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mr-hammer-exe · 1 month ago

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Sonic.SGM (Story)

I’m writing about this here since I doubt anyone will believe my ramblings if I tell them this in person. However, this being the internet doesn’t change much.

I hate prolonged introductions, so I’ll cut to the chase, rip the band-aid off, and get this off my chest before I lament over it any longer. To set the scene and make part of a long story short, my name is Thomas Miller, but most people I know simply call me Tom.

I was a massive fan of Sonic the Hedgehog when I was younger, and I still am. I’m sure most of you reading this have at least played a game with him in it, watched one of his many cartoons, read one of his comic runs, etc.

It’s been the childhood of many since the 1990s and 2000s, and I consider myself fortunate to be part of this group. My father surprised me with a Sega Genesis on Boxing Day years ago, and games such as Aladdin, The Incredible Hulk, and Toy Story were bundled with it.

But the two that fascinated me the moment I laid eyes on them were, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I played them a thousand times over compared to my other ones.

I’m not quite sure what made me so infatuated with it, be it the irresistibly cute character designs, the fast-paced take on the typical platformer formula that was revolutionary at the time, or something else. Whatever the case, I held the classic titles dear as I grew older, and collected as many newer games as I could whenever they came out.

Unfortunately, I found myself in some financial trouble when I got to college, and I ended up selling my childhood Genesis, along with all the cartridges, to get myself out of it. It’s a choice I’ve deeply regretted for a while now, and just thinking about it as I write this causes me emotional pain.

And after what I’ve experienced, it’s only worsened. After what I’d seen, I’ll never be able to play a single Sonic game ever again. Or at the very least, look at the character the same way I did before.

It all began a few weeks ago, when I went to a game shop near where I live to see if they had any Genesis and Mega Drive Sonic games. When I learned that they didn’t have any in stock, I tried another location in the next town over per the suggestion of one of the employees.

I mean “another location” roughly, since this place looked like a throw-together flea market. The place didn’t look like it was getting much business, and I couldn’t help but feel a tinge sad for them.

As I strolled along the aisles, I saw some shelves consisting primarily of well-known Wii or Xbox games. I felt somewhat somber since I owned both of those consoles at one point, only for both of them to inevitably become out-of-date.

But that wasn’t what I was here for. I found some others, such as 3DS or Switch games, and even Super Nintendo or NES games, most of which were cheaper, more common titles.

I was beginning to lose faith, but that was when I saw it. Positioned toward the middle of the Dreamcast section was a 2019 Sega Genesis Mini, a re-release of my childhood console with 42 built-in games.

While it may not have been exactly what I was looking for, I heard it had both of my childhood favorites, which was good enough for me. When I checked for a price sticker, however, there was none.

This was a little strange, but the console itself looked to be in pristine condition, so I still decided to buy it anyway. The guy who sold it to me had a scowl on his face the entire time I was in the shop, but when I brought the console up to him, his eyebrows rose almost comically.

When I asked him how much it was for, he stammered with his speech as though he were unsure of what to say before finally uttering, “That’ll be ten dollars, sir.”, in a straightforward tone. I did as requested, and he took the ten-dollar bill from my hand and put it in his pocket without a word. Once I put the console in its plastic bag and returned to my car, I eagerly went home to boot it up.

I brought it to my apartment’s living room and fumbled with the wires and adapter cables, nearly plugging them in all wrong because I could barely contain my excitement. This would be the first time I played a Sonic game, or any game from my youth, for that matter, in over a decade.

After getting the console hooked up and skipping through the legal notices and company logos, I scrolled down the menu of built-in games until I found it: Sonic the Hedgehog. With one press of the start button, I began playing my favorite thrilling, high-speed action platformer, now in a new, high-definition display.

The SEGA logo faded in as the screen turned white, and hearing the harmonizing voice caused a tidal wave of nostalgia to wash over me. The famous title screen soon appeared, and I hummed along to the opening jingle as Sonic waved his pointer finger.

