#MISSINGO?? // crack
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lost-in-the-lullaby · 3 years ago
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*lavender town intensifies*
“AW SHIT NOT AGAIN-“
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fanofawesomethings · 7 years ago
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Pokemon MissinGO
This is a commission for a scary story centered around Pokemon Go! Cool right? I thought so
If you want a commission of your own, message me and I will tell you my prices
In New York’s prized capital city, light and darkness live like roommates with equal shares to the space they own. While the lights in the famous Time Square shined brighter even in the deepest hour of the night at the same time there are corners that even the city clustered with a plethora of lights could not reach. One such place was the park that, during the day, was like a green emerald, but at night Central Park was a black spot on the map save for only a few streetlights that seem to flicker on and off at random times—during the most inconvenient of times.  
During the long days and short, warm nights of summer vacation it wasn’t outrageous to see teenagers and young adults being out so late enjoying the time they got. A curfew would prove useless as the city was too vast any police to search for deviant youngsters, and many of them hid amongst the crowd of tourists who flocked to the city for their vacations. Stores even closed late to capitalize on the influx of potential customers and as a result more people flocked to Time Square than any part of the city. But after one in the morning when the number of youths out and about slowly begins to drop, seeing someone as young as the girl holding her nose to her phone became strange. She would be told to go home, but those out at that late hour didn’t care if a teenager was out alone wandering the darkness.
The girl whose hair was tussled bright red watched the scrolling screen with extra attentiveness. She was deaf to the noises around her and her only rope to the outside world was dodging cracks and dips in her path with the corner of her eyes. Like many of her classmates and fellow New York City citizens, the girl was playing Pokemon GO, a mobile game whose popularity skyrocketed earlier that summer to the point where it was uncommon to go a day without seeing someone playing it. But therein laid the problem the girl meant to avoid: a game so popular that so many were playing it presented problems for the players who tried to be the first to catch the rarest Pokemon. The girl looked up from her phone for a moment, and she saw the row of streetlights in front of her, the darkness surrounding her, but she was alone—alone playing her game.
To the success of her plan, a Vaporeon appeared on her screen, two steps in front of her. The girl squealed with joy as she easily caught the aquatic creature on the screen. Her plan had worked and she couldn’t wait until she found something better. But when she caught the Pokemon she noticed she threw her last pokeball. She scrolled ahead on the little map and spotted a PokeStop close by. Without her eyes on the screen, the girl became aware of her dark surroundings and ran out of fear to the PokeStop which was almost always near a business.
She ran through the dark streets, her frantic boots echoed down every pitch black alleyway. Nothing was chasing her but she ran like something was breathing down her neck just to get away. Thankfully the girl’s speed was great and she reached the PokeStop in a matter of seconds. It was in front of a coffee shop that was closed for the night but whose neon lights were still on, extremely bright. The girl sat down on the tables outside and waited for refill her items.
Suddenly a chime on her phone startled her already strung nerves. A silhouetted Pokemon appeared, one whose outline the girl did not recognize, and it was just across the street, inside Central Park. She sprang out of her seat, eager to uncover the mysterious creature, and in the heat of the moment the girl threw away her caution, her logic.
The girl ran into the darkness and watched only the screen below her. Light faded the further away from the city she got, following the path presented to her and not the pathway beneath her feet. If she was listening to anything else but the sounds of her Pokemon Go character’s walk cycle, the girl would’ve heard herself running closer to the lake and she would have seen yourself getting closer to Gapstow Bridge. However, the only thing she watched herself go closer to was the Pokemon in question which still hadn’t yet revealed itself on the screen.
Water. The girl snapped back to reality once her foot dipped in the lake. Suddenly she became aware of where she was and the quietness surrounding her like a dense fog. She couldn’t see over the trees, the lights were over the horizon seemingly miles away; there wasn’t the slightest sign of anyone with her. Frightened beyond belief, her first instinct was to run away as fast as she could again, but another jingle stopped her. The Pokemon revealed itself.
