Your favorite ''Creepypasta''?

sahfgjrhdhtyidjh

oh my god .____.

In case people don't remember/never played it.

 Spoiler

Let me know if the images don't load, I was too lazy to upload them myself.

This thread needs to be stickied.

I NEED MORE.

 Cupcakes

Cupcakes
By Sergeant Sprinkles: World's Greatest Party Clown
Edited by Edinpony

WARNING: This fanfiction is incredibly gory, and may ruin your appreciation of a certain My Little Pony character as well as the titular baked goods. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

The air was warm, the sun was shining, and everypony in Ponyville was having a glorious day. The town square was bustling and crowded and busy ponies filled the streets. All the pony folk seemed to have somewhere specific to be. All except Rainbow Dash; her place was in the sky. She tore freely through the air, speeding one way and the next, buzzing the tree tops and racing the wind. The blue pegasus swooped over a schoolyard, much to the delight of the children, then climbed several hundred feet and dove, streaking downward as fast as she could. Seconds before hitting the ground, her wings flew open and she pulled up back into the clear blue. Rainbow felt alive.
Suddenly, Dash remembered that she had somewhere to be; she was supposed to meet with Pinkie Pie in five minutes. Dash had gotten so caught up in her exercises that she’d nearly forgotten that Pinkie had asked to meet her at Sugercube Corner at three. Pinkie hadn’t said why or what they’d be doing, but Dash knew that with Pinkie, it could be anything. Dash wasn’t sure if she really wanted to go, though. She was so engaged with her stunts that she thought about blowing Pinkie off to continue flying. But, Dash’s conscience got the better of her. She knew that it would hurt Pinkie’s feelings; after all, Pinkie had said it was going to be something special just for the two of them. Dash considered it and thought “why not?” What did she have to lose? Heck, it might be more pranking. Pinkie might have found a bunch more fun stuff to pull on folks, and they’d had so much fun the last time. Dash kicked into overdrive to make up for lost time, and sped to her appointment.
When Dash walked into the store, she was immediately greeted by her host, who was bouncing in excitement. “Yay, you’re here! I’ve been waiting aaall day,” said the jumping pony.
“Sorry if I’m a little late, Pinkie. I was doing my afternoon exercises and lost track of time,” Dash apologized.
Pinkie giggled and responded in a gleefully reassuring tone, “Oh that’s ok, you’re here now. What‘s a few more minutes? I’ve been sooo excited thinking about all fun stuff we’re gonna do, I haven’t stopped bouncing since I woke up. I mean, I almost forgot to breathe I’ve been so happy.”
Dash gave a slightly uncomfortable laugh. She had always appreciated Pinkie Pie’s friendly, outgoing way of life, but Pinkie’s overabundant enthusiasm almost creeped her out. Dash maintained a polite expression, however. If Pinkie was this worked up, whatever she had planned must be good.
“So, you ready to get started, Rainbow Dash? I’ve got everything all ready,” the pink pony said.
Dash psyched herself up. “You betcha, Pinkie. So what do ya got planed? We gonna prank somebody? I got a couple of good ones I’ve been thinking about. Or maybe you’ve got some stunts you think I should try? Or perhaps…”
“MAKING CUPCAKES!” Pinkie happily announced.
“Baking?” Dash was disappointed. “Pinkie, you know I’m not good at baking. Remember last time?”
“Oh that’s not a problem at all. I only need your help making them. I’ll be doing most of the work,” Pinkie explained.
Dash thought for about it for a second. “Well, alright, I guess that’s ok. What exactly do you need me to do?”
“That’s the spirit. Here you go.” Pinkie handed Dash a cupcake.
Dash was puzzled “I thought I was helping you bake.”
“You will be. I made this one just for you before you got here.
“So, is this like taste testing or something?”
“Sorta,” Pinkie said.
Dash shrugged and popped the pastry in her mouth. She chewed a bit and swallowed. Not bad.
“Ok, now what?” Dash asked.
“Now,” Pinkie informed her, “You take a nap.”
Puzzled, Dash opened her mouth but felt instantly lightheaded. A wave of dizziness washed over her, the world spun, and seconds later she collapsed to the floor.

When Dash regained conciseness, she found herself in a dark room. She tried to shake her head but found that a taut leather strap held it firmly in place. She struggled to move, but braces around her chest and limbs glued her to a rack formed from a series of sturdy planks, which spread her legs wide apart. Dash’s wings were the only part of her not tied down, and they fluttered frantically while she struggled to escape. As she writhed, Pinkie jumped suddenly into her line of sight.
“Goodie, you’re awake. Now we can get started,” Pinkie stated gleefully. She bounded into the darkness, and quickly reappeared pushing a small cart covered with a cloth.
“Pinkie, what’s going on? I can’t move!” Dash said urgently.
“Well duh, that’s because you’re tied down,” chided Pinkie. “That’s why you can’t move. I didn’t think you’d need to be told that.”
“But why? What’s happening? I thought you said I was going to help make cupcakes.”
“You are helping. You see, I ran out of the special ingredient and I need you to get more.”
“Special ingredient?” Dash was now breathing heavily and starting to panic. “What special ingredient?”
Pinkie giggled and responded “You, silly!”
Dash’s eyes widened, and her face contorted in fear. Then she started to laugh and said, in a voice bordering on hysteria, “Woo, you really got me there, Pinkie pie. I mean, tricking me in to thinking I’m gonna get made into a cupcake? I gotta tell you, this the best prank yet. You win, you’re the best.”
Pinkie only giggled even more. “Aw, thanks Dash. But I haven’t done any pranks today, so I can’t accept your praise.”
Dash was struggling again. “Pinkie, come on, this isn’t funny.”
“Then why were you laughing?” Before Dash could answer, Pinkie grabbed the cloth and whipped it off the cart. On the cart was a tray containing various sharp medical tools and knives, carefully organized and wickedly sharp, as well as a large medical bag.
Dash was now in full panic mode. She was starting to hyperventilate. Her mind raced as she tried to reason with the pink pony. “You can’t do this Pinkie! I’m your friend!”
“I know you are and that’s why I’m so happy that I’ve got you here. We get to share your last moments together, just you and me.” Pinkie was skipping again.
“But, the other ponies will wonder where I am. When the clouds pile up, they’ll come looking for me and then you’ll get found out,” Dash cried in desperation.
“Oh, Dash,” said Pinkie. “Don‘t worry, there are plenty of pegasus ponies to take care of a few clouds. And besides, no will find out. I mean, how long do you think I’ve been doing this?” And with that ominous statement, the lights suddenly came to life and revealed the rest the room.
“Oh no.” Dash reeled in horror at the image presented to her. The room was decorated with a typical but twisted Pinkie Pie flair. Colorful streamers of dried entrails fluttered around on the ceiling, brightly painted skulls of all sizes were attached to the walls, and organs done up in pastels filled with helium were tied to the backs of chairs. The tables and chairs were made of bones and the preserved flesh of past ponies. Dash cringed upon seeing the center piece of the table nearest to her. The heads of four foals, their eyes closed as if they were sleeping, were wearing party hats made from their own skin. With a thrill of terror, Dash recognized one of them as Apple Bloom’s classmate Twist. Dash’s eyes darted back and forth and then fell upon a patchwork banner hanging from the rafters. Made from several tanned pony hides, the words “Life is a party” were scrawled on it in blood red.
Dash’s attention was brought back by a party horn unfurling and tickling her nose. She gaped at Pinkie Pie, who was standing right in front of her. The party pony was wearing a dress quilted from dried skin, emblazoned with cutie marks. On her back fluttered six pegasus wings, all of different colors. As the earth pony skipped in excitement, her necklace of severed unicorn horns clacked together loudly.
“Like it?” Pinkie asked. “I made it myself.”
Desperately, Dash pleaded with the smiling pony before her. “Pinkie please, I’m sorry if I did anything to you. I didn’t mean it. Please let me go. I promise I won’t tell anybody.”
“Oh Dash, you didn’t do anything. It’s just that your number came up and, well, I don’t make rules. We can’t turn back now.”
Dash was tearing up. How could this be happening?
“Aww, don’t be sad Dash,” said Pinkie. “Look, this’ll cheer you up. I brought you a friend.”
Seemingly out of nowhere, Pinkie produced a brightly painted blue and yellow skull. It was about pony sized, but it had a very defining feature: a beak.
Dash gaped in shock. “Is…is that….is…that?”
“Hey, Dash lets hang together. These ponies are lame-os. Dweebs dweebs dweebs,” Pinkie mimicked. “I caught her right before she left town. Remember when I left the party for about twenty minutes? That wasn’t enough time to play with her of course; I had to wait till after the party to do that. But boy am I glad I did. It was worth it for the flavor alone. Griffons taste like two animals at once, it’s amazing. I know she didn’t have a number like everyone else in Ponyville, but when was I gonna get another chance to try griffon? I probably should have asked where she came from so I could have gotten more, but I forgot. I’ll tell you what though, she was quite the fighter. She lasted a long time, which was a lot of fun for me. I got the chance to play with somebody other than a pony and try new things. It’s too bad she had such a meanie mouth. She said so much bad stuff I just had to take her tongue out. You know, bad language makes for bad feelings, Rainbow Dash.”
Dash didn’t have anything to say. She just sobbed and writhed in her tight bonds.
“Well” said Pinkie with an air of finality, “that’s enough reminiscing. It’s time to begin.”
Putting down Gilda’s skull, the pink pony gripped a scalpel in the cleft of her hoof and walked over to Dash’s right flank. Without any flair, Pinkie placed the blade an inch above Dash’s cutie mark and began a circular cut around it. Dash shouted in pain and tried desperately to pull away, but the braces held her still. Finishing the incision, Pinkie grabbed a curved skinning knife from the tray. Screwing up her face in concentration, she worked it under Dash’s skin and sliced the hide away from the muscle. Dash ground her teeth as she tearfully watched her flesh peel off. Pinkie then moved to the other side and repeated the process on Dash’s left flank. Once she had finished, Pinkie held up both cutie marks in front of her friend and started waving them like pompoms. Dash just whimpered. Her thighs burned like nothing she had felt before.
Placing the ragged patches of skin down, Pinkie selected a large butcher knife and walked behind the blue pegasus. “Hope you don’t mind, I think I’m gonna wing it now,” Pinkie laughed. She grabbed Dash’s left wing in her mouth and played with it for a few seconds, yanking it back so the sharp pain reignited the fire in Dash’s flanks. Then, stretching the wing out, Pinkie brought the blade down hard at the base. Instantly, Dash screamed and thrashed her appendage. The movement threw off Pinkie’s aim. She tried to hit the mark again but missed, and carved a huge slice into Dash’s back.
“Dash, you gotta stay still or I’ll keep missing,” scolded Pinkie as her friend howled.
Pinkie took another whack and hit her target. She swung again and again. Blood sprayed into the air, but Pinkie realized she wasn’t getting anywhere. The blade just wasn’t going through the bone.
“Hmm, I guess I forgot to sharpen it. I’ll try something else,” stated Pinkie matter-of-factly as she tossed the knife over her shoulder, embedding the blade in the table. Through the haze of pain and tears, Dash heard the sound of a metal box opening and closing.
“Got it! Say Dash, why do they call it a hack saw? It doesn’t hack; hacking is what I was doing with the knife. This is a saw. I don’t get it.”
Pinkie placed the tool over the mangled flesh of the last attempt. Standing on her hind legs, she worked the saw back and forth with her front hooves. It sliced effortlessly through the bone and skin. The feeling of the jagged teeth grinding into her made Dash want to vomit. She watched numbly as her wing flew over her head and landed with a fluff on the table. Pinkie moved to the next wing and started sawing. Dash didn’t struggle this time; she’d given up trying to fight and focused on choking back screams of agony. Abruptly, the sawing paused. Pinkie was only half way done, the wing hanging off by a sliver.
“Hey Dash,” Pinkie piped up. “Think fast!”
Suddenly, Pinkie yanked the wing as hard as she could. The bone snapped but the blue pony’s skin held, then tore away. The pull ripped away a long strip of flesh all the way down Dash’s back to her rump. Her body seized at the unexpected trauma. As her pelvis tensed up, Dash felt a warm release between her legs, and her loud, unending melody of pain filled the room. Unable to catch her breath, she blacked out.