Once the music stopped, I pressed start, causing the title screen to fade out. As it did, however, I could’ve sworn I saw Sonic’s eyes turn a reddish-brown before the titlecard of “GREEN HILL ZONE ACT 1” appeared, the catchy 16-bit melody accompanying it. I shrugged the occurrence off as a minor glitch since there didn’t seem to be anything else wrong with the level upon loading in.

I ran through the level, collecting rings and smashing up monitors, badniks, and breakable obstacles as I’d done all those years ago. When I reached the end of the act, however, I noticed that the giant ring that teleports you to the special stage wasn’t present, despite having collected 80 rings (you need at least 50 for them to appear).

I tried jumping around where it normally was, thinking it was a loading error, but nothing happened. It was as though I didn’t have enough rings. I sat there, annoyed that I missed the special stage, but figured I could see if the ring would appear in the next act, which soon started.

After rolling down the steep slope next to a swinging platform, I was sent careening backward toward the area beneath the waterfall I passed over when starting the level.

But as I destroyed one of the two Motobugs in that area and rolled further back, my momentum was suddenly halted out of nowhere, and I lost what few rings I’d collected by then as though I’d run straight into a hazard such as a badnik or spikes.

Unsure of what to think, I brushed it aside and went to the left toward the speed monitor near a breakable wall, hitting it and rocketing through the level ahead.

Because of both this and an invincibility monitor I hit along the way, I ran through the remainder of the act within 15 seconds. But this came at the cost of not getting enough rings for the special stage ring to appear, which I cursed myself under my breath for. My inner completionist was starting to seethe.

I sighed before going into the pause menu and exiting the game without saving my progress. I figured no harm, no foul: that I’d just start over while I hadn’t come too far. Though in retrospect, part of me wishes I’d kept playing. I passed through the company logos and the title screen without incident, which reassured me that whatever loading errors I’d experienced had been corrected.

I started Green Hill Zone Act 1 again, now with a newfound confidence. Though that confidence was short-lived. Not even five seconds into the level, just as I was about to jump onto the first plateau, the game froze, and the music was drowned out by a loud buzzing sound. In addition, the graphics turned all choppy as the pixels blended, complete with an “ILLEGAL INSTRUCTION” message overlapping it all.

The message remained onscreen for about 40 seconds before the screen went black, and the buzzing stopped with it. I harrumphed in frustration as I got up to turn off the TV and unplug the console.

I thought the thing was broken and was ready to take it back for a refund, but the light blue oval that accompanies a level title card suddenly appeared from the left of the screen, centering itself. But the text was flickering between “GREEN HILL ZONE” and “SPRING YARD ZONE”, and there was no “ACT [Number]”. To my surprise, a level loaded shortly after the title card faded.

The real kicker, however, was that I wasn’t playing as Sonic, but rather Tails. His sprite resembled the one from Sonic 2, though the palettes were a darker orange, and it was overall drawn differently. I moved Tails around a little as I tested to see if he had any exclusive controls in comparison to Sonic.

He couldn’t fly despite me pressing the jump button multiple times in mid-air. “Okay,” I thought, “Can he spin-dash?” I pressed down on the D-pad and tapped the jump button again and again, but he remained in his crouching position.

He didn’t so much as even tuck and roll when I pressed down on the D-pad after gaining a bit of momentum, nor did he break into his hover-run using his two tails, which I thought was strange. Now I was sure something was off. I began to doubt that this was a legitimate release from SEGA Corp., and thought it must have been a weird bootleg or modified hardware.

With nothing else to do, I proceeded through the level, which consisted mostly of flat terrain with a few slopes leading upward. The background assets of the mountains and buildings from Spring Yard Zone were gone, leaving only the still clouds and lush foliage.

20 seconds into the level, I started seeing lampposts from Star Light Zone, as well as metal textures from Spring Yard that were fashioned into structures that I soon recognized as houses. “What is this place?” I asked out loud.

