Bound to Death (Remake): Difference between revisions

''{{Note|For the original version of this story, check out [[Bound to Death]].''}}

I quickly turned around to face him, and asked him what the hell he said. He tilted his head, still expressionless, but I could tell he was puzzled. I swear to god he said it, but I decided to not waste my time. It could have been just my overactive imagination, that probably happens when you get nostalgic. Nevertheless, I told my friend. As a joke, he asked if I was smoking pot, but he also told me that maybe we should just throw the game away, as that guy looked funny. I told him that I’mI'm sure it’llit'll be fine, and my friend just gave in, and drove me back to my house.

I got home, and I decided to pop the game in the SNES, and give it a go. The menu popped up, and I immediately noticed something. There was already 2 save files, despite the cartridge looking brand new, with the save file's Nesses being named "NIGHT" and "MARE". Now, that was really strange to me. Didn't the man say something about my "nightmare beginning", and now I see two save files named NIGHTMARE?... Nah, I figured it was some stupid prank. Maybe my friend was right, the guy was a bit ‘funny’'funny', as he said he was, but I decided to cut the man some slack, maybe he just liked to have a little laugh and imagine the looks on our faces after the connection of nightmares.

I decided to leave the two save files, and I started a new game for the third file. I went with all the defaults for selections, and I started the game. Despite having been played, the game actually ran really smoothly, and I didn't have any problems, at least up until the death of Buzz Buzz. I remembered his speech, how he told the player how to defeat Giygas. However, the speech was different, in a strange way. Instead of warning me about Giygas, he warned me of "a greater enemy", and he told me to not go on with my journey, that it is futile to try to fight the enemy. Now, I know this was not memory problems, I definitely remember Buzz Buzz's speech not being like this. Something was wrong. Well, it was a few edited words, I was sure it wasn’twasn't such a big deal. Buzz Buzz seemed to go back into his normal speech after his cries of protests, gave me the Sound Stone, and I went on with the game, although I wondered why someone would edit the game to change Buzz Buzz's speech. Sounds a bit disgraceful, but whatever. The rest of the game played without any difference from the original, at least.

I went through Giant Step, taking out Black Antoids and Attack Slugs, ready to fight the Titanic Ant once again. I think I over leveled a little, but I didn't care, I was excited to start collecting the "Your Sanctuary" melodies all over again. When I battled the Titanic Ant though, then I couldn’tcouldn't pass it off as memory failing me or just a mere small text hack. The Titanic Ant, instead of looking like he was ready to defeat me, looked like he was heavily injured by something powerful that got to it before me. Its face was in an expression of pure sadness, and I didn't see the little Black Antoids that accompanied him. I wasn't going to make an excuse like "Oh, it might just be a quickly made hack". This was starting to get really strange. I decided to battle the Titanic Ant anyway, and every time it took its turn, instead of biting me or taking my PP, text formed, similarly to how Giygas would talk during his turns, except without attacking afterwards. I remember some lines...

Well, I admit, I felt remorse for it and almost felt like not killing it, but I knew I had to. When I killed it with a PSI Rockin’Rockin', instead of the usual fading animation, its sprite turned into an animation that played once. It showed the Titanic Ant exploding, not with the classic "BOOM!" animation, but what an actual explosion looked like, accompanied with the Titanic Ant flying into pieces. I watched as the pieces of the Titanic Ant slowly disintegrated. Right before they disappeared for good, two more pieces of text appeared.

As the "YOU WON" text flashed on screen, I just stared at it for a while, as my palms sweat heavily, barely grasping onto the controller after what I had just witnessed. "Your nightmare begins." The man that sold me the game said exactly the same words. I almost considered turning off the game then, but I had to just see what other terrors laid in this game. I know, most people would turn off the game, but I was curious. Still, I really should have just turned the game off. I went to outside of Giant Step to get my first "Your Sanctuary" recording, and I saw the grassy field with the foot. As I started to record the melody though, everything suddenly started to look polluted. The trees suddenly lost their leaves, and the grass died, turning a brownish color. I also saw that the Giant Step had turned from a human footprint into…someinto...some weird footprint. I couldn't describe it past that it looked like some abomination of the earth had made the footprint. I recorded the melody, but instead of the normal Giant Step melody, I got a mess of distortion blasting from the speakers, and I mean blasted. It was loud as shit, but by the time I tried to turn the volume down, the "song" already ended. I guessed that the Giant Step melody got distorted but god, what was that?