On her screen she saw the sprite of an Aerodactyl flapping its wings, but its entire body was composed of bones. Its head was skull, its eyes empty black voids, and its wings were sticks. It had to be a glitch, the girl perceived; there weren’t even fossils in the game let alone one being an actual Pokemon. Unfortunately, the girl saw only her chance to be considered famous for finding and catching a glitch Pokemon and so she stayed. With one flick of her finger she easily caught the creature and skipped with joy. The congratulation message popped up.
“YOU CAUGHT MISSINGO!” It said in bold letters.
“M-Missingo?” She read the text out loud.
It had no traits with it. Her screen turned black and she thought it was her battery that died.
A fume of air brushed her hair. It was cold and it scratched down her spine until she was frozen by it. She felt a presence standing behind her. There was no noise and at first she thought it was a trick of her mind, but it wasn’t. The sensation was clear as day, someone stood behind her. The girl couldn’t move; the fear of seeing whoever it was fought the need to see them.
The darkness surrounding her seemed to swallow even the faintest light in the distance. The half moon reflective on the lake’s surface was gone, the lake followed, and then one by one the trees vanished. She was alone. Shadows slithered on the ground, tainting everything they touched until black was all she could see and in a matter of second she couldn’t see her own hands.
The girl suddenly felt her chest fall to the void in front of her. A searing pain stabbed between her breasts, almost like a fire-tip hook cleaved her skin and proceeded to drag her down to the ground. Whispers followed. Inaudible voices that no matter how much the girl tried she could not understand what they were saying. They whispered so close to her ear she instinctively tried to swat them away from her, but she couldn’t move her hands.
And then she heard music. It was more of a screech than music, each note ringing her ears with a sharp tone like no instrument she’d ever heard. But she felt it was familiar.
A twig was cracked beneath the other presence’s feet and the girl turned around finally to see it.
The pale white jaws of a gaping maw reached out to her. Fangs sharper than daggers ran up and down the lips, framing a grin that stretched wide, wider than anything human or animal. The girl felt nothing at that moment, the fear had turned her body to nothing. She locked eyes with it and its empty sockets stared at her. It was bones perfectly resembling the Aerodactyl she just caught, down to the smallest detail. The girl felt her skin punctured as one of its front fangs pierced her chin.
The last thing the girl spoke before she saw nothing but blackness did not echo in such a deep, dark hour of the night. “Missingo.”
Her boots were found the next day by a homeless person.
   No matter what time of day it was, the city’s subway sapped the life out of Desmond Taylor. Whether it was going to work or coming out of work, the bleak setting, flickering lights and the constant smell of piss—whether it was human or rat in origin was a mystery—broke down the young man more than his part-time job could ever do, though it hadn’t stopped trying. Desmond sat next to the railings near the doors when he could or whenever there wasn’t a crowd, and when the subway was packed, like most mornings, including that one, he’d stand to avoid the people who’d give anything to sit down.
Coffee in hand, Desmond clung to the pole with a robotic arm while the rest of his body shut down from sleep, but it wasn’t common for such a morning when nights filled with disappointment and frustrations happened. He stayed up late into the night trying to find and download a copy of Japanese games, something common for the young man who loved watching anime and playing JRPG’s, but finding games that were not only fan-translated but also trying to find copies that didn’t carry viruses. He found such a copy around one in the morning, a virus attached to a dating game, which had him scanning and deleting virus threats until his computer worked again, but not without cost as many of the files he got that night were gone when he woke up in the morning. The coffee was a triple shot, dark chocolate espresso as a result. And as he drank it, Desmond’s legs tried their best to keep him standing while he nearly drifted to sleep.
“Look a Hunter showed up!”
“Fuck yeah!”
Desmond snapped awake just as his head tilted. What was a small dip felt like his head touched the ground before launching back up. Two boys behind him looking at their phones got his attention and his irritation.
Damn kids, he said in his head.
“I only have four of him, I really need to step up my game,” said one of them.
“This is like my twentieth one this week. I hear they’ve been showing up all over the place,” said the other.
