The Blue Flash Drive (El Flash Drive Azul) Remake

My name isn't important. You don't need to know who I am, but I've been wanting to tell someone about this for a long time. I'm making this post in memoriam to a dear friend who passed on over 4 years ago. For the sake of anonymity, I'll be referring to him as "Chives" throughout my recountings.

Me and Chives used to emulate copies of different retro games and share them with each other. Some arcade, some console. Games we used to play as kids. Your Pacmans, Froggers, Ice Climbers, Mega Mans, etc. But Chives came across something odd while scouring Craigslist for cabinet deals. Someone was selling a blue flash drive that supposedly contained Sonic 01 on it. A special copy at that, advertised to contain "dazzling effects", and "officially licensed" too. The only downside was some trouble installing, apparently. We both knew how sketchy the description was, but I'll be damned if we weren't curious to see what the heck it meant.

We decided to meet on a Friday. We didn't live too far away from each other, and he told me that he'd check the drive on his backup computer before I got over to see if there was anything malicious on it. I called Chives as I drove on my way to pick it up, but no answer came. He left the door unlocked, so I let myself in. It wasn't the first time Chives had to make a quick exit to go do something or other, so at the time I thought nothing was too out of the ordinary. That's when I found the blue flash drive in his room. It was still plugged into the PC, so I just took it out and pocketed it.

When I got home, it only took just a few hours to be alerted that he had died. His mom came home just after I left and found his body curled up behind a heater in the basement. The next few weeks were miserable with a thick fog of grief looming over me. My day to day routine became a blur of thoughtless action. Once his family got word of how he ended up like that, it spread to me. The doctors all said from the autopsy that Chives' had suffered from onset psychosis usually seen in only a few victims of epileptic seizures. I never understood it then, and I still might not understand now. But, the night after his funeral, I had realized the one thing in my possession was the last thing Chives' ever had.

I never could muster the thought of pickpocketing from a dead person. That thought only lasted a few months. I kept the drive in a drawer, until finally I figured that after enough time had passed, that I may as well sit down and see what Chives wanted me to see.

Before I plugged the drive in however, I checked back to my old chat logs with Chives to grab the link he sent me on the craigslist page that sold the thing when he first found it. To my surprise, it was gone. It figures since the drive was now "sold out", but a small tinge of worry began to form. Did I really want to uncover what was inside?

The exe file name, "sonic the hedgehog" was weirdly missing the first "e" in "hedgehog", because completing the name got it to work properly. Before me was the original Sonic 01, but I knew something had to be off about it. This was made quickly apparent by the Sega copyright date on the menu being jumbled up. Upon closer inspection, they appeared to be strange symbols I couldn't wrap my head around. Playing the game further as I entered Act I of Green Hill Zone, the same symbols replaced various sprites in the level. Maybe the ROM it came from was corrupted?

As I made Sonic bounce on an enemy to kill it, a loud female scream rang out instead of the usual "dink!". It startled me, but I realized it was a stock horror sound effect that I was pretty familiar with at this point. The "Scary Maze Game" used to prank people with came to mind. Nonetheless the sound was pretty grading so I refrained from clearing enemies. Of course, this made the level harder, and I myself will admit I'm not quite accustomed to Sonic platformers.

When enemies hit me however, instead of the usual rings Sonic would drop, “blood” in the form of red squares would come out. I guess this was someone's weak attempt at a horror mod. As I made it to Act II, things took a turn for the worst, as my previous mundane suspicions were debunked. Level graphics continued to bug out and distort in various ways. Some bright white lights and strobe colors blinked in and out as I progressed to the end of the stage, which were at first annoying, but their persistence began to give me a headache. I blinked and cowered away from the screen. With the stage so visually mismatched, I had a hard time navigating Sonic to the exit.

Floating text in the background of the stage kept drifting by, repeating the letters "RIP" over and over. Another attempt to scare me?

Sonic began to do something unexpected. His health drained and a new animation played. He kneeled to the ground and covered his eyes. At that moment I thought that this was to portray Sonic crying, but processing what I was seeing, I could spot small veins forming in his eyes before he put his hands over them. Was the person who made this mod trying to mock players for getting eye strain?

And that's when I put two and two together.

A sinking feeling was in my chest. My body became stiff and cold. The screen darkened and my eyes were finally given a break from the annoyance. A timer appeared in the center of the screen in bold red numbers. It steadily but menacingly began to count down from 10. I was still in the process of rationalizing what I realized, and all of my worries kicked into overdrive.

09...08...07...

"I'M GONNA END UP LIKE HIM!" was the only thought that screamed in my head as anxiety took over me.

06...05...

I hit the ESC key to close the game, but it wouldn't. I minimized the window and clicked the X, but it still didn't work. I hurriedly and frantically mashed just about every key on my keyboard to make it stop. Willing my entire body to react, I reached over and unplugged my computer monitor. It finally shut off, just as the timer hit 02. I took out the flash drive, and breathed a sigh of relief.

I've kept the flash drive locked up in a box somewhere. Somewhere in my house where only I know. And it will stay there. I dare not touch the thing again. It's been 4 years now. For a long time a part of me never wanted to speak about this to anyone, but this urge inside me feels the need to have an outlet. You don't have to believe this, and I doubt many will. But as long as someone knows about my story, I feel comfort in not being left alone in my thoughts.

Sometimes, when I go to sleep at night, from the back of my mind, I get intrusive thoughts. Admittedly the idea of a video game designed to kill someone would be a myth, and maybe I was too paranoid to take things this far. But I begin to wonder what would happen if I opened that box, plugged the game back in, and let the timer hit zero.

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