CoCo Comes to Town
I live in a small house. We are constantly getting infested with spiders, and can't even afford a dishwasher. I wouldn't exactly say we're poor, but our surroundings aren't the most pleasant. My brother tells me ghost stories of how he suspects there's a ghost who is a little kid, however, I don't really believe him.
Animal Crossing has always been one of my favorite video game series, from the cheerful atmosphere, to the fact that there's always something to do. My first Animal Crossing game was Wild World, for the DS. My brother and I both had a copy of the game, and our own DS', so we'd play together hours on end. Years passed, and we started to forget about the fun times we had playing it.
I never really left that series for another series, like "Halo", or "Call of Duty", but I just haven't been playing it a whole lot. Despite my brother being the one who didn't play it the most, he was the one who had his copy the longest. I honestly don't know what happened to mine.
Anyway, he let me keep his copy. I'm just happy I didn't have to buy it from some old man for free with a torn label and hacked cartridge. It seemed in perfect condition, and I didn't see any reason not to accept the game. There was this one reason, however, that would have made me deny it on the spot. Sadly, I didn't know it at the time...
I started the game up. Everything seemed normal. No glitches, no bloody blood all over the place, nothing. I wanted to start over, but before deleting my brother's file, why not see it for the last time? I woke my brother's character up, and when he stepped out of his house, I saw that the town was totally neglected.
There were weeds every inch, wilted flowers everywhere, and my brother's mailbox was filled with letters from villagers saying they moved to a different town. That happens when your town isn't tidy. The strangest thing however, was that the only person in the town was an animal named 'Coco', which is strange considering the least amount of villagers I've ever seen in a town was 5. However, everyone who had a job (Tom Nook, Pelly, Mable and Sable...) seemed just fine and ran their business swelly. Obviously, it'd just be easier to start a new game than to repair the town.
I started a new game. Again, everything was fine. Over the course of a few weeks, I upgraded my house, expanded Tom Nook's store, and grew plants to keep my town in shape. As a result, animals start moving in. However, one day, a strange animal moved into town. Her name was Coco. The name rung a bell, but I couldn't remember why the name strikes me in the wrong way.
Coco was a brownish-tan bunny. She was very polite, and kind-hearted. She wore clothes with vibrant colors, and had an exotic house. The only thing creepy about her was that she has no eyes....just black, empty holes where her eyes should be. Same with her mouth.
I also noticed that the day she moved in, the town hasn't quite been...the same. The sky has gotten slightly darker, though maybe I was just seeing things, the usually cheerful people seemed to be in a bad mood lately, and the people that were usually grumpy had sad emotions. You know, the one where they walk around slouched and have purple clouds above their head. Everyone experienced that, that is, except Coco. But, everything else seemed fine.
I have a "best friend" in Animal Crossing named Caroline. She's as cheerful and as polite as Coco, and had great things to sell to me when the Flea Market was in town. But, the next day, she was gone. It's like she moved away, but she would have sent me a letter before hand, and I would have seen her house filled with boxes. Caroline was out of this town without a trace, which was disappointing, because she was the only person I really enjoyed talking to. I went to the Town Hall to see if Pelly knew about her whereabouts.
I knew she wouldn't. She says the same thing every time. But that little bit of hope wanted me to check, for the sake of Caroline. I spoke to Pelly.
"Welcome to the town Civic Center. What can I help you with?" She asked.
Nope. Nothing. She said nothing about Caroline. I stepped out of the town hall and continued to find things to sell for bells. A few weeks passed. More and more animals in the town started to disappear like Caroline did. No notification of their passing. No nothing.
The weather was thunderstorming one day, and I decided to take a walk around the park with an umbrella, because rain is my favorite weather of all time. I can't tell you how long I've spent walking around the whole town. I decided to drop by Coco's house for a visit. After all, the town is only so big. When I walked in, her house was no longer exotic. It had metallic walls and flooring. No furniture. Coco no longer had vibrant colored clothes on. Instead, she had dark, reddish-brown clothes on.
I reluctantly went up to talk to her. She started saying lines that villagers would say when they're sad, like "what's the point of it all?" and "I'm not in the mood to talk right now", except she didn't seem sad. She looked...happy. I walked out of her house.
I started to walk around tien again, and saw an X in the ground. I took out my shovel. As I suspected, it was a fossil. I took it to the museum, but to my surprise, Blathers wasn't there. I ran out of the museum, and went to Coco's house again. A note prevented me from going inside. "I don't want any company", it said. I walked away, and tried to figure this out. "Why is everyone in this town disappearing?", I wondered.
I decided to sleep on it, and went to bed. The next morning, out of morbid curiosity, I turned on Animal Crossing.
The title screen, where it would usually follow a villager walking around town, showed nothing. It was black. Beside that, everything was OK. I could press A to start the game and all. I don't know why, but every morning I would check by Coco's house, considering she once one of the very few villagers left. This time, Coco wasn't exactly herself. Her house now had furniture, though they weren't happy or exotic.
She was laying in her bed, which is strange. Usually villagers cannot interact with the objects in their house. Coco had a torn black shirt, and had no mouth whatsoever. I went over to talk to her. She said to me
"I've always thought of you as a friend, Tony, but..."
The dialog box closed after that. I talked to her again.
"Please go, Tony...before it's too late"
I stopped talking to her. Firstly, Coco NEVER referred to my by my name (Which is odd, considering other villagers seemed to like my name...). I thought to myself what she meant by that, and walked out of her house. When I walked out, it was thunderstorming.
This is really odd, considering Animal Crossing weather just doesn't change on the spot like that. I took out my umbrella and started to walk to the Town Hall. I don't know why, but I felt....safe there. However, I saw Coco standing in front of a tree. I thought she was just inside, laying down? She still had that black shirt, no mouth. I talked to her. She said:
"Goodbye, Tony"
Followed by a line of gibberish. The screen faded to black, and froze. I shut it off. I couldn't really comprehend what happened; but I started it up again away. Everything was fine again. The sun was shining, all the villagers were back, and Coco no longer was in the village. But, I noticed something strange about my character. It had black, empty eyes and mouth. A lot like the face Coco had...
Credited to ScratchU8
Originally uploaded on November 9, 2012
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