Oh that’s right, maybe I should play a bit. Desmond first took a sip of his coffee, without it he didn’t have the patience to play Pokemon Go.
As the subway traveled across the city it became easier to play the game. Pokemon appeared every few seconds and the many of the others who were also playing the game were catching by the dozens. Desmond caught nothing worth mentioning beyond just two Rattatas out encounter eight of them. After the either one the train finally reached his destination and he was forced out. From the station it was only a few minutes walk to his work so Desmond didn’t even try to sneak in a couple more rounds. The day hadn’t even started yet and Desmond already wished it was over.
Troy’s Hobby Shop was a rickety building four blocks from anything interesting. It was certainly overshadowed by Time Square as well as any other store with decent prices for tiny strips of lumber for models. There were hardly any customers and there wasn’t worth mentioning beyond Japanese Gundam models and model train sets that on hand attracted window shoppers but not much else. Desmond worked there because of those reason and the fact that he was still paid regardless of customers of not. He pulled up his chair behind the counter and positioned himself in his lazy posture.
“Try to act like your working, Des,” said the shop’s owner and namesake, Troy who was repositioning boxes in the backroom.
A tall and thin man with a streak of bright yellow around the floor of his hair, the bulk of his responsibilities as the manager was sign bills, take the occasional phone call every four weeks, and arrange the boxes.
“I will once someone shows up,” replied Desmond, on his phone again. The battery wasn’t fully charged, not enough to keep playing Pokemon Go anyway.
Troy sighed and he adjusted a box that hadn’t moved since the last time he adjusted it a few seconds ago.
“Everyday I think about closing this place down. People just don’t have hobbies like they did when I was a kid.”
“Maybe you could lower the prices. You get royalty checks for your stuff so why do you make the Gundam models like thirty bucks?” Desmond inquired.
“Because if I did that we’d get those damn weebs coming in. Yeah I get it, you watched subtitled anime and you think you can read the scribbles, just don’t fucking talk to me about it. And besides, those models are rare here; the stupidest collector will pay whatever for them.”
Desmond returned to his phone which was charging in the outlet next to him. At last the fickle servers returned and he was able to play his game. Luckily for Desmond, Troy registered his shop as a PokeStop in a useless attempt to attract younger customers when the Pokemon Go craze started to get grow.
At first, like many others in his college classes, Desmond was reluctant to play Pokemon Go when it first appeared. Mobile games were at the bottom of his preferences and it seemed everywhere he was filled with the screams of preteens overly excited about their winnings which only served to irritate Desmond. But as he began to see mobs of people playing, news coverage of the game and its dangers, and even his younger sister started playing, Desmond, a long since follower of the Pokemon franchise, started himself. He played out to occupy his time, especially at work.
Suddenly he and Troy were stirred by a noise they both thought had gone extinct: the chime of the bell over the front door ring. A young man, yet still visibly older than the twenty-one year old Desmond, entered and Desmond was instantaneously awoken from his lazy state by his looks. Freckles like flakes of gold were sprinkled across the man’s face, underneath his malachite green eyes, underneath silky hair, bright orange. Everything Desmond searched for in a man he found on the one who walked through the doors. He could his face burn up; with his mouth closed, he bit his tongue to keep himself in check while the young man browsed.
“Hey man, how are you doing? Is there anything we can help you find?” Troy asked in Desmond’s stead. The man didn’t answer. He whispered to his employee. “Look alive, Des.”
           His malachite eyes wondered the shelves near the door but he was ultimately drawn to the wooden figures at the very bottom of a shelf across the store. He flew to them and knelt down to see them closely; it was hard for Desmond to resist staring at the man’s broad back and not make it seem like he was staring.
           “Stop drooling and help him. Make sure he buys some of those shitty dolls,” Troy whispered to Desmond.
           The awkward and shy Desmond creaked from behind the counter and he managed to reach the man. His face was already sweating even before his foot touched the sales floor.
           “He—Hey! Can I—help you with something?” Desmond inquired.
