It's Just a Game

By Beveleon
Derek was an ordinary man. He had many friends and was Making more. Though when he was younger, both he and his brother loved video games. They would play all day and through the night of they could, but no longer. They were grown men, well at least Derek was.
But soon, his brother followed. It was surprising for Derek to find out that his brother was getting married. His older brother never seemed to give up games for anything. He sent most of his games to friends, but gave Derek his DS.
It has been years since Derek had held a game console and the feeling was somewhat odd. He had no games, so he went out looking for some. Since he didn't care of the quality he went looking around in at yard sales.
After a couple of hours, he found a whole box of gameboy and DS games. Derek thought it was a good deal and bought them all.
At home, he looked through this box. It had everything from Mario to Sonic. While looking, he found a game with no label. It didn't look like the label was torn off. It looked like it was never there.
That didn't matter. It's just a game. He had other games to play. But as much as he tried, he couldn't get back into games again. After an hour or two, he looked at the blank cartridge.
The game had no title, it just said press start. Then he saw the profile screen. The game only had one profile and it was used. He saw the picture and the face there seem familiar. He didn't care. He overwrited the profile. It asked him three times if he was sure. It felt weird pressing yes the third time. Menacing really.
Then it went to a new screen. It prompted him to make a new character. It was a long time since childhood and his imagination was gone, so he made the character look just like himself and called Derek.
It was a life sim, something he never was into before, but for some reason, he felt compelled to keep playing.
He kept playing and didn't stop after the night. He wanted to stop but he couldn't stop playing. He started to lose himself, not in a way of madness, but he lost control of his mind. It grew darker as he played. It's just a game.
Brady noticed that Derek was missing two days later when he went to his house. He was nowhere to be found.
After the investigation, Brady got his DS back. He noticed the cartridge had no label. He turned on the game. He saw Derek's profile. The picture looked just like. All well, it's just a game.