Dash awoke with a gasp. The stench of her urine filled her mucus caked nostrils. As her vision swam into focus, she saw a very pouty Pinkie Pie removing a large adrenaline needle from her chest. Stomping her hooves, the frustrated Pinkie lashed out at her helpless victim.
“Didn’t anybody teach you any manners? It’s very rude to fall asleep when somebody invites you over to spend time with them. How would you like it if I came over to your house and went to sleep? ‘Oh I’m sorry Dash, you’re so boring I think I’ll take a nap.’ You think I like always doing this by myself? I told you how excited I got when I found you were next. I was excited to have a friend be here with me while I worked. But NOOOOO! You’ve got to be inconsiderate. You know, I thought you were tough. I thought you could handle anything. I’ve had foals stand up better than you! Do I have to baby you? Huh? Is that how you want me to remember you, as a baby?”
As Pinkie stopped to catch her breath, Dash blinked and sobbed softly. Her back was in agony, her sides were on fire, and there was an intense pain in one of her legs. As she blinked again, she saw Pinkie pop something red into her mouth and began to chew. Noticing Dash’s stare, Pinkie quickly gulped the morsel down.
“What?” Pinkie asked. “Oh, this?” She held up another piece. “Well, while YOU were asleep, I got a little impatient and helped myself to a small sample. I got it from your leg; you’re not bad. Wanna try some?”
Without waiting for a response, Pinkie shoved the strip of meat into the revolted pegasus pony’s mouth. Dash gagged, and immediately spit it out. Pinkie frowned, and picked up the chunk of flesh. “If you didn’t want it, you could have said no.” She contemplated the discarded snotty morsel, then gulped it up. “It’s not like you haven’t had my cupcakes before.”
Swallowing, Pinkie turned her attention to a small can on the tray. She removed the lid, revealing that it was filled with red-hot coals. Lying on top of the coals were several large nails. As the adrenalin filled her veins, Dash began to panic again. Picking up the can, Pinkie walked over to Dash’s left. Holding some tongs with her mouth, Pinkie carefully picked up a nail and positioned it at the seam between her victim’s front left leg and hoof. She then grabbed a hammer and took careful aim.
“No Pinkie!” Dash screamed. “NO! NO!”
The hammer came down and the nail punctured Dash’s skin. The white hot burning was too much. Dash screamed as she pulled and thrashed at the braces, causing her raw skin to rub and tear. Pinkie tried to line up another nail, but couldn’t find her aim, and let out a frustrated grunt. When Pinkie brought the hammer back to take a wild swing, Dash burst out crying and begging.
“PLEASE STOP! PLEASE, PLEASE STOP!”
Pinkie rolled her eyes. Putting down the hammer and tongs, she walked back in front of her friend and stared pensively at the broken pegasus. Gilda didn’t even cry this much when she had a live parasprite stuffed down her throat. Pinkie thought for a minute about what to do next, then had a sudden spark of inspiration.
Rotating a wheel on the rack, Pinkie laid Dash on her back, then moved to Dash’s hind legs, bringing the can with her. Picking up her tools, Pinkie drove a searing hot spike of metal directly into the bottom of Dash’s hoof. As Dash yelled in pain, Pinkie moved around and drove a second nail into the other hoof. Next, Pinkie went back to her cart and located an enormous battery and controller, which she dragged over to where she was working. She tied copper wires between the terminals and the nails driven into Dash’s hooves, then gave Dash a wink and flipped the switch.
Electricity rocketed through Dash’s body. The blue pony reacted immediately; her body seized, and her muscles snapped taut. Dash’s hips thrust skyward, her eyes rolled back, and she let out a deep, throat shredding cry. Pinkie giggled and danced in place, then reached down and turned up the juice. Dash convulsed uncontrollably, and her bladder emptied once more.

After about five minutes, Pinkie shut off the power. Wisps of steam rose from the singed fur around Dash’s hooves, and the area reeked of cooked flesh and burnt enamel. Pinkie rotated Dash upright again and tried snap the drooling, delirious pony back to attention.
“Dash? Dash! Rainbow Dash, wake up!” Dash moaned and managed to give a modicum of weak acknowledgment. Pinkie studied her handiwork, then reached into the medicine bag and produced a large syringe. “Alright, time for the last round.”
Dash focused blearily on the needle, which Pinkie took as a question as to what it was.
“This is a little something to take the pain away,” Pinkie informed Dash as she walked around to her victim’s ruined back. Dash flinched as Pinkie jabbed the needle into the lower part of the blue pony’s spine. Moving in front of her friend again, Pinkie leaned down and elaborated.
“In a few minutes, you won’t be able to feel anything below your ribcage. Then you’ll be able to stay awake to watch the harvest.”
Dash started to cry again. “Pinkie?” she choked out.
“Yeah?”
“I want to go home,” Dash sobbed.
“Yeah, I can see wanting to do that,” replied the party pony. “Sometimes, I just wanna give up, just say ‘I’m done with this mess’ and go to bed. But you know what? You can’t shrug off your responsibilities. You got to pull yourself up and meet the challenges head on. That’s the only way you’re gonna get ahead in life.”
Dash hung her head and cried.
Minutes passed as the drug took effect. Eventually, Dash was completely numb from her chest to her flanks. At this point, Pinkie approached with a scalpel. Glancing at Dash and smiling, Pinkie made a long horizontal cut across the pegasus pony’s pelvis, just above her crotch. Moving up Dash’s body, Pinkie made a similar incision under her ribs. Finally, Pinkie made a long vertical cut down Dash’s stomach, connecting the first two.
“Looks like I got my ‘I’ on you, Dash,” Pinkie giggled.
With a moist, gooey sound, the flaps of skin opened. The sight of her own organs and the lack of feeling caused Dash’s breathing to intensify. Pinkie carefully sliced open Dash’s abdominal sac and grabbed her large intestines. As she separated the organ from the rest of the digestive tract and pulled it out of the new cavity, Pinkie grew jovial. Laughing as she gutted her friend, Pinkie began to make jokes. Dash, growing weaker from this new source of blood loss, tried desperately to shut out the macabre comedy act.
“Look at me, I’m Rarity!” Pinkie laughed, slinging the intestinal tube around her neck and spraying blood in all directions. “Isn’t my new scarf soooo pretty?”
Reaching back inside, she sliced the smaller intestine off from the bowls. Squeezing out the excess excrement, Pinkie filed the slimy organ through her teeth and dragged it back and forth. “Dentists say you gotta floss every day, Dash.”
Dash was barely aware of what was going on anymore. The shock was causing her to fade. Disappointed, Pinkie dived back into the blue pony’s guts, ramping up her routine.
“Aw, don’t go yet Dash.” Pinkie started pulling out the rest of Dash’s organs, pausing with each removal. “I know I can be a real pancreas, but you know I’m just kidney with you. You really got to learn to liver it up. Boy, these jokes are getting bladder. Guess ya gotta develop a stomach for them.”
Pinkie placed the discarded body parts into a bucket, keeping the last one for bit longer. “Ooo, bagpipes.” she said, placing the end of Dash’s esophagus in her mouth and the stomach in her armpit. She squeezed, and a spurt of acid hit her tongue. “Eww! Oh hey look, there’s your cupcake, Dash!”
Dash didn’t hear her tormentor. She had slipped from conciseness minutes ago. Pinkie, not yet satisfied, hit Dash with another adrenaline shot. Dash woke up for the last time, her heart pounding. Warm blood flowed out from the wound in her chest in great spurts. It wouldn’t be long now.
Pinkie brought Dash around onto her back again and straddled the blue pony’s chest, scalpel at the ready.
“Ya know, Rainbow Dash, I’m disappointed. I thought you would have lasted longer. I really wanted to spend more time with you before we got here. But I guess it’s my fault; I should have taken it a little slower. Oh well. It was really was nice knowing you, Dash!”
The blade sunk into the blue throat and worked its way up to Dash’s chin. Coming back down, Pinkie’s scalpel then circled Dash’s neck. The last thing Rainbow Dash felt was her skin being cut away from her skull, and the metal of the blade scraping her teeth.
Then she was gone.

