Ethan's Gameboy
Ethan was a young man just out of college who lived alone. He was quite a gamer, and was especially fond of classic gaming.
One day he was browsing a local gamestore, which was his favorite because it had a dedicated retro section. That day he found an original Gameboy, which he affectionately called a "brick."
And it was only $20! He felt so lucky! After several weeks having no way to play his Gameboy games, he had almost given up on ever getting to play them again – until now. He took it home and started playing his older games as soon as he could, reliving (in his opinion) the glory days of gaming.
For the next few weeks every free moment was spent on his new Gameboy – everything from Adventure Island to Zelda.
Of course, there were glitches. Random little things, like bits of the game's graphics appearing only as an X or some other random figure. He figured it was just due to the system's age and didn't worry about it too much.
The longer games with lengthy plots he saved for last. The text heavy ones (like Zelda and Pokémon) came first, and it was here that he noticed more obvious glitches. Things weren't where they should be – they were missing. First some words failed to appear in text boxes, and then even NPCs and random enemies weren't there. It was a bit unnerving. But it was probably just faulty connections inside of the system. He used a few of the cleaning devices he had. The symptoms ceased for the time being.
Finally, he came to his favorite game, Kirby's Dreamland 2. This was going to be great!
Now, it is fairly obvious what Kirby looks like – most of us know. He's a big ball of pink, but his most noticeable feature has to be the happy face – he is pretty much a pink sappy grin with arms and legs.
Ethan started the game and shuddered in disgust when he saw the title screen. Kirby's face was gone. There was nothing – just a hollow, empty space in the center of his sprite.
He was only repulsed for a moment or two, of course, before it turned to anger. What kind of shady crap had that game store pushed on him? After trying to fiddle with it in hopes of fixing it, he took it back to the store, fully prepared to give the clerk a firm talking-to. And what luck, he thought as he walked in, the same clerk who sold it to me is in today!
He explained everything that had happened up to the Kirby incident. He put in that very game, intending to show the clerk the exact error he had encountered. But to his chagrin, it did not appear. He removed the game and restarted it several times, but no matter how many times he tried, it continued to work perfectly.
The clerk just nodded politely while he was talking and once he had finished, suggested that due to the Gameboy being at least twenty years old, it probably had more than one problem internally. It was ancient electronics – something had likely, he suggested, fried or broken.
What else could Ethan do? He took the Gameboy and went home. After a while he decided to pop in another game, to see if maybe the clerk was right. Now, usually with this system, the "Nintendo" logo would drift down, so imagine his shock when not that, but two words appeared. The font appeared to look like the scratches on a prison wall:
"HELP ME"
He barely had time to be surprised before the words fell to the center of the screen, a screech issued from the speaker, and the whole system just cut off.
Ethan overcame his initial moment of terror and, still shaken, proceeded to push the power switch on and off. The system would not turn on no matter how many times he tried. After a few minutes of getting absolutely nowhere, he finally just shoved the Gameboy in a drawer and gave it up as broken. he had just forget about it. All was quiet until a few days later, when he was trying to get to sleep. He heard the noise of the Gameboy turning on. He remembered that he had put it in his bedstand, so looked over and noted in the darkness that there was a tiny red light.
He couldn't believe his eyes. Quickly, he turned his lamp on and looked at it again. The Gameboy was on his bedstand and two words were on the screen:
"HELP ME" It was the same font as before. As he was thinking about that, the words disappeared and another reappeared:
"PLEASE!"
A wave of fear and desperation that seemed to emanate from the Gameboy hit him. He reassured himself that this mess had to be a dream. And he knew how to fix it.
He turned the system over and popped open the battery compartment.
But the batteries could not be removed. They were so corroded that it appeared impossible for the system to run at all. He looked away and rubbed his eyes. What kind of a nonsense dream was this? he had just put batteries in the day he tried to return the Gameboy! Then he looked back, and to his surprise, the batteries were pristine. There were no signs of corrosion. This was just too strange. He glanced up near the top of the system and noticed – the power switch was not even in the ON position! The screen continued to cycle the two messages through. Help me? Please? It so frustrated him that after a few repetitions he screamed, "HOW CAN I HELP YOU?!" Frustrated, he decided to play along with what he thought had to be a cruel joke. He put a game into the slot and switched the system on. The game did not load. Instead there was a screen full of chaos. There was no sound, but there were garbles of trash graphics and letters, and at random intervals in the pandemonium two words could be seen:
"RELEASE ME!" He couldn't look away and sat staring at the screen for a good thirty minutes. And gradually he became aware of an idea worming its way into his head. The Gameboy was set down and he looked around for a screwdriver. When he found it he returned to the system and started dismantling it. Whatever it was that was in there that wanted out, he would release. He found himself giggling uncontrollably for no good reason. The casing was quickly popped open and he soon began to rip out the circuit boards and wiring.
That was the last thing he remembered before waking up the next morning. The first thing he heard was the pounding of his front door. His mind felt so hazy he couldn't even comprehend the noise. His confusion only grew when the door slammed open and a few seconds later he was surrounded by police. They were talking about arrest and murder. But why?
Slowly, he looked down at his hands and was shocked. He was holding a bloodstained screwdriver...and a perfectly intact Gameboy.
They cuffed him and dragged him out of his apartment. As he was taken through the hall he noticed that his neighbor's door was open and missing its handle and lock.
What he saw was chilling.
The neighbor was laying on the floor, dead – or a better word would be, mutilated.
Someone, he heard the cops inside saying, had attempted to "dismantle" her...
With a screwdriver.
The very screwdriver he had tried to use on the Gameboy.
He was almost found guilty. The story he told of a video game system and its weird glitch was enough to convince the jury that he was insane. Ethan was institutionalized shortly after the trial ended.
The Gameboy was placed into evidence at the police station and, as with most evidence after a few years, was all but forgotten about.
Until one evening when a police officer taking inventory heard the noise of a Gameboy starting up...
Credited to Zarasuto
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