• I regret doing what I've done, the things I've seen will forever be etched into my memory... It's taken me until now just to be able to speak about it. It all started some time ago, one of my mates, Stephan, brought around two copies of dragon quest IX, since we both wanted a new game we could team up on. Both of the games were pre-owned, Stephen having got a copy with a previous player named Joseph, and mine unoriginally named Ghost. Huh. pretty creative there, right? So we decide to check out the previous saves just to see how far our previous players got. Joseph's gotten pretty far into his game, Ghost having got as far as what appears to be some kind of strange, purpley heaven area... there's no music, no fighting, and he has no items on him. No biggie, so I delete his save, as Stephen deletes his, and we start anew, under new names.

    It's this what made me wish i had never gotten the game, let alone restarted. The game started like normal. You know, with the character creation screen. but it was when the game started to play properly, when i started to get this gut wrenching feeling deep within me. The screen turned black and there was a text box that appeared. The text had said "PLAY AT YOUR OWN PERIL". then the game went to normal. The text box surprised me a little but at the time, i didn't think nothing of it. But something inside me told me that i should have heeded the text box's warning.

    So I start playing, I make my character, and name it Hero, since Stephen had already named his and was already playing the game, and I wanted to keep up. After the introductions, I'm thrust into control with Hero, doing the introductory part of the game. s**t seems normal, so far. However, at some points, the NPCs would just... cut off in mid-speech, whenever it seemed like they were going to say the name of my character... even more creepy, the guardian statue, according to Stephen's playing, was supposed to have displayed my character's name, as the hero is assigned to watch over the town of Angel Falls, where the game starts... but no... Ghost is apparantly the one that is printed on the guardian statue

    I stared at the writing that was on the guardian statue and i remember thinkingh to myself, "what is going on?" i asked Stephan if he had anything peculiar happen but he said no and asked me why so i answered him. He thought for a second and suggested that it might be a glich. Agreeing with him, i continued in playing the game. But things just got weird. I managed to get to the second town without a problem but when night fell, the town's night sky was eerily red and on the castle walls there was what seemed to be blood oozing from the walls itself. The music made the scene worse as it was like something from a horror movie. The guards that were standing outside the castle gates were also covered in blood and when i tried speaking to one of them, all they were able to say was "it wasn't my fault".

    without saving, I switched off, turned the game on, and restarted, working my way up to that point. Things were back to normal, but I was still horribly shaken. We teamed up for a while, played up on Stephen's game and killed the wight knight, then Stephen left to take a trip to the corner shop. While he was gone, I decided to attempt to beat the wight knight by myself, and a severely underlevelled NPC I made called Kelly. The battle went... down hill. The cutscene lagged and froze briefly before the text box said "Bring her back." the screen flickered, and for a brief second I thought that the wight knight's eyes were leaking bloody tears... nothing else happened. I killed him, at the cost of Kelly's HP, leaving her in her coffin animation, however, s**t got worse when we got to the church-- the priest said "Kelly can not be saved." and the normal church music played jarringly slow, and already shaken by the glitches happening before, Kelly's coffin vanished entirely. All her items were gone, her stats, everything-- at the inn, Patty acted like Kelly had never existed. She wasn't in the character selection part at all. She was gone, entirely. I'm pretty sure this wasn't supposed to happen... Stephen had lost two characters, but they'd been brought back. Surely this was a glitch, right?

    I decided to test something out, so i created a new charater. a male priest i randomly called Larry. He wasn't supposed to be a serious character anyway. I got into a fight with a stronger monster so Larry could be killed. when that part was done, and i beat the monster, what i saw almost made me cry out. Larry's coffing was on fire. I went straight back to the town and spoke to the priest but again he said "Kelly can not be saved". the screen shuddered slightly and the music seemed to play eerily again. Then the screen went black with a text box that said "you should have heeded my warning" then the game froze, the screen become pixlated with an image of my character on fire and the priest seemingly headless. I then began to feel as if something sinister was at work because after a while, the game began playing again but Larry, like Kelly seemed to have never existed. nothing about him was there and what was worse, the games graphics became hellish.