           The young man’s eyes were on Desmond then. They were large and a little close together but they emanated a charm that rendered the employee smitten with affection; his heart started to beat fast, he was so nervous. Up close, Desmond noticed the man had an athletic build and his button shirt clung to the engorged muscles on his arm. Muscles and athletics builds weren’t the first things Desmond looked for in his men, truthfully he preferred a normal build, yet Desmond subtly ran his hand across his mouth to make sure he really wasn’t drooling.
           “Nah, I’m just looking at these. Do you know anything about them?” The man asked.
           “Well…we got them in a couple months ago, direct from Japan. Other than…” Desmond didn’t want to say he didn’t have the slightest idea about what the dolls were.
           The man smiled and Desmond was instantly put at ease, his smile was warming.
           “Their wooden carvings of Japanese demons.”
He picked one which had a kimono craved at its cylinder body but unlike the other carvings, the one the man held had hair but its face was smooth, featureless.
“This one is called Noppera. It’s supposed to be harmless but sometimes it’s a demon. Pretty interesting, like Slenderman,” said the man.
He handed it over to Desmond. The moment their hands touched, even for a brief second, sent shivers down Desmond’s spine. He could’ve sworn he saw his own breath. The small doll that wasn’t even the size of his forearm and its texture was coarse; as Desmond held it the tip of his index finger was pricked, and so he was more focused on the doll’s shabby appearance than analyzing the intricate details of its kimono.
“Nopperas don’t have faces, that’s why this one doesn’t. They disguise themselves as other people to scare humans. Its super messed up, but I like them. They’re interesting,” he said.
“Do you know a lot about these dolls?” Desmond asked.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. I have a lot of free time so I look things, mostly Japanese games. I end learning about all these things because I can’t find any torrents.”
Adrenaline rushed from Desmond’s heart and across every nerve in his body until he acted on impulse.
“I like playing Japanese games too!” He proclaimed, loudly because he didn’t realize he was speaking.
“Really? Cool,” said the man, cracking a tender smile. “My name is Lucas but my friends call me Cent.”
“Cent,” whispered Desmond, too captivated to question it
“So…you play Pokemon Go too?” Lucas asked.
Desmond snapped back to reality. “Uh yeah, a little bit.”
“You know…me and a couple friends are gonna walk around Time Square for a bit to play. Do you want to join me—I mean us?” Lucas asked.
“S-Sure, that sounds cool,” Desmond blushed.
“Great! I’ll see you tonight around seven.” Lucas walked out of the store and waved at Desmond on the other side of the window.
Desmond found himself waving back at him even after the man was gone. He could feel his face burn red up to his ears and at any moment his sweat would show under his gray shirt, but as long as the source for his perspiration wasn’t there to see him, Desmond didn’t care at all. Troy patted his employee on the back.
“Congrats on the date, dude, but you didn’t get him to buy anything,” said Troy.
           The reality of his work came crashing down and Desmond suddenly remembered where he was and what he was meant to do. His head was booming with the young man he just meant and it took his brain a millisecond to remember he came into work that morning.
           “You are a hopeless gay, dude,” remarked his boss.
           “At least I got a date tonight,” Desmond snapped back.
           “It’s because the guy didn’t see me. I bet if I talked to him I would’ve asked him first. All you did was trip over your own tongue.”
           Throughout the rest of his day it was hard for Desmond to think of anything else besides his upcoming date. Time worked against him the more his anticipation rose; without another customer entering the store, Desmond was forced to sit behind the counter and wait for four o’clock when he would get off work. Switching between Pokemon Go, watching old videos he’d seen a hundred times before, and checking his Twitter, he finally got through the day and got home as quickly as he could, but sadly he didn’t have time to catch his breath.
The subway ride would take thirty minutes and stopping to eat something would only set him back further; Desmond rushed to dress himself in nice clothes—a short-sleeve blazer with new jeans he’d been saving—and fix his hair before rushing out of his apartment only an hour after barely arriving. His parents didn’t react at all to noise of their son slamming every door and rushing through the apartment; they apparently worked nights and slept through most of the day. A bag of chips at the subway while waiting for the line to move was Desmond’s breakfast and lunch, which he sneakily ate while in his seat.