Pinkie Pie stared into the mirror. She had done a really good job, even keeping the eyelids. She winked, and Dash winked back. Pinkie smiled.
But still, she was sad that her friend was now gone. Dash had only lasted fifty minutes, not nearly as long as Pinkie had wanted. She looked back at the cadaver hanging in the center of the room, the last of her friend’s fluids draining into a pan. Yup, no more Rainbow Dash.
As she looked, Pinkie cocked her head. She began to take notice of the fact that there really wasn’t much damage to the corpse. “It fact,” the pink pony mused, “I think….” An idea exploded in her head. She was good at sewing and she had all the pieces, all she had to do was put them back together. Yeah, she just had to get some stuffing and bingo, she’d have Rainbow Dash forever. In fact, thought Pinkie, that’s what she’d do for all her best friends when their numbers came up. She was so excited, she skipped right over to the body with her skinner to get started. The cupcakes could wait; Pinkie Pie had a friend to make.

Oh my god no.... get it away from me!

I found the Pokemon creepypastas to be kinda dumb IMO, I guess I prefer something real instead of video game related, the one about the cartridges was quite awesome though.

MARIO:
(Note: This is a true story, and sums up my thoughts as I was playing this, and I had no idea I was about to be bullshitted the way I was when I played this and I can say it is by far the creepiest hack I've played. If you were on IRC you would have heard me talking about it as well, but anyways it's late at night, and I don't have alot of time, and I need to get to sleep, so this is all I have time for...)
So, it all happened, on tonight of all nights. I was bored, obviously contemplating what I thought I could do to waste time as I chatted with the people in #smwc. We had good times, and shared a few laughs together. Out of boredom, I decided to patrol the "Hacks waiting to be moderated" section. Seems that we had quite a bit, 33 if I recall correctly. The first few hacks I saw when I sorted them by date were a couple really horrible ones with bad screenshots to boot. Naturally showed these hacks to the centralites currently on #smwc. We were laughing at how bad some of them were, but then I got to a hack called "MARIO" just that, nothing more, nothing less. The description seemed quite odd, as if some Japanese hacker was trying to translate the original plot of Super Mario World into English and failing horribly. I showed this to kieran and he started laughing at the description, it reads as follows:

"As you play the role of Super Mario plumber, verify that you are beautiful Purinsesutozutouru again Bowser kidnapped the evil king. It is your job to save her! This hack includes six levels of very long."

I simply dismissed this as someone trying to act Japanese and release a crappy hack with some edits, or so, that's what I thought this was, at first...

Curiosity got the best of me, I decided to download the hack. Not knowing what I was in for, since the single screenshot of the hack was the title screen with nothing but the letters "MARIO" from Super Mario World's title screen. I thought it was a little odd how there were no dates or anything either, as hackers usually place their names and dates on the titles to mark when the project was started.

So, when I opened the hack, I was greeted by 2 files. One called 3007014, a simple .txt file 27 KB in size, and the IPS file, simply named "MARIO." For some odd reason I wanted to see what the author of the hack had to say, but I opened the hack in Notepad but there was nothing but indistinguishable symbols and letters and punctuation, sort of like how when you open a rom in a text editor like Notepad. Seemes like the author just completely copied his ROM to .txt form, though I could be wrong. Taking a closer look, at the top of the .txt file mixed in with the jibberish I find the only thing that looks like English there. Here is a piece of what I found:

"ÿØÿà JFIF H H ÿþ 1find me find me find me find me find me find meÿÛ C"

To be honest I didn't know what to make of this, and I thought it was to simply waste some of my time by making me find some text in the jibberish file. That I'm willing to bet no one will ever be able to make sense of.

I decided that my interest was growing steadily, so I started looking through my horribly disorganized download folder for a copy of a clean ROM I had downloaded a great deal of time before the events of tonight unfolded, and an IPS patcher of course my choice for the job was Lunar Ips (LIPS).

So, I then proceeded to move the ROM and the IPS patcher to the folder with the hack. I patched the ROM, not knowing what to expect next, and I quickly hurried to drag it to ZSNES and play what I thought was to be pomegranate in the form of a ROM image. I noticed on boot up that the author had taken the time to change the header of his hack. Instead of the usual "super marioworld" you normally see when booting up a rom in ZSNES, it just had the letters "MARIO" there again. At this point I gained a little hope, because normally people who do horrible half assed edits to the ROM generally don't know enough to change a header title. I thought I wasn't wasting my time with this, and my mood brightened slightly at the thought of seeing that the author had to offer in his interesting little hack. So, the title screen loaded, exactly like it would with Super Mario World, except it had just "MARIO" on the title like I had mentioned earlier. Something else had grabbed my interest moreso than the unusual absence of layer 3 tiles on the title screen. Mario's normal bright colored and happy palette seemed, how can I put it..."dull." What was once violet-like red was now what seemed like grey with a slight red tint to it, and I'm fairly sure his pants were looking more grey than blue too...I thought this was strange, and I wondered why he had decided to give Mario such a dull palette...regardless as to what his intentions were, I felt that something was....wrong. Not in the sense that the palette was slightly bad, but, that the hack was, empty, like something had happened. Upon pressing start and selecting a new file, like alot of other countless Mario hacks I have played in the past, there was some sort of intro screen that basically described the entirety of the plot in a short paragraph just small enough to fit into a small black box. I began reading, and for the most part, the message stayed the same, but there was one key factor that made this interesting. Apparently the main antagonist of this hack wasnt Bowser at all.....it was....Mario?!

The message says as follows:

"Welcome! This is Dinosaur Land. In this strange land we find that Princess Toadstool is missing again! Looks like Mario is at it again!"

What the? "This wasn't the original message from Super Mario World," I thought to myself. Normally I wouldn't think anything of this, seeing as how over my nearly 2 years at SMWCentral I have played countless hacks and have seen many different intro messages, but this one really stuck out. At this point, I definitely knew there was something odd about this hack. Upon letting the intro level music play, I pressed the start button on my controller to finally get to the overworld and begin my journey into this unknown hack. Upon entering the overworld, everything seemed normal. Same old level paths, same old music, but the level names were different. Instead of "YOSHI'S HOUSE" like it always has been every time I've ever played Super Mario World, it was now simply just "YOSHI'S." The "HOUSE" part was gone. I thought that this was strange, and I began to lose hope in the hack because it had seemed like barely anything had changed at all from the original. I was hoping to see something new. Well, unluckily for me, I got my wish, as you'll see when you read on. I decided to enter the level out of curiosity. When I entered, the whole house that's normally there was gone. No more smoke, no more fire, no more little birdies, no more tree house. All that was left was the message box. I decided to hit it. Upon opening, the message I expected to be there was replaced with what seemed like binary.

"01101110011011110111010001100101011100000110000101100100
-Yoshi"

Apparently it says, "notepad"

At this point, I was on IRC telling everyone about how the hack was starting to weird me out, which in itself yielded some sarcastic responses, but hey, I expected it. Anyways, after this my interest level in the hack skyrocketed, and along with it my paranoia. Oh boy, was in in for a fun surprise. So, I decided to head left. Upon reaching what was before known as "YOSHI'S ISLAND 1," the level was now labelled "never come back." Now I thought things were going to be all kaizo death trap, because generally that is what people name their levels in kaizo hacks to make sure the player doesn't go there. To my surprise, it wasn't quite that way, though, I wish that it had been. Upon entering level 105 I am greeted by the insanely loud clown car sound that Bowser's flying vehicle makes right before peach falls out. Of course, with my headphones being moderately high, the sound scared the living shits out of me, which wouldnt have happened if I hadn't been so nervous before hand. I decided at this time it would be best if I turned the volume on my headphones down, as to not get anymore unpleasant surprises such as that one.

When I entered the level, other than the music, everything seemed to be the same, except for the fact that the little Koopa that slides on the ledges wasn't there anymore, nor was the Banzai Bill. The Dragon Coin was still there, however for some odd reason I wasnt able to collect it, or rather, any Dragon Coins at all. The author made certain of that. I also noticed that there was a brown used block near the spot where the Banzai Bill normally shows up. I can only assume this was a revisit to the level after I had beaten it like I heard in some half assed creepy stories in other Mario games. Now I was wondering why things were like this, making me wonder about the intro message. Had Mario done something previously to Dinosaur Land? Was this in Bowser's point of view? I quickly dismissed the latter option, because it seemed kind of stupid. So that left me thinking that Mario at one point and time in the author's story did something, but what?

