PLEASE NOTE! This is not official! I have no intention of confusing anyone about the matter, though I did try to make it accurate to the story. If you must voice your concerns on my plagiarism, please take it up in the comments of this pasta.
I was at a Best Buy going to buy Sonic Mania, man, there's been a TON of crap with the Sonic The Hedgehog series after Sonic Heroes, Shadow The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 06, the Storybook series, etc. The only game I liked in the early 2000's was Sonic Unleashed. I picked up the game, and headed to the check out, when I saw another game that caught my eye. It was titled, "Sonic Discovery" I was told by my friend Shannon that there was an early version of Sonic Mania that was accidentally leaked on the internet, at the time it was titled, "Sonic Discovery" some people decided to burn the game onto a CD and they photo shopped the Sonic Mania box art to match the reminents of the old title screen, then they sold it. I picked up the game and headed to the check out, when they scanned the box the screen that shows the prices said that the game was free, and apparently was called DOGMAI, which must've been a signature from the people who sold it, but who has six initials?
I took both games home.
I played Sonic Mania first, I put the card into my Switch and started, I did a no save mode. I got a game over, probably due to me not having fully mastered the Joy-Cons. I decided that I would try later, since I was tired. but I remembered that I had bought Sonic Mania's prototype or rather, Sonic Discovery. I took the game out of the plastic wrapping. I opened it, and the game was definitely NOT a prototype for Sonic Mania, there was black marker on the disk, it read, "SONIC.EXE". Oh god, not Sonic.Exe. I've heard urban legends about this, hacked, or rather haunted depiction of Sonic The Hedgehog, which I first heard heard about in 2014. I threw it in the trash, so no one else would be taken into the damned creatures world and enslaved.
During the night, I know this sounds cliche, but I had a nightmare. I can't explain it in a way that won't be another cliche. Sonic came up to me, laughed. he had purely black eyes with red dots that were glowing, and his eyes were slit at the bottom. But then something happened. He said, "Don't like playing my games, eh?" "Tell you what, you have 24 hours to play through my game, if not, you will lose your life." I responded, "But, I thought you can't get into this world without me PLAYING disk?" he said, "I have my ways, and truthfully, don't you think that people could have been lying about enslaving people, you never know, I might be just trying to bless you." He faded into the darkness, and I woke up.
I took the disk out of the trash, I felt safe, somehow. I inserted the disk, and downloaded the game, the title screen was the original Sonic The Hedgehog title screen, until for a split second I saw that distorted Sonic from my dream, or rather nightmare. There was a file select, three files. One had Knuckles, one had Shadow, and one had, Sonic? I thought since this creature was depicted as Sonic, that he wouldn't be in the game, at least not playable.
I started Knuckles' stage, it actually looked like a Sonic game, the level title was Lost, well, at least it wasn't a "scary" title. There were rings and platforming, The level resembled Palmtree Panic from Sonic CD, and the music was a happy, childish melody, though not Palmtree Panic's music. I grabbed 37 rings, the ground became flat, and started turning darker and darker, and the music faded and around this time, my brother came in the room, we were both in terrible living conditions, so we had decided to come together and help each other financially. I turned off the monitor and he asked what kind of a Sonic game was I playing. I sighed and didn't tell him, he asked, "Can I watch?" I sighed again and said no. He left the room. I made Knuckles continue forth. I heard a laugh, the same from my nightmare, the screen turned black, and I heard a stabbing sound, and a screech. I was taken to the file select, Knuckles was now in the TV screen, same eyes as Sonic, his fur color was darker and he was dripping blood.
Next up was Shadow's stage, I started it up, the name of the stage was, "Isolate" and isolation is one of my worst fears, go figure. The level was a forest, the leaves were all brown, but they seemed to be dripping blood. There were corpses of many Sonic characters, most notably, Infinite, and the Phantom Ruby was still attached to his chest. I made Shadow continue through the desolate forest, when Sonic appeared after roughly five minutes of walking, Shadow knew what was gonna happen, so he attempted Chaos Control, but it failed, and the screen flickered. When it stopped flickering, Shadow was lying lifelessly in a pool of blood. I don't know what made me keep playing, ignorance? Curiosity? The hope to cleanse my fear of this blood stained hedgehog? I don't know, but I kept going through the game, the file select now showed Shadow, in the TV screen, his inhibitor rings were now a chilling red, and his eyes were the same as Sonic's, black, red, and bleeding
The last stage was Sonic's, the level didn't have a title card, it went right to gameplay. At first I thought the game was having a hard time loading, but the level was dark, I walked for a while, Sonic was walking slow for the fastest thing alive. And I was hoping he could retain the, "alive" in that title... light was fading in, and Sonic had a really stressed expression on his face, and he was sweating a lot. I went on, and at the end of the level, Sonic's eyes turned into that of Sonic.Exe's, and at the corners of his eyes, they were pointed. But then, Sonic.Exe appeared, and he said, "I