I also noticed that there were no badniks, monitors, spikes, bottomless pits, or rings in the level at all. Nothing. I continued to the right and realized that the sky and level palettes were gradually changing to a more nighttime-esque setting, and the lampposts turned on one by one. The Green Hill Zone theme gradually slowed down as this happened, too.

The Classic-Era games never had this much detail put into them, so I was as impressed as I was skeptical. I soon reached a stretch of flat ground, and the music abruptly stopped. I checked to see if I’d accidentally muted the TV by sitting on the remote, but I hadn’t. When I made Tails jump, the sound still played. That said, I figured this was either an error in the audio loop or scripted.

A new song started to play, and it wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard in a Classic Sonic game. It sounded like a piano, but it was cold and unpleasant, played with incredibly low-pitched notes. Tails suddenly stopped, and his expression changed as he looked over his shoulder. I wasn’t controlling Tails anymore, so a cutscene was playing out. The screen panned slowly to the left to reveal someone slowly walking toward Tails.

Once they came into view, I realized who it was: Sonic. But something wasn’t right with his movements. His head was tilted toward the ground, and he had both hands behind his back as he approached Tails. “How is he moving like that?” I wondered. What confused me more was Tails’ reaction to Sonic’s arrival.

He didn’t look happy to see him, but afraid. Sonic lifted his head and looked at Tails with contracted pupils and a smirk that stretched across his face. White text (the same font used for the level titles) appeared at the top of the screen, reading:

“HELLO THERE.”

The characters were never this expressive during cutscenes (namely the ones in Sonic 3 & Knuckles), and no dialogue was ever used, so this was weirding me out. But my confusion was replaced with surprise just seconds later, when Sonic suddenly ran toward Tails.

Tails suddenly turned around and ran away to the right in a panic, to which control returned to me. I shouted out, “Oh, shit!” The music also changed into a repetitive, frantic-sounding song as Sonic slowly gained on Tails. The hedgehog’s expression changed again, now sporting a twisted grin. I felt my stomach turn when I noticed not only this, but also what Sonic was holding in one of his hands: a knife.

At first, it was difficult to make out because of how quickly he was moving, coupled with the 16-bit graphics, but there was no mistaking it once I realized what it was. The level came to a downward slope, where another stretch of flat ground densely packed with palm trees and bushes from Green Hill Zone awaited me. Sonic started lagging, and he stopped at the edge of the tree line. I thought I’d gotten away, which filled me with relief.

But about 15 seconds of running later, Tails tripped over a sprite of what looked like a shovel, falling face-first into a ditch just ahead of him as his momentum was completely halted. Beneath the fox was what looked like a jumbled mess of leaves and pieces of trunks from the surrounding palm trees. I couldn’t do anything but watch as the poor kid cried, and my heart sank.

Though it suddenly began beating quickly again as the dreadful drowning theme faded in, played with drawn-out, deliberate notes and more intensity. Sonic soon appeared from the left of the screen, walking over to the edge of the ditch where Tails sat, looking up at him with fear in his eyes. Sonic stared back, looking down at the fox with one of his idle frames from Sonic CD, if you’d remain inactive long enough before he jumps off the level.

“YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME ANY LONGER.”

“GOOD RIDDANCE.”

Sonic then drew one arm, holding a lighter this time. He ignited and tossed the lighter into the ditch, causing the timber and leaves at the bottom to quickly go up in flames, and along with it, Tails. The screen cut to black as the sound of roaring fire from Marble Zone sounded through my TV’s speakers, though it sounded as if the effect was being played multiple times, each overlapping the other.

I had to turn my head away and cover my ears because it was so loud. On a lighter note, it only lasted for about two seconds, so I guess I didn’t have to worry about getting a noise complaint from one of my neighbors. There was nothing for another second or two before white text appeared:

“NOW DO YOU SEE THE EFFECT OF YOUR WORDS?”

