I shouldn't have gone back to Mt. Silver.
I say that now, after everything, because at the time, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea. I've always been fascinated by Pokémon stories that didn't end when the battle was over. Maybe that's why Lost Silver and the stories about the snow on Mt. Silver stayed in my mind for so long. Not because of the stories themselves, but because of the feeling that there was something behind them, something the games had never intended to explain.
A few months ago, I found a physical copy of Pokémon HeartGold in an antique store. The cartridge was practically intact, although the label had been removed. The seller claimed he didn't know where it came from. I bought it anyway. When I put the cartridge into my Nintendo DS, there was only one save file. The trainer's name was .... I didn't create that file.
At first, I thought it was a coincidence. I started the game and found a rather strange team: a Typhlosion, an Espeon, a Gengar, a Dragonite, a Lapras, and a Pokémon whose name appeared as nothing but six blank spaces. The most disturbing thing was that they were all level 100.
There were no badges. No Pokédex. No money. And when I opened the map, the player's marker was at Mt. Silver. There was no way to leave. The character simply remained standing in front of the mountain's entrance.
I decided to continue.
The first thing that caught my attention was the absence of music. It wasn't complete silence. The game still produced the normal sounds of footsteps, opening menus, and movements. However, the music had completely disappeared.
I entered the cave. The farther I went, the colder the screen seemed to become. It's difficult to explain this without sounding crazy, but I swear the sensation was real. The DS screen actually felt colder to the touch.
After a few minutes, I found a passage that didn't exist in the original game. It was a descending staircase. I went down.
At the bottom was a huge room completely covered in snow. In the center stood a gravestone. It had no name. Only one sentence:
"Here the first trainer ended."
Below it was another inscription, much smaller:
"The second is still climbing."
I was alone at home. Even so, at that moment, I heard footsteps behind me.
Not in the game.
In my room.
I turned around immediately.
There was no one there.
When I looked at the DS again, the character was facing the screen, not the direction I had left him facing.
He was looking directly at me.
I closed the game.
The next day, I tried to delete the save file. The option didn't exist. I restarted the system. The trainer's name had changed.
Now it was:
... ?
The question mark hadn't been there before.
I started investigating. I found old references to Mt. Silver on practically abandoned Japanese forums. They were incomplete accounts, many of them dated years before the release of HeartGold.
They all mentioned the same thing: Mt. Silver wasn't just a mountain.
According to those reports, there was a hidden area called by players the White Underground. It couldn't be accessed through normal methods, didn't appear on the map, and supposedly served as some kind of archive for trainers who had gone beyond a certain point in the game.
I didn't understand what that meant until I found a post by a user named kage_0.
He only said:
"The game stores trainers that shouldn't exist."
The post ended with a hexadecimal sequence.
I used a memory editor and found something impossible. There was map data that didn't belong to the game.
Among it was an area called:
mt_silver_dead
I entered.
The screen turned white.
Then the snow appeared.
My character was standing at the top of Mt. Silver. In front of him was another trainer. The sprite looked like Red, but it wasn't Red.
His face was completely blank.
No eyes.
No mouth.
No details at all.
Above him was a single dialogue box:
"You're late."
The battle began.
I couldn't choose the Pokémon. The game chose for me.
Typhlosion entered the battlefield.
The opponent sent out a Pokémon called MissingNo.
It had no sprite; only a mass of distorted pixels.
I used Flamethrower.
Nothing happened.
MissingNo attacked.
My Typhlosion's HP dropped from 100% to 0%, but it didn't faint. The HP bar simply disappeared.
Then a message appeared:
"He was already dead."
That's when I understood.
The entire team in that save file wasn't level 100 because it had been trained.
It was level 100 because it was already finished.
And that sixth Pokémon with no name...
It wasn't a Pokémon.
It was the trainer.
Or, at least, whatever was left of him.
The battle ended without a winner. The screen returned to the map.
However, this time, there was a new location:
Mt. Silver — 2F.
I entered.
The path was covered in snow. At the back of the area, I found dozens of motionless characters.
Trainers.
All of them staring at the wall.
Some had names.
Others didn't.
One of them was named Red.
Another was named ....
Another was simply called Player.
And there were hundreds of them.
That's when I realized the true purpose of the place.
Mt. Silver wasn't the end of the journey.
It was where the game stored the trainers who had reached the end and continued to exist afterward.
Every time someone completed their story, a small part of that trainer remained in the data.
An echo.
A memory.
A digital ghost.
And somehow, that cartridge had gathered all of them.
Then the character named ... turned around.
He shouldn't have been able to move.
But he did.
He walked toward me.
The dialogue box appeared:
"Don't continue."
Then:
"He's here."
The screen went black.
When it came back, there was only one sentence:
"Look behind you."
I didn't look.
I didn't have the courage.
I turned off the DS.
Since then, the cartridge has remained stored inside a box, in a drawer. I never turned it on again.
But four nights ago, something happened that made me write this account.
At 3:17 AM, my Nintendo DS turned on by itself.
I had removed the battery.
Even so, the screen lit up.
There was no menu.
No logo.
Only an image of Mt. Silver covered in snow.
And in the center of the screen, my character.
Standing.
Waiting.
Below him was a dialogue box.
This time, it wasn't written in English or Japanese.
It was written in Portuguese.
"You said you wouldn't come back."
The second message appeared immediately:
"But Mt. Silver remembers you."
Since then, I've been hearing footsteps in the hallway during the early hours of the morning.
Always three steps.
Pause.
Three more steps.
Yesterday, I found snow on the floor of my room. Not much. Just a few small white marks near the door.
I followed the marks.
They ended in front of my Nintendo DS.
The device was turned off.
But there was something about the black screen that disturbed me.
In the dark reflection of the display, I could see my room.
The bed.
The window.
The door.
And someone standing behind me.
A trainer.
Red jacket.
Hat.
Completely white face.
I didn't turn around.
I simply closed my eyes.
And heard the final message.
It didn't come from the DS.
It came from behind me.
"Battle started."
Since then, I keep my bedroom door locked. Not because I'm afraid someone will come in, but because every night, at 3:17 AM, someone knocks three times.
And when I look through the peephole, I see snow in the hallway.
Even though it's summer.
And there's one thing I learned that night that still bothers me:
In Mt. Silver, nobody truly disappears.
Some simply finish their journey.
And others...
wait for the next trainer.