Rotom is Watching You ...

WARNING:

I'm afraid that the same thing that happened to my dear friend, Michaela, will happen to me and you. Remember, Rotom is always watching you ...


Okay; you may call her a weirdo. Michaela mostly kept to herself. Even in the summer, she was never seen outside, but rather playing her Pokémon games in her room. She was the typical kid who got bored over summer vacation, so she restarted her Diamond game. Over and over she'd reset it, and she'd complete the entire game. She only ever forgot one part - that mansion in Eterna Forest. She may love Pokémon, but she was petrified to death of ghosts and scary movies - she never even dared to set foot in Eterna Forest again after she went through it the first time. Towards the end of summer, she got bored playing it over and over. She wanted something new. HeartGold and SoulSlver wouldn't be out until March, though, and the only other Pokémon game she had was Ruby. She didn't much like playing the GBA Games, so she instead decided on flipping through her Pokémon Strategy Guide for Diamond. She looked through the entire thing - the only thing she hadn't done so far? Rotom. That Pokémon located in the Haunted Mansion. She didn't want to do it, as it was past midnight, but she was bored out of her mind.

She inserted Diamond into her DS and immediately started from Hearthome City. Selecting her Staraptor, the only Pokémon she had that knew Fly, she selected Eterna City. The usual flying screen appeared, the black shadow dashing into the air - quickly picking her up. At last she landed in Eterna City. With an eerie feeling overcoming her, she walked to Eterna Forest and went through the entrance. Nothing came up. Just a black screen.
"What the ..." Michaela grumbled. "Work, you stupid game!"

She waited another minute when the screen flickered back to life. Instead of being at the entrance of Eterna Forest, though, she was the entrance of the Haunted Mansion. She gulped. Was that supposed to happen?

Being brave, she moved her character into the mansion. She looked at her guide once more to find what room to go to. She walked through the mansion. No wild Pokémon. No music. Just silence. Eerie silence, that made the hairs on her back stick on end. She didn't like this. Not one bit. But she sucked it up. She was going to finally finish the entire game, no matter if it gave her the creeps or not. Coming at last to the room where Rotom was, she looked at the TV weirdly. Was it just her, or was something ... odd, about it? Like it was larger and differently colored than it should have been? Pushing that thought aside, she walked up to the TV and saved the game. She waited. Again, she was still scared. But she had to ... She forced herself to press the A button. Nothing happened. She stared at the screen in disbelief.
"Why won't it do anything?" She grumbled to herself.

She tried moving her character. But nothing worked. Her character was frozen there. She couldn't tell if the entire game was frozen or not, because no music was playing. Becoming bored, she set down her DS.

Now she didn't know what to do. She pulled out her Pokémon Guide, and right as she flipped back to the Rotom information page, she heard a loud squealing noise. She looked at her DS. On it, her character had changed positions - instead of now facing the TV, she was looking to her right. Another squeal. Her character turned even more, this time an exclamation mark appearing above her head. The screen went black. Suddenly she was engaged in a battle. She picked up her DS again and almost screamed.

There, right in front of her, was a shiny Rotom. She would have figured that's what it was supposed to look like, except that the unusual sparkles around it played. She never had a Shiny Pokémon before, or she would have not reset her Diamond game. Her character sent out her lead Pokémon, which was her Staraptor. Level 75. She knew she would instantly make it faint, so she turned to her inventory. Then she realized - all she had was a stock of 10 regular Pokeballs. She cussed under her breath, then decided she would just try. The Pokeball had no effect. She continued again and again until she was down to one last one. She was about out of hope when she threw her last one at it.
One ... Two ... Three ... It was caught!

"Yes!" Michaela yelled, then realized she had said it aloud. She waited for her parents to come busting into her room telling her to be quiet, but no one came to her door. She quickly named it "Crimson" and saved her game. The music returned to the mansion, and she ran out and back to Eterna City. She was so excited that she got her first shiny Pokémon, not to mention it was a special one like Rotom, and she didn't have to reset once! She pulled it out of her PC box and plopped it in her team in place of her Scyther. She gave it an EXP Share and ran out to do some training.

