Unsavable Silver

I was always close to my nephew, Jake. He was a demonic little pest at times, but I still love him. We had to live under the same roof because of my dad, but one day my mom said that she and I were going to be moving out of the state. Jake overheard this and spent almost a week going through all his toys searching for something. The day we were leaving, he found it. An old GameBoy color with two games that he wanted to give me. The GameBoy was his favorite blue and missing the battery cover and the games were Super Mario Delux and Pokemon Silver. They were good-bye presents.

On the three day drive I was playing the Mario game. Jake had said to start with it. I was able to beat it

by the first week of living in the new house. I was a little confused as to why he said to save the Pokemon game for later; he knows I'm crazy about Pokemon.

Eventually I started to Pokemon game and saw his save file, "UnSave". This struck me as odd. I remebered Jake playing it under his name. He had me help him a lot with it. Why was it called Unsaved? I ignored this and restarted the game. It was never fun to see what immpossible places he saved in (the worst was in the Team Rocket hideout with the traps and only haveing a level 8 Togepi in his party). I played through the begining of the game as normal, picking a Totodile as my starter. I sat on the couch playing from lunch until I realized the battery was about to die. I saved the game and got the GameBoy some fresh recharged batteries.

Upon starting up the system. I noticed my saved file was gone. I took out the cartridge and blew into it, hoping it was just some dust. To my frustration, the game still read no file. I didn't know what to do. I thought I would have to play the whole game without turning off the system, but I would have to used my GameBoy SP. I wasn't sure what box it was in, because I was still unpacking a bunch of things. I started a new game, and this time I got a Cyndaquil. I saved the game as soon as I beat any trainer. Every trainer was basically a save point for me. It was late that night when I finally turned off the game. Out of curiosity, I turned it back on to see if it was saved this time. Again it didn't show a saved file. I thought back to Jake. He got this game from his older brother, who had bought it the day Silver Version came out. The battery inside the cartridge was probably dead. I just thought I'd play it on the SP the next day and went to sleep.

The next day I put new batteries in the old GameBoy and started the game up one last time and my heart sank.

"UnSave"

The same file as the one that showed up when I first started the game. I pressed the A button. The screen opened up to show the sprite in Ecruteak City. I was amazed to see that the party consisted of all level 100 pokemon. A Butterfree, Red Gyarados, Meganium (something Jake hated), Unown J, Lugia, and Eevee. I walked the character into the pokemon center to check the pokemon in the PC. I noticed that there wasn't the usual Nurse Joy or pokemon center music. There wasn't anyone there. I started getting a little scared at this point. I quickly moved over to the PC and tried to see the pokemon but a message box came up.

"You can't save what has been forsaken"

"What?" I thought. This didn't seem like something that would be in any Pokemon game. I reluctantly pressed A.

"The more that are created, the more that are abandoned"

It started to look like badly written poetry to me. I read through a few more lines before it stopped. The PC menu finally opened to reveal the normal options. I looked in the pokemon boxes but there was nothing in any of them. I closed the PC in confusion. Then the music started, Lavender Town's theme. I remember always loving the whole idea for Lavender Town in the first place, but this wasn't right. I left the pokemon center and saw that the character was no longer in Ecruteak. The sprite now stood at the top of Bell Tower. Ho-oh was there. I thought to myself "Is this why Jake didn't want me to play it yet? He was always afraid to mess up with the legendaries." I looked in the bag and saw a masterball. I closed the menu and took a step towards Ho-oh, only to be stopped by a message.

"It is too late now..."

Then Ho-oh disapeared with a disorted cry. It sounded like its own mixed with a Meganium and Lugia's. The Lavender Town music stopped. I looked at the pokemon in the party. The Lugia and Meganium weren't there. Instead were two ghost type sprites with the names, "NO" and "HOPE". All the other pokemon had been poisoned somehow. I closed the menu and the sprite was now in Pewter City. The music for caves and forests started playing. I tried to move the characted, but instead, the sprite stood there. I couldn't open the menu or anything. After a while, the sprite of a little girl walked in front of the character and started a battle. There was no pokemon cast out by my character sprite, but the girl cast out Ghost.

"Ghost used Screech"

The character's sprite doubled over with a pained look on his face. The battle menu came up with the options "Give In", "Cry Out", "Send Out J", and "Run". I tried pressing "Run" but the game stated that it was a trainer battle. I was too afraid to see what the other options would do. I settled on the one that said "Cast Out J". The sprite sent out the Unown J, which had half health and 2PP for Hidden Power. I selected the weak attack and it took out Ghost with a critical hit.

The Girl then sent out the other Pokemon she had. A Ho-oh with a glitchy appearence. Its cry was the same as the one on Bell Tower. "Ho-oh used Curse"

The curse was like any ghost type would use. Ho-oh took half of its own health out and the Unown's health started going down. I hoped that the other Hidden Power would be enough to win, but before Unown could attack, the curse took its health to 0. The Unown's cry wasn't a normal one, but not disorted either. It sounded a little like Jake's when he had a nightmare. As the Unown disapeared from the screen, my character's sprite entered again. He was crying and had a health meter of 20/20HP.

"Ho-oh used Perish Song"

The GameBoy shrieked. I dropped it on the bed. My character was covering his ears. The option menu came up with the selections "Give In" or "Cry Out". I really didn't like the thought of either. I selected "Cry Out" and my character lunged forward and screamed. This took out a bit of Ho-oh's health. The round ended with both perish counts at 2. Ho-oh didn't do anything that round.

The menu came up with the options "Give In", "Deny", and "Cry Out". Despite how horrible the screaming had been, it was working. It could take out the Ho-oh before the Perish Song, so I used it again. This time the game said "Ho-oh used Silence".

The screen darkened as something shrouded my character. "UnSave tried to scream, but couldn't breathe." The Perish Song count was down to one. There wasn't a menu this round. "UnSave needs to rest." I saw the shroud lift from my character to reveal burn marks around his neck.

"Ho-oh used Destiny Bond"

The Perish Count hit 0 and my character screamed in pain right as the batteries in the GameBoy died.

I started having nightmares after that. In those nightmares I was in the characters place for that battle. I could feel something burning around my throat when I tried to scream. The Ho-oh kept saying "Keep silent. Accept your fate." I told my friends at school about the nightmares, but not the game. They said they'd probably go away after a while. They haven't stopped, but they aren't as frequent as they once were. I decided to start the game over again and the UnSave file is there. I never select it. I just start the game and see how far I can get before the GameBoy dies, always trying to save the file I keep restarting.