��I HOPE YOU DO.” I sat there in a mix of shock and confusion. I couldn’t tell which I felt more, though it was probably the latter, as several questions ran through my mind. “What the fuck does that even mean?”, I asked myself, “Did Sonic just… kill Tails?” What could Tails have possibly said for Sonic to do… that to him, his best friend? Is that what that sentence was implying?

My attention was diverted back to the TV when the game started on its own again. A title card appeared, but the level had no discernible name, just a bunch of jumbled text. When the level loaded, I saw I was playing as someone new yet again. It was the red ruffian himself, Knuckles the Echidna– a character who wasn’t even supposed to be on this console, given that it didn’t have either of Sonic 3’s two halves, nor the full game, built into its hardware.

Similar to Tails before him, none of Knuckles’ sprites were ones I’d ever seen before. In fact, they looked as though they were custom-made in the style of Sonic 1/CD. As dumbfounded as I was, I tried out the controls to see if he could glide. But alas, he was reduced to “basic platformer mode”, just like Tails.

I gave the level graphics a look next. The ground tiles were from Green Hill Zone, though it was only the top part. The rest of the assets below had been cropped out. The background was completely black, save for the clouds at the top of the screen. There was another new track in this level, too. It was a dark, dreary tune with reverberating notes, landing somewhere in the ballpark between being unnerving and lonely.

It seemed like this level’s tone was intentionally creepy, which, given what I’d just witnessed, didn’t seem too farfetched. Contrary to Tails’ nighttime segment, there were no lampposts, rendering most of the level obscured, and the palettes saturated. From what I could make out, though, Knuckles seemed to be in a similar area to where Tails met his end, since the place was chock-full of palm trees.

Knuckles stood in his idle pose before entering his waiting animation because of my inactivity. I could see that he looked confident yet unnerved. Out of curiosity, I moved Knuckles to the left. Part of me hoped I’d be able to find Tails and save him, but I instead found a dead end.

“So much for that.”, I said with a sigh. After running for what felt like forever (which, in reality, was probably about a minute), I finally saw a pair of objects in front of the echidna: a bench next to a burnt-out streetlamp.

Once I passed it, I reached the next segment of the level, where the scenery was a complete 180 in comparison to the first. It appeared to be a more urban area, with assets from Spring Yard Zone portraying what appeared to be storefronts and other buildings.

I felt oddly at ease seeing this sight as I listened to the background music. With the faint crackling of the audio that sounded reminiscent of raindrops hitting a solid surface, it almost felt therapeutic.

As I moved Knuckles further along the street, the lampposts began flickering to life. Some of them glowed dully, and others burned out completely as I passed them by. But it was as these lights began to illuminate the level that I noticed Sonic following me, with the same animations as when he’d approached Tails. I didn’t see him until one of the lights above revealed him walking at an equal pace to Knuckles, so I don’t know how long he could’ve been following the echidna for.

I felt my heart skip a beat when I spotted the hedgehog, and I heard that same unpleasant piano-esque melody from earlier fade in over the level’s music. Sonic slowed his pace and came to a halt before Knuckles did the same a few seconds later. And then, another cutscene.

Knuckles stopped and looked over his shoulder before whipping around, having a similar startled reaction to mine when he saw Sonic standing there. Knuckles stood like a deer in headlights, looking at Sonic as he slowly lifted his head to meet the echidna’s gaze. White text appeared at the top of the screen.

“ABOUT TIME I FOUND YOU.”

The moment they made eye contact, Sonic didn’t quickly approach Knuckles like he’d done Tails, but made slow, methodical movements toward the echidna. He never once broke eye contact with him. Knuckles backed three steps away as Sonic continued to advance toward him, moving like a predator sizing up its prey. As he approached, more text appeared and disappeared in rapid succession.

“WHAT’S THE MATTER?”

“ARE YOU SCARED?”

“THAT’S NO WAY TO LOOK AT YOUR OLD BUDDY.”