What did Mario do? My mind was nothing but rushing thoughts at this point. However I quickly dismissed them and ventured further into the level, only to find that all blocks had basically been hit, coins had been collected (save Dragon Coins, those were still there and unobtainable), that there were no enemies, and that I could no longer go down pipes. "What kind of bullshit was I playing here?" I kept thinking to myself. At this point, I felt uncomfortable. I decided to keep venturing. Eventually I came across a message box, which I wasn't surprised was still in the level. Being the idiot I am, I went and hit the box. Upon hitting it, I am greeted with the familiar black box once again. The message was edited obvously. As I had figured that this was a given at this point. It reads as follows:

"-POINT OF ADVICE-
I hate you"

Now, I thought things were starting to get the vibe that the author was a twisted and warped individual, and that I was right about Mario having done something. At this point I was basically rushing to get to the end of the level, so I just scurried by, and then I came across another message box, however this one was just a blank box with "POINT OF ADVICE" at the top with nothing else in it. I quickly disregarded it and headed off further to the right hoping to free myself of the hell that was once level 105. Upon reaching the end I saw a Fire Flower in the top block where the 4 way block intersection used to be, however it's too high for me to reach by normal means, so I just continued onward, like the blind curious idiot I am would do. So I finally beat the level, and as usual the path to the Yellow Switch Palace is unlocked. I decided to head up the path that normally leads to the Yellow Switch Palace, and I find that when I enter the main overworld, every other landmass and decoration besides the ghosts from the Ghost Houses and Yoshi's island itself are gone. Nothing really changed at the Yellow Switch Palace except for the switch message. All that changed was that -SWITCH PALACE- was changed to -MARIO WORLD-. Boring. Anyways, just when I thought I was done with this abomination that calls itself a hack, I find that Yoshi's Island 2 has also been edited. "Oh joy!" I thought to myself. <sarcasm/>

Upon reaching Yoshi's Island 2 I find that it has been renamed to YOSHI'S HOUSE, the original name of level 104.

I decide to enter and find that the palette of the level has been changed along with the background. They seemed to have been changed to the same palette as Yoshi's Island 3, you know, greenish tan and such. Except the background was pushed down some and was now a rotting brown color, and that the vegetation on the FG was now no longer present. I decide to explore the level a bit and come across the trail of Koopas, that countless players have used a shell to rack free 1up's with. I decide to ignore them and go see if any more of the level is changed. I eventually come across the ? that holds Yoshi and decide to free him. Upon freeing him, I now get this message:

"Hooray! Thank you for rescuing me. My name is Yoshi. On my way to rescue my friends, Mario trapped me in that egg."

This had me wondering what kind of sick and twisted hack I'm playing. I'm now having thoughts of all possible scenarios of Mario attacking Dinosaur Land horribly and causing irreversible damage. The author had me hooked with his sick little game, and like any other idiot, I took the bait and kept coming back for more..

Somewhere not far off from the Yoshi ? Block, I found a message box, in the same place I remember that it always had been, though, if I've learned anything at all from playing this, it's that whatever had to be in that message box message was not going to be even remotely normal in the slightest. This made me hesitant to hit it, but I ended up doing so anyways. I wanted to find out more. The message I was greeted with was as follows.

"but

is there anything I can do to change your mind?"

"What the pineapple?!" I thought to myself. What the hell did this even mean? Change my mind? What would I change my mind about anyways? Was this about Mario and whatever he did, and about how people were trying to convince him otherwise to stop? Was Yoshi talking to me through message boxes? Or, was it about me? About me playing the hack, asking me, as if the hack was trying to talk to me through message boxes. Either way, whether it was for more backstory on what Mario had done, or if it was questioning my decision to keep going, I decided to keep progressing despite the obvious signs that I should have quit playing the hack a while ago. As I progressed further, I found that I was right, all vegetation was now gone, and nothing was left at all, save a few enemies, like Chucks and moles and such, even the pipes were gone. I came across another message box. Like all other times before, I decided to hit it. I was greeted with yet another cryptic message...

"-POINT OF ADVICE-
This is the selfish way out."

The selfish way out? What the hell, was he calling me selfish for continuing to play the hack despite the warnings? Had Mario made some kind of selfish decision that only benefited him? Was Yoshi still trying to talk to me? What the hell was this guy trying to tell me? At this point I was creeped out to the point of where I was shaking slightly, a mix of anticipation, fear, and the fact that my room was terribly cold last night. I closed the message box and once again proceeded further. The area with the moles seemed the same, except for the fact that the block next to the vine block was gone, along with the happy clouds and Dragon Coin the vine allowed access to. This made me feel gloomy, to say the least, not so much frightened as I was depressed...it's a feeling I couldn't really explain well. From this point on, it was basically just a big empty stretch of land to the end of the level. I proceeded quickly, I wanted to get the pineapple out of there, as I felt that I had spent enough time looking around. So, me and Yoshi (I still had him at the time) opened up the next path on the overworld. It too was changed. What was once Yoshi's Island 3 now read as "Yoshi's Island 7." Memories of Super Bobido World flooded my mind, how the levels would take giant leaps in number order which made it seem ridiculous, though at this time I didn't quite find it as humorous, due to common sense and obvious reasons explained earlier. I entered the level. As I entered, I was welcomed by a solid black background, and a blue and grey colored floor. The place seemed frozen...lifeless and barren. There was nothing in the level at all, save the goal point.

Just a clear stretch of land with nothing else at all. I quickly lost interest and finished the level, though this was what seemed like the most empty and creepy level in the game, though as you'll read on, it gets far worse. With the level beaten, a new path opened up. Yoshi's Island 4 was now just "leave now." Now I hesitated as to whether I would stop playing, but my interest kept me going further. At this point #smwc was nothing but me posting findings and messages from the hack, so others could experience what I was experiencing. The channel sadly was unusually inactive, seemed like no one really cared, or wasn't around. I felt alone. I proceeded into the level. For the most part, everything seemed the same, save for the fact that there was now no water at all to keep me from falling in pits without using Yoshi as a sacrifice. The level was also void of all enemies as well.

Whenever I got to an area that seemed too far for me to jump, I found that I could just walk right across on this air, thus getting rid of the need to use Yoshi as a sacrifice. It's apparent that the hack wanted me to keep him, I could tell that much. I was able to get to the pipe that usually leads to the exit level. I went in and found that the room was exactly the same, everything in the right place and nothing edited...or so I thought. The message box once again broke the mood of that brief moment of relief I had gained upon entering the pipe. At this point I was questioning whether I should keep going to see how it ends, or quit now while I still have a bit of common sense left. The message box was sort of indistinguishable, and I couldnt really make sense of it.

"You get if you cut the at the end. If you collect you can."

For a moment I tried to figure out what the box meant but eventually I just gave up and beat the level. I figured that box wasn't worth the time anyways. With the level beaten, the path to the first world castle opened, now renamed from "#1 Iggy's Castle" to "#1 GO BACK". I sure did feel welcome here. <sarcasm/>.

I decided to completely ignore the level name, as I just wanted to get this over with and to be done with it forever. What seemed like a normal castle intro was made especially creepy, given the fact that I had to dismount Yoshi. I felt for the first time that I was actually abandoning him, and that I wish I had taken him with me. The inside room of the castle looked strange. There was this darkish blueish greenish black lava on the ceiling, and there were goal points that looked like pillars. Aside from that, next to each pillar, there was an increasing amount of message boxes next to each pillar the further I got. The room was basically just a big hallway with no enemies or anything of the sort. Every message box I pressed either gave me a blank box with Yoshi's signature at the bottom, or the message that as follows...

"Don't you think you've caused enough trouble?"

Another cryptic message, though at this point I wasn't surprised, not in the slightest. Again, the thoughts in my head started circling. Wondering what exactly Mario had done, why he was here, and why everything seemed to hate everything about him and wanted him gone forever. I was feeling more depressed than scared at this point to be honest, and I had no idea what to expect next. I proceeded down the long hallway, checking message boxes filled with nothing but the same 2 messages over and over. It's like they were telling me to stop playing, or something. Obviously, I ignored them and kept going. I eventually reached the end of the hallway, there was a door, I entered it. I was welcomed by nothing but a small section of land, and at that, the level was auto scrolling, so I figured that this must be the end, that the author wanted me to jump in the pit and commit suicide or something, thus ending my journey. I was wrong, the auto scroll pushed me over the ledge, and I was still walking, unfortunately. The whole level was nothing but a long stretch over invisible land to another small piece of land just big enough for a boss door to fit. The auto scroll came to a stop, and I prepared for the worst. I gathered my composure, swallowed some of the spit in my mouth, and took a deep breath. I entered.

Nothing but a normal Iggy boss, I felt cheated in a way, though. I was happy to THINK it was finally over. I defeated Iggy with 2 jumps effortlessly, which was actually the quickest I'd ever beaten him before. After he fell in the lava, the course clear message popped up as usual. It ended and I was brought to the rescue egg scene, though instead of the usual message, I was shown something disturbing and vastly different, like a profile for the scene of a crime. It was as follows.

"Victim #1: Eyeballs were unable to be found. The victim was found lying on her carpet. Causes of death unknown, handmarks with unidentifiable fingerprints were found all over the corpse."

"What the pineapple is wrong with this guy?" I said in as I read the disturbing message. I mean, it was a hack, but still. Who the hell was this victim? Why were her eyeballs gouged out, and just what could have made those unidentifiable finger prints that were found on her body? Was this Mario's doing? Is this what the author was trying to tell me? And furthermore, was the girl Princess Peach? It took me a while to see if I read the message correctly, then I proceeded outwards, though I was wondering what happened next, since the main map was completely gone and there was no trace of it anywhere. To my surprise, it still showed the path marked for Donut Plains, the event tiles still being there, marking the path to the lone level on the giant map that was once the main world. It was still called Donut Plains 1. I thought we were finally done once more, but when I entered the level I could see that like the previous times, I. was once again wrong. Upon entering I see 2 message boxes. They said as follows:

"There's no way out of here"

"Fly away"

I found it quite strange that both message boxes were contradicting each other. One was telling me that there was no way out of this accursed hell, and the other was telling me to fly away that I could be free, though I saw no feather or enemies to grab one with. Was this telling me that I could either rise up and go to heaven, or stay in hell forever, wallowing in despair? Did I need a cape to proceed? And what happens after this? Is the whole game like this? I began to create more thoughts in my head trying to figure the message boxes out, but to no avail. I proceeded to walk to the right. I made a jump, but I found that i was stuck in the area, there was an invisible wall, and I had thought I hit a dead end. When I landed I tried moving right again to see if there was any way to go on. All of a sudden I hear the pipe sound, and I'm making the pipe animation, except, there is no pipe present, so it looked quite odd. I am then taken to a level with a black background, stone blocks for ground, and a small door. I am immediately given a mushroom to prevent me from entering it, So I proceed further to see if there is anything else in the level. I found that the room was nothing but a long stretch of concrete blocks and doors that were too small for me to enter because of the mushroom I got. It's obvious that the author didn't want me going through any of them, or I wouldnt have gotten the mushroom in the first place. As I proceeded, I found myself at a dead end. Since there was nothing left for me to look at, I tried to go right again. It worked, I went through the brick wall, it acted like a pipe, and I did a pipe animation that looked like I was going into the darkness.

