"Professor Willow's Terrible Pokemon Obsession" | Creepypasta

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, just a quick word before we get into the tale. Tonight's story was written by Mike Jesus and was originally recorded for his The United Peoples Institute series. But this is a standalone story, so you don't need to catch up on anything to enjoy it.

[00:00:15] But I just want to let you know that if you enjoy tonight's story, there'll be a link to Mike's channel in the description where he has a ton of other stories that can be enjoyed as standalone, but all take place in kind of a shared universe kind of a thing. And Mike is a very talented author, so if you enjoy tonight's story, I bet you'll enjoy his other tales. Now without further ado, I hope you enjoy tonight's story.

[00:00:43] Back in the year 2000, I used to work at a comic book store. This was at the height of Pokimania, so the place had morphed into a shrine to all things Pikachu, and the store was constantly annexed with screeching children. Life was loud and chaotic, and filled with concerned parents.

[00:01:02] Before every shift, I'd hotbox in my car so that I could stay mellow during the after school rush. Being 19 and stoned, I'd do my best to avoid any semblance of responsibility, and left all the heavy lifting to whoever was on shift with me.

[00:01:16] For about a month and a half, I got paid to stand around the store and stare off into the ether. With enough complaints from my coworkers, however, a regional manager was summoned to check on the quality of customer service.

[00:01:30] The moment I walked into the store, I was chastised for coming in late and not looking presentable. The manager was the spitting image of my middle school math teacher, smelled like a dentist's office, and clearly had it out for me.

[00:01:45] She took notes on everything I did, and would ask all these super patronizing questions that made me sound like an idiot.

[00:01:53] Mandy, my coworker, who was definitely responsible for the majority of the complaints about me, was barely containing her joy.

[00:02:00] Every time the manager chastised me, Mandy kept grinning this stupid grin that was making it hard for me to keep my cool.

[00:02:07] In order to look busy, and mainly to get away from Mandy, I excused myself to go speak with the customers.

[00:02:16] That's how I met Professor Henry Willow.

[00:02:20] Not being a child or a parent, Willow stuck out of the crowd of our usual clientele.

[00:02:25] I had seen him in the store a couple times before, a small balding dude in a dress shirt and spectacles.

[00:02:32] He looked like he was killing time before catching the bus to adult math camp.

[00:02:37] Willow never bought anything.

[00:02:39] Every time he'd pop into the store, he would just stare up at the big poster of the 151 Pokemon in complete silence.

[00:02:47] Sometimes he'd pick up a pack of stickers or trading cards and examine it, but it never held his attention for long.

[00:02:54] He'd just stare up at that poster with a keen, scientific interest.

[00:02:58] And then, when he was satiated with the cartoon monsters, he would leave the store.

[00:03:04] I wasn't certain if I could make the strange man buy anything, but at that moment I was absolutely sure I shouldn't try talking to a child in front of the stern manager lady.

[00:03:16] In as casual a way as I could muster in my crispy state, I asked the man if he needed any help.

[00:03:23] At first, Willow just stared at me as if I had arrived from another planet.

[00:03:28] It was only once his stare had sufficiently weirded me out that he started to speak.

[00:03:34] His voice was low, and he seemed to choose every word with the utmost caution.

[00:03:40] It quickly became obvious that the man was batshit crazy.

[00:03:45] Willow told me how he had seen the creatures on the posters before, in his dreams.

[00:03:51] For well over a decade, he had seen a world filled with Pokemon of flesh and blood.

[00:03:58] The longer the spectacled man spoke, the more he was getting worked up.

[00:04:04] I feared a scene, so to calm him down, I asked Willow if he wanted to buy anything.

[00:04:09] My question seemed to pull him back from whatever internal wonderland he was traveling.

[00:04:15] With a hint of embarrassment, he nodded.

[00:04:18] This was a store, after all, he said.

[00:04:21] It would be impolite to not make a purchase, he said.

