Pokémon Blue Version

Written April 27 2025

Originally I wanted to write a creepypasta under the working title of “I love Pokémon”. It was supposed to be another creepypasta about a haunted video game. I scrapped that and wrote something that hopefully comes off as a bit more sincere and, at the end of the day, interesting. But, man, I do love Pokémon.

I played so much Pokémon as a kid. I think I had a Pokémon Platinum savefile with a couple of hundred hours on it. I started playing Pokémon with Emerald and the other third generation games. Then I played Diamond and caught up with the first generation games. I spent so much time on the minigames in Pokémon Stadium. I have probably spent a few thousand hours on Pokémon all together, which isn't very much in the grand scheme of Pokémon players, but they really do have a special place in my heart, especially the older games. I also used to run around and just play with my Pokémon, not really caring about the story and making up my own. I don't have a special message or anything; I just like those little guys.

The door even makes a little ring as it closes behind Terra. She looks around. The old game store looks even dustier than she had thought from looking in through the grimy windows. The walls were stacked with boxes, turned so you can see the cover art. Everything from vampires and castles and fantasy lands to the wonky faces of American localizations. On a big table in the middle of the room were pink baskets holding hundreds of loose game cartridges. One of the light bulbs flickered from time to time.

Terra took another step into the store. She didn’t really know why she had come here. It looked cool, I guess, she thought. She looked around the room. Knights and platoon soldiers and anthropomorphic animals looked back at her. Unfamiliar faces, all of them. She recognized a few, in the same way you recognized your uncle whose lap you sat on when you were 8 months old. “One second,” a man shouted from somewhere behind the wood paneled counter. On it was a big cash register. Stuck to the yellowed plastic was a little sign: No card, only cash! Emptied daily.

An elderly man came through a tiny doorway behind the counter. He wasn’t necessarily elderly, just from a different time. Hawaiian shirt and big browline glasses sitting on a bulbous nose. He had a frizzly white beard like a mall Santa or an old-timey explorer. He looked jovial. “Welcome,” he said with a big smile. It was obviously genuine. “How can I help you? Just looking around?” He obviously liked customers and he liked visitors even more.

Terra mumbled a quiet response. “Yeah. Just lookin’.” She turned around and started leafing through the big games baskets. She wasn’t even looking at the games, not really. The man was still standing in the corner of her eye, hands on the counter, looking at her or at the very least in her general direction.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” he asked. Terra looked up at him. He practically recoiled from her face. “Oh no, just looking. I get it.” He put up his hands defensively, though still smiling.

Terra went back to the games. Most of them didn’t even sound real. She found a whole series of Dobzy games. Dobzy’s Adventure. Dobzy Baseball Tournament. Dobzy Raceing. Dobzie’s Super Arcade Extravagansa. The spelling seemed to be getting worse with every cartridge, as did the cover art. “Are you Bob?” Terra asked. The sign outside had said Bob’s Retro Game Store.

“No, Bob was a friend,” the man said. “I took over this place after he passed. It was a sort of… passion project. Both of us worked on it.” He sounded a bit sad. “Those are Russian imports,” he said. Terra looked up. He was pointing at the games basket. “They used to make these rip-offs of American and Japanese games, ‘cause they couldn’t get them behind the Iron Curtain, just like they did with movies and such. Then, when the Curtain fell, they started shipping them over here, tried to market them as their own thing. They’re pretty rare these days.”

Terra looked down at the games. A laminated sheet was taped to each of the baskets: $5 per game. “They’re rare,” the old man said. “Not very sought after.”

Terra looked at the old man. Something flared up inside her. “Do you have Pokémon?” she said.

The old man let out a a small laugh. He relaxed. “Come with me,” he said. He led Terra through the door behind the counter. To the left was a narrow staircase leading upstairs, probably to his apartment. Straight on, through a pearl curtain that clicked and clacked as they went through, was a storage room. Big, broad metal shelves lined the walls. The windows were covered with fiberboards. The man crouched down and pulled out a cardboard box from somewhere near the bottom of a shelf, whose top rows were stacked with old monitors and the packages of video game consoles. He put the box on the ground and opened it. “That’s one of them,” he muttered to himself. He pulled out more boxes, checking them. All in all, he got out three boxes, pushed one into Terra’s arms and beckoned her to go back to the front. They put them on the counter.

“There’s some Pokémon in these, some other old Game Boy games, hardware, paraphernalia. You just gotta look it through,” the old man said.” I haven’t really touched these in a while. Most of the customer’s don’t come here for these games.” He took a step aside as if he were expecting grand, sweeping moves from Terra.

Terra gingerly opened one of the boxes. There were old Game Boy cartridges piled in there, thrown around, no neat rows like those Dobzy games. Most of it wasn’t Pokémon or even Russian Pokémon clones, but she picked through them nonetheless, fascinated by the feel of the cartridges, the little cover art, the colored plastic. Most of them were dull gray, different shades of it even, though that was probably from ageing. Some were darker, black. Some were transparent; you could see the electronics through them, dark green fields and golden highways. She didn’t know what they were called. “Microchips,” she whispered quietly, so only she herself could hear it. Then, at the bottom of the pile, a blue cartridge. She pulled it out. Pokémon. Blastoise looked back at her from a dark blue void.