           Desmond’s phone watch told him he was going to be an hour early. Suddenly he felt stupid for rushing in and out of his apartment. He lightly touched the top of his hair and noticed one hair out of line which he quickly fixed while his hairspray was still wet on his head. It had been five years since Desmond’s last date and though the one he was headed to was with a group he couldn’t help feel excited, especially with someone like Lucas who was everything Desmond looked for. He was so thrilled he completely ignored the thought of being with a group of strangers, something that he avoided like the plague. Desmond was lost in a sea of pleasant thoughts.
           “You hear about Janice?” A boy asked to his friend. They both boarded the subway and sat next to Desmond. “Do you think she’ll come back?”
           “I hope so, man. It’s fucked up, I saw her yesterday in the morning and she was just normal. Now she’s gone,” said the other boy.
           Desmond was nudged by one of them. He didn’t care what they were saying, at all, and he got up and sat across from them, bluntly, but they didn’t notice.
           The subway came to a stop but Desmond had been standing near the door for two stops, and he was the first one out. It dawned on him, again, that he had time to kill when he was above surface. Nothing the showy famous street had to offer interested him, he certainly wasn’t interested in seeing a show or buying a thirty dollar souvenir, so Desmond sought the nearest McDonald’s simply for a place to charge his already charged phone. He sat closest to the front window, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice.
           Loud noises and a million conversations going on at the same time were just a few of the reasons Desmond avoided Time Square and picked a job that was away from its noise. He put in his earphones and was about to start a video when an alert making his phone rumble startled him.
           “NEW  YORK CITY MISSING NUMBER REACHES 96. MAYOR PROMPTS STRICTER CURFEW”  
           Desmond didn’t even read it. Disappearances and the sort were grim subjects that the young man typically lost sleep over due to his anxiety, but on that day Desmond pushed away anything that didn’t matter to him. He tapped his phone so the message would disappear and then he promptly switched the emergency broadcast tab off his phone’s settings out spite.
           “Hey, looks like you’re early,” said a distinct voice behind Desmond.
           A gentle hand on Desmond’s shoulder sent a shockwave that almost threw him out of his seat. Lucas and his gentle smile stood behind Desmond while Desmond wasn’t prepared to received either of them. Startled, Desmond dropped his phone, but as he lunged forward to grab it midair, Lucas caught it.
           “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” said Lucas.
           “N-No it’s cool, it’s just I didn’t expect to see you so early. I only got here because the subway wasn’t so slow this time,” said Desmond, lying to cover his impulsive behavior, from both Lucas and himself.
           Lucas sat next to him. Desmond tensed up. Without a proper time to prepare himself he didn’t know what to do next. Even with his last boyfriend Desmond didn’t fully understand how to play the dating game and often times he would check the internet for instructions, but since he didn’t have the time to do as such, Desmond froze and waited for Lucas to speak.
           “I guess it’ll just be the two of us tonight,” said Lucas and Desmond felt his heart stop. “Most of my friends have jobs during the week so they said they didn’t want to stay out late tonight. Sorry if you have to deal with only me tonight.”
           “No! Actually I prefer this!” Desmond spoke without realizing what words were coming out his mouth.
           Desmond could feel his face bordering on the edge between staying at its cocoa nut color and turning bright red. But before he felt regret for showing up, he saw Lucas crack and smile and giggle. Never before had Desmond been calmed down by the sight of a beautiful smile as though it injected morphine into his system; Desmond was sort of thankful he said it.
           “Your kind of cute, Desmond,” giggled Lucas.
           “H-How did you know my name?” He asked.
           “It was on your nametag at the store, you goober. But I also know you from college.”
“Really? Do we have a class together?
“We used to have Music Appreciation together last semester, but you didn’t look all there sometimes. Actually I wanted to ask you then but I never got the chance to. I’m glad I was able to find you at work.”
