FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I got into the Pokémon fandom way back when I was a young kid in the late 1990s. My friends used to bring these cool Pokémon collector cards to school and battle with them outside during recess.

I wanted to play also but I didn't have any cards of my own, I didn't have much money and my allowance was no more excuses or bite size candy bars. My folks were very stingy with cash and the very idea of giving me money was pure torture to them.

Heck, whenever I got twenty dollars from my grandparents my folks would always confiscate it and say I wasn't responsible enough for that much money...I never saw so much as a dime of any of it.

I missed out on the majority of the Pokémon craze at the start, namely the card and video games which really sucked for I felt left during the time my friends where really into it. I however got lucky with being able to watch the cartoon series, I really enjoyed the anime and still watch it even as an adult.

Today I'm an adult and in my 30s, I still live in my hometown but have a place of my own via an apartment. Sure feels good to get away from my folks and their stingy ways.

I was at the time still pretty much a Pokemon fan, my friends however had moved onto the drudgery of working and raising a family. No time for Pokémon let alone games of any sort. I feel I've gotten lucky in this regard for I've never really been into wanting a relationship or family of any sort and feel I've missed a bullet. Being a confirmed bachelor has its perks sufficed to say.

Anyway, thanks to the advancement in technology I can now download all the old Pokémon games I missed out on and on my iPhone and not have to pay a single dime.

It's wonderful and I've really enjoyed the nostalgia of it all and living a childhood dream that wasn't possible at the time.

However, the games got dull after a while and very frustrating due to the limits in being unable to trade and finish the Pokédex.

Recently an app game was released called "Pokémon Go!" and I've been anxiously awaiting it! I was saddened to hear you cannot battle the Pokémon like in the old games but nevertheless, I wanted to give it a try and see what happens. Hey, it's Pokémon! How can it possibly be bad?

Well, after downloading the game and setting up an account I was all ready to try it out. True to the commercials, it used the real world as a blueprint for the maps and locations using GPS location. I caught numerous Pokémon and conquered several gyms during my first day.

The game was sadly boring in comparison to the old games but it did motivate me to get off my ass and walk around, which was a miracle alone for when I get off work, I usually just wanted to be lazy the rest of the day. Can you blame me?

Anyway, everything was going as expected. I just walk around, catch Pokémon, trade the majority for candy and level up my best. This is the typical mantra in regards to this game but one day, things suddenly got really creepy...

I was walking down an old road that lead out into the woodlands behind my hometown when an unusual Pokémon popped up on my iPhone screen.

"Who's that Pokémon?" I ironically said aloud like Ash did in the cartoons when he came across a new Pokémon.

I selected the Pokémon and instantly went into the capture mode. It looked like a ghost type Pokémon but it had a piece of wood on its head. I never seen it before! I wasted over twenty pokéballs trying to catch the damn thing when it all of sudden ran away.

"Damn it!" I muttered and decided to wait around a bit to see if another popped up. Sure enough, another one did but it was off the road and in the woods.

It wasn't too far out and the area wasn't too bad to walk, small brush here and there but nothing too treacherous. I headed out a ways and once again selected the Pokémon to go into the capture mode feature...it ran away again!

I was about to head back to the road when suddenly it popped back onto my screen. "I'm going to catch you one way or another you little shit!" I said after it popped back on but this time it was even further in the woods. I tried selecting it, not wanting to go any deeper but I kept getting the message, "Must move closer to interact."

Determined to catch this odd Pokémon, I went against my better judgement and headed out deeper into the woods to catch it. When I come close enough to it, I selected it, went into the capture mode and goddamn it...the damn thing ran away AGAIN!

"This thing must be some sort or legendary or something!" I said to myself for no Pokémon I've ran into gave me this much trouble! Walking deeper into the woods I once again selected the strange Pokémon, went into the capture mode but this time I FINALLY I caught it and on the first throw!

"Wow!" I yelled in almost a cheer, "That was DAMN lucky!" Hoping to find out what type of Pokémon it was, I went to the Pokémon selection screen and the name of the Pokémon confused me. It was called, "Stacy Wilcox."

I've never seen any Pokémon with a name like that before, it was as if someone had named it already and given it a human name. I tried selecting the name feature to rename it back to its default but it wouldn't allow me to do it. "Huh...well, I'll have to look it up when I get home!" I said to myself, headed back to the road and went home.

When I got home I googled the Bulbapedia, a Wikipedia for the Pokémon game and went through the numerous Pokémon to find out what type of Pokémon Stacy Wilcox was.

It didn't take long to find and apparently it's a Pokémon from the Sun and Moon series, which explained why I didn't know it for I was still on the Dimond and Pearl episodes via anime and never played the game.

It was called a Phantump and it's Pokédex said it was a ghost and grass type. I looked around to see if there was anything in regards to it having a human name. I couldn't find anything but I didn't find something very creepy.

The Pokédex entry reads - "According to old tales, these Pokémon are stumps possessed by the spirits of children who died while lost in the forest."

That's some dark shit right there man, holy cow that creeped me the hell out and especially with the Pokémon having a human name!

I don't know what made me do it, but I couldn't help be feel very curious and googled the name "Stacy Wilcox" on my computer and narrowed the search down with the key words "missing" and the name of my hometown.

Sure enough, a link popped up for a missing child report on Stacy Wilcox but it was in the next town over however.

A chill ran down my back as I clicked the link and it bought up a missing persons alert for a 9 year old girl with blond hair, blue eyes and the date November 12th, 1999.

Stacy Wilcox was last seen walking home from a friends house and went missing within the area. No suspects or witnesses to the child's disappearance were listed and it remained unsolved.