    Character's sprites had become garbled pixelated messes, and the text complete gibberish. NPCs all looked liked headless verious of themselves, spinning in place, not moving. Every few steps a text box would open and say "G I V E sfniefnerng", one english word with the rest as nonsense. Why was it doing this to me? Stephen hadn't come back yet. I tried having his character come in, but it kept saying "the player you are trying to find does not exist", I tried three more times, and the last time made my blood run cold-- "Stephen does not exist." Yes, he ******** does, I said aloud, as finally it connected and let his player through... the graphics seemed to fix themselves and things went back to normal. I wandered through random fights... I noticed all of the monsters now had sad looking faces, sorrow mixed with agony... and then, Stephen just suddenly got cut off. I looked at his game-- his character had been completely removed. I panicked... his game had completely froze. I ran my characters to the priest, and again, the chilling message said "Stephen could not be saved." It's at this point in time my brother rushed in, and said that Stephen had just been struck down by a car on the way back from the store- I was ******** shaking so hard, trying to wrap my head around this. This could NOT have been a coincidence.

    I sat on my chair, trembling with fear. was something trying to contact me from the other side? Why was Stephan run over? and how did the game know about this? I turned both the games off without saving. My head became fuzzy and confused. I was taken to the hospital where Stephan was taken. The doctors tell us that he is in a coma. I spend a couple of hours at the hospital. Staying by his side but all i seem to be able to think about was what the games priest said; "Stephan could not be saved" i just couldn't grasp it. I had to find out what the hell was going on. I said goodbye to Stephan and that i'll visit him again tomorrow and got my brother to take me home again. I didn't pick the game up again for a good 20 or so minutes at first. i just sat, and stared at it. wondering if the game will work properly this time. My heart was pounding. but i felt as if i was being hypnotized as before i knew it, i had a hold of the game again and i had turned it on. I wish i hadn't. the name of the character wasn't Hero anymore. Instead, it was "YOURENEXT".

    I should have put the game down, I should have stopped there and then, but I couldn't. I wanted answers, why this was happening. I loaded up my gamesave, just as I wanted to. The hellish world was back. I checked my character stats-- this time the character had MYname, Lee. I had a sick feeling I knew what was coming... the text box opened as I tried to leave the building I'd spawned inside of "G I V E up NOW". Shuddering, I closed the text box.... outside, I was in the purplish-heaven-like area. My level had been reduced to one... this area, I'd found out, after a google search, was where the last boss was, and at level one, I would fail. I got down to where I found the train station, but with no sterling's whistle, I wouldn't be able to control the train. I stepped inside... and find myself automatically back at the observatory. my character had to wounds on their back where their wings had been at the start of the game, bleeding openly.

    The background music had become distorted. like the normal observatory song only it had like an emptiness to it. like wind entering a through small gaps of a blackened cave. this music plus the bleeding wounds of my character made my imagination begin to roam free as i though i heard ghostly moans coming from the game itself. I began to move my character, who was now called Lee, and began investigating the area around me. As i turned my character to face the screen, i didn't see eyes but empty sockets. blood like tears seemed to run down the characters face. I wanted to throw the game away. i wanted to get rid of it before i lost my sanity... but i wasn't in control anymore. my body seemed to move on it's own as without thinking, i began to investigate more. I felt my heart begin to race when i finally saw what i thought was an NPC, appear but as i came closer, i saw the figure was ghostly in appearence and seemed to be bound in chains. What happened next sent an even colder chill to my bones. I clicked to talk to the person. The name of the character was Stephan. And like my character, blooded wounds were on his back where wings were meant to be and empty eye sockets with bloody tears running down his face were where normal eyes were meant to be. "HELP ME!" the character had said to me. Then there was a high pitched sound like a blood curdling scream and the tormented character disappeared.