So my friend may have been killed by a Sonic Rom Hack

It all started on August the 27th this year. I had decided to revisit Sonic Unleashed when I got a knock on my door. It was the mailman. “Package for Tom” he said, handing me a small, rectangular cardboard box. I signed the form and took it inside as he left. It was from my old friend Kyle. That alone was kinda strange, given how I hadn’t heard from him in two weeks. But what was actually inside the package was something a lot stranger. Inside was a note attached to a CD case. The handwriting was a little messy, like he was in a rush while writing it, but I managed to read it fine anyways. The note went like this:

Tom,

I can’t take it anymore. I played the game attached to this note and I’ve been losing my mind ever since! He’s always there, in the back of my mind, in the corner of my eye, he’s everywhere!

He’s after me!

Destroy the disc or he’ll come after you too!

JUST DESTROY THE FUCKING DISC!!

Kyle

I didn’t buy that something bad had happened to him for two reasons. Firstly, he would’ve called me if something was actually wrong and secondly, he always had a flair for the dramatic. I pulled out the CD case and the cd inside had “Sonic” written on it in black sharpie. I decided to put it in my spare PC, which is separate from the main one for the sole purpose of checking if any USB sticks I get from anyone else isn’t filled with viruses. I put the disc in and found a rom for Sonic 1 on it. I installed a genesis emulator and used it to run the game.

It started out normal, but when I pressed the start button, something changed for about a frame before fading to black. The water looked like it turned red. That’s about all I could make out before it booted up the… save select screen from Sonic 3? And the background was the sky from Stardust Speedway Bad Future?

Yeah, this had to be a rom hack.

What solidified the whole rom hack theory is that, out of the three characters playable, one of them was Robotnik. No Sonic, either, just Tails and Knuckles. At that point, Tails was the only one selectable, so I chose him first. After it faded to black, I swear I could almost here a more bitcrushed version of the Kefka laugh from Final Fantasy 6… for some reason.

The first level was Green Hill Zone. Nothing much to write home about, it was just act one of Green Hill Zone, but I was playing as Tails. Reached the end of the act, didn’t get enough rings for a special stage, oh well, onto the next one. Green Hill Zone Act 2 was actually kinda strange. First off, there were no enemies, secondly, at one point the level just turned into nothing but flat land with a few trees as set decoration. Lastly, the music had changed to something that sounded like it would be a good melody if it were reversed. After that, it was onto Green Hill Zone Act 3, or rather just “Hill” as it was called. Same weird music, same flat landscape. After about a minute of doing nothing but walk to the right, I saw what looked like a mutilated flicky corpse on the ground.
Well, that explains everything. It’s a horror rom hack, like the Earthbound Halloween Hack.
I kept going right as more and more flicky corpses littered the ground, with some being hung from the trees by their entrails. The game even changed a little bit of the spritework so that Tails looked visibly worried by what was going on around him. There was a lot of effort put into this romhack, I gotta say.
At a certain point of running along the path, Tails stopped moving. He then held his hand up to his forehead as the camera panned to the right a little. At the very edge of the screen was Sonic, standing with his arms crossed, facing towards the right. Tails started walking towards him, but as he was about to reach him, Sonic opened his eyes, and they were almost entirely black. It only happened for about a quarter of a second before it cut to black. Then some text popped up.

“Hello… do you want to play with me?”

The next level was “Hide and Seek”. It took place in what looked kind of like Angel Island Act 2, with the background burning. The timer was actually ticking down, for some reason. Then I moved Tails behind a bush.
“Ooh! I get it! I actually have to play Hide and Seek with this guy!” I thought to myself.
Then I tried hiding in a different spot and waited there until the timer hit 0. Once that happened, I found out that I couldn’t move. After like a minute of waiting, I saw Sonic come by. But he looked a little different. For one, his eyes were almost completely blacked out, save for some red dots that I think were meant to be his pupils. He also looked like there was some blood under his eyes and the tips of his quills were purple for some reason. He opened the bush that I was hiding in and then the screen faded to black as that bitcrushed Kefka laugh played again.

Then it was time for another new level; “Tag”.

Once the level text went away, Tails was already running for his life, as “Sonic” was chasing him. I kept my finger on the right arrow key for a solid minute before he caught up. Once he did, he grabbed Tails and pushed him a little into the background, where he was burned to death. Then “Sonic’s” head turned towards the screen as he laughed again. Then the level faded out. After that, more text:

“Try as you might, you were still too slow.”

