Looking online, there are so many creepy pasta stories about Pokemon on the web it’s almost a cult classic thing now. However reading through them made me recall my own experience with a Pokemon game, or related to it at the very least. Like many before me I was also an avid Pokemon fan, owning a copy of Pokemon Red and playing it whenever I had the chance, which was when my bigger brother wasn’t playing it. Of the three starter Pokemon, none of us ever chose Bulbasaur, always Squirtle (my choice) or Charmander.
When I played I always tried to play like Ash Ketchum which was find a Pikachu and a Pidgy, then a Caterpie. When I found a Metapod I’d catch it, then forget about it soon after when I evolved my Caterpie into a Metapod which obviously had more skills available due to it being trained from a Caterpie. After which I would continue on my journey within the game and collect badges.
However one night I was up particularly late while playing, when I turned it off and went to sleep, and had a very bizarre dream. I dreamed I was… well, playing Pokemon in my room, an innocent and admittedly geeky dream at first. I was walking through tall grass outside the entrance to Mount Moon when I encountered a random battle. What I encountered was something I could only call a ‘Bulbapod’. It was a Bulbasaur wrapped in bandages, almost like a mummy, and instead of a bulb on it’s back, it had a Metapod. The Metapod was facing away from me and wrapped up in bandages as well, attached to the Bulbasaur half. As I looked at it, I realized I had become the trainer in my game, yet somehow everything looked 8-bit still. It looked back at me with these big, dead eyes. I can remember them easily: large, not blood shot, but soul piercing red eyes without any other color, one on the Bulbasaur, one on the Metapod, and they both stared me down.
After recovering from the initial shock I called out my Pikachu and used Thunder Shock, which dropped it in one hit. After that I merely shrugged and moved on. After passing through Mount Moon, just outside of Cerulean City I encountered the Bulbapod again. Once again calling Pikachu, this time I tried to catch it because I wanted to know more about it. However the Pokeball didn’t even make contact because a bandage whipped it away. After that, the text ‘Bulbasaur used Vine Whip’ came up as if I was still playing the Game Boy, then I saw bandages shoot up and mummify my Pikachu. Shocked from what happened, it only served to make my dream feel all too real now. I ran over and grabbed my Pikachu as it laid there dying in my arms, and immediately got to my feet and fled to Cerulean as fast as I could, watching as Pikachu’s eyes slowly closed. Sprinting into the Pokemon Center I immediately got Pikachu into the clinic, but by then he had died. I remember the text box reading ‘Pikachu has died’ then the Pokemon list came up, and Pikachu’s avatar wasn’t moving. I just looked at my Pikachu, still in my arms.
Another text box appeared saying ‘Pikachu has revived’. Once again my dream took me to my Pokemon team. The avatar was moving at half the speed it normally did, and when I looked at it’s image, it was wrapped in bandages, one eye covered, the other the same, dead, red, soul piercing eye the Bulbapod had. It just glared at me, but did nothing. I put the ‘Pikachu’ back in my Pokeball and headed off when I encountered a trainer. We initiated a fight and I called out my now undead Pikachu and noticed a new attack called ‘Mummify’. I chose Thunder Shock, but Pikachu used Mummify and the trainer’s Pokemon was wrapped up. Then a text came up saying that the trainer’s Pokemon died. When the trainer came up, Pikachu again used Mummify and killed the trainer. To my horror, the trainer transformed into another Bulbapod. I called out my Pidgy to fight it, but the trainer's "bandages" got it and mummified it too, at this point I just ran.
As I did I saw trainers vanishing one by one, replaced with Bulbapods. Eventually I was cornered, I called out Squirtle, but even he knew it was of little use. Bulbasaur was a plant type, and this undead creature was part Bulbasaur. They attacked my Squirtle next, as they did I jumped forward to try and stop them, but they snatched him away and mummified him too. Then they all stared at me, as if this was revenge for all the times I abandoned Bulbasaur and Metapod. They shot their bandages at me, they had me wrapped up, and as I looked up, a Bulbapod came right up to my face, staring in my eyes with it’s undead, unblinking glare. Then a bandage covered my face… then I woke up. I quickly turned my Pokemon game on and for a split second I thought I saw a Bulbapod on the title screen. I could have sworn I had seen a Bulbapod flash on my screen, but my imagination was working over time, and I kept telling myself that. I didn't stop playing Pokemon for some time after, but I never abandoned Pokemon again after that.
Written by the Moonlight Soldier