She put the cartridge down on the counter, separate from the rest. Reserved. She opened another box. It was cables, tangled together. In the nest of wires were other things. One was another gray plastic blob. She fished it out and held it up. Looks sci-fi, she thought. “Oh, that’s where that rumble pak went,” the man exclaimed. He took it out of her hand with his fingers held like a claw machine and went back through the doorway. Terra looked after him. It sounded like he was busy with his boxes again.

Her hands fished around the giant web of cables. They had all sorts of different jacks and plugs. She wasn’t entirely sure if any of them were still in use or even considered safe. The pointy ones looked like they could really hurt. The chunky ones looked almost quaint. She picked one up. The end was gray plastic like everything else. She turned it toward herself. It looked like a little smile. Cute. She smiled back a bit. She dug further down. One thing looked like a big game cartridge with a cutout at the front. There were switches in here, even adapters for wall outlets. Then, amid all the gray, she saw something different: color.

Her hands snaked through the tangle, a predatory snake making its way through the thicket to prey on some plastic mice. She dragged it out, thorny cables gracing her arm. It was an old Game Boy Color; the font at the front said so. Every letter of the “Color” was in a different shade, now all pastel colors after decades of wear. It felt oddly light in her hand. The plastic was see-through and slightly purple. She could see the insides again, the motherboard, the tiny speaker and all the screws holding it together. It was oddly visceral. There was no cartridge in it.

“You found one,” the man said as he came back into the main room. “That’s great.”

She pushed the on-off-switch on the side of the device. The screen remained dark. She could see her own face in it. Expressionless, tired eyes, shaved head. She looked a bit like a skull. Something snapped her out of it. The old man gestured for her to give the console to him. She handed it over. He turned it over and took off the cover at the back. “No batteries,” he said and put the Game Boy down on the counter. “One second, I’ll get some.” He ran off again.

Terra looked around the room again. The silhouettes of people slipped past the dirty windows. No one looked in. The whole room smelled slightly musty, of dust and old cardboard, of faded ink and old people and a tiny bit of tobacco. It felt cozy, somehow. She breathed in and closed her eyes. It was hot. Summer was hot. Too hot for her. The store didn’t have AC or even a fan.

She opened her eyes again. The space behind the counter was messy. Half empty carboard boxes and a pair of slippers lay on the floor. There was a framed picture above the counter that she only just now noticed. It showed the old guy, maybe ten or twenty years younger. There were still brown spots in his beard. He was already wearing Hawaiian shirts at that point. He had his arm around another man. He looked about the same age, though thinner, more sporty. His head was bald and he wore a bandana headband. They were both smiling into the camera.

The old man came back. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any batteries right now. It’s been a bit of a mess here lately.” There were sweat droplets on his forehead. “I could run to the electronics store across and get some batteries if you want, so we can test if this thing still works.”

“No,” Terra said. “It’s alright.” She kept looking at the picture.

“Oh well, I’m sorry. Anything else I can help you with?”

“Is that Bob?” Terra said. She pointed at the picture.

He turned around, again surprised. “Yeah, that’s Bob and me,” he said after a few seconds of silence. He looked back at Terra. His face was suddenly earnest. He looked much older when he wasn’t smiling. “That was the day we got married.” There was a twinge of sadness in his voice. He started kneading his hands. “We pulled up to the courthouse in those outfits. Bob was always a hippie at heart and he said to me ‘Richard, if we ever marry, we will do it in paisley and sunglasses.’ We didn’t wear sunglasses but he still wore his paisley shirt and tie and I my Hawaiian shirt. That was his idea of what being a rebel meant.” He stopped and looked at the picture. A tiny smile crept back onto his face. “He was a real people person. That’s why he ran this store. Sure, he liked video games and computers and whatnot, but the people that came in here, that’s what he really loved. And the people came here for Bob too. We had game nights and everything.” He looked back at Terra.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, it’s alright. It’s been a couple of years,” he said. “It’s fine.” He looked down at the cluttered counter. “I’m sorry that it didn’t work out, what with the Pokémon and stuff.”

Terra looked at her wristwatch. It was half past four already. Panic shot into her head like a ball at one of those carnival games. “I’ll take it,” she blurted out.

“Huh?” The man looked at her, confused and a little surprised.

“I need to pick up my girlfriend in five minutes. How much is it for the Game Boy and the game?”

He laughed a little at Terra’s panicked expression. He was all relaxed. “Normally, these things go for more, but since we couldn’t test it and I can’t guarantee you that it works– how about twenty bucks for the lot of it?”

Wordlessly, Terra dug around in her purse. She pulled out a twenty dollar note and handed it to him. “Thanks,” she said and grabbed her purchases.