Two days later, she had it at level 100. She had given it as many Proteins, Calcium, etc that it would take, and pampered it with Poffins. She loved it to death, and she even continued training it even though it was already level 100.
A week and a half later, she was back at school. She hated school. Not just hated, but HATED it. This was her first year in high school, and she didn't like it one bit. Her only escape route from real life was her Diamond game. At least, that was until she became overwhelmed with homework. She'd work on it directly when she got home until bedtime, and she still wouldn't finish it all. She never had time to play Diamond. Even over Winter Break, she had no time.


I myself hadn't talked to Michaela much. She seemed to be ... too absorbed in simple things, if those were the right words to use. I only talked to her in class because we were partners for a Science project, yet I seemed to be her closest friend. My mom nagged me to go and talk to her more often because she probably didn't have anyone else to talk to, so I would go up and talk to her every once in awhile.

January, February, and March all passed by ... she was the same as ever. But in the second semester, she got out of her classes that overloaded her with homework. She finally had free time to herself, right in time for when HeartGold and SoulSilver came out. She preordered HeartGold and picked it up the first day it was available. She played it day in and day out whenever she could. She got through the first 8 Gyms and easily beat the E4. She trained against them most of the time and got through the last 8 Gyms. She beat Red and the E4 again. She virtually completed the entire game. After training in Kanto one day, she got bored and realized she had two Pokémon in the Daycare - a Ditto and Bidoof. She never bothered to check up on them it, but the first egg she took again happened to be a Shiny Bidoof. Then she realized - how long had it been since she played Diamond? Quickly she named it "Cream", saved the game, and inserted Diamond. Eagerly waiting to see her precious Crimson's face again, she hit the power button. Only one problem.
"The data could not be retrieved. Please restart your DS System."

She got that error message over and over again. Why was it doing this? She wanted to see her Pokémon again. The ones she hadn't seen in months. She gave up. It evidently wouldn't load her game tonight.

Instead, she was even more tired that night, so she went to bed three hours early. Only thing was, nightmares plagued her sleep. Waking up, she sat up with a jolt. She looked over at her DS. Something about it was in her nightmare - she didn't know what, though. She picked it up. A little voice inside her head was saying "Turn it on ..." She gave in and turned on her DS. Diamond was still in it. Clicking the button to start up the game, she already knew the inevitable. But instead, it loaded. She clicked on her saved file. She had last saved in Eterna City. She didn't remember that. She checked her party - that was weird. She didn't remember only having her Rotom in her party, either. She went to her PC. Nothing was there. She assumed that it was because of the file corruption and that it only left her Rotom so she still had a Pokémon in her party, but she didn't know. Maybe her little sister got a hold of her game and released all her Pokémon? She flipped to her party and clicked on Crimson's stats.

"Lonely nature"
That was weird. She thought he was Adamant Natured when she caught him. His moves were listed as:
Flamethrower
Discharge
Hydro Pump
Shadow Claw

How could Rotom learn some of those moves? And it was weird - those moves covered a majority of other Pokémon's weaknesses. She looked at the sprite. It looked ... weird. She opened her Diamond strategy guide and looked at the sprite listed in there for Rotom. It was definitely different from hers in the game - not just the coloration. Crimson had a frown on his face, with his eyes slanted inward. If pixels could show emotion, Crimson definitely was. Now she was getting a bit scared, so she exited his stats. She went to look at her items - no items. Just one item called 'Rotom's TV'. She doubted herself. No way was that an actual item, she had practically memorized every item you could get in Diamond. It was the same color as the discolored TV she had first seen when she found Crimson. She checked her trainer card - it was red, the color of Crimson's sprite. She thought she had at least a blue trainer card.