[00:04:26] I expected the man to grab a pack of trading cards and call it a day, but Willow kept picking

[00:04:32] away at the shelves until he had a sizable purchase of stickers, cards, and books.

[00:04:39] He picked out the items with a sort of guilt, as if he was paying penance to be in the presence

[00:04:44] of all these cartoon monsters.

[00:04:47] Both the manager and Mandy seemed to be in awe of how I got the strange man to buy so much

[00:04:53] stuff.

[00:04:53] I, of course, knew my sales skills had nothing to do with the purchase, but I sure as hell

[00:04:59] pretended that they did.

[00:05:01] When I rang Willow up, I told him I'd be happy to answer any other questions he had about

[00:05:06] Pokemon if he ever came back to the store.

[00:05:09] This wiped the guilt off his face.

[00:05:12] With a thankful smile, he told me he'd be back soon.

[00:05:17] I didn't get fired that day.

[00:05:20] Far from it.

[00:05:20] In fact, from the day I met Professor Willow, I became the top salesman in the branch.

[00:05:26] Every day I sold to a market of one.

[00:05:29] But that singular customer had deep pockets.

[00:05:33] By the end of the month, Willow owned one of just about every piece of Pokemon merch we

[00:05:40] carried.

[00:05:40] He bought all the books and sticker collections and video games.

[00:05:44] Willow even bought two of the overpriced Game Boy Colors and a game link so that he could

[00:05:50] catch all the Pokemon across the different versions of the game.

[00:05:53] The man was obsessed in a way I had never seen before.

[00:05:57] He snagged up every new piece of merch like it was a priceless collector's item.

[00:06:02] But more importantly, he asked questions.

[00:06:06] He asked very specific questions.

[00:06:09] Not only was Willow interested in the origins of the Pokemon themselves, he also wanted to

[00:06:16] know more about the society in which they existed.

[00:06:19] Who financed the Pokemon Hospital?

[00:06:22] Where did the profits from the Pokemarts go?

[00:06:25] Could the fact that all the police officers and nurses were related point to some sort of

[00:06:30] monarchical ruling power?

[00:06:32] With every visit, Henry Willow filled my stoned head with all sorts of theoretical questions

[00:06:39] about the Pokemon universe.

[00:06:42] Back then, I didn't make much of those questions.

[00:06:45] They were strange, sure, but the scientist was keeping me at the top of the regional sales

[00:06:51] chart and got Mandy to seethe with jealousy whenever she was on shift.

[00:06:56] Willow was generally calm.

[00:06:59] With tranquil eloquence, the scientist could philosophize about the nature of Pokemon evolution or the

[00:07:06] power hierarchies of the various criminal organizations in the Kanto region.

[00:07:11] It is only once the topic of the Elite Four and the Pokemon League Championships came up

[00:07:17] that his voice tensed up.

[00:07:20] Out of all things Pokemon, it was the championship that seemed to fascinate him the most.

[00:07:26] He wanted to understand why so much resources and attention were devoted to the Pokemon gym.

[00:07:32] He wanted to know how involved the ruling class was in organizing the tournament,

[00:07:37] and what happened to the champions once they had won, or, god forbid, lost.

[00:07:43] Where his voice was calm and measured through most of our topics,

[00:07:48] the question of the Pokemon championship would make his words shiver with obsession.

[00:07:54] I did not understand the man's fascination, but I did not question it.

[00:08:00] I would simply let him ramble about the implications of a regional Pokemon championship,

[00:08:05] and then happily ring up whatever merch he snagged off the shelves.

[00:08:09] Willow would ask me questions, but he seldom gave me time to answer.

[00:08:14] I wasn't a particular Pokemon expert, so it's not like I had much to add to the conversation.

[00:08:20] To Willow, I presume, I was more of a bouncing board for his ideas.

