"Tch… why are there so many scripts piled up?" Edward looked at the stack in his hands, and his scalp tingled a little. Zoroark, on the other hand, acted as if this was obvious and completely normal.
"Boss, how long has it been since you last came to the company? Of course, people are going to have a ton of ideas. And honestly, this isn't even that many," Zoroark said helplessly. Ghost Films always received all sorts of strange and unusual scripts. Some scripts were evaluated and deemed usable, so they were accepted. But there were others that were much more complicated to judge—so complicated that no one could come to a conclusion. Those were left for Edward to personally review.
And because Edward was gone for more than half the day every day, the result was that no one could process these things at all. Naturally, a sizeable backlog of scripts began to accumulate. Even the script Zoroark brought him now was one that had been carefully screened and selected out of many.
Edward sighed in resignation. He didn't say anything more. He knew this was his own fault, so he simply accepted his fate, picked up the script, and prepared to read it. He wanted to see exactly what sort of story had been causing so much hesitation.
…
In a small town somewhere in the Kalos region, the sun was warm as always. Children rode bicycles down the street, chasing after their Pikachu and Eevee. However, this day was destined to be remembered—not because of any great Pokémon battle, but because it marked the beginning of a nightmare.
It was a drizzly afternoon. Seven young people had gathered in an old apartment at the edge of town. They were all enthusiastic Pokémon game fans who often met up to discuss the newest versions and hidden Easter eggs. This time, one of them—Hide—mysteriously pulled out an old, dust-covered game disc.
"Uh—wait, hold on. What the heck is this name 'Hide'?" Edward couldn't help himself. What kind of nonsense name was that? Why did it feel like it was indirectly mocking him? But Zoroark said it was probably just a coincidence. Edward took a deep breath and let it go.
"You guys, look at this," Hide said excitedly. "This belonged to my grandpa. It's supposedly an unreleased Pokémon game called Shadow Forest."
Everyone huddled around curiously. The disc's surface was worn, and the label faintly read "Internal Test Version." They found an old game console, inserted the disc carefully, and as soon as the game booted up, a strange forest appeared on the screen. The background music was low, heavy, and oppressive—completely unlike the cheerful tunes they were used to in Pokémon games.
"This doesn't feel right," Cleo said while frowning. She always had a strange sense for things.
Edward didn't want to comment on this anymore. But he had to admit—the plot looked pretty good. Quite captivating, actually.
The game began. They each selected a trainer character and entered the world called "Shadow Forest." At first, everything seemed normal—just darker than expected. The Pokémon behaved oddly too, showing patterns that were not typical at all.
"The wild Pokémon here are way too aggressive," Tj complained. His Charmander had just been defeated by a dark-type Pokémon they had never seen before. "Even Pikachu's Thunderbolt only does half damage."
As they continued deeper, they discovered not only were the Pokémon strange, even the NPCs' expressions were stiff and unnatural. More bizarrely, the in-game time seemed to flow in sync with reality—the longer they played, the darker the real-world sky became.
"I think we should stop," Milly said. She noticed they had been playing for almost three hours, and outside, it was now completely dark. "This game feels too suffocating."
Suddenly, a blinding white flash cut across the screen. A trainer wearing a strange mask appeared. His name was shown simply as "???". His Pokémon was a black shadow creature none of them recognized.
This setup—
Edward's expression twisted slightly. It reminded him of another strange game he once played: if you lost, the game would hypnotize you, or something equally bizarre. It wasn't actually a Pokémon game, but it used a monster-collecting style. Very weird. He heard it even got a DLC2 later.
But that sort of script was absolutely unfilmable—instant death by controversy, guaranteed failure to pass review. Still, this script didn't look like it was headed in that direction.
"Wait! My Charmander isn't fully healed yet!" Tj shouted.
The shadow Pokémon attacked instantly. Before Charmander could dodge, it was knocked out. The screen displayed: "Charmander has lost the ability to battle," followed by an ear-piercing burst of digital static.
And then, something even worse happened—Tj suddenly clutched his chest in real life and collapsed to the floor in agony.
"Tj! What's wrong?!" Hide rushed to him in panic.
But it was too late. Tj convulsed a few times and then stopped moving altogether. The others watched in horror as the game continued running, the masked trainer still standing there as if waiting for something.
"We—we have to quit the game!" Cleo screamed, trembling as she reached to pull out the disc.
But the console suddenly froze. No matter what buttons they pressed, it wouldn't respond. Even more terrifying, the masked trainer on screen started speaking in a distorted, glitching voice:
"The game has begun… Death cannot be escaped… Only by clearing it can you be freed…"
What followed was even more horrifying: whenever a character died in the game, the corresponding player in the real world died in the same way. The next day, Cleo was found dead in her sleep, her expression frozen in terror—exactly like the in-game death animation.
On the third day, Milly suffered sudden cardiac arrest in the shower, just as her in-game character was struck by a powerful poison attack.