I pressed on, despite what happened. I knew that scary things already happened in Earthbound, like Giygas, and the spirit of Poo's ancestors, but this was just really weird, and the worst part was, I didn’tdidn't know what to expect. I hoped that this hack or whatever was unfinished, and past the Titanic Ant, I'd just get normal Earthbound, and that everything that was fucked up would stop. Unfortunately, I did not get what I had hoped for, a normal Earthbound. Things only got worse from there. I kept seeing worse and worse versions of the Your Sanctuary bosses, all beaten up, and they all had grotesque animations that played whenever I killed them, depending on what PSI I used, whether they burned to a crisp from a PSI Fire, or by having their heads completely come off from a critical hit. Then after the bosses, I would see terrible versions of the Your Sanctuaries. The Milky Well was dried up, revealing a rotting corpse with maggots crawling out of it. The Magnet Hill had been crumbled to pieces, nothing but pieces of rock. The Pink Cloud was a dark red color, and the sky was pure darkness. However, this was nothing compared to what was waiting for me in Magicant.

I entered Magicant, and by now I was just expecting the worst. The first thing I noticed…wellnoticed...well, you know how Ness was naked in Magicant in the Japanese release, yet he was in pajamas in the American release? Well, I swear to god, I had the American release, but when I saw Ness, he was in his naked sprite and there were noticeable chunks of his skin missing, leaving just bone. His skin wasn't entirely torn off, but was still skinless in tons of places. Wounds covered half his face, his torso, and even his hat was torn apart as if some animal got to him. I could hear ‘Giygas'Giygas is Wounded’Wounded' in the background, instead of the regular Magicant music. The music wasn't blasting out of the speakers so I didn't find a reason to turn down the volume, even if it did creep me out. I proceeded through Magicant, and all the NPCs were all badly injured, the skin also torn from their bodies. I would talk to them, and all of them, including the shopkeepers, would just say "Help... me..."

Those words suddenly appeared as a text box. I suddenly saw a dark red version Ness's Nightmare manifest on the altar. It slowly manifested, as the background music changed to ‘Giygas'Giygas is Fatally Wounded’Wounded' and slowly started to turn the volume up. By the time he was done reappearing, the music was blasting really loud. Please, god, let one of my neighbors wake up and help me from this madness, I thought. I wanted to turn the game off, but for some reason, I didn't want to. I knew this would haunt me forever that I didn't finish it, so I had to finish this.

Suddenly, his face turned into my face, copied from top to bottom, only with a menacing glare and a grin that I’dI'd be horrified at myself if I could make a grin like that. It wasn’twasn't in SNES graphics either, it looked like the face of me in a photo, only with those features the nightmare added. As I gasped and dropped the controller from shock, the game suddenly shut itself off. I tried to reset it, but it was as if the cartridge was permanently broken. It refused to turn itself back on. I stared at the blank TV screen, wondering what I had just witnessed. This…nightmareThis...nightmare or whatever, it had apparently wanted to be one with me. I just hoped I'd forget about this shit in a few years. I took the game out, and immediately called my friend, and told him that I wanted to find whoever gave me this game, and then make take back this haunted shithole of a game. I wouldn't even care about beating the man up, since not only am I not the strongest fighter, but I just wanted the game as far away from me as possible. We went back to the flea market, and thank god, the guy was there. I threw the game down on his stand that he set up, and I asked him what the hell this game was. He didn't respond. He just took the Earthbound game, and walked into the middle of the road, holding it. Oh god, I thought. I saw a car coming, I knew what he was going to do, but I hoped that he might jump away. At the last few seconds, he turned his head towards me, and said one last thing before the car hit him.

''Written {{by |RedMageCole''}}

[[Category:POINTLESSCliche VIOLENCE TOTALLY MAKES IT SCARY U GUIZEMadness]]