[00:08:26] A friendly face that could be paid at regular intervals to listen and nod,

[00:08:31] and assure the man that there is nothing unsettling about his obsession.

[00:08:37] Willow was definitely strange, but I didn't spend too much time psychoanalyzing him.

[00:08:43] My lack of curiosity was mainly tied to the fact that I was stoned out of my mind.

[00:08:49] But Willow also didn't seem to warrant any caution.

[00:08:53] He was short and lanky, and generally timid.

[00:08:56] He seemed harmless.

[00:08:58] That was, until I suggested a reason for the Pokemon championship.

[00:09:05] I had channel surfed past a documentary about human civilization and sports the night prior,

[00:09:12] and spent a good chunk of my shift thinking about it.

[00:09:15] When Willow came in for his usual shopping binge, and started talking about the Pokemon leak,

[00:09:21] I thought I would tell him what I learned from the documentary.

[00:09:24] Maybe the Pokemon championship is a way for the community to celebrate shared ideals,

[00:09:30] and unite all of the Kanto region, I said.

[00:09:33] I didn't think my comment was particularly insightful.

[00:09:37] I thought it was just an innocent observation about a hypothetical situation.

[00:09:42] My comment, however, set Willow off.

[00:09:46] With madness blazing behind his spectacles, Willow started to ramble.

[00:09:51] I was right, apparently.

[00:09:55] The Pokemon championship was being used to unite the whole island into a single set of values.

[00:10:02] The Pokemon championship was being used to make it easier to rule over the Kanto region.

[00:10:08] Willow's celebration of finally finding the reason behind the fictional universe was exceedingly loud,

[00:10:15] even for the after-school rush.

[00:10:17] Both parents and children quickly shifted their attention from the pictures of cartoon monsters

[00:10:23] to the raving scientists in the center of the store.

[00:10:28] Willow was loud, but it wasn't just his volume that was bothersome.

[00:10:33] The way he talked about the Pokemon universe was wholly disconnected from the friendly nature of the cartoon.

[00:10:41] Willow spoke about a world filled with incomprehensible monsters,

[00:10:45] about a life suffered in the husk of the old world,

[00:10:48] about a terrible existence which required a strong hand to keep order.

[00:10:55] Willow spoke about the world of Pokemon in apocalyptic terms,

[00:11:01] which made everyone around him uncomfortable.

[00:11:04] Worst yet, however, the scientists spoke about this broken, ravaged world as an inevitability.

[00:11:11] Willow yelled about the coming end of days,

[00:11:14] and how the globe would be filled with incomprehensible monstrosities that would have to be tamed through technology.

[00:11:22] I tried quieting him down, and eventually I did, but the damage had been done.

[00:11:29] Just as I combed Willow down to speaking volume, two police officers entered the store.

[00:11:35] Without any hesitation, Mandy pointed out the man to the cops and insisted he be trespassed immediately.

[00:11:44] I tried sticking up for Professor Willow, but the scattering of parents in the store quickly took Mandy's side.

[00:11:52] The man was, apparently, dangerous.

[00:11:55] He apparently had no business being around children.

[00:12:00] I put up a token resistance to the idea of the trespass,

[00:12:04] but in the end it was my signature that ended up on the paperwork.

[00:12:09] I was a bit too stoned and had a few too many grams in my glove box to argue with the cops.

[00:12:15] Without much ceremony, Willow apologized and promised to never return to the store.

[00:12:21] Years later, I can still see his sad, teary eyes as he looked back at the shelves of Pokemon merchandise.

[00:12:30] Years later, I can still see Mandy's stupid, crooked grin.

[00:12:38] Willow's absence was quickly reflected in my sales figures.

[00:12:42] Within two weeks, the stern regional manager had returned,

[00:12:46] with me having been the previous top seller in the store.

[00:12:50] She was much nicer at the start of her visit.

[00:12:52] With no big spender to save me, however,

[00:12:56] I was quickly revealed to not be a very good employee.

