went away.
 
The pain was gone then, but I didn’t know whether to be happy or terrified.  
 
I blinked, and I was back.  
 
The lights were out, the bulbs shattered.  I glanced at Mom; she looked like she was about to cry, and Vivian's usually cheerful expression was set in a hard grimace as she fiddled with the machine.
 
“Uh.” The man rubbed the side of his head, his eyebrows coming together.  Damn headache, out of nowhere.  Worst possible time.  “No clean readings.  Looks like we can’t continue today.”
 
“I’m sorry about your headache,” I told him, as Vivian removed the electrodes from my forehead and temples.
 
He blinked at me.  “How’d you know about that?”
 
I shrugged, uncomfortable.  Hadn’t he said it aloud?
 
“I think we’ll have to reschedule your appointment,” Vivian sighed.  “I know it’s urgent, but there’s not much we can do without power to the facility.”
 
“In any case,” the man said, adjusting his glasses, “you should think about getting a therapy Pokémon, maybe a Chansey, or a Togetic, or even a Kirlia.  They can help with pain management.”
 
Vivian muttered something to Mom in a hushed, hurried voice.  I barely made out the phrase alpha waves.
 
I ignored them, focusing on the broken lights.  A bad feeling was settling in my chest.
 
**********
 
Ginger was waiting for us at the door when we got home, her tail thumping against the floor in a steady rhythm.  Just seeing her was a huge relief, but the ever-present pain in my head didn’t lessen.
 
Mom hadn’t said much since we left the lab, and she had a blank, far-off look in her eye.  It was the same expression she wore for weeks after Dad died, and it made me want to shake her awake.  
 
Ginger and I headed straight to my room and curled up together on the bed.  I heard Mom move around the kitchen—dishes clinking, water pouring into the sink—but I was listening for the jumbled bits of words that floated to me like dust.
 
More doctors, better doctors. It’ll be fine.  That was all coincidence, yes.  Nothing to do with Aaron.
 
These were my mother’s thoughts, I realized.  Or was I losing my mind?
 
When I caught something about ice cream, Mom was already there handing me the bowl.
 
She tucked me in, the same vacant expression deadening her features.  She tried to feign a smile and I did the same, sensing her distress. 
 
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” she whispered, leaving the room.
 
I listened to her go.  She took her sleeping pills, as I ignored the pain in my head and took the first bite of my ice cream.
 
The spoon bent.
 
At the same moment, Ginger leapt off the bed as if she’d been struck.
 
“What is it?”  She yelped in response, then bared her teeth at me—something I had never, not once, seen her do.
 
“G-Ginger?” My voice was a choked whisper, and my head throbbed.  I extended a hand to pet her striped coat, and she recoiled, thrashing.
 
She whined.  It was a plea for me to stop.  I saw it in her eyes as easily as I heard it in her head.
 
Bad, no.  It’s bad. No.  Stop.
 
“I’m sorry!” I squeezed my own eyes shut, as they began to sting with tears.  “I’m sorry Ginger.  I’m sorry, so sorry--”
 
The Growlithe whipped her head back and forth, her cries reaching a fever pitch, ears flattened against her head.
 
Pain, stop, no, no, no, no—
 
“Ginger, I can’t,” I sobbed, putting my hands over my ears to block out her wails, but it didn’t help.  Her pain and desperation and panic rang loud in my head.
 
She twisted, and thrashed.  She screamed and writhed, and begged and accused me with her eyes.
 
I wanted it to stop.  I pleaded with the pain in my head, the pressure building in my temples.  I grit my teeth and tried to push it away.  I tried the breathing, the calming exercises.  I counted backwards from ten.  Nothing worked.  I felt myself losing control.  The strange internal static got louder, louder, and louder still.
 
And I went away again, like I had in the lab.
 
When I came back, I was sitting in bed, exactly where I’d been before, but feeling different, somehow.  Off-balance.  My clothes clung to my skin, damp with sweat.  I shivered.
 
“Ginger?” I said to the dark room, finding my voice to be nothing but a hoarse whisper.  I slid out of bed, and my bare foot brushed soft fur.
 
I flipped the light switch, and scanned the floor.
 
I couldn’t breathe.
 
Ginger.
 
She lay still, unnaturally still, her body contorted as if she’d been tossed like a ragdoll and left to crumble where she fell.  Her tongue lolled out of her mouth, her glazed-over eyes stared at me, but saw nothing.
 
I collapsed to the floor, reaching to stroke her fur with a trembling, yellow, three-fingered hand.  She was cold.
 
I’d done this.
 
And yet, the pain was gone.
 
But something else was wrong.
 
I’m wrong.
 
My body is wrong.
 
A large tail.  Yellow skin, brown chest.
 
“Ka…Kadabra?”
 