The text faded out and the level select screen faded in. There were a few changes, however. One, the sky was a slightly different colour, almost pink-ish. Two, Tails was no longer playable, as his level select icon was replaced with what looked like Tails’ charred corpse.
I selected Knuckles and ended up in Scrap Brain Zone Act 1. Unlike Green Hill Zone, it only took like half an act for things to get weird. The ground looked like someone had splattered blood all over it, and the ground was getting rustier by the second. After I reached a certain point, that weird Sonic/not Sonic that killed Tails earlier showed up. Then the level faded to black as yet more text popped up on the screen.
“Found You!”

Then it was time for another new act: “You Can’t Run”.

Knuckles was still in Scrap Brain Zone, but he was trapped in a small boss arena of some kind as the boss music begam playing. The ground was covered in purple crystals for some reason, and there was a slightly transparent Sonic on one of the three platforms available. I jumped into the ghost, but it teleported to another platform. I jumped into the ghost again, it teleported again. This went on for about a minute and a half before a cutscene played. Knuckles fell to the ground and almost looked like he was crying. Then the “Sonic” appeared above him, then stomped on and crushed his head on the rusty ground. Then the “Sonic” turned to the camera and laughed that same old laugh again.

After the screen faded to black, some more text popped up. This time reading:

“So many souls to play with, so little time. Wouldn’t you agree… Thomas?”

It was at this point that I was kind of concerned.

How the fuck did the game know my name? Why was the game addressing me directly? What the fuck did Kyle give me? Then I calmed myself down. Doki Doki Literature Club did something similar by getting your real name from the system, so the game was probably doing that to spook me out.

The character select screen popped up again, but this time Robotnik was the only character I could play as. The sky was a deep purple now and Knuckles was locked off from me like Tails was before I selected him. And much like Tails, Knuckles’ level select screen was replaced with his corpse, this time it looked like he had his face rearranged. His teeth were coming out of his left eye and his right eye was completely red, like he was suffering from Tetanus.

Robotnik’s stage had no name. The level select screen only showed the circle and nothing else. No level name, no act number, just the circle. Once that went away, I saw a completely unique stage, which looked like a castle made from purple bricks and a checkerboard tiled floor. The level consisted of mostly stairs you could walk up and doors you could go through. Most of the doors leaded to either nothing in particular or dead ends, so it was probably best to just ignore them for the most part.

One of the doors I went through sent me to another level, “Xenophanes’ Domain”. The level kind of looked like that one Hidden Palace Zone that was scrapped from Sonic 2, but all the green things were purple and there was a river of blood. The level was incredibly short-lived, with it only taking me around 30 seconds to get to the cutscene. Robotnik looked up as the screen panned to the right to reveal the “Sonic” standing atop a purple Master Emerald. He looked a little taller now, and the purple on the tips of his quills had grown a little. They almost looked like crystals. It raised a hand and then a crystal hand broke out from the emerald and stabbed Robitnik. Then the screen went black for a few seconds.

After that, the screen was filled with a pixelated Sonic head, with those blackened eyes and those crystalline quills. Then the game started talking to me. It was bitcrushed as all hell, but I managed to make out some of it:

“Hello there, friend. I’ve enjoyed our game well enough, I’m sure you had some fun. Unfortunately, your friend didn’t feel the same way, Thomas. You might be wondering how a Sonic game knows your name. Well, this is no mere game… and I’m not Sonic. I am Xenophanes. There’s nowhere you can run and no god you can pray to… other than me.”

The game faded to black and caused the emulator to crash. I sat there for a bit, completely shaken up. Then I thought to myself that maybe it was all a big prank. That maybe Kyle had created the rom hack or commissioned someone else to make it as a means of scaring me. Well if that’s the case, he certainly got what he wanted! I took the CD out of my computer and put it back in it’s case.

After some dinner, I decided to watch some TV. There wasn’t much, and what was there wasn’t very interesting at best and boring as sin at worst. All the while I couldn’t get that game out of my head. Did Kyle make it? Was he actually ok? I’d have to check on him tomorrow.

But as I looked out my window, I saw a guy standing on the sidewalk outside my house in the pouring rain. He was about six feet tall with blackish bluish hair and purple eyes, wore a black singlet with some black cargo pants, spiked gauntlets, a bullet belt, black boots with a belt and a necklace. He just stood there smiling at me. And then, some lightning flashed in the sky, and while the outside world went white, the guy was gone…

And standing there in his place, for a split second, was Xenophanes, before the world went back to normal and the man was there again. Smiling even wider than before.

I’m totally fucked, aren’t I?