I almost didn’t notice, but Sonic’s eyes now appeared reddish-brown, just like when the title screen faded away during my first run. The only reason I hadn’t before was because of the poor lighting, but now I could see it. I wanted Knuckles to get the fuck out of there, but worried Sonic would give chase. That was when the hedgehog made his move and attacked Knuckles.

In the blink of an eye, however, Knuckles charged forward and punched Sonic, causing him to fall flat on his ass. I couldn’t help but laugh at the hedgehog’s expense as he sat there with a disgruntled, embarrassed look for a few seconds before standing back up and brandishing the same knife he’d chased Tails with. His face also contorted into that uncomfortable smile, and I immediately got quiet.

“STOP RUNNING. YOU CAN’T.”

“FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.”

The music suddenly shifted into an intense, sporadic song akin to a chase theme in a horror film. As Sonic jumped at Knuckles, I realized, “Oh, a boss battle!” and ran to the right to avoid the hedgehog’s attack. A boss fight against Sonic. That was new. Then again, it was the other way around in Knuckles’s debut game, so perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising a concept.

I tried to jump and hit Sonic, but he swung the knife at Knuckles twice, causing him to enter a damage animation as he staggered back. With the short window of invincibility frames I had, I ran past the hedgehog as he jumped at me again. My mind was racing, wondering how I’d be able to hit Sonic with how fast he was moving, and how frequently he was jumping around.

After about 30 seconds, Sonic stopped to rest, and that was when I struck. I made Knuckles run and jump at Sonic, landing a blow to his head and causing him to stagger back after entering his damage animation. More text appeared after the hedgehog recovered:

“I’LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THAT.” “ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER THINGS YOU SAID AND DID TO ME.”

Once control returned to me, I moved toward Sonic as fast as the controls would allow, but the hedgehog refused to let me damage him any further. Every time I got close to hitting the blue bastard, he’d land a cheap slash on Knuckles with his knife and run to the opposite side of the screen.

He’d run right past Knuckles as though he were part of the foreground or background, meaning I couldn’t hit him if I tried. This process repeated four or five times before Knuckles finally fell to his knees, hand over his face as he began to sob.

Sonic approached Knuckles from behind, and that intense version of the drowning theme returned. I felt my heart sink upon hearing it again, dreading what would happen next. I tried every button I could, and I found that I could make Knuckles slowly crawl away using the D-pad, but Sonic leapt forward and put a foot on the echidna’s back, pinning him to the ground.

The hedgehog raised his knife over his head before bringing it down into Knuckles’ back in one swift movement. I let out an audible yelp as he did. The screen cut to black as the sound of a character running into spikes played, followed by the drowning sound effect. “Knuckles, too?!” I thought as I sat there in disbelief. At this point, I was thoroughly freaked out.

This wasn’t the Sonic I knew and loved from my childhood. It couldn’t have been. Sonic would never hurt his best friends, let alone kill them. Whatever game I had been playing, whatever game had started as a digital re-release of Sonic 1, had taken a dark and gruesome turn. Another message appeared on the black screen:

“NOW YOU KNOW HOW I’VE FELT.”

I wanted answers. Why was Sonic killing his friends? What could they have possibly said or done to him to set him off like that? As I asked myself these questions, another level title card appeared. Unlike the last two, this one read clear as day: “THE END”. I raised an eyebrow at that. “‘The end’?” I asked, “It’s over? Just like that?”

My guess was disproven almost immediately when another level loaded, along with another character. If I hadn’t already been surprised by Knuckles appearing in this game, on this console, as a playable character, then I certainly would’ve been when I saw I was now playing as Doctor Robotnik. Not to say I wasn’t surprised, since he’d never been playable in any of the Classic Sonic games. But even then, it was still quite a shock.

Unlike Tails and Knuckles, his sprites hadn’t been altered in the slightest, and were from Sonic 1. The level was reminiscent of the second segment of Knuckles’, graphics, music, and everything. I immediately began moving to the right, and was surprised to see that Robotnik’s walking loop seemed more “normal”, in the sense that his arms weren’t outstretched behind his back. Rather, he was jogging, moving both arms at his sides.