She looked at her items again. She clicked on 'Rotom's TV' and clicked 'Give.' She figured it wouldn't hurt to give it to him. She selected Crimson and gave him the TV. She exited the menu, and poof - she was no longer in Eterna City. She was in the haunted mansion again. The TV was in front of her. Crimson was to the right of it. He came forward, slowly, ever so slowly, as her character backed up.
"You left me" was all that appeared on the screen. "You left me here. Alone. To die."

One option appeared on the bottom screen - "Yes, I did" There was nothing else she could click. Michaela tapped the button.
"... ... ... ..."
"... So you admit."
"Well, Michaela ..." That line punched her in the gut. She had set her name in the game to 'Krista'
"I will never leave you ..."
Screeching noises came from her DS, despite the volume being off. She muffled a scream and tried to turn off the DS desperately.
"Michaela ... You were not the first ..."
Being the scaredy-cat she was, she had fallen on the floor, her hand over her mouth.
"You left me here ... All alone ... So I took care of them ... So now, it's just me and you, Michaela ... I will not be left again ..."

The screen faded to black, except for Crimson, dead center on the top of the screen. This time, his sprite was darker red - blood red. His eyes looked threatening, almost devilish ... Red goo hung around his mouth ...
"NEVER"
The DS screen flickered, then turned off, making one last, shrill scream. Michaela screamed.
Her parents ran to her room and stared at her in shock. Michaela was shaken up, and told her parents it was just a nightmare and that she fell out of bed. Her parents exchanged concerned looks, but they left the room.


That next morning, her hair straightener had turned on by itself, and when she went to pick it up, it burned her finger. Somehow, she got a first degree burn from it. She showed up to school three hours late, because she had to be taken to the hospital.

The next night, her phone turned on in the middle of the night. It began to blast loud music and make weird ringing noises. If that wasn't creepy, she didn't know what was. After she finally fumbled with it a bit, she got fed up and pulled out the battery. She could have sworn it flickered red before it turned off. But after that, she couldn't get back to sleep. Why she couldn't, she didn't know.
When she woke up that next morning, the refrigerator's cooler had failed, and all the food in it was rotten or spoiled. How it would spoil all the food? That answer was beyond her.

Her TV would constantly flicker in the night. Her computer would be found on. She also constantly got into harmful accidents - starting with the hair straightener. They slowly got worse until she was in the hospital with a broken leg. Then three weeks into the whole issue, it stopped. Michaela was relieved, but still a bit shaken up.

But three weeks ago - one month after the accidents started happening - while her father was fixing a car in their garage, he went inside to go get a drink. Michaela had gone outside to pay fetch with her puppy. When her father came back - he discovered the car's ignition had been turned on, placed into reverse, and gone full speed down the driveway - hitting his daughter and taking her with it.
She died immediately on the impact, is what the doctors told her parents when they made it to the hospital.


And you wonder how I know this? Or why I'm even telling you this? The answer is simple.
At her funeral three weeks ago, I was one of the few people from her school to attend. A man in a dark, blood red trench coat approached me. I've been taught not to talk to strangers, but he was attending the funeral and was admitted in. Nobody seemed to stare at him oddly, though. It was sort of chilly that day. I assumed he was her uncle or someone of the sort. He tapped me on the shoulder, and handed me a white DS Lite with a stack of bundled papers inside. I took it from his hand, and when I looked up I swore I saw no face under his hat. I glanced down one more time at the DS, and when I looked back up – he was gone. The paper was crimson red and orange colored. When I made it back to my home, I opened it ...
And inside was the story of Michaela. It was written by her. It was addressed to "Whoever is brave enough to read this. I hope you, Alice, will be brave enough …"

Apparently she had thought that this thing was in the world now - inhabiting devices of those who abandoned their Pokémon in their games. And I suppose she was right ... Weird things have been happening to my brother who plays Pokémon DS games. I'm scared for him ... And I can't bear to lose him.
I may take the consequences for this ...
But at least you now know ...


Rotom is watching you ...