Desmond suddenly became self-conscious thinking back to that class. It was a shovelware class he took as a prerequisite for another so as soon as it was over he deleted every lesson and memory he got from being in it like a computer; Desmond began to wonder if he ever did or said anything humiliating.
“Can I ask you something? Do you only want to play Pokemon Go?” Desmond asked, hoping they would do more while they were alone.
“Oh, we can do other stuff if you want. I picked it cause we can walk around the city and get to know each other. Besides, I hate all this nosy shit happening,” said Lucas.
“Really? You hate all this stuff too?” Desmond inquired, surprised that another human being shared his opinion. “It’s the one of the reasons I don’t like coming here all the time. Plus everything is so expensive.”
“Totally. But as long as there’s still stupid tourist who want to buy a two dollar shirt for fifteen dollars, Time Square is never gonna lower its prices for shit.”
“It’s like they paid for a five hundred dollar ticket to New York they might as well buy stupid shit you could buy on eBay.”
           “And some of the shit isn’t even good. I saw like ten shirts on my way here that I could make by printing a picture and taping it to a blank shirt.”
           Desmond and Lucas laughed. He was thankful that the awkwardness between them began to fade little by little the more they talked.
           The two young men ventured out of the restaurant when the shadows were stretched thin by the setting sun. But, unsurprisingly, they weren’t the only ones who also thought of playing the game. The first step outside the building Desmond took nearly had him collide with a teenage girl who was rushing to capture a Pokemon that spawned nearby, and since then, the only ones the two of them saw looking at their phones were playing Pokemon Go. It wasn’t the ideal setting for a date, Desmond thought, but he and Lucas wondered away from Time Square as they walked.
           Desmond was delighted to know how much he and Lucas shared in common. Both of them shared a love for Japanese culture—Lucas seemed much more knowledgeable about the aspect of the culture that wasn’t related to anime or games, unlike Desmond who only knew about Japan through the media he ate—as well as sharing a frustration for not being able to find places to get their dose of Japanese media. Lucas seemed to be a fun-loving young man who enjoyed the thought of staying home and watching movies as the perfect date, something the introvert Desmond loved about him right away. The more they talked the more Desmond was convinced he had to make the young man his new boyfriend; and Desmond was happy to see Lucas was interested hearing about him. Desmond didn’t mind much about walking, despite his feet still hurting from standing all day at work, and he could care less about being outside on a hot evening when he was outside with someone like Lucas. Their talking distracted Desmond from the fact that he caught nothing but Rattatas over and over again because he didn’t notice what he was doing the entire time.  
           They had walked across Time Square and finally came to a rest stop on a bench across the street from Central Park. Desmond didn’t let Lucas know how tired or hungry he was.
           “Whoo, man I am sweatin,” said Lucas fanning himself. “What kind of Pokemon did you catch?”            “Oh…uh…” Desmond looked down at the recent activity on his phone which showed how many of the same Pokemon he caught within an hour and a half of playing.
           “Hmm, didn’t know Rattata was your favorite,” Lucas teased.
           “Shut up, this game just hates me today. It’s been like this since I played in the morning and even at work
           “Well I caught six Aerodactyls, six Hunters, and a Kabutop. I’d say Pokemon Go likes me a lot today.” Lucas held his head high with fake pride until Desmond laughed.
           The street lights turned on, one by one like candles when the sun disappeared behind the skyscraping towers. While the life of other cities would start to fade as sleep began to rise, New York City was unaffected and Desmond heard the collective conversations of everyone clustered in Time Square like it was the middle of the day. But beneath an orange sky whose color began to turn purple, the city lights like polished jewels, Desmond didn’t mind the noise, in fact the only thing on his mind was the peace and sitting next to Lucas. The two watched the cars zip by them, not really paying attention to anything.
           “You know it’s really hard to find someone…like me here. Not just the gay thing, but also someone who likes Japanese stuff…and hates noise,” said Desmond. He was depressed remembering it. “My ex-boyfriend used to hate whenever I told him to keep it down. He’d always tell me I had autism or something because I complained about every little noise.”