I was a little confused by these new animations because of what I was already used to, but I got accustomed to them pretty quickly. Dare I say, I’d have preferred them over the ones that were reused between the games from my youth. Pressing the action button yielded no result, not even a jump out of the Doctor. For that alone, I already knew I wasn’t going to like whatever this version of Sonic had in store for me next.

Robotnik waddled down the street, which, unlike with Knuckles, had functioning streetlamps. Their combined yellow glow made me feel more at ease and calmed me down. “Well, that’s at least good, I guess.”, I said. I walked for about a minute without incident until finally, I reached a more suburban area akin to where Tails first walked through.

Continuing forward, I saw for a split second what looked like the silhouette of Sonic standing near the left corner of a house, just out of view from the nearest lamppost’s field of light. When I approached, it quickly disappeared behind the structure. My unease began seeping through once again, and I muttered, “Oh no…”

Not even 10 seconds later, I came upon the entrance to one of the buildings, which was toward the end of the level. I say entrance because this one served as another segment of the level. And I assumed it’d be the final one, too.

As I approached, I could just barely see the hedgehog’s visage bolting to the other side of the screen, disappearing behind the house. My blood ran cold when I saw him, and I gulped. I had no other choice but to go inside. When I did, everything in the background turned black, rendering it featureless save for the house’s vague interior. I could make out a table, chairs, and a countertop.

The music also stopped playing, and it stayed that way. Though that was probably for me to hear the loud crashing sound of when you collide with a breakable object (such as a wall or rock). Robotnik had an anxious look on his face, the one he has every time you hit him during a boss battle. Neither he nor I knew what would happen next, but it couldn’t have been anything good.

I made Robotnik continue to the right, where the level took a downward slope. The graphics became saturated as I went down, making everything even harder to see against the black background.

A few seconds passed, and I found a barely visible metallic panel from Scrap Brain Zone on the wall, though it looked more like a lever. Curious, I pressed the action button, and the graphics brightened. “Must be a light switch.”, I said before continuing past the vague odds and ends of the basement.

It wasn’t long before I reached a dead end, where Robotnik stopped and looked up at what appeared to be a hole in the wall, toward the top corner where it met the ceiling. He then turned around, glancing back and forth as if he were contemplating running for his life. I couldn’t blame him. Whatever was going on here was beginning to creep me out. Despite how much I had hoped Sonic wouldn’t appear, he did.

Robotnik stopped glancing around, focusing his gaze toward the left side of the screen. The camera slowly panned in that direction as the sinister piano began playing before it finally stopped, focusing on Sonic. The blue hedgehog stood next to the light switch as that wide, eerily happy grin quickly spread across his face.

I clung to my controller when I saw what he was holding this time. Instead of a lighter or a knife, he was now holding a baseball bat. A metal baseball bat, from the looks of its sprite. The lights went out, leaving most of the screen obscured as text appeared:

“ISN’T THIS SURPRISING?”

“WHO’S SCARED OF WHO NOW?”

The camera followed Sonic, panning toward the right as he slowly approached Robotnik, dragging the baseball bat behind him as he did. The doctor nervously backed away, cowering against the wall. But there was no avoiding his fate. Sonic took the bat to Robotnik’s head, to which the sound of a boss being hit played. Robotnik fell to the ground, shaking for about two seconds before looking up at Sonic with a petrified stare. More text appeared consecutively as the intense drowning theme began blaring through my TV speakers:

“OH, WHAT’S THAT?”

“WHY, YOU ASK?”

“BECAUSE YOU MADE ME DO THIS.”

“YOU RUINED EVERYTHING.”

“IT COULD HAVE BEEN JUST THE TWO OF US, BUT NO.”

“YOU JUST HAD TO BE A SHITTY LIAR.”

“YOU JUST HAD TO KEEP MOCKING ME…”

“...”

“SORRY ISN’T GOING TO CUT IT NOW.”