This really unsettled me at first but I eventually brushed it off as a bad taste in game feature to freak out players. I figured the game creators looked up the names of missing children in the area and put the name down on these Pokémon to freak out players.

Well, it worked and I was freaked out at the start but honestly, this is very low! I mean, how will the kids parents feel knowing their missing kids name was being used as an in game joke?

The next day after work, I went back to the area to see if I can find anymore Phantumps. The main reason I went back was to collect more candies to rank it up and maybe even save for when they release its evolution feature which was something called a Trevenant.

Sadly, the first few trips up and down the road didn't make anything pop up aside from typical bug Pokémon which I collected for stardust and candies. I decided to give up and go back into town but just as I was about to leave, a Phantump popped up.

"Perfect timing!" I said with a chuckle and selected it to go into capture mode. Well, it ran away after the first two failed catches but it popped up again and again like my first catch and once again it lead me deeper and deeper into the woods.

Letting my determination override my judgement I chased the damn thing pretty far into the woods, almost a full mile and to my surprise, I came across an old abandoned house.

Just looking at it made my skin crawl, it looked like something out of some horror movie with the broken down and moss covered look. The Phantump lead me right to the doorstep of the house and when I selected it, I went into capture mode and caught it on the first catch.

The name of this Phantump was "Jason Ericsson."

"Oh my god!" I muttered to myself in a disgusted tone, "They're actually naming these Pokémon after missing kids! Jesus that's sick!" Honestly, the name escaped me but I just figured it was a missing kids name.

The old house tickled my curiosity and I went ahead against my better judgment and decided to check it out. Who knows, maybe I'll find something valuable or something...That's what I said to myself but really it was just typical dumb curiosity.

The house was empty, nothing inside but cobwebs and dust. Just then my phone started making noises associated with new Pokémon popping up. It was more phantumps and this time it was around seven of them and they were all gathered together right here in the center of the house.

Well, not wanting to pass up this opportunity I went ahead and caught them all...they all had human names like the first two I caught.

Tommy Warren, Lisa Hutson, Trevor Butler, John Johnson, Marty Philips, Douglas Wolfe. Names I'm sure we're connected to missing children.

I was about to leave when I heard the creaking of a door opening...that's not a sound you want to hear when you're in a creepy old house like this!

I felt a cool breeze blow by and reasoned it was just the wind blowing. Looking over I noticed a door that lead down to the basement area. Not someplace you want to go, especially when alone but something was calling me to investigate further and I went ahead and did so.

I used the flashlight on my phone to light my way down the stairs, the staircase was thankfully very sturdy but the darkness downstairs really made me uncomfortable, not forgetting the pathway of spiderwebs that never ended. Nevertheless, that pull kept egging me on and override my common sense.

When I got the bottom of the stairs, I noticed that the floor was completely dirt, it looked unfinished as this wasn't normal for a functional basement to be.

The dirt was soft and somewhat damp due to the humidity in the area along with the cool temperature. I moved my phone around to light up the entire area and see what was in here...nothing! Absolutely NOTHING worth all this effort!

I decided to head back upstairs but as I moved my phone about, I noticed the light on the floor broke as if small mounds where there. Looking closer they were mounds but they weren't random or natural. They were all in a perfect line and they counted eight.

Curious to see if someone had buried something special in the area, like trunks full of belongings or even valuables I went ahead and started digging up one with my bare hands.

Oh my god, what the hell was I thinking? Really, what rational person would bury valuables in the ground of some old house and why did I even assume that? For a brief moment, something honestly made me think that absurd thought and convinced me to dig.

I dug up something alright and to this day...I wish I had never downloaded Pokémon Go!. I dug up the skull of a young kid and when it came into sight of the flashlight of my phone, it made me scream like a girl.

I ran out that house as fast I could and didn't stop until I was safely within town.

I called the police and told them what I had found...the series of events that happened after are very long and emotional.

I'll just give you the shortened version of what happened.

Turns out the house was abandoned for numerous years and left to rot and the owners are unknown due to bad record keeping. The land was just assumed to be owned by the city and treated as such. The abandoned house being overlooked the entire time due to the lack of roads leading to it and especially records of it even existing.

A total of a eight children's bodies were dug up from the cellar of the house, the identification of the bodies are still being investigated but so far they only identified two. Stacy Wilcox from the next town over and Douglas Wolfe who went missing when I was three years old and was out camping with his family in the woods nearby.

It was thanks to some personal items found with the bodies which helped with identifying them. Nothing else was exsplained due to it being an ongoing investigation.

As for the murders, there's really no evidence left to make any conclusions so the cases remain unsolved and/or investigated.

Did I help identifying the rest? No...I didn't even tell the police the truth in how I found them. I simply said I was out hiking in the woods when I came across the house and decided to check it out. If I told them the truth, they wouldn't have believed me and besides, all the Phantumps I caught vanished and it turns out these Pokémon are not even in the Pokémon Go! game yet.

They say I'm ruled out as a suspect but I don't believe them. I'm sure many months or years down the road someone will come knocking at my door to ask me some questions about the bodies and how I found them. I'll just tell them what I told the police, I was out hiking, found the house and decided to see what it had inside.

I deleted the app and never played it again. I no longer watch the anime nor do I have any desire to play the games anymore. I'm just too traumatized by what happened and how I was lead to the bodies.

Do I believe something supernatural was going on? I don't know...maybe. It would make sense but it's just all too creepy and too terrifying to think about.

That's all I have to say and I'll just end this story with a caution - If you play Pokémon Go! and see a Phantump acting weird, be careful...you might have found something more then you care to deal with.

END