"A Frozen Trap" (Rewrite)

(November 15th, 2014)

Dear Diary,
I recently bought myself a Game Boy Advance SP off of Amazon, to bring back some memories from my childhood. It pleased me that the previous owner was a fan of Sonic like I was, and included the Sonic Advance trilogy. All three games came in their original boxes, which really took me back to when I was younger. I can't wait to play these games again, I used to play them a lot in my free time. My parents were always bugging me though, and telling me to go outside or help them with something I wasn't interested in.

"Eva go outside."

"Eva put that game down and come help me move this dresser."

It always annoyed me. Whenever I finished up doing whatever my mom or dad wanted me to do, I'd race back upstairs to my room, dive onto the bed, grab my Game Boy and fire up the game I was playing again. I'm 13, so it'll be a little different this time. I opened the box of Sonic Advance, and took out the cartridge. It was in surprisingly good condition. I put it in and played it for a majority of the day without a care in the world. By the time I was finished with Knuckles. It was an enjoyable playthrough, and late that night I decided to stay up and play the other 2 entries and some Sonic Battle as well. (My favorite entry in the Advance series is 3) I don't know why, but I seem to enjoy toying with Sonic and his friends and seeing them get hurt. I guess my weird habit of torturing bugs in the sandbox as a toddler grew into something else but at the very least it's harmless. I also saw some old Tails Abuse vids by whoisthisgit and thought it was fun to see Tails get destroyed over and over. I guess that didn't help.

As I looked over to the case for my Sonic Advance game I noticed that the box art of the game changed. I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating so I turned on the lights to look at it again. Everything is the same, except Amy's fur color changed from its traditional pink to an icy blue, her outfit was blue and even her eyes were blue. How did that happen? How can the box art on a game change like this? I'm probably imagining this and I just need to calm down.

I started a new game as Amy Rose. It was an enjoyable playthrough that brought me back to the days of my childhood. There was absolutely nothing out of place. Then I reached Ice Mountain Zone. I then decided to have some fun and made Amy stay underwater. I was enjoying the scenario I was creating in my head, until the time hit 9:59.99. Instead of the game's traditional time over death sequence, Amy froze like an ice cube in the water, and the screen faded to black. I was then respawned at a checkpoint above water, even though I was sure I activated one underwater.

Now the game was doing strange things. Instead of the time resetting to 0:00.00, it stayed at 9:59.99, and when I looked at Amy, her sprite was doing something I had never seen it do before; shiver. She was hugging her arms, franticly rubbing them with her hands in a futile attempt to stay warm. I pressed right, and Amy walked right, continuing to hug her arms. I led her to the water, and when I walked down the slope to go into it, I was met with a nasty surprise. Amy slid across the top. It was frozen. I tried to break the ice by using Amy's hammer, but it would not break, or even crack. I then led Amy away and tried to find some other way to get through the level, but I could find no such route. Amy was still shivering.

"Maybe I should try to warm her up," I thought to myself.

With that in mind, I led Amy around what of the level I had access to, and looked for anything that might warm her up. Nothing stood out. Amy was starting to shiver more violently. Not knowing what else to do, I led Amy to the wall, where she sat down and curled up, pulling her dress over her legs in another attempt to stay warm. I decided to come back tomorrow and try to figure this out. As I lowered my finger towards the power switch though, a text box appeared on the bottom of the screen, and it read

"Please don't go! I need your help!"

Was that Amy saying that? I looked at Amy, and her sprite was staring back at me with a pleading face, and looked as though she was about to burst into tears. I began to have second thoughts. I thought about it, but decided against it.

"It's just a game," I told myself. "It doesn't mean anything." I then took the game out and put it back in and reset it again.

and skipped the boot up, opening cutscene, title screen and main menu completely. I looked at Amy, and I was horrified at what I saw.

Amy looked exactly like she did on the box art. Her fur was icy blue, her outfit was blue, and her eyes were blue. I tried to make her move, but I was greeted with a text box that read

"Amy's legs are numb."

After about a minute, Sonic walked on screen. The time started to count down from 9:59.99, and the game began to play like a cutscene. Amy jumped up and threw her arms around Sonic.

"Amy, why are you so cold?" Sonic asked. "What happened to you?"

"I've been trapped here all night," Amy replied. "I'm cold."

"Well let's warm you up then." Sonic assured her. Amy clung to him more tightly and Sonic took a seat with her. Amy's color was starting to return to normal! I was jumping for joy inside as I watched Amy grow warm again.

Then the time hit 0:00.00. Sonic disappeared, and Amy's sprite returned to the way it looked when I started the game, but this time, she was laying on the ground motionless. It was then I realized what was going on. Amy had been hallucinating. Amy was dead. She froze to death. The screen then slowly faded to black. Three words appeared on screen that read:

"You killed her."

After reading this, I pressed A. The game went back to the title screen. I went to time attack, and scrolled over to Amy. Her sprite was frozen, and it read

"Frozen by Eva, 12/08/14," instead of "Amy Rose."

I shrieked in terror and shut the game off. Amy was frozen on there as well, and nonexistent on the box of the other 2 games, as if she didn't exist. In a panic, I loaded up Sonic Advance 2, only to find the same message in the character select screen where you pick Amy. She was completely gone there too. I took it out and put in Sonic Advance 3 and did the same thing. I was met with the same chilling message in the character select screen where Amy was usually present.

"Frozen by Eva, 12/08/14."

I jumped out of my bed screaming so loud I thought my parents would've probably heard me. I threw the gameboy against the wall in horror along with the other cartridges. All I could think about what I had done. I killed Amy. I killed her. I took the life of an innocent little girl just for the sake of fun. What have I done? I closed my eyes tight and screamed for my parents' help.

My eyes bolted open and I woke up screaming "AMY!!!" at the top of my lungs. After a few seconds my mom opened the door wondering If I was okay. I choked a bit and told her I'm fine. I looked out the window in my room and realized It was morning. I tossed the sheets up and saw the cartridges were still there where I left them. My arms shook as I reached for my gameboy and hesitantly booted up Sonic Advance. Amy was there. She was still there. It was all a nightmare. A bad dream. I was so relieved to the point where I felt a tear run down my face. I put the other cartridges away and kept playing Sonic Advance anytime I got home from school and went about my days. I know it wasn't real.. but anytime I play as Amy or reach Ice Mountain I still think about what happened that night.