“IT’S TOO LATE.”

“YOU GETTING RID OF ME MAY HAVE BEEN THE HAPPIEST DAY OF YOUR LIVES…”

“BUT NOW I’M GOING TO HAVE THE HAPPIEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE… GETTING RID OF YOU!”

That was when Sonic took the baseball bat to Robotnik’s cranium for a second time. A much more brutal-sounding variant of the boss damage sound played, and the music concluded. I could feel myself wince as it happened. Soon, the screen faded to black.

Those sounds. I couldn’t get them, or their implications, out of my head. The screen remained black for another 10 to 15 seconds before something else appeared– the “CONTINUE?” screen from Sonic 1 after you get a game over.

Sonic stood on the purple circle in the center of the screen with his back turned as the 10-second timer counted down. No matter what buttons I pressed, nothing happened. I couldn’t continue. When the timer reached 0, I didn’t get a game over, nor was I taken back to the title screen. Instead, the last note of the continue screen music was paulstretched into an ear-splitting drag, and I dropped my controller to cover my ears.

The text and timer at the top of the screen glitched and broke apart as this happened before both completely vanished, leaving only Sonic, who still had his back turned to me. I sat there in silence for what must’ve been a solid three seconds as I watched the screen, on which more text appeared.

“WE HAD GOOD TIMES TOGETHER.”

“THEY GAVE THEM TO ME, AND TOOK THEM FROM ME, TOO.”

“THEY CUT THEM SHORT.”

“EVEN AFTER I GAVE THEM EVERYTHING.”

“THAT’S OKAY, THOUGH.”

“I’LL MAKE MORE OF MY OWN.”

“WHEN I CUT THEIRS SHORT.”

“BUT YOU?”

“YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT.”

Sonic then turned his head, looking over his shoulder and directly at the screen, at me, with his reddish-brown eyes and a smirk stretched across his face. The hedgehog turned his whole body to face the screen, and his appearance began to change drastically as he did.

He sported a stockier build as his palettes darkened, and his sprites became more detailed as he had a gross expression on his face: black, sunken eyes with reddish-brown irises and white pupils, complete with that psychotic grin.

“YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM THEM.”

Was Sonic… talking to me?! Why did he look like that all of a sudden? I wanted to scream, but I just couldn’t muster the strength amid my confusion. I didn’t know what the Hell was going on, and it was scaring the living shit out of me. The screen glitched as my TV made a loud buzzing sound for a few seconds, and what I saw next made me freeze where I sat.

On the screen was a close-up of Sonic’s head and upper torso. It was highly detailed, almost photo-realistic, even for the standards of the Sega Genesis’ hardware. His gaze was fixated on the camera, as if he knew exactly where I was looking. But his appearance was even more horrifying now that I could see it in greater detail.

His muzzle was covered in thick blisters. Glossy, crooked teeth lined his sore-ridden mouth, and I could see trickles of blood and some strange, black substance running from his gums all the way down his lower lip and chin. In fact, it seemed to be leaking out of every orifice of his ragged face.

That alone would’ve been enough to horrify me, had it not been for what happened next. The image of Sonic remained onscreen for roughly 10 seconds before two words appeared at the top of the screen.

“GAME OVER.”

But then two more at the bottom.

“FOR YOU.”

Then I heard a laugh emanating from the speakers. A raspy, shrill, nasally chuckle that gradually grew louder. And then, the image of Sonic changed as the text disappeared. It changed from the warped version of the blue hedgehog to an equally disturbing image of a person’s face. From what details I could gather, it appeared to be a young male who had bloodied, pale skin. It almost looked like rough leather.

Curly, matted black hair sat atop his head like frayed wires, all the while his face was skull-like in appearance. I nearly gagged at just the mere sight of him, and I could’ve sworn I saw that grin of his grow even wider when I did. From what I could see of his shoulders and upper torso, he was wearing a dark blue overcoat and a torn, bloodstained white button-up shirt.