[spoiler]wvD4eDQ.png
[/spoiler][/spoiler]
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I began to see vast groups of people walking around with their Pokémon behind them. The majority of these people were boys with starter charmanders and I saw very few girl Pokémon trainers. All of the trainers were murmuring about trades and Pokemon that they wanted to sell. Then a wiser person approached me, he looked more accomplished than other trainers. He pulled me to the side and told me his name was Ray. He was saying how everyone was in need of better trades. 

 

You should've just wrote that; I'm already creeped out D: 

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Ign: Gunthug

Wc: 1750 words

 

# : ) A little rushed, but hope you enjoy! : ) #

 

[spoiler]

October 30th, 2014

 

11:24 pm

 

What’s up, guys? Gunthug here, just checking in with my nightly report. First, I just wanna say thanks to all of you who continue to put up with me ranting about what’s going on here at PokeMMO. When I first started this website, I had like three people total reading my daily entries. Now, I’m getting over 500 hits a night. But you all aren’t here for a history lesson - you’re here to read about

 

UPDATE HYPE

 

Yeah that’s right, we were touched by the divine Desu just an hour ago, and the servers unexpectedly went down for a Late October update. This was COMPLETELY unexpected, to say the least. Last time around, we had to uguu and moan for months before an update hit. But this one blindsided us all…in a good way, of course.

 

Now, as far as information goes, I’m not having much luck. I tried tapping into my network, and my go-to staff members seem to be almost as out of the loop as we commoners are.

 

In fact, Egg and Kili both confirmed that staff lounge has been a graveyard the last few days…guess the devs have been hard at work bringing us some new content. But, what could they be rolling out? Surely it’s too early for Hoenn, right? Hey, maybe they’ll finally give us pumpkin hats. Or in-game Pumpkin Spiced Latte’s that increase happiness by 87% instantly.

 

I’ll keep my fingers on the pulse, and get back to you guys as soon as I can.

 

I’m out

 

-Gunthug

 

 

October 31st, 2014

 

12:14 am

 

Aaaand we’re back. Well, some of us are, at least…I’ve heard from teammates and friends that many people aren’t able to get on the server. In fact, I’ve heard that some computers are simply freezing and shutting off at any attempt to log on. Seems to be fine on my end, though. I entered my account information in, and immediately popped up in the Island 7 pc. I don’t remember logging out there, but then again, I can barely remember what I had for lunch today (food, maybe? It was a long time ago).

 

So, err, let’s talk about that “changelog,” shall we?

 

 

 

Desu post at 10/31/2014

12:05 am EST:

 

Changelog

 

Features:

 

Tanoby Ruins has received a huge upgrade that is sure to put a smile on everyone’s face#. : )

 

In addition to enhanced graphics, there are some special new surprises in store for the first several visitors#.

 

All unowns now have a 1% chance of carrying a Mystery Box, and the prizes inside the box are completely new#.

 

Head on over to Tanoby Ruins and see for yourself#! We promise you’ll never want to leave#.

 

A little disappointing, obviously. I don’t know about you, but I was thinking we’d get more than “enhanced graphics” and some loot changes at tanoby ruins. But hey, new mystery box prizes? Might as well go see what the hype is about. I know Forfi and Flav will be all over it – well, as soon as they can log in. I’m gonna head to tanoby ruins and start catching Unowns. I’ll check back in soon.

 

I’m out

 

-gunthug

 

 

October 31st, 2014

 

12:29 am

 

Wow – Desu was NOT kidding when he said the graphics had been enhanced. Honestly, everyone, I’m speechless. It looks fantastic. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a Pokemon game; rather, it looks like something out of Dead Space III. They’re really stepping up their Halloween game this year. Let me back up a bit, though.

 

First thing I did when I got on was head south on Island 7. Oddly, I didn’t face one single Pokemon on my way to the water. As soon as I began surfing, I could tell something was different. My screen froze momentarily, presumably from lag – hey, I was lucky just to be online at this point. I understand most of you still can’t log on.

 

Now that I think about it, it may be time for a new computer. Every time my computer freezes like that, my keyboard gets extremely hot. Anyways, where was I? Oh, yeah, the new tanoby ruins. Guys, I don’t even know how to describe it. I actually took several screen shots, but in my folder they’re just showing as black screens. Don’t think I’ll submit a bug report though – I think staff have their hands full right now.

 

So how to describe it without a screen shot? Everything’s just…deeper. A faint purple glow now emanates from the mouth of the first cave, enveloping the surrounding area like soft velvet. Vivid waves lap on the shores of the four sided island, but the rhythmic motion seems slightly slower than usual. The two NPCs that usually roam the outside of the entrance no longer wandered about aimlessly. Now, they stood fixed in place, though upon closer inspection they seem to be vibrating. I entered the entrance on the first island, encountering my first unown before the inside even rendered. And that brings us to the present tense: my first Unown encounter of the great mystery patch, and it’s a “D.” Let’s hope that stands for “Definitely holding a mystery box!”