           “I guess New  York is just a loud city, everyone expects you to be the same. But I’m for sure not like that. I grew up in a loud house, so many people and not enough quiet time, that’s why I can’t stand noise,” said Lucas. He took Desmond’s hand. “I don’t think you have autism.”
           Desmond felt his heart beat so hard it could explode out of his chest at any moment. He felt the urge to lean in for a kiss, but he restraint himself—he always learned to kiss on the fourth date. Lucas smiled and so did he. Desmond felt lightheaded then.
           “Hey, we got some time before Spritz Bakery closes—they give out bread half price before closing—how about we go for one more Go run through Central Park? There’s bound to be something other than Rattatas there,” suggested Desmond.
           “Central Park? You sure?” Lucas asked. “Ain’t there supposed to be all these disappearances and stuff?”
           “But look Spritz is right over there,” Desmond pointed to the bakery that was a good distance away but still within viewing distance. His index finger wobbled and there were pauses in his speech. “We can cut across—Central Park and then—we’ll be there in no time.”
           Lucas followed Desmond’s finger and pictured the trail for himself. It would be a fairly short dip into the wilderness that is Central Park and most likely they’d be within sight of the rest of the city. But on that day the streets lights inside the park were flickering more rapidly than ever before, it would mean the park would be darker. But regardless of it all, Lucas nodded.
           “Sure, I guess we can be quick.”
The streetlights that guided them, illuminating both sides of the trail, produced a mesmerizing glow. Moths and whizzing beetles blocked the light with their bodies and their insect shadows were all over the ground, which were the only things Desmond and Lucas saw while watching their phones. Desmond was fully immersed in his phone, but Lucas was cautious enough to look up from his phone and he noticed they were the only ones in the park, something out of place while there were still light in the sky. The echoes of their rubber soles against the solid stone path traveled faster than they did. Shadows of bushes and tree branches followed them everywhere they went.
“This place is pretty creepy at night, huh?” Lucas asked. He was clinging close to Desmond, accidentally bumping into his shoulder as they walked.
“Not…really. It gets…like this sometimes but…nothing happens…” Desmond said.
He couldn’t put it to words but Desmond felt strange out of nowhere. The flickers of the streetlights irritated his eyes and he couldn’t keep looking at his phone without tears overflowing out of his eyelids. Desmond’s body was distant to him, each limp step rocked Desmond to his core as if his legs moving and feeling his foot touch the ground came as a shock to him. His mind was in a hazy with thoughts floating away just as soon as they appeared. Everything felt out of place to him, nothing was normal, and yet Desmond didn’t feel the need to question it or be alarmed by it.
The lights of the city were distant, but neither of the two boys noticed it. Lucas saw the lights and he saw the trail in front of him and he saw the end of the park up ahead, and then he’d go back to his phone. Nothing changed from when he last looked up, or so he thought.
“So what was your old boyfriend like?” Lucas felt compelled to say to disrupt the eerie silence between them.
“Oh…her…I mean him…yeah he was…a bitch. I liked his…her…his red hair,” murmured Desmond.
“You got a thing for red heads? I feel honored you picked me then,” said Lucas, feeling at ease then.
Desmond’s laugh was weak.
Suddenly Lucas’ eyes were caught by something appearing on his screen. A silhouetted Pokemon appeared in a few steps in front of him. It had a shape Lucas was familiar with and he could identify it straight away by the way the little pixel sprite flapped its wings. Another Aerodactyl, he thought, but he wondered why it was still a shadow if he not only caught many before but also because he was so close to it.
“Look look Desmond, an Aerodactyl! Something’s up though, it doesn’t normally look like this. Maybe it’s a shiny or something!” Lucas exclaimed.
“Whoa…maybe…” Desmond responded.
Lucas watched the sprite drift closer to them. Even if it was trivial, and he thought so, Lucas couldn’t help feeling excited. Each flap of the sprite’s wings sped up his brisk pace. Finally it was on top of his and the game started. At first he saw an Aerodactyl, no different than any he caught and he was disappointed, but he caught the creature regardless.