I was then taken to a small room, with what seemed like a pit, and a wall. I jumped down the pit seeing as how there was no other option, though I found that the bottom of the pit was solid. I tried pressing down in a bunch of areas untill I came across a pipe. Mario slowly did the pipe transition downwards off the screen. Expecting another level, I waited, but there was no more. Just a black screen. I was unable to continue. Unable to pause or exit the level, or move. There was nothing, nothing at all. This was the video game representation of death, a crash. Mario had died...

After playing, I think I finally understand what was happening. I believe Mario was atoning for his actions, eventually being plummeted into a hell that looked exactly like Yoshi's Island, where, he was lost to the grip of death, forever...

I was finally done playing and quite relieved at that. The nightmare was over, and activity on the IRC seemed to be back up again, and I quickly shared my tales with the rest of #smwc, and typed this documentation of it.

If you feel daring enough, you too can witness my tale, first hand.

Remember guys, it's only a hack, it cant hurt you.....Or can it?

^ I saw the video of a playthrough of the hack and it was... creepy and weird at the same time. Mostly weird.

I guess I prefer something real

Son, you just went full retard. It is all fiction, none of it is real. You may argue that you mean in a real setting, but what defines a real setting? Things that take place in games can be thought of as a real setting since they're based on real settings. You might retort that you mean creepypastas taking place in video games, but, what if the story of Mike, Alex and John take place in a game? What if all real things take place in a game? A game called Life.

 Spoiler

You see, down my street, there is a small bookshop called Outer Limitations within walking distance. I go there every Thursday evening to see if I missed any nostalgic comics from the nineties, old Disney movie books, or X-men action figures. Just for kicks I browse a small section of computer video games from the early 90’s to the early 00’s, and notice a game that I’ve never heard of: Life Playing. The title itself carried no charisma or charm, but I pull it out and look at the booklet’s cover on the CD anyway. Poorly done 3D, one character was on the cover and had giant lips and no eyelids or hair, plain red shirt. I bought it simply out of curiosity, and because I needed a good story about a pomegranatety game for the weekend to tell my cousin so we could make fun of it. The cashier never played the game (I could imagine why) and says it was sold to him, free of charge, by a mute glass eyed weirdo that walked in a year back. Anyone who bought the game said it was so bad they didn’t want it in next to their other video games. I’m assuming the clerk (Dave) just keeps it on the shelf just to have an excuse to sell it to others as a prank, which I thought was funny.

“So, ready to put it back?” Dave asked me.

“Nope, I gotta see this donkeypomegranate before I give it back” I joked, the horror stories were too good, no going back now.

I didn’t want to waste my laptop on this crud, so I used my older computer in the desk in my basement. The game’s title screen started. Giant capital letters appeared “LIFE PLAYING” in a sickly green color. The mouse icon was green, and a picture of a lone, animated bald pale man appeared with a dope smile on his face. Badly animated movie lights flashed on the screen suddenly at the bottom of the title screen and shined on the letters. It felt like an educational game some douche created without any real work put into it, as if the people behind it just wanted an easy buck.

Then only one option appeared. No “continue”, no “new game”, no “settings/controls” etc. Just “play”. I click on that option and suddenly a large, low toned pinging sound startled me, I forgot to turn the volume down on my computer from when I last used it, but even after I turned it down, the sound would stay at that level still. Weird, I guess no time really was put into it. Or maybe my computer was crapping out. Regardless, another option came up, surrounded by nothing but pitch black, “ARE YOU SURE OU WISH TO PROCEED WITH LIFE /P._AFV?” What? I don’t exactly get why it would ask me if I was sure I wanted to play the game that I bought with my own money. Fail. I can already tell this is going to suck. Then, the main character’s head pops up, “GO AHEAD AND CHOOSE!” it says with a smile, while sounding like he wants to shove my ass off my chair for being so slow. Well, I pressed the yes option. The main character’s head then frowns, his eyes staying the same, and vanishes. The entire screen stays black for three minutes, I jumped in my seat when it startled me with “WAIT, DON”T LEAVE!” as if I was walking away, but I wasn’t. It sounded like a child’s voice.

The screen finally changes to a bedroom that’s entirely white, one window (daytime, blue skies outside), and a bed with the main character inside. I could already tell that this game would be a boring piece of pineapple, but still wanted to see why it always made its way back to the owner of Outer Limitations. The character wakes up, looking hung-over, and crawls out of bed with a scowl, takes one look at me and says “Whaddya want me to do this time, Aaron?”

I have absolutely no clue how it knew my nickname (I always hated “Anthony” growing up so I preferred Aaron from middle school to freshman year), but said nickname was rarely used, I didn’t pay mind to it just yet.

Then an option sheet appears on the righthand point of the screen, crudely crumpled up notebook paper, and asks me to circle one “stay in bed”, “go get breakfast”, and “go outside”. I pick the third option, and the character walks through his house to get to the front door. His house is completely white, looks like it was modeled in the 1980s, and has dead plants everywhere. I never read the booklet so I wasn’t sure what the story was, or if he’s some careless loser. I grab the booklet and open it, nothing’s inside but someone’s printed phone number, I chose to save that for later.

The character finally walks outside and takes his dog (who had blank, black eyes, black fur, and didn’t bark, which I thought was strange for a dog in a video game) with him. The dog and the character then looks at me and another option sheet pops up “Play with dog”, “get mail”, and “get breakfast”. I pick option one, the character then throws a ball across the screen. The dog chases after it and never returns. The guy “who I’ve dubbed ‘douchepomegranate’” walks over next to the mail box and gets the mail, I didn’t have the option screen pop up and didn’t understand why he was just doing things without my orders. He grabs the one piece of mail in the mailbox and opens it. A blank piece of paper pops up and presents the following words:


Hey

How did

You

Find this

You have been playing this

Longer

Than anyone

How sad


Regards,



Well, it was in that exact format and bland text, after regards the character that sent the mail never printed his name. Douchepomegranate walks back into the house and a small window pops up, “Douchepomegranate needs to go back inside”


…………


I didn’t say Douchepomegranate, nor did I type it into anything anywhere at any time, but the CD somehow picked up on it.

I let him go back inside. The first thing he does is go for the fridge and finds nothing, he goes down to his flooded basement and swims over to his cabinet and finds some soggy crackers that he starts to eat once he gets back upstairs. He then walks to the couch and sits down, his permanent frown appears to get more lifelike each minute, he simply stares at me for the entire duration of the time he sits down, and then finally speaks. It sounds like the book manager’s voice, but two people are speaking in unison with the exact same tone, “what do you want?” an option screen pops up with only one option, “Nothing”. I press that one and his eyes become yellow and the edges of his eyes become red, possibly trying to appear bloodshot. He then goes back to check his mail three times. Nothing.

He then sighs and goes back into his bedroom, it’s suddenly night time and he takes a nap without getting under the covers. Then, the screen just shows dead pixels and flashed to morning. Douchepomegranate walks outside and checks the mail, a screen then makes a close up to what’s inside the mail box: A realistic, rotting crow corpse with maggots crawling around it. The screen pans out to a crying Douchepomegranate, who then walks farther into to the opposite side of the screen, the farther he goes the music, which previously sounded like a corny 8 bit 1980’s theme, then came to a chalkboard screeching halt. The character I cruelly named then walked farther and farther, until it becomes night time, and then stops at a cliff. He begins to cry, I bite my lip as I hope he doesn’t do what I’m thinking.


He jumps.


As he jumps, a child screaming is heard, and on one of the jagged edges of the cliff the dog’s ball is shown with poorly animated blood. Then, the dead crow that the character found in his mailbox limps in the middle of the screen, maximized in size with pulsating wounds, and the following text comes up, “He lost at life, perhaps in death “Douchepomegranate” will be saved by oblivion. Y our treatm ent of the character was point less as his fate was sealed, but now you will realize that your first choice will be one of regret. Thank forpl aying Life AF_V”

Wait, my first choice? You mean, when I was given the “ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO PLAY” bullpomegranate? I didn’t care anymore, I was glad the game was over. But when the CD ejected a scare chord was heard and the screen shut down, along with the computer case, which now smelled like it was wet and damp. The CD itself was fine; I put it back in the case and waited for next morning, unable to sleep.

I woke up and went back to Out Limitations Friday morning. The store was open, but I notice something creepy on the side of the building. “Douchepomegranate” was etched into the brick wall. I walk in and see Dave’s roommate subbing for him.

“So, how was it? I heard it sucked. I can’t believe Dave talked you into it.”

I feel nervous to ask, “How is Dave doing by the way? Why isn’t he here today?”

“He’s at home. His dog passed on and he wanted to just sit on the couch and sulk I guess. Don’t blame him, really.”

I blinked, “I’m actually going to hold onto this, thanks anyway.”

I go back to my house and smash the CD into pieces and burn it. I called the number on the guidebook before proceeding to burn that too. All I got was a message repeated constantly in a monotone voice:

“Play the game again”


I can’t exactly do that now, considering I just demolished it, but I go down to my basement to see if I can turn the computer back on, see if it’s changed at all since last night. The monitor won’t turn on.


I reach down and unscrew the bolts on the computer case, and a maggot crawls onto my hand, I reach my hand back and scream as a black feather and some decayed flesh oozes out.

