Dark to Light By: Dara Fennema After darkness, comes light. That’s what my father always said. ‘No matter how troubled you are,’ he told me, ‘remember that things will only get better.’ He’s not saying anything now, though, and I miss his guidance. In my case, the darkness was my friend, Cameron, arriving into hospital. He had been found lying in the bus lane by the train station with his leg bent at an impossible angle and blood streaming down his face, soaking into his auburn hair. His phone and money were gone. A passer-by had called the ambulance when they saw him, nearly two hours after he had been attacked. The doctors had given him shots of morphine so he babbled incoherently most of the time. I still visited him, though. I had known him for years, after all. We talked about rubbish until the nurse told me to leave. I came directly from school every day for two weeks until he was weaned off the morphine. That was when the darkness turned into light. Just before I left, he called me back and handed me his red Nintendo DS Lite with a Pokémon Pearl cartridge already inside. ‘I can’t accept this,’ I said quickly, trying to push the Nintendo into his hand again. ‘No, Matt. I want you to have it.’ His jaw was set, his blue eyes blazing. ‘You’re my only friend who visited me. Please. Take it.’ I knew once Cameron got that look on his face, there was no point arguing with him. I pocketed it, albeit reluctantly, and nodded my thanks. He waved me away, smirking. ‘Bet you can’t beat it in a week like I did,’ he said. ‘You’re on,’ I grinned. And though I didn’t know it, with two simple words, I had sealed my fate. Once I got home, I turned on the DS and dived into the world of Pokémon. Instantly, I was immersed completely in my adventure. I had never played Pokémon before, barely noticed it, so each new creature gave me a thrill of delight. I chose Chimchar as my starter and nicknamed it Blaze. I trained my team with military precision. As I didn’t have a pet, I enjoyed the feeling of caring for them. I made sure every single one was at the same level at each town. Each individual was loved and cared for. I didn’t use Rare Candies unless I had to, instead raising their levels with fighting experience. I spent time and care on their nicknames, changing it again and again until it was exactly right for that particular Pokémon and their mood. I still visited Cameron every day. I had failed his one-week-challenge – I was only on my third Gym badge – because I spent so much time on each Pokémon. He laughed when I told him what I was doing and said I didn’t have to be so articulate about it. I smiled graciously at that, but inside I was seething. How could he not cherish each one? How could he not raise each like a sibling? He must’ve seen something flash in my eyes because his laughter died away and he abruptly changed the subject. ‘Can you give me another shot of the pain killers?’ he asked, wincing. ‘My leg…’ I took a syringe and filled it to the brim. ‘Is this enough?’ I asked, waving it in front of him. ‘I think so.’ I nodded and pressed the plunger down, injecting it into his arm. Cameron shuddered and smiled with relief. ‘That’s better,’ he said, his eyelids drooping. ‘See you,’ I said, and walked out. My mind was already on the Ponyta I was trying to evolve. Once I got home, I played it again. It was becoming harder and harder to make sure each being was being raised well, but I persisted, training them and caring for them as well as I possibly could. I felt genuine sadness whenever one fainted in battle and once panicked when my poor Geodude was poisoned and I didn’t have an Antidote. My father came in to see me sobbing on my bed, struggling to get to the Poké Mart before it fainted. My Pokémon became more than a cluster of pixels on a screen. They became my friends, my family. I loved each and every one of them as a sibling, and I was sure they felt the same way about me. I caught more and more of them, raised them to the same level as the others, encouraged them and helped them to evolve. In short, I did everything I possibly could to make them happy. And it was all worth it to see them battle well and defeat the trainers that stood in our path to becoming the greatest team in Sinnoh. I could see my family didn’t like me being in my room all the time and sometimes challenged me about it. My father, especially, firmly said that I couldn’t play it at the dinner table and I needed to take a break every hour. I told him about how I couldn’t take a break and that I needed to make sure my Pokémon were happy, but he only smiled at me and ruffled my hair. My handful of friends, too, grew more distant. I brought the DS everywhere and played it during lunch by myself, taking bites of my sandwich every once in a while, rather than eating with everyone. The next day, I forced myself out of my room and walked down to the hospital. There was a group of doctors gathered around Cameron, each with the same grave look on their face. ‘What’s going on?’ I demanded. None of them answered me. ‘Hey!’ I shouted. ‘Why are you all here? What’s wrong with Cameron?’ One doctor turned to me, a man with gun-metal grey hair and eyes. ‘He slipped into a coma yesterday. We’ve woken him from it but he’s gone into anaphylactic shock,’ he said bluntly. ‘The pain killers were give him have to be measured extremely carefully, to the last millilitre. It’s all right more of the time, but someone gave him an obscene amount yesterday. We’re lucky his heart didn’t stop there and then.’ Almost to himself, he added, ‘It must’ve been the new nurse on the third floor.’ My eyes widened. ‘Will… He’ll be OK… I mean… It’s a hospital… Right?’ The doctor had already turned away, scratching the back of his head, deep in thought, then raised his voice. ‘Quickly, get the adrenaline shots and the steroids. Come on, we need to stop this…’ I staggered back, a lump rising in my throat. I was unable to comprehend what was going on, what was happening to my ordered life. Everything was spiralling wildly out of my control. I was on the raging sea between Mt. Coronet and the Fight Area, struggling to keep my balance on my Gyarados, being tossed and turned and attacked by sea spray… ‘No!’ I bellowed. Several heads turned my way. I ignored them, running towards the exit, tears streaming down my face. ‘No, no, NO! We have to keep moving, Gyarados! We have to get him healed!’ ‘Hey, kid,’ a man said, catching my shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’ ‘I’m fine!’ I bawled. ‘I just need to get to a Pokémon centre!’ My heart was hammering uncomfortably fast: a frightened animal in a cage, trying to get out. I felt the walls of panic closing in on me and struggled to contain it. ‘What?’ ‘I need to heal him,’ I said desperately. ‘I have to heal him. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault, and if I can just get him to a Pokémon centre, then the lady can make him better and…and it’ll all be OK. Right?’ I looked wildly around for reassurance. ‘Right? Won’t he be better?’ ‘Yeah,’ said the man gently, squeezing my shoulder. ‘C’mon, I’ll take you home.’ ‘I don’t want to go home!’ I shouted, prising his hand off me. ‘I just need to take him to the Pokémon centre.’ ‘I know where it is. I’ll take you there, let’s go.’ ‘You do?’ I whispered. ‘Do you have him? Is he with you?’ ‘Yeah. I do. Let’s go.’ ‘Thank you.’ I clung to him like a five year old. ‘Thank you so much…’ While we walked, the man spoke into a mobile phone. ‘Yeah… Yeah, I’ve got him, don’t worry… He’s fine. Just talking about Pokémon… I know, I know… OK, coming now.’ He hung up and smiled at me. ‘Keep going, Matt. Everything will be all right.’ Instead of going to that beautiful orange building, though, the man brought me to my doorstep. ‘This isn’t the centre,’ I said suspiciously. ‘It’s hidden inside,’ the man explained. He took out a key and opened the door. A woman was in the hallway. ‘Oh, thank God,’ she breathed. ‘He’s OK.’ ‘You don’t have pink hair,’ I said, waving a finger. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Matt, it’s me,’ she said with a frown. She looked up at the man. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ ‘He’s in shock,’ he answered, ruffling my hair. I froze. Only one person I knew did that. Could that mean…? ‘Dad?’ I said, looking up at him. ‘Why are you here?’ ‘This is where I live, kiddo,’ he smiled. ‘Go on, up to your room.’ ‘My... my room?’ ‘Go on.’ I nodded and hurried up the stairs, tripping every second step. I caught a snatch of conversation. The woman – my mother – was saying that I was spending too much time on my game. My father was agreeing with her, suggesting that I only played on weekends. Only on weekends? I thought in horror. My Pokémon couldn’t survive five whole days without me. I needed to be there for them. Quickly, I turned on my DS to check on them. They were all healthy, each one of them the same level. I organised them carefully, placing them in different boxes according to their element and then in alphabetical order within that box. I spent two happy hours playing with them, battling with them, advancing forwards in my adventure. When I was about to save and turn it off, something inside me whispered that if I stopped, Cameron would never be healed. He’d be in the Lost Tower…forever. So I continued to train and fight. The hours slipped by. I was unable to stop. My eyes were aching from the brightness of the screen. Every time I drifted off, my face slammed into the DS and I woke with a jolt. At last, the sun rose. My father came up at eight to check on me. When he saw me, he gasped and tore the DS from my grasp. ‘NO!’ I shrieked. ‘NO! Give it back!’ ‘Matt, you’ve been playing it for hours,’ he said, walking away. ‘Get some sleep. You must be exhausted. Once you’re rested, come down. We have to talk.’ I sighed, shaking my head at his stupidity. I couldn’t sleep. I needed to check on Cameron. I clambered out of bed and walked out the door, fully-dressed. My eyelids felt like sandpaper. I entered the hospital and staggered up to Cameron’s ward, yawning. ‘Where’s Cameron?’ I said to the nurse behind the desk, blinking away my tiredness. ‘Cameron?’ ‘Cameron Davies. He was in here yesterday. The doctor said he went into shock.’ I was having trouble stringing the words together. ‘Is he all right? Can I see him?’ The nurse scrutinised me, her eyes narrowing. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Pearl.’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m a Pokémon trainer,’ I said. ‘I defeated Team Galactic in Eterna City. You must know me.’ She shook her head slowly. I frowned. ‘My other name’s Matt,’ I said finally. ‘Matt what?’ ‘Ryder.’ ‘Matt Ryder… Let’s see.’ She tapped a few keys then froze. ‘Were you here yesterday?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Haven’t you heard the news?’ ‘What news?’ ‘Are you a friend?’ she asked, avoiding the question. ‘Yes.’ I lost my patience. ‘Where’s Cameron?’ ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice rising shrilly. ‘They did everything they could. He… His heart gave out last night.’ She covered her mouth with a hand. ‘I am so sorry.’ ‘What do you mean?’ The nurse blinked. ‘Your friend, Cameron…he died last night.’ ‘He died?’ ‘Yes.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t usually give the news,’ she said softly, reaching out to touch my hand. ‘I promise you, they did everything they could. Just sometimes, in these situations…’ I didn’t catch the rest of her sentence. I had collapsed in a heap on the floor. When I came to, garbled snatches of conversations reached me. My father’s deep bass was talking to me but he could’ve been saying anything. I couldn’t understand a word. My mother spoke to me, too, but made as much sense as my father did. Then an unfamiliar voice, wracked with sobs, and a male’s, saying something in a soothing tone. Eventually, the voices went away. I became aware of a blanket stretched over me. I was seized by a feeling of claustrophobia and I kicked it off. As soon as I did, I felt cold, terribly cold, as if I was in a blizzard on Mt. Coronet. I shivered but when I pulled the blanket up again, it burnt my skin. I yelled and hurled it off, only to sink back into that numbing coldness once more. I curled into a ball and tried to conserve my body heat. The dregs of it slowly faded away, leaving me colder than before. Suddenly I heard a voice. It wasn’t human, wasn’t even English, but somehow I understood it. An image of Blaze, my beloved starter, now raised to an Infernape, danced behind my eyelids. Where are you, Matt? Blaze said. I need you. More Pokémon – all the ones I had caught and raised so carefully – were suddenly behind him. Some looked starved, others injured. My Luxray thrashed on the ground weakly, coughing up blood, while my Finneon flapped a flipper in my direction before lying still. ‘No,’ I whispered. I was out of bed before I knew it, stumbling blindly, the images of my dying Pokémon burnt into my retinas. ‘I’ll help you, I’ll help you… Don’t worry, I’m coming…’ A nurse came my way, caught sight of me and forced a smile. ‘Get back to bed, Matt,’ he said. ‘It’s late.’ ‘I can’t stop,’ I said urgently. ‘Please, let me just help them…’ ‘Help who?’ The strangled cries of my Pokémon filled my ears. ‘Can’t you hear them?’ I whispered. ‘Hear what?’ His smile turned into a pitying frown. ‘Look, Matt, everything’s OK.’ ‘It’s not OK!’ I shouted. ‘My Finneon is dead! I can’t let another Pokémon die!’ The nurse nodded slowly, then raised a finger and brought his phone to his ear. ‘What are you doing?’ I said uneasily. ‘You just relax. Everything will be OK.’ Ignoring him, I pushed forwards. His eyes widened and he tried to block my way. I barrelled into him, almost knocking him over, and then sprinted off into the night. ‘Matt!’ the nurse bellowed, but the rest of his sentence was drowned out by the helpless cries of my Pokémon. I ran all the way to my house. It was only when I was at the doorstep did I realise I was in bare feet, dressed in a blue hospital gown. My clothes swam before my eyes and morphed into the garments my character wore in the game. I blinked, hard, but they didn’t fade away. Confused and scared, I dashed up to my room and grabbed my DS. I flicked it on and frantically smashed the A button to skip the opening sequence. When I accessed my file, my character was standing in Solecean Town, where I had last saved. My party – including my beloved Blaze – seemed normal, their HP full. I clicked summary on Blaze and was shocked by what I saw. The entire screen was filled with Blaze, the different pages displaying his moves, abilities and ribbons gone. He looked sickly, almost starved. Chunks of his fur were missing in places and his eyes a milky white, reminiscent of my grandfather’s blindness. Instead of his usual triumphant cry, he gave a strangled moan, staring out at me from the confines of the screen. ‘Blaze,’ I whispered. I tried to find out what was wrong with him, but he was in perfect health. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I checked the rest of my party. My Sneazel was bleeding from a gash across its stomach; my Bibarel was only half in the frame. One of its feet could be seen, twitching. Each member of my party was afflicted with some ailment. Desperately, I went to a Pokémon Centre and turned on the PC. I accessed the Pokémon storage system but a text box flashed up. It said ‘Sorry – the PC is out of order. Try again later.’ I couldn’t believe what was happening. Everything I had worked so hard on was trickling away like water from my cupped hands. One small part of me wondered if this was actually happening, if what was on the game was true. This part was dwarfed by my panicking side, the side that was filled with anxiety and fear for the health of my Pokémon. I clicked into my party again, checking on Blaze one more time. He looked no better than the first time I saw him, except this time, a text box appeared. ‘What is wrong with me?’ There was no way I could answer. I exited and tried my Sneazel. The same thing happened but, again, there were no options for me to click. I exited completely and walked around the town. I talked to the first person I saw, out of desperation more than anything else. It took an age for the text box to appear, but when it did, my blood ran cold. ‘Your Pokémon look unhealthy,’ the box said. ‘What did you do to them? Did you give them an overdose of painkillers?’ The person suddenly changed into a different figure, one with auburn hair and blue eyes. ‘You did that to me, Matt,’ the digital Cameron said. ‘Why?’ At this point, I broke down completely. I screamed and hurled the DS across the room, tears spilling from my eyes. Footsteps pounded up the stairs but I ignored them, screaming until my throat was raw, roaring incoherent apologies, though to Cameron or my Pokémon, I couldn’t say. Hands enveloped me. I lashed out instinctively and I heard a grunt of pain. ‘Matt, calm down,’ someone said. The hands squeezed tighter. I howled and broke free. Someone was in front of me, a man. ‘It’s me,’ he said, frowning. A DS hung from his hand, the screen smashed. I advanced. ‘You did this,’ I hissed. ‘You hurt my Pokémon. Don’t deny it.’ ‘Matt, what are you talking about?’ ‘You killed Cameron, too.’ ‘No, I didn’t.’ The man shook his head frantically. ‘Let’s go downstairs, kiddo. C’mon, let’s head to the kitchen.’ ‘Where you’ll kill me, too?’ I said shrilly. ‘No. You’ll do no more murder.’ I looked at the ruined DS and bit down a sob. ‘Blaze,’ I whispered. My beautiful, beautiful Pokémon, all dead. All gone. The hands reached out again, the fingernails turning into hooked claws. I shrieked and was suddenly lost in a red haze, a world of pounding fists, of screaming and a hot red liquid that splattered everywhere. I was dimly aware of clutching something, something hard and plastic, with shards of glass slicing open my fingers. I was bringing it down on someone’s head. Rough hands. Dragged off someone. That crimson liquid, on my hands. On my face. Could taste it. Metallic. Red haze fading. Broken body before me. Not moving. A female voice. Tears. Crying. From me or from her. Can’t say. Sirens. Bundled into a vehicle. Room. Bright light. Sobbing again. Slowly, the jarred shards of memories began to knit together again. I was in a room, cold, grey, with a bed and a toilet but nothing else. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling. An Infernape was in front of me, looking healthy and normal once more. It sat on my bed, looking bemused. ‘Blaze?’ I said in surprise. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were dead.’ The Pokémon tipped its head once, gave its cry then disappeared, leaving me lost and confused. The light bulb suddenly crackled and died, surrendering me to the darkness. After darkness, comes light. I didn’t know where that had come from. I didn’t know anything anymore. All I knew was that a part of me had died, a part that had once held love. Who I had loved, though, eluded me, and that scared me more than anything else. The End If you like this check out mah dry bread on youtube and his forum here mahdrybread.freeforums.org/creepypasta-f39.html -Looker
Posted on: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 06:54:43 +0000
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