“Another dud. Man, that’s really strange, I thought for sure—”
“YOU CAUGHT MISSINGO!” The message read to him.
“What the—? Desmond, are you seeing this?” Lucas held his phone in front of Desmond whose eyes blinked in a strange way as he looked at the screen.
“Missigno?” Desmond read.
“That’s that weird glitch Pokemon that was supposed to be in Blue and Red right? How did it end up on Pokemon Go? Maybe it’s some kind of easter egg or something,” said Lucas.
Music. The piercing chime of music appeared like a whisper slowly becoming loud. Lucas darted in every direction in search of the source, and it was then he saw where they were. Desmond’s feet were dipped on the edge of a lake—the lake beneath the unmistakable Gapstow Bridge. The trail that he watched since they entered the park had turned to dirt and grass without him realizing and he was frightened because his eyes never left the ground. Everything was pitch black around them and he could barely see Desmond next to him if not for his phone’s light.
“Whoa whoa, Desmond, what the hell just happened? Why are we—?” Lucas stopped.
“What’s…w-wrong?” Desmond weakly asked.
           Lucas had to stop because his heart stopped. The music—it took a second for Lucas to remember it but once he did there was no mistaking where it came from and what or stories came with it. The music was coming from his phone, but Lucas was too disturbed to notice.
           “This is Lavender Town music,” gasped Lucas. He dropped his phone to grab a hold of both Desmond’s shoulders. “What the hell is going on?!”
           Desmond was unresponsive. Lucas released him and Desmond fell to the ground like a corpse. The young man still standing screamed out loud.
           The darkness grew. Soon New York City was gone, the sun was gone, and there wasn’t a single light for miles as if it was the deepest hour of the night. Lucas turned sharply to the lake, the bridge but even they were gone. And Desmond, the boy Lucas was sure was still on the ground, was gone.
           His chest puff out of his soaked shirt. His short orange hair fell over his eyes as he whipped his head back and forth. Lucas almost couldn’t breath, fear had swallowed him and turned his body numb.
           Suddenly he heard the pitter-patter of feet in the shadows behind him. He saw nothing where he expected to see the shadow of a person or people coming to him—he thought they were drawn by his scream. But the sound of feet were split into a thousand different sounds like wings flapping. He heard high-pitched squeaks and his first thought was bats, but with his phone on the ground, facing up, by the dim light he saw a rat leaving the darkness to come into view. One rat was followed by another and another and another until an army of countless vermin swarmed the ground in front of Lucas.
           Lucas grabbed a rock and threw it at them, frantically. The rats dispersed to avoid the attack but they returned to their formation, facing the young man with their hollow eyes towards him. The music grew louder.
           The young man froze for a single hand went over his shoulder. To maintain his sanity, Lucas instinctively assumed it belonged to Desmond. He reached to touch it—to confirm it was him—but the hand he touched felt smooth, too smooth without indents or crevices found in human hands.
           “D-D-Des?” Lucas whimpered.
           “Cent,” replied the being in a voice so chilling and grotesque Lucas felt his heart collapse.
           Lucas’ body was slowly becoming enveloped by the darkness. The rats swarmed on his feet and climbed up his legs, and he saw them the entire time. But he could not move his body. He could not scream. And as the final seconds of the young man’s life trickled down, in his head he whispered the name that seemed to have started everything.
           Missingno.
                At the dawn when the city wasn’t fully awake, two adults scoured holding flashlights Central Park. They were extra quiet and conscious about every step they took as they followed the path until they came to the bridge, but they didn’t cross it. The man and the woman walked alongside the edge of the river, a trail that they would know by memory for all the times they had walked it before, until they found a sleeping young man on the ground. His mouth and neck were covered in blood and his clothes were stained by red fingerprints, yet the young man slept peacefully, unaware of what happened. The man and woman—parents—cleaned the blood of Desmond’s mouth and carried him out of Central Park. They shared grim faces to each other, for they knew this was the ninety-seventh time this happened.
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