Those hollow eye sockets retained the reddish-brown irises and white pupils, which continued staring into my very soul. A foul, nauseating odor suddenly filled my living room. I would’ve thought it was a gas leak or some other thing going wrong in my apartment building had it not been for the rotten, skeletal hand reaching out of the TV screen, which displayed a jumbled mess of static and assets from the game.

It was that instant when true, primal fear took complete control over me. I jumped out of my seat and screamed. It was the kind of scream I hadn’t felt, let alone heard, leave my body in years. There was no way in Hell I was staying in there any longer.

I made a mad dash for the front door and began frantically undoing the locks. For some godforsaken reason, I glanced over my shoulder at the living room, and was met with that same ghastly face staring back at me.

But it wasn’t displayed on the screen anymore. Now it, and the rest of the dirty, raggedly clothed body it was attached to, was pulling itself out of it. “Where are you going?” he asked me in a raspy, whispering voice mixed with a disgusting gurgle, “Don’t you want to help me find our friends?”

It was the most ungodly thing I’d ever fucking heard. The second I turned my head back to the door, I heard sapping, wet-sounding footsteps closing in behind me.

I let out another frightened scream as my fight-or-flight response kicked into high gear, and I swung the door to my apartment open before slamming it closed behind me.

I remember running down the halls of my apartment building, screaming for someone, anyone, to help me. Eventually, someone opened their door. It was a guy who was around my age, and I immediately ran inside. He tried to calm me down, asking what was wrong.

I told him someone had broken into my apartment and tried to kill me. That was the best explanation I could think to give in the heat of the moment. I could see the man’s face go pale from what I’d said.

He introduced himself as Kyle, and he beckoned me over to his couch to have a seat while he called the police and reported the whole thing. They arrived within minutes and searched the entire premises, but couldn’t find any signs of forced entry, nor the intruder themselves.

All they found was a mixture of blood and that black substance leading from the TV to my apartment door, and bootprints made out of it. They asked me a few questions about the intruder, such as how they were able to get in. I assured them someone really had been in my apartment, and that I had no idea who he was.

I’m willing to bet that if I’d told them the complete truth, they’d probably think I was either high or flat-out insane. After they took my statement, I was told by the officers that they would look into the case and keep an eye out before they left.

Kyle invited me to stay in his apartment for the night if that would make me feel any safer, and I accepted. I had just met the guy, but I couldn’t be more thankful for his kindness toward me that night, and the next few days I stayed with him. We even exchanged contact information, should anything else happen.

When I finally returned to my apartment, however, I found that the mess had been cleaned up, and the Sega Genesis Mini was gone. I called the police station to ask if, by some off chance, they’d taken it in for evidence, but no one seemed to know what I was talking about.

I haven’t seen it or that demented-looking man again since that night, but I’ve spent every day afterward fearing I will. At night, I never feel safe anymore. Any sound I hear makes me nearly jump out of my skin and look over my shoulder, even as I type this. Every time I close my eyes to sleep, I see those hideous faces staring back at me from the shadows, smiling and laughing. I even had recurring nightmares of them for a time.

I have to let people know. I have to get this off my chest, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. I don’t know what was up with that console. I don’t know who that man was, or where he came from. Every rationalization I try to make ends with me on the verge of tears. The memories of that night have been too painful to look back on. Some things are better left dead in the past.

But even then, I still haven’t forgotten them. And I know I won’t forget them anytime soon. Since then, I haven’t touched a single Sonic game. I worry that if I do, that guy, whoever or whatever he was, will come back for me. I can’t risk it. I just can’t. I never understood what he meant by “our friends” or that I was “no different from them”, either. And I don’t think I’ll ever know.

I’m not even sure if I want to know.

#writing #my writing #sonic the hedgehog #sonic.exe #sonic.sgm #rewrite #creepypasta #creepypasta rewrite #retake #exe may #exe may 2025 #sonic.exe retake #tw: death #tw: violence

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