“No need to thank me,” the old man said. “Just you have fun with it.” He was laughing even more. “Bye,” Terra heard him shout behind her as she burst onto the sidewalk.

* * *

Terra could see her reflection in the living room window. It was dark outside. She couldn’t tell whether the window was dirty or not. Somehow, in the reflection she looked tiny. Or maybe it was the giant armchair. Elly had bought it. It was snug. It fit into the room. Elly had an eye for these things. The Game Boy Color lay on the small wooden end table. Something about the contrast between the plastic and the wood fascinated Terra. Elly had decorated the room to look homely and warm. It was full of cushions and had a big, soft carpet that Terra liked to lay down on to cool off. This was a place for books and warm blankets, not for consumer electronics. Elly’s bookshelf stood on the wall facing Terra. Romance, historical fiction, psychology. Terra had put a handful of manga on the bottom-most shelf.

With a soft sound, the door opened. Elly stood in the doorframe. “Have you put on your gel?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Terra replied. She held up her right arm with the transparent gel on it. It glistened a bit.

“Good,” Elly said and smiled. “I’ll go to sleep now.” She nodded her head towards the Game Boy. “Have fun.”

Terra smiled. “Goodnight,” she said.

She turned to the console. She had tested it earlier to see if it still worked. She had immediately turned it off after the console’s screen displayed the Nintendo logo; she didn’t want to spoil the experience.

She picked it up and turned it around in her hands. The translucent purple plastic fascinated her. No other games console, no other device looked like this anymore. In a world of black rectangles and boxes, this looked like a shining peacock. No, it looked like a spaceship, like something from the future. It practically glowed. She was sitting under the reading light. It was too bright for her, even for reading, but it was the light they had and the Game Boy’s screen wasn’t backlit.

After switching it on, the console introduced itself with a pling sound. Then, they appeared. Jigglypuff facing off against Gengar. They eyed each other, sized each other up and then– Jigglypuff launched itself right into Gengar’s face. Pokémon Blue Version. Terra breathed hard. The Pokémon next to the little trainer figure switched out. Squirtle. Aerodactyl. Vulpix. Bulbasaur. She pressed the A button. CONTINE. NEW GAME. OPTION. There was already a save file. Terra sunk back down in her seat. She had pulled up her legs and was now moving back and forth on her heels in the big armchair. She cycled through the options. CONTINUE. NEW GAME. OPTION. NEW GAME. CONTINUE. She pressed A.

PLAYER EMMA. A girl! Terra thought. Someone, a girl, had played this game before, though it was impossible to tell when. Maybe she was the same age as Terra. BADGES 1, the next line read. POKéDEX 5. TIME 32:47. That struck Terra as weird. Thirty-two hours and only one badge, only five caught Pokémon? Puzzled and curious, she opened the save file.

The player character – Emma, she immediately corrected – stood in front of Mt. Moon. She just stood there and stared at Terra. She opened the menu. She moved the cursor down to EMMA and pressed A again. NAME/EMMA it read. Next to that, the sprite of a boy. She backed out and looked at the Pokémon. A Squirtle named POKE, a Pidgey named PIDGEON and a Jigglypuff. Its name was EMMA and it was level 39. “Wow,” Terra said softly. She closed the menus again and took a deep breath. She looked up at the dark ceiling. It was a stark contrast to the white and blue of Pokémon. Her eyes hurt a little.

Emma stood in front of the entrance to Mt. Moon and next to the Pokémon Center. Terra opened her Pokédex. She had seen a Zubat but none of the other Pokémon in Mt. Moon. She must not have gone too far into it before turning around.

Terra walked her down to the patch of grass in the south. She walked around a bit. Then, the screen turned black and a Spearow moved across her field of view. It was level 6. Terra looked at the Jigglypuff’s attacks. It knew Sing, Pound, Disable and Defense Curl. Emma hadn’t taught her any new moves. She pounded in the Spearow. It went down in one hit. “Woah,” Terra said again. It hit her that this is what Emma probably did for all those hours. Walking around with her Jigglypuff named after herself and beating up wild Pokémon.

Terra looked up again. The rest of the room was completely dark. The sky outside had given up any traces of sunlight that it had still been clinging onto. She could feel that her eyes were getting tired, burning a bit even. She opened the menu and hit Save. PLAYER EMMA, it read again. BADGES 1. POKéDEX 5. TIME 32:59. She had spent twelve minutes in the game. She had opened it, looked around, fought a Pokémon and now she was about to save and close the game for– for what? For another twenty years? For good? For her to overwrite it tomorrow?

She turned the switch on the side of the console. The screen went dark again. The sounds stopped. Everything was quiet around her, only the electric hum of the overpowered light bulb in her right ear. She was getting tired.

Terra put the Game Boy Color on the end table beside the big armchair and got up. She turned off the light and walked slowly across the now dark room, toward the hallway, toward the bedroom, where Elly was already sleeping.

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