Pokemon Syndrome

The Lavender Town Syndrome

The Lavender Town Syndrome (also known as "Lavender Town Tone" or "Lavender Town Suicides") was a peak in suicides and illness of children between the ages of 7-12 shortly after the release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, back in February 27th, 1996.

Rumors say that these suicides and illness only occurred after the children playing the game reached Lavender Town, whose theme music had extremely high frequencies, that studies showed that only children and young teens can hear, since their ears are more sensitive.

Due to the Lavender Tone, at least two-hundred children supposedly committed suicide, and many more developed illnesses and afflictions. The children who committed suicide usually did so by hanging or jumping from heights. Those who did not acted irrationally complained of severe headaches after listening to Lavender Town's theme.

Although Lavender Town now sounds differently depending on the game, this mass hysteria was caused by the first Pokémon game released. After the Lavender Tone incident, the programmers had fixed Lavender Town's theme music to be at a lower frequency, and since children were no longer affected by it.

One video appeared in 2010 using "special software" to analyze the audio of Lavender Town's music. When played, the software created images of the Unknown near the end of the audio. This raised a controversy, since the Unknown didn't appear until the Generation 2 games: Silver, Gold, and Crystal. The Unknown translate to "LEAVE NOW".

Story:
It's been while since I've seen a Lavender Town Creepypasta. All of them now involve N talking about their past Pokemon or Cheren becoming a murderer. If you ask me, the best creepypastas are the ones involving the classics, Red and Blue versions.

It was September 28th, 1998. The day Pokemon Red was released in North America. After receiving my advertisement tape, I had been going crazy wanting this game. I was in sixth grade at the time. My mom handed me a little box with a picture of Charizard on it. Pokemon Red! I finally had it! I played through the whole game in a week. I begged my mom to buy me Blue, and she eventually did. Once I'd beaten both I ignored Pokemon for a while, still watching the show of course. On October 31st, Halloween, a friend of mine, Alicia, stayed the night after trick or treating. My parents had gone to a Halloween party and trusted us to be good while they were gone. I had no siblings. Of course we did stuff wrong! We used the computer, watched TV for two hours (I was only supposed to be watching for half an hour), called boys we liked, and ate all of our Halloween candy. Around 1 AM, I pulled out my Gameboy, remembering something.

"Hey Alicia, wanna hear a creepy song?"

"Uh, sure! It's Halloween, why don't we get in the mood!" She laughed a little and took the headphones I handed her.

"One sec..." I said as I selected Fly from my Charizard's moveset. Of course I was heading to Lavender Town. I had gotten one of the original cartridges with the first Lavender Town music. I didn't know it at the time, I just thought the music was cool and creepy. "Okay," I said, "Plug them in."

Alicia plugged the headphones and sat incredibly still for a second. Her pupils dilated so they were black marbles outlined with a tiny bit of blue. Her hands tightened. She dropped the Gameboy, collapsed, and began foaming at the mouth. My best friend was going to die! All because of me! She shook violently as foam trickled down her face, then she went still, her eyes wide open. I screamed for help before I realized my parents weren't home. Tears flooded down my face. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Wake up Alicia! Wake up!" What had that music done to her? I stared at the Gameboy on the floor. I put the headphones on and it sounded the same as always. I threw the game down again and sprinted to the kitchen. I got a huge glass of water and dumped it all over Alicia. "Wake up! Wake up! I didn't mean it!" I attempted CPR from what our school nurse had told us, but nothing worked. I put her on the bed and hugged her tightly. "I'm so sorry Alicia! I didn't mean to kill you! I don't know what happened!" I was sobbing more loudly than I ever had.