The Redd Road

My name is Katie, and I was recently released from the hospital. I wanted to post this... to tell people what happened.

I recently moved into my own house, finally having enough room to spread out my things. I unboxed some of the things I had put away years ago. Among them were my old gaming consoles, which I gave their own space, along with an old, but large, tube television.

Flashing forward, I decided to play Animal Crossing, still having the special memory card that came with it. At first, everything played as normal, but it was a bit dark; the landscape was very overgrown with weeds. The other characters I talked to said that they missed me.

Still not out of the ordinary. You see, Animal Crossing keeps track of the day and time from the GameCube's calendar. So the game knows when you've been gone and how long. In this case, about ten years.

After some exploring, I noticed some characters I recall were missing. I thought maybe they moved, could they move away? I couldn't remember. I decided to check out my old house which I decorated a decade earlier. Shortly after, there was a knocking sound with a text box *Knock* *Knock*. Redd the fox, the somewhat shady shopkeeper, walks in.

He says: "It's been some time, my sweet. Look at this house, full of dust and clutter. Why not come visit my home? There are such sights as I would show you."

I don't recall Redd ever walking into my house like this, but he is an odd character. He's more untrustworthy, overcharging for items from his shop.

He continues: "Just follow the red running road I will lay this day. It will be a long road, and a dark one, under trees and over meadows."

Redd smiled, showing thin red lips over yellow teeth. His eyes opened narrowly to show emerald green eyes, eyes that stared in unsettling and sinister way, with teeth that looked as dangerous as they did mischievous. Keeping that smile, he turned and left my house.

I followed, but he had disappeared. I wandered around to see if there was any red road. No, no new red roads and Redd was nowhere to be found. I recalled that he mentioned it was going to be dark, so perhaps, it's an event triggered by the night.

I turned off the game and altered the GameCube's clock, I wanted to know what this event was. Upon entering the game, I started in my house. I tried to walk, but was held up by a text box and an accompanying sound effect.

*Thud* *Thud*

I walked outside I saw the red road, but it wasn't what I expected. The road was a slender, red line. It did not start at my stoop and stretch outwards, but rather came from one direction stopped at my door where upon the red was splattered, then trailed off.

My assumption at the time was that it was red paint. I imagined a clumsy painter character bumbling around, but this was supposed to be Redd. I picked a path, not being 100% sure which way to go. It wasn't a long distance, it took me to the house of Spork the pig. The red road passed through the threshold of his door. I entered to find the house a wreck. The school-themed rooms' desks were overturned and scattered, the window was broken, a pool of red stained the carpet and ran a stream out through the door, and the blackboard was written upon, in delicate script, it read, "Today's Lesson: Be Bold Please, Follow The Red Road."

I had to come to the conclusion, no denying it, that this was wrong. But, I had to know where this was going, where the red road led. It's no big deal, it's just a game, it's nothing to fear. I continued following what I suspected, maybe even hoped, was blood. Where the map was normally walled off, this one road continued what felt like a dozen miles straight, the blood led me off across meadows, over ditches, and down a gravel path.

Soon, I needed sharp eyes to catch the blood. A drip, a drop; the pig must have been running out of blood. I stopped in front of a house. And what a house. It was immense, a landscape of its own. With windows, columns, it was larger than any other structure in the game and more grand.

But disturbingly, as I walked around, there was a sculpture in the garden. It was a child and fox the fox biting the child's stomach, ripping the vital organs away. The child only stared at the fox that was in the process of eviscerating him. What could the child say? He looked alone. There was pain in his eyes, and it showed. A slab was at the base of the sculpture, which read, "Be bold, but not too bold."

I wondered how there was no eluding violence anymore. It was impossible for someone to say the red was paint trails from a messy classroom. Here it was, a graphic scene. With a warning to not be too bold. Should I turn away now? Have I been bold enough and should now turn back? No, of course not. There's no such thing as too bold in games. You jump off that cliff and if you fall to your death, it holds no consequences. Save, for reloading your file.

But still, my heart beat faster. As I walked up the stairs to the house, I became very aware of my surroundings. Aware of the rooms' shadows. Aware of the home's silence. Aware of all the things that tingle your senses when you start getting scared.

I came to a door, a small one, took off the latch, and walked inside. I walked among corridors, with shelves, with busts, faces that stared back from the screen. I walked the scarlet carpet, which must be the new red road, until I reached a great hall. That message was there again, in red stones that glittered, set into the white marble of the floor: "Be bold, but not too bold Or else your life's blood shall run cold."

There were wide stairs, carpeted in that scarlet, off the great hall, and I walked up them, no sound came from the television anymore. I was lead into a dining room. Strewn upon the long table was a gory dinner. Flies buzzed over a body, human, like the one the players use. Here was a half-chewed hand a stomach ripped open, emptied, and a face, which laid flat on the floor.

The blocky colorfulness of the game did not take much away from the sight I saw. At first I thought I could almost smell it, it was like finding a rat torn apart by an air conditioner or like garbage that's gone ripe in the summer heat as your wheel the can to the street. Then I realized, I'm pretty sure I could. But that was just crazy. Right?

I continued. Behind the dining room wad a huge room, piled high with treasures, rings and bracelets, necklaces, pearls, gowns, fur wraps. I was seemingly walking on diamonds and rubies. Redd was supposed to be a swindler, but such wealth? The scarlet carpet led me through this room.

Beyond that room was a Hellish chamber. There were heads. The heads of women, real ones, not the player models. I saw a wall on which dismembered limbs were nailed. A heap of breasts. The piles of guts, of livers, lights, the eyes... And all around the flies were buzzing, the first sound that's come from my television in awhile; one low droning buzz. Beelzebubzebubzebubzebubzebubze. It was a maddening sound.

It was at this point, I could no longer control the game. My character wouldn't move, it just stood there. It's one expression, the twinkle-eyed smiling face, just stared out. It turned to look at the door as Redd came barging in. Dragging a young woman by her red hair and by her throat. She looked as though she was screaming, but I could barely hear her. The sound of the flies deafened all other sound while she struggled to free herself.

I began to feel ill, my eyes grew sore as if I've been staring at this screen for hours. My focus began to sway.

Redd laughed, deeply, grinning from ear to ear.

The woman glares at me as he slit her throat, from ear to ear. The shrieking grew deafening, such that I tried mute the TV. The words "MUTE" flashed on the screen but the sound didn't stop. I closed my eyes until she stopped. And after much, much too long, she stopped.

I opened my eyes, but I could barely see. My periphery was red, I was sweating, feeling dizzy. It was like I had an extreme fever. My head bobbed as I tried to stay upright.

And I looked at the screen. He smiled, and held up a knife, his hands agore. She lay there on the floor, he took her head from her shoulders, thrust his tongue between her red lips. He cut off her hands... her pale white hands. He sliced open her clothes and removed each breast. Then he began to howl.

It was too much, far too much. The sound was all encompassing, and my vision was fading to nothing but a red haze. I tried to get up, to just rip the console from the wall, but I just fell forward. I slammed, hard, head first into the television and fell into a heap on the floor. When I opened my eyes, some time must have passed. I could see it... the red road now lay before my eyes. Flowing forward across the hardwood floor, pouring from my head. My eyes close again and I hear a whisper:

"Such sights have shown you. Be bold. But not too bold... "

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