 

Nope. Nothing. No surprise there. Also, I forgot to drop some of my pokes in the PC before I left, so I have to wait for the stupid pokeball to shake three times before checking for loot. Oh well, no point going back now. I’ll just keep catching until I get lucky. Isn’t that what life is all about?

 

I’ll check back in shortly. Hope to see some of you online soon, things are getting kinda lonely here. I’m out.

 

-gunthug

 

 

October 31st, 2014

 

1:04 am

 

How often do you guys get to see your family? If you still live with them…cherish it. I mean, it’s the end of October, and I haven’t been home to see them since this summer. Sure, I talk to them on the phone every couple of days, but I can’t be a good big brother from 14 hours away, can I?

 

Sorry. Don’t know what came over me. I’m uh, I’m still roaming around in tanoby ruins. I’ve caught, hmm, about 10 unown now? Still no boxes. They seemed to have fixed the low variance in unown letter encounters – I’ve caught a lot of interesting ones. Think I even saw a “w” at one point. You know, I’ve always wondered if upper staff could send us some sort of message through the unown we caught. Might make a cool event, right?

 

Server problems still keeping the majority of players offline, I guess. At least I’m not alone anymore – Flavajabari made it through and is down at tanoby as well. Just had a brief conversation with him, though the lag on chat is almost unbearable.

 

[spoiler]EkORKZJ.png[/spoiler]

 

Don’t know why he’s acting so weird. I’ll talk to him when he comes back from afk, make sure everything’s alright. Anyways, I’ll check back in when I find my first mystery box, let you all know what the loot will be. I doubt it’ll be anything good, though. Why would something nice happen to me?

 

I’m out.

 

-gunthug

 

 

October 31st, 2014

 

1:54 am

 

I failed to describe the inside of the ruins earlier, right? Just like me – always forgetful. Always a failure. Well, I’m still circling the first chamber of the ruins, searching for my first treasure chest. The calm green walls that form the maze inside of the caverns have been replaced with a deep, foreboding purple. A deafening silence is emitting from my speakers. Guys, this is not just your average silence, devoid of noise. This silence is aggressive, enveloping all of the sound in its path like lava through a field of grass.

 

Once again, the depth of the entire ruins seems…off. Like it’s trying to be two and three dimensional at the same time. I can’t tell if it’s extremely high definition, or just some sort of graphical glitch.

 

Just switched to channel 7, and found Flava here. The orange Pokeball is swirling over his head…but hmm. That’s strange. When I go to spectate, neither side has a pokemon out.

 

 

Err, just had a strange conversation with him. I don’t think he’s found a mystery box yet, but who knows? I didn’t get a straight answer out of him.

 

[spoiler]hkV3OVw.png[/spoiler]

 

I guess he found one. I guess I’ll get back to it.

 

Also, in an unrelated note, I don’t think I’ll be doing this blog much longer. I just don’t have the motivation to do it, really.

 

Oh great. It’s raining, now. The distant sadness in my mind just got a little less distant.

 

I’m out.

 

-gunthug

 

 

October 31st, 2014

 

2:22 am

 

I...I think I’m gonna go to sleep. Sure, it’s a Friday night, and yeah, I stayed in and did nothing all night.

 

Seriously, is this what I’ve become?

 

Catching unowns, looking for a mystery box that just doesn’t exist? On a Friday night?

 

I mean, I filled an entire box almost, for fucks sake. Over and over, I put myself out there. False swipe, poke ball, shake, shake, shake, congratulations!

 

But for what? For yet another dose of false hope? Those precious seconds where I foolishly convince myself this might be the one…just to have the carpet yanked out from under my feet, another empty unown to add to the stack.

 

Honestly, leaving that place was oddly difficult. I’m so glad to be out of there, though. Some strange things were happening to my pokemon. I had just gotten my Jolly Tauros back earlier today, so it was hanging around in my lineup. Usually, when you trade a poke, it goes back to 27% happiness…but my Tauros, he had gone down to 0%. In fact, all the pokemon in my party were at 0%. But that’s life, right? It sucks the happiness out of you, day after day, not satisfied till you’re an empty shell of your former self.

 

Here’s a picture of my failed efforts from tonight:

 

[spoiler]C1mBEu5.png[/spoiler]

 

Guess I won’t be making PokeMMO history.

 

Hmm, that’s odd.

I can hear my phone vibrating in the other room. It’s past 2 am, who would be calling me? Well, I’ll check back in tomorrow, maybe.

 

I’m out.

 

-gun

 

 

 

 

October 31st, 2014

 

4:00 am

 

Don’t you just love this game? #

 

You know what I really love? #

 

Hunting Unowns at Tanoby Ruins #

 

Please come join me! You won’t be able to tear yourself away from the screen#

 

: )

[/spoiler]

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