Pokémon In Real Life!

When I was little, from probably 2014 to 2017, I had a Pokémon phase. I had a sizable merch collection, including one of the old Pikachu Build-A-Bears. I also watched all the classic channels on YouTube that made videos about Pokémon back then. TheJWitzz, MandJTV, ABrandonToThePast, you name it. Obscure Pokémon trivia and scary Pokédex entries practically made my childhood.
A common type of video that more corporate channels, or content farms as people call them nowadays, would pump out were compilation videos showing “real life” versions of Pokémon. Mostly it would be either stolen 3D renders or photo manipulations, or shoddily thrown together edits made by the creator itself. Nevertheless, little me ate it all up. I knew none of it was real, but the mere suggestion just gave my brain that dose of serotonin that kept me watching more. Most of these kinds of videos were pretty much copy and pasted from each other. 
Then one day, I happened upon a video simply titled “Pokemon In Real Life!”
No abundance of key words, tags, nothing. The thumbnail was a comparison, as was common with these types of videos. On the left side of the screen was labeled “Game”, and displayed art of Tyrunt, this kinda baby dinosaur Pokémon. And on the right side, the label “Real Life”, and a photo of a stuffed toy T.rex. Pokémon and toy dinosaurs? This seemed like a dream come true for young me. So without a second thought, I clicked on it. Something I vividly remember for some reason was that the ratings were disabled. It seemed like such a superficial detail back then, I’m genuinely surprised I still remember it. But in hindsight, I think I get it now. 
The format was simple. It would show a black screen with the Pokémon’s name in white text, then it would cut to the comparison, and then repeat for about 8-10 minutes straight, with the theme song to the Indigo League series looping the whole time. It had standard stuff for the first half. Squirtle’s real counterpart being a baby sea turtle on the beach, Rayquaza’s being a small sculpture of a Chinese dragon, you know. It seemed like they only purposefully chose Pokémon that closest resembles real things. It was like they were skimming over some of the more outlandish designs like Deoxys and Lugia. You know, stuff that wouldn’t be easily translatable into real world creatures or items. In fact, none of the images seemed edited in any way. 
But then we got to Banette. The in-game design was a small, black rag doll-like creature with red eyes and a zipped up mouth. The real life image was.. kind of that. It was definitely a creepy rag doll. It wore black and red striped clothes, and its limbs were long and lanky, dangling off the tall wooden stool it was laying back-first on. Due to the angle of the camera though, it was hard to make out the face. I was a bit weirded out, but hey. Maybe the guy who made it just got it from some random website or something. 
It was around when the video reached Charmander that I realized something was very wrong. The photo showed a dead salamander. The charred, black skin of the critter was wrapped so tightly around its skeleton, that the slightest poke or prod with a stick would split it open like scissors cutting paper. Below it was a dark, yet visible puddle of disgusting fluids that was likely brought on from the amphibian decomposing. I squirmed a little bit in my seat, and audibly groaned in discomfort.
Here are a few more choice examples of the images on the right side of the screen during this part.
Pikachu: A rabbit laying stiff with its eyes practically bulging out of its sockets. It appeared to also be dead. Judging by the way its fur stood up wildly, I’d say it was electrocuted.
Houndoom: A low quality photo of a Doberman that was foaming at the mouth pouncing at a man, presumably about to maul him.
Giratina: A statue of the demon Baphomet. The lighting was dim, and in fact, most of the light was directed onto the statue itself.
Parasect: A tarantula infected with a parasitic fungus, most likely cordyceps. 
And then things went from unsettling, to confusing.
Hypno. Everyone and their grandmother knows his reputation as the creepy one who feasts on kid’s dreams. Back then, I was admittedly scared of the yellow creature, so I braced myself. It didn’t help that the nostalgic theme from the anime had suddenly been replaced by deafening silence, so I was fully expecting to have some scary fan art pop up with a stock screaming sound with the volume cranked all the way up. But then the photos showed up. It was not at all what I was expecting…
It was just a photo of an elderly man taken through his webcam. But for some reason, it only showed the upper half of his face. He was staring daggers into the lens, which gave me the feeling he was staring into my soul. Just the air around the photo felt wrong, despite nothing actually creepy being in the photo.
Likewise, Cubone. The photo was simply of another person. This time it was a child with someone else who’s face was out of frame, presumably his mother.
The next few were like this too. Apparently, they were family photos, as the old guy and the kid showed up together in some of them. There was the kid’s father, a muscular guy used to represent Machoke. Though after that, was Cacturne. It was a grainy photo of a man in the street at night. The man seemed to be walking towards the cameraman. Due to the darkness, and how far away the man was, it was impossible to make out any features, other than what appeared to be a baggy black jacket. And, while I’m not positively sure, it looked like he was holding something in one hand. I could tell it had a handle, but I couldn’t tell if it was blunt or sharp, as the upper half of the tool was held in front of the figure’s torso, causing it to blend in.
And then.. it happened. Froslass. The photo was of a woman. She was laying in the snow, and all that was seen was her corpse’s head. Her mouth was wide open, as though she were screaming. Her visage had no recognizable human skin tone anymore. She had nothing but red and purple frostbitten flesh. And her eyes. They were clouded over, but I could still just barely make out a pupil, facing directly at the camera.
I shrieked in terror, and I scrambled to the floor to undo the power cord, and put an end to it. I looked back for a brief second at the monitor, then pulled the plug. But not before I caught a glimpse of one more title card. The final Pokémon in the video, and the only one I never saw.
“Phantump”
Category:Pokemon
Category:YouTube
Category:Death
Category:Weird
Category:Nintendo