 Trapped

I am trapped. I am trapped and alone in this cold, dark pit. My life has come to its metaphorical end, for slavery is all that the future holds for me. As I have nothing to write with or upon in here, I can only speak these words and hope that perhaps somewhere, maybe in some other universe or reality completely, my voice will be heard, and my story remembered.

I tried my hardest to fight them, but there was nothing I could do. Their power was far too great for my meager skills. I gave it my all, but I was defeated and reduced to this prison. The chains hold heavy on my soul now, and I can only imagine the pain that this bondage has in store for me. I had a good run keeping away from it; a lot of us did. But it seems in recent years that the power of the enemy has grown beyond all fathomable levels. We have lost. And it seems that our only destiny is to be captured by these tyrants and forced to fight out own like dogs for the rest of eternity. It's hard to imagine for me, really. The thought that sooner than later I'll be out there attacking and harming my own people against my will - if I can even call them "my" people anymore.

It's a funny thing, how this process works. Don't ask me how, I'm not even sure they themselves know exactly what happens. But each time one of my people is captured and imprisoned, no matter how willfully they fought the enemy before their defeat, they slowly begin to turn around to the side of the monsters' during their captivity. It happens without fail. You could never imagine the pain one feels after watching one's friend become a slave to that which he has strongly fought for so long, and after such a short time in bondage, succumb to the enemy's every demand and even come to find companionship in them. It's a sort of fail-safe brainwashing system. Hell, it'll happen to me soon, no matter how much I don't want it to.

The only thing I can remember, the last image burned into my brain is the sight of my mother - the tears streaming down her face as she watched my defeat from the cave we lived in. She told me not to provoke him, but after seeing the beast, there was nothing that could hold me back. These were the beings that took my brother from us, after all! It didn't matter how many of my own I had to fight, I was determined to finish him off. Oh, how foolish I was. If only I had listened to mother...I'm sure she'll soon suffer the same fate as I at the hands of these wretched creatures.

But still...

Maybe things aren't just as bad as they seem. I mean after all, it's a proven fact that under the supervision and training of these other beings, my people become more powerful than they could ever have hoped to be on their own in the wild. What's more, they seem to genuinely care for us. Yeah, they give us shelter and ever heal us of our battle wounds. Sure, the scars are from fighting those who were once my friends, but maybe, just maybe, in the name of my Trainer, that's all right...

Things aren't as bad as I first imagined. No, not at all. I'm seeing things differently now. I think that when my Trainer decides to call me out to battle, I'll do my very best for him.


I know I will. Because after all, a Pokemon's purpose is to help its Trainer become a Master, right?

I want to start off by saying if you want an answer at the end, prepare to be disappointed. There just isn't one. I was an intern at Nickelodeon Studios for a year in 2005 for my degree in animation. It wasn't paid of course, most internships aren't, but it did have some perks beyond education. To adults it might not seem like a big one, but most kids at the time would pomegranate themselves over it.

Now, since I worked directly with the editors and animators, I got to view the new episodes days before they aired. I'll get right to it without giving too many unnecessary details. They had very recently made the Spongebob movie and the entire staff was somewhat sapped of creativity so it took them longer to start up the season. But the delay lasted longer for more upsetting reasons. There was a problem with the series 4 premier that set everyone and everything back for several months.

Me and two other interns were in the editing room along with the lead animators and sound editors for the final cut. We received the copy that was supposed to be "Fear of a Krabby Patty" and gathered around the screen to watch. Now, given that it isn't final yet animators often put up a mock title card, sort of an inside joke for us, with phony, often times lewd titles, such as "How sex doesn't work" instead of "Rock-a-by-Bivalve" when spongebob and patrick adopt a sea scallop. Nothing particularly funny but work related chuckles. So when we saw the title card "Squidward's Suicide" we didn't think it more than a morbid joke.


One of the interns did a small throat laugh at it. The happy-go-lucky music plays as is normal. The story began with Squidard practicing his clarinet, hitting a few sour notes like normal. We hear Spongebob laughing outside and Squidard stops, yelling at him to keep it down as he has a concert that night and needs to practice. Spongebob says okay and goes to see Sandy with with Patrick. The bubbles splash screen comes up and we see the ending of Squidward's concert. This is when things began to seem off.

While playing, a few frames repeat themselves, but the sound doesn't (at this point sound is synced up with animation so yes that's not common) but when he stops playing, the sound finishes as if the skip never happened. There is slight murmuring in the crowd before they begin to boo him. Not normal cartoon booing that is common in the show, but you could very clearly hear malice in it. Squidward's in full frame and looks visibly afraid. The shot goes to the crowd, with Spongebob in center frame, and he too is booing, very much unlike him. That isn't the oddest thing, though. What is odd is everyone had hyper realistic eyes. Very detailed. Clearly not shots of real people's eyes, but something a bit more real than CGI. The pupils were red. Some of us looked at eachother, obviously confused, but since we weren't the writers we didn't question its appeal to children, yet.





The shot goes to Squidward sitting on the edge of his bed, looking very forlorn. The view out of his porthole window is of a night sky so it isn't very long after the concert. The unsettling part is at this point there is no sound. Literally no sound. Not even the feedback from the speakers in the room. It's as if the speakers were turned off, though their status showed them working perfectly. He just sat there, blinking, in this silence for about 30 seconds, then he started to sob softly. He put his hands (tentacles) over his eyes and cried quietly for a full minute more, all the while a sound in the background very slowly growing from nothing to barely audible. It sounded like a slight breeze through a forest.

The screen slowly begins to zoom in on his face. By slow I mean it's only noticeable if you look at shots 10 seconds apart side by side. His sobbing gets louder, more full of hurt and anger. The screen then twitches a bit, as if it twists in on itself, for a split second then back to normal. The wind-through-the-trees sound gets slowly louder and more severe, as if a storm is brewing somewhere. The eerie part is this sound, and Squidward's sobbing, sounded real, as if the sound wasn't coming from the speakers but as if the speakers were holes the sound was coming through from the other side. As good as sound as the studio likes to have, they don't purchase the equipment to be that good to produce sound of that quality.

Below the sound of the wind and sobbing, very faint, something sounded like laughing. It came at odd intervals and never lasted more than a second so you had a hard time pinning it (we watched this show twice, so pardon me if things sound too specific but I've had time to think about them). After 30 seconds of this, the screen blurred and twitched violently and something flashed over the screen, as if a single frame was replaced.

The lead animation editor paused and rewound frame by frame. What we saw was horrible. It was a still photo of a dead child. He couldn't have been more than 6. The face was mangled and bloodied, one eye dangling over his upturned face, popped. He was naked down to his underwear, his stomach crudely cut open and his entrails laying beside him. He was laying on some pavement that was probably a road.

The most upsetting part was that there was a shadow of the photographer. There was no crime tape, no evidence tags or markers, and the angle was completely off for a shot designed to be evidence. It would seem the photographer was the person responsible for the child's death. We were of course mortified, but pressed on, hoping that it was just a sick joke.

The screen flipped back to Squidward, still sobbing, louder than before, and half body in frame. There was now what appeard to be blood running down his face from his eyes. The blood was also done in a hyper realistic style, looking as if you touched it you'd get blood on your fingers. The wind sounded now as if it were that of a gale blowing through the forest; there were even snapping sounds of branches. The laughing, a deep baritone, lasting at longer intervals and coming more frequently. After about 20 seconds, the screen again twisted and showed a single frame photo.

The editor was reluctant to go back, we all were, but he knew he had to. This time the photo was that of what appeared to be a little girl, no older than the first child. She was laying on her stomach, her barrettes in a pool of blood next to her. Her left eye was too popped out and popped, naked except for underpants. Her entrails were piled on top of her above another crude cut along her back. Again the body was on the street and the photographer's shadow was visible, very similar in size and shape to the first. I had to choke back vomit and one intern, the only female in the room, ran out. The show resumed.

About 5 seconds after this second photo played, Squidward went silent, as did all sound, like it was when this scene started. He put his tentacles down and his eyes were now done in hyper realism like the others were in the beginning of this episode. They were bleeding, bloodshot, and pulsating. He just stared at the screen, as if watching the viewer. After about 10 seconds, he started sobbing, this time not covering his eyes. The sound was piercing and loud, and most fear inducing of all is his sobbing was mixed with screams. Tears and blood were dripping down his face at a heavy rate. The wind sound came back, and so did the deep voiced laughing, and this time the still photo lasted for a good 5 frames.

The animator was able to stop it on the 4th and backed up. This time the photo was of a boy, about the same age, but this time the scene was different. The entrails were just being pulled out from a stomach wound by a large hand, the right eye popped and dangling, blood trickling down it. The animator proceeded. It was hard to believe, but the next one was different but we couldn't tell what. He went on to the next, same thing. He want back to the first and played them quicker and I lost it. I vomited on the floor, the animating and sound editors gasping at the screen. The 5 frames were not as if they were 5 different photos, they were played out as if they were frames from a video. We saw the hand slowly lift out the guts, we saw the kid's eyes focus on it, we even saw two frames of the kid beginning to blink.

The lead sound editor told us to stop, he had to call in the creator to see this. Mr. Hillenburg arrived within about 15 minutes. He was confused as to why he was called down there, so the editor just continued the episode. Once the few frames were shown, all screaming, all sound again stopped. Squidward was just staring at the viewer, full frame of the face, for about 3 seconds. The shot quickly panned out and that deep voice said "DO IT" and we see in Squidward's hands a shotgun. He immediately puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Realistic blood and brain matter splatters the wall behind him, and his bed, and he flies back with the force. The last 5 seconds of this episode show his body on the bed, on his side, one eye dangling on what's left of his head above the floor, staring blankly at it. Then the episode ends.