Panic spread quickly. The remaining four Hide, Locke, Kelly, and Bella decided not to sleep normally anymore. They took turns watching the game console, hoping to find a way to escape. But they soon discovered that the game moved forward at its own pace, regardless of what they did.
"This is insane," Locke said, his voice shaking. "We're trapped in this game. Reality and the game have become intertwined."
They discovered that certain in-game events could temporarily delay death. For example, when they found the "Purification Spring," everyone's life force seemed to recover briefly. But the spring could only be used three times, and each use drastically increased the game's difficulty.
As time passed, they uncovered more secrets: Shadow Forest was an experimental game abruptly cancelled by top executives at the Pokémon Company. It used forbidden technology—something that partially projected players' consciousness into the game world. During testing, a catastrophic accident killed all team members. The prototype was sealed away.
"So, the game… is taking revenge?" Kelly whispered, pale as a sheet.
No one could answer. They could only continue forward. Every area in the game corresponded to a specific method of death, and they needed to gather clues to solve the forest's core mystery.
On the fifth day, Locke's in-game avatar was killed by a gigantic shadow Tyranitar. In reality, he let out a scream and then went still forever, his body twisted exactly like his character being crushed in the game.
Only three remained. Hide, Kelly, and Bella gambled everything on one final attempt: reach the deepest part of the forest and find the true ending. They discovered that each cleared area awarded a "Leaf of Reality," and collecting all seven would unlock the gate back to the real world.
"So, the seven leaves correspond to the seven of us," Bella said slowly as realization dawned. "But four of us are already dead… which means—"
Her trembling voice trailed off. The truth was suffocating. Their characters continued dying one by one, just as the players themselves were dying. Only three people remained, with only three leaves of reality.
At the forest's heart was a massive altar surrounded by seven stone pillars, each engraved with one of their names. In the center was a glowing crystal emitting eerie light.
"We have to put the leaves here," Hide said, voice hoarse.
When they placed the three leaves onto the altar, the crystal blazed with blinding light. The forest shook violently. Their in-game characters collapsed one after another, and in the real world, Bella suddenly felt searing pain as identical wounds appeared on her arm—just like her in-game character.
"No! There's still a way!" Kelly screamed. She lunged at the altar, trying to steal one of the leaves. "We can't just die like this!"
But it was too late. All characters died in the game. The leaves dimmed and vanished. All three collapsed in reality simultaneously. Only Hide, in his final moments, saw something—the seventh leaf, one that had never appeared before, slowly floated out of the crystal and drifted toward him.
When he grasped it, the world around him twisted violently, and he passed out.
Hide awoke in a hospital room under bright morning sun. The doctor told him he was the sole survivor of the Shadow Forest incident. The other six were confirmed dead. Even stranger—the unreleased game disc had vanished completely, as if it never existed.
But Hide knew it wasn't a dream. The scar on his wrist was identical to the one on his in-game character. And in his nightmares, that eerie forest and those six dead companions kept reappearing.
Three months later, a new game was announced: Pokémon: Shadow Forest, described as a psychological horror title exploring the darkness of human nature, developed by the most secretive Pokémon division.
Standing outside a game shop, Hide stared at the disc in the display window. The familiar design… the faint "Internal Test Version" label… He was certain—it was the same game.
And some things, once they enter reality, can never be erased.
That night, alone at home, his TV turned on by itself. The masked trainer appeared again. His Pokémon was that same black shadow creature.
"The game continues," the masked figure said, voice cold and hollow.
…
"This ending…" Edward stared at it, finally understanding why no one could decide what to do with the script. It was honestly bizarre—and troublesome. The setting alone invited criticism, especially accusations of portraying Pokémon in a negative light. It really did look that way, making it a headache to handle.
And the bleak ending wasn't exactly uplifting. But horror films frequently used this kind of protagonist-fails ending. Edward's own film Dead Silence was similar—the protagonist had his tongue torn out at the end, losing his life completely. Same concept.
"It should still pass. And honestly, with this setting, we can make a game tie-in," Edward said. He believed the idea was workable. A companion game could enhance player immersion, and also boost audience engagement. One idea accomplishing two goals. The script's requirements for such a game weren't that strict either—fairly manageable.
"Alright then, I'll go tell the marketing department," Zoroark said, jotting down notes. Edward nodded and said nothing more, continuing to look through the pile of documents. Ghost Films had accumulated so many things waiting for him to handle. Annoying, but he had to take responsibility—it was tied to him after all.
Edward sighed. Life was hard. Edward sighed again.
"All this stuff… ah, such a headache. At least I have Fortune." Edward murmured. Fortune had spent the past few weeks learning how to manage the company. He could now handle many of Devon Corp's basic operations. That alone was a huge improvement and had lightened Edward's workload considerably.
Still, Edward thought perhaps he could assign more Pokémon as managerial staff for Ghost Films. Or maybe he didn't need that—he had a much better candidate in mind…
"Boss, these matters are all settled. So now…" Zoroark stepped back into the room. Edward smiled. Zoroark was also pretty reliable, after all.
(End of Chapter)