[00:13:00] By the time the manager's visit was done,

[00:13:03] I was certain that I wouldn't hold the job past the end of the week.

[00:13:07] I left the store that day wondering about what other gigs I was qualified for

[00:13:12] and wouldn't mind me being a bit blazed on the job.

[00:13:16] It's then, as I was heading to my car, that I met Professor Henry Willow once more.

[00:13:23] He approached me in the parking lot, profusely apologizing.

[00:13:28] It wasn't until I accepted his apologies at least three times that he finally calmed.

[00:13:34] Once he was sure I held no grudge against him,

[00:13:37] he revealed the true nature of his interest in the world of Pokemon.

[00:13:42] He had seen similar creatures in his dreams and visions.

[00:13:49] That was true.

[00:13:50] What he never told me, however,

[00:13:52] was that he was a scientist specializing in genetic manipulation.

[00:13:58] He had seen unnatural creatures in his dreams,

[00:14:02] yet in accordance to the dreams,

[00:14:04] he brought those creatures into reality.

[00:14:08] The manager's visit had definitely soured my mood,

[00:14:13] but listening to the lanky man explain how he could create Pokemon,

[00:14:19] or hybrids as he called them,

[00:14:21] cheered me up.

[00:14:22] I thought he was kidding, so I laughed.

[00:14:26] Professor Willow, however,

[00:14:28] found little humor in his subject of study.

[00:14:32] He claimed that he had been working for months on developing these hybrids,

[00:14:36] and that he had kept some of his samples in a storage facility not far from the comic book store.

[00:14:42] Willow had worked independently for all of his career,

[00:14:45] but recently he had come across like-minded scientists out east.

[00:14:50] He offered to take me to his rented lot at the storage facility.

[00:14:55] He offered to prove to me that his hybrids were real.

[00:15:00] The prospect of seeing Pokemon in the flesh was alluring enough,

[00:15:05] and I was about to accept,

[00:15:07] yet before I could agree to join him,

[00:15:10] the scientists produced Polaroid photographs of these supposed hybrids.

[00:15:17] He must have pressed around twenty of those flimsy photographs into my hands,

[00:15:23] but I did not see more than five.

[00:15:26] They were far too disturbing.

[00:15:30] Merely looking at them made my stomach churn.

[00:15:33] Even though I was looking in mere photographs,

[00:15:36] the freshly sewn sweat across my back

[00:15:39] made me certain I was looking at something patently against the laws of nature.

[00:15:46] I've done my best to forget what I'd seen on those Polaroids,

[00:15:51] but I recall a strange six-legged cat-like creature covered in thick green vines.

[00:15:59] I remember a strange glob of grey flesh covered in a symphony of bug eyes

[00:16:06] that seemed to be hiding beneath a layer of shrubbery.

[00:16:09] I remember a dog, an almost regular-looking dog,

[00:16:15] engulfed in fire with hot magma dripping from his cheery maw.

[00:16:22] I rejected Professor Willow's offer to see his hybrids that night,

[00:16:28] and I do not regret my decision.

[00:16:31] As lanky and harmless as the man seemed,

[00:16:35] there was something patently wrong with the creatures he had developed.

[00:16:39] God knows what would have happened to me

[00:16:42] had I followed the mad scientist to his storage space that night.

[00:16:48] It's been well over two decades since this all happened,

[00:16:53] and I try not to think about it.

[00:16:55] Yet, every once in a while,

[00:16:58] I find myself wondering whatever became of Professor Willow.

[00:17:03] I find myself replaying the events of that evening in my head,

[00:17:08] and trying to ascertain how real the creatures that he showed me were.

[00:17:14] With the pandemic,

[00:17:17] and the wars,

[00:17:19] and the constant nuclear saber rattling over the past couple of years,

[00:17:24] I find myself wondering how likely it is

[00:17:28] that Professor Willow's visions of the future will come to pass.