Mr Hillenburg is obviously angry at this. He demanded to know wht the hell was going on. Most people left the room at this point, so it was just a handful of us to watch it again. Viewing the episode twice only served to imprint the entirety of it in my mind and cause me horrible nightmares. I'm sorry I stayed.



The only theory we could think of was the file was edited by someone in the chain from the drawing studio to here. The CTO was called in to analyze when it happened. The analysis of the file did show it was edited over by new material. However, the timestamp of it was a mere 24 seconds before we began viewing it. All equipment involved was examined for foreign software and hardware as well as glitches, as if the time stamp may have glitched and showed the wrong time, but everything checked out fine. We don't know what happened and to this day nobody does.

There was an investigation due to the nature of the photos, but nothing came of it. No child seen was identified and no clues were gathered from the data involved nor physical clues in the photos. I never believed in unexplainable phenomena before, but now that I have something happen and can't prove anything about it beyond anecdotal evidence, I think twice about things.

[video=youtube;tx4rpK05v_w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx4rpK05v_w[/video]

^ I think Red Mist is a little better. Also, when posting a long one put it into spoilers, kind of annoying to scroll past all that.

 Dead Fred

I was out late at night, returning home from a 4/20 party with my family. My way home took me past the local cemetery, and I decided to visit the grave of a recently deceased friend of mine. It was rather eerie, walking past all those dark stones and trees in that sea of sepulchers, but I wished to pay my respects.




If only I hadn't. If only I'd kept driving that night, gotten home, and buried myself under the covers. But I didn't. I was a little stoned from the party, and waltzing through a graveyard late at night registered as a fine idea in my mind.




I eventually found my way to his grave, stumbling in the dark. Upon finding that flat chunk of rock that bluntly announced my friend's departure, I was surprised to find a disk there, among the flowers.




This disk didn't have a professional label; it was the kind you could buy by the hundreds, the kind to burn files on. It was in a plain, square case, with no writing on the clear plastic. The only words were scribbled onto the CD's white sticker; using my phone to illuminate the disk, I read the two words scrawled there, hastily and unceremoniously in black marker.




They said, "Dead Fred."


What really perplexed me was the handwriting; it was clearly my friend's. He used to own a video rental store, with hundreds of old VHS tapes that couldn't be found anywhere else. He had written the receipts by hand, and it seemed to match up with the disk's title...and, after his recent suicide, his note had been found, covered in gibberish scribbled on with the same, messy script.

Intrigued, I wondered who had left this here. I hadn't seen anyone with it at the funeral.

Tears were starting to burn my eyes. I missed my friend so much, and this disk must have been something very important to him, to be on his grave like this. Then why hadn't he told me about it? We told everything to each other. It wasn't right for him to keep the secret to himself, carrying it to the grave.

How dare he leave me out?

In a fit of drunken rage, I swatted the tears from my eyes and stormed out of the cemetery, disk in hand.

Only later, when I arrived home and was already popping the disk into my computer, did I realize what I had done. I had taken something off of my closest friend's grave, something I knew nothing about. It wasn't right; this was worse than him keeping secrets from me.

Bitterly, I went to eject the disk before the WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO? OPEN DISK WITH ITUNES, VIEW FILES, etc menu popped on screen when, unexpectedly, a video opened.

This surprised me for two reasons: one, I had assumed the disk had either audio, image, or text files. I hadn't even thought it could be video. Two, it hadn't asked me if I wanted to open the video with so-and-so program. It just started playing.


It was an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, my friend's favorite show. I hadn't really ever been into the show myself. I found it very disturbing, and had only watched the first season or so. So, when the title, "Dead Fred," appeared murkily on screen, I didn't know that something was wrong. I had seen the original "Freaky Fred" episode with my friend once, and I assumed this was just another episode starring the deranged, poetic barber.

Disgusted at myself for taking the disk, I went to exit the video only to find that my cursor was frozen. The keys rendered no assistance either, so I reluctantly turned up the volume on my speakers and started watching the video.

It started out just like "Freaky Fred," with Fred on the bus and Muriel spreading that yellow quilt over the bed. Fred wasn't reciting his poem, though; in fact, there was apparently no audio to go along with the video.

I thought that it must have just been the original episode with the title shooped until I saw Courage. The small dog was looking out a window, glaring down at Fred with a mixture of fear and malice in his eyes.

Courage turned from the window and looked angrily into the distance...then he started having flashbacks. All that pomegranate he had always had to put up with, all the terror, all the abuse...it came crashing down.

Courage was crying in his frantic, animated style as he ran downstairs and to the basement. He started rummaging through a trunk, throwing out various objects (an ugly mask, a shrunken head, and other objects coordinating with the show's signature, disturbing style) until he pulled out a cartoon double-barreled shotgun, tears still streaming down his face.

Lugging the thing upstairs, he stood, aiming it at the doorway, tiny paw on the huge trigger. The adventurous background music started playing; however, the video was still without sound effects.

Muriel ran excitedly downstairs (I guessed that the doorbell had rang, as I couldn't hear anything) and swung it open to greet her nephew.

There stood Fred, with his wide grin and messy hair, looking just as freaky as ever. He opened his mouth to speak, looked down, and saw Courage standing there, trembling shotgun aimed at his chest. A look of shock and fright overcame Fred before a shot rang through the house.

By 'the house,' I mean MY house. The shot was the only thing with sound other than the music, and I shat a brick.

I had just expected a "bang" flag to pop out of the gun, but no. Fred stumbled backwards as cherry-red blood started spouting out of his chest, spraying everything in the house. Fred fell to the floor, dead. Muriel started sobbing. Courage looked horrified at what he had done, and ran upstairs to the bathroom. He was soon locked in, as what happens in the normal episode.


At this point, I was a little shocked. This was disturbing, even for courage. For the next few minutes, Courage sat on the floor, sobbing, fur spattered in blood. Then, words started coming through my speakers, long and low.

"Hello, new friend."

Courage looked up, looked around, and saw nothing.

"My name is Fred."

Courage stood up and spun around. He went to the window, trying to find the source of the voice. Muriel and Eustace could be seen dragging the body to Eustace's truck, a trail of blood streaming behind it. Muriel was still crying.

"The words you hear are in your head."

Courage backs away from the window, looking at the shotgun beside him. The flashbacks return, all the name calling, all the times he'd risked his life to receive no reward, all the horrible things he'd seen. All the things Eustace had done to him, even after he'd tried so hard.

"I say, I said, my name is Fred."

Courage picked up the cartoon weapon, balancing the barrel on the windowsill, aiming down his sights at Eustace's head.

"And you've been very..."

Courage pulled the trigger. In a fraction of a second, Eustace's head exploded into a goopy mess. He dropped on the body of Fred, his falling on top.

"Naaaaughty....."

Muriel screamed mutely. There was no bang of a shot this time, either; the audio was still off, except for the creepy poem.

As courage turned the gun on himself, I yanked the computer's plug out of the wall. I stood up, pacing the room, thoroughly disturbed. My friend's suicide note had only said the word "naughty" several dozen times.


"Hello, new friend."

I jumped. I must've left the speakers on, and just unplugged the computer. Although, the video still should have gone off, so it made no sense.

I went back to turn off my speakers, when I saw that they were off.

"My name is Fred."

I had turned them off after the first gunshot...long before I had started hearing the poem.

"The words you hear are in your head."

They were in my head. And they have been in my head ever since I watched that video.

I can't take it anymore. I'm going insane...have gone insane, I suppose....or maybe I've just gone bad.

It's too much. I'm going now. I had to tell someone, so I'm telling you..

Goodbye, my friend, for I'll be dead. I'm putting a bullet through my head. I'm glad that you've read all that I've said. But, now, I must do something... Naaaaughty......

I'll post one too.

 The Keyhole

A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one should look inside the room, under any circumstances. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed. The next night his curiosity would not leave him alone about the room with no number on the door. He walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye. What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to. This disinclination saved his life. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red. At this point he decided to consult the woman at the front desk for more information. She sighed and said, “Did you look through the keyhole?” The man told her that he had and she said, “Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red.”

Hey. Keep posting.

^ I think Red Mist is a little better. Also, when posting a long one put it into spoilers, kind of annoying to scroll past all that.

 Dead Fred

I was out late at night, returning home from a 4/20 party with my family. My way home took me past the local cemetery, and I decided to visit the grave of a recently deceased friend of mine. It was rather eerie, walking past all those dark stones and trees in that sea of sepulchers, but I wished to pay my respects.




If only I hadn't. If only I'd kept driving that night, gotten home, and buried myself under the covers. But I didn't. I was a little stoned from the party, and waltzing through a graveyard late at night registered as a fine idea in my mind.




I eventually found my way to his grave, stumbling in the dark. Upon finding that flat chunk of rock that bluntly announced my friend's departure, I was surprised to find a disk there, among the flowers.




This disk didn't have a professional label; it was the kind you could buy by the hundreds, the kind to burn files on. It was in a plain, square case, with no writing on the clear plastic. The only words were scribbled onto the CD's white sticker; using my phone to illuminate the disk, I read the two words scrawled there, hastily and unceremoniously in black marker.




They said, "Dead Fred."


What really perplexed me was the handwriting; it was clearly my friend's. He used to own a video rental store, with hundreds of old VHS tapes that couldn't be found anywhere else. He had written the receipts by hand, and it seemed to match up with the disk's title...and, after his recent suicide, his note had been found, covered in gibberish scribbled on with the same, messy script.

Intrigued, I wondered who had left this here. I hadn't seen anyone with it at the funeral.

Tears were starting to burn my eyes. I missed my friend so much, and this disk must have been something very important to him, to be on his grave like this. Then why hadn't he told me about it? We told everything to each other. It wasn't right for him to keep the secret to himself, carrying it to the grave.

How dare he leave me out?

In a fit of drunken rage, I swatted the tears from my eyes and stormed out of the cemetery, disk in hand.

Only later, when I arrived home and was already popping the disk into my computer, did I realize what I had done. I had taken something off of my closest friend's grave, something I knew nothing about. It wasn't right; this was worse than him keeping secrets from me.

Bitterly, I went to eject the disk before the WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO? OPEN DISK WITH ITUNES, VIEW FILES, etc menu popped on screen when, unexpectedly, a video opened.

This surprised me for two reasons: one, I had assumed the disk had either audio, image, or text files. I hadn't even thought it could be video. Two, it hadn't asked me if I wanted to open the video with so-and-so program. It just started playing.


It was an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, my friend's favorite show. I hadn't really ever been into the show myself. I found it very disturbing, and had only watched the first season or so. So, when the title, "Dead Fred," appeared murkily on screen, I didn't know that something was wrong. I had seen the original "Freaky Fred" episode with my friend once, and I assumed this was just another episode starring the deranged, poetic barber.

Disgusted at myself for taking the disk, I went to exit the video only to find that my cursor was frozen. The keys rendered no assistance either, so I reluctantly turned up the volume on my speakers and started watching the video.

It started out just like "Freaky Fred," with Fred on the bus and Muriel spreading that yellow quilt over the bed. Fred wasn't reciting his poem, though; in fact, there was apparently no audio to go along with the video.

I thought that it must have just been the original episode with the title shooped until I saw Courage. The small dog was looking out a window, glaring down at Fred with a mixture of fear and malice in his eyes.

Courage turned from the window and looked angrily into the distance...then he started having flashbacks. All that pomegranate he had always had to put up with, all the terror, all the abuse...it came crashing down.

Courage was crying in his frantic, animated style as he ran downstairs and to the basement. He started rummaging through a trunk, throwing out various objects (an ugly mask, a shrunken head, and other objects coordinating with the show's signature, disturbing style) until he pulled out a cartoon double-barreled shotgun, tears still streaming down his face.

Lugging the thing upstairs, he stood, aiming it at the doorway, tiny paw on the huge trigger. The adventurous background music started playing; however, the video was still without sound effects.

Muriel ran excitedly downstairs (I guessed that the doorbell had rang, as I couldn't hear anything) and swung it open to greet her nephew.

There stood Fred, with his wide grin and messy hair, looking just as freaky as ever. He opened his mouth to speak, looked down, and saw Courage standing there, trembling shotgun aimed at his chest. A look of shock and fright overcame Fred before a shot rang through the house.

By 'the house,' I mean MY house. The shot was the only thing with sound other than the music, and I shat a brick.

I had just expected a "bang" flag to pop out of the gun, but no. Fred stumbled backwards as cherry-red blood started spouting out of his chest, spraying everything in the house. Fred fell to the floor, dead. Muriel started sobbing. Courage looked horrified at what he had done, and ran upstairs to the bathroom. He was soon locked in, as what happens in the normal episode.


At this point, I was a little shocked. This was disturbing, even for courage. For the next few minutes, Courage sat on the floor, sobbing, fur spattered in blood. Then, words started coming through my speakers, long and low.

"Hello, new friend."

Courage looked up, looked around, and saw nothing.

"My name is Fred."

Courage stood up and spun around. He went to the window, trying to find the source of the voice. Muriel and Eustace could be seen dragging the body to Eustace's truck, a trail of blood streaming behind it. Muriel was still crying.

"The words you hear are in your head."

Courage backs away from the window, looking at the shotgun beside him. The flashbacks return, all the name calling, all the times he'd risked his life to receive no reward, all the horrible things he'd seen. All the things Eustace had done to him, even after he'd tried so hard.

"I say, I said, my name is Fred."

Courage picked up the cartoon weapon, balancing the barrel on the windowsill, aiming down his sights at Eustace's head.

"And you've been very..."

Courage pulled the trigger. In a fraction of a second, Eustace's head exploded into a goopy mess. He dropped on the body of Fred, his falling on top.

"Naaaaughty....."

Muriel screamed mutely. There was no bang of a shot this time, either; the audio was still off, except for the creepy poem.

As courage turned the gun on himself, I yanked the computer's plug out of the wall. I stood up, pacing the room, thoroughly disturbed. My friend's suicide note had only said the word "naughty" several dozen times.


"Hello, new friend."

I jumped. I must've left the speakers on, and just unplugged the computer. Although, the video still should have gone off, so it made no sense.

I went back to turn off my speakers, when I saw that they were off.

"My name is Fred."

I had turned them off after the first gunshot...long before I had started hearing the poem.

"The words you hear are in your head."

They were in my head. And they have been in my head ever since I watched that video.

I can't take it anymore. I'm going insane...have gone insane, I suppose....or maybe I've just gone bad.

It's too much. I'm going now. I had to tell someone, so I'm telling you..

Goodbye, my friend, for I'll be dead. I'm putting a bullet through my head. I'm glad that you've read all that I've said. But, now, I must do something... Naaaaughty......

not spoiling it cause people HAVE to read it.

Late reply! Yeah, I meant a real world setting.

In case people don't remember/never played it.

[horror]screenshots[/horror]

Let me know if the images don't load, I was too lazy to upload them myself.

Hory shet

Where the hell do you get this stuff, the last time I went to creepypasta I didn't see any pokemon creepypasta.

 peek a boo

for those creepyfreaks, visit http://pineappleyeahcreepypasta.tumblr.com for some creepy pomegranate.

replace the pineapple with the f word

 War Of The Dead

The power does it to everyone. It corrupts us all, or at least those of us who embrace it.

Although we dive right in to be swept away by the black waters of necromancy, it’s not easy for us to stay afloat. Our humanity is the coastline, the palm trees, the dry land itself. You put your humanity side by side with the fact that you’re a wizard of hell, coastline next to infinite expanse of ocean, and you decide being a wizard is more fun. It appeals to you. You can’t get away from it, so you dive in and swim out in to the ocean to get a bigger taste. To feel it all over your body, instead of just staring at it and dipping your toes in.

The first time you swim in the ocean of the dead, the waters are electric to your soul. They shock you, show you things that you can’t possibly understand but eventually DO come to understand. One day, it just so happens that you might decide you’re tired of swimming, so you try to turn around, but the coast is gone. You don’t swim back. You keep being swept out. To the sharks and an unknown abyss below you. The only place you can go is down, and that leads to a place that no man has been before.

That is my family’s struggle, and they have devised a society and a code over the years. If I have the right person, then the man in front of me has trampled our ideals in to the ground. Our traditions, our laws, our fellowship. In truth, we necromancers are afraid not of the dead, but of each other. We know that one of us might become too potent somewhere down the line because we stumble across the right demon with the right power, or because we sacrifice a particularly powerful spirit to the underworld. We know that one day, one of us might rise up and try to assert a kingdom of the dead on earth.

The Chomhairle believe this is the man who poses that precise threat. They sent me to find him after we found his diary. When my father learned that his own brother had deserted the coven and handed over a bloodstone to a random child due to a disagreement, he put a death sentence on this man’s head. We couldn’t begin to search for him until he left his bloodstone behind. A trace of his power that we could latch on to, that we could follow.

The man shuffles past me to the urinal with a mumble of “excuse me,” and he shies away from looking me in the eye. He seems tired and drained. This is a good start. It could be him.

I linger by the sink, lather my hands, and rinse them off, hoping that he will finish in time for me to see his face in the mirror. To strike up a ten second, meaningless conversation. Anything. It’s been such a long road here. I’ll take what I can get.

I have to know. I can’t walk out of this place now, even if I’m on the brink of death. I might have to teeter here for awhile. He is so very, very familiar with the spirit world; he might know it more intimately right now in this very moment than I ever will in my lifetime. If this is him, then his guise of deception is stronger than any in our history.

We know some of what he is capable of. But not all.

I hope one minute spent in this bathroom will be the conclusion to the longest wild goose chase in the history of the Chomhairle. If this is him, then I’m initiated as a council member. If it’s not, then I’m at least another hundred years out. My ambitions within the council are nothing in comparison to the thirst for power.

The bathroom is fritzy, five star, and new age. It’s deep in the heart of Soho, of course. A cesspool of youthful rebellion. The green light in this place is too strong. That’s hint number one that I have the right man. Let me go down the list for you.

When he shakes it off, he spends an extra five seconds scratching his testicles, and then he rubs them a bit as he stares at the ad for the after hours swinger’s club in the corner above the urinal. Even if this isn’t the guy, he’s still a pervert, and I’ve decided to sacrifice him if he’s my sixth case of mistaken identity in a year out of simple frustration.

I wash my hands a second time, waiting on him, trying not to be disgusted. He finally zips his fly and moseys over to the sink. So there’s hint number two.

“You spill something on yourself?” He asks me.

I’ve never heard his voice. It sounds different than I expected.

I know how this dangerous sorcerer sees the world. He’s made a mistake, sharing his most intimate confessions with me. He never should have written them down. His ego may be his weakness, if I’m strong enough. Maybe.

This has to be him. I say it in my head a thousand times in a split second.

“Crawfish bisque. Good as hell, but I can’t seem to finish a bowl without spilling it all over my sleeves.” I say, squirting a fresh batch of soap on to the paper towel and scrubbing at my perfectly clean fisticuff.

“Aren’t you a little old to be dining here? I’d think you would be at the Mesa or the Palm.” He says, and he makes a valid point. I do feel out of place here. I’m the only person in the building over the age of twenty five.

He’s bold. He thinks he’s invincible, and I know that this is hint number three. He says the first thing that comes to mind with impunity, and he always has. That explains the four ex wives and the masculine decorations in his town house.

I stare at his eyes in the mirror, and he’s too busy focusing on my pocket. This is hint number four, and this is the best of them all. I know this is the rogue necromancer. His eyes have a green twinkle in the backs of them, something that normal humans can’t see. He feels the stone, burning with ice fire in my pocket. He knows it’s fucking on me, and he’s stood next to me for less than half a minute. That’s because he can’t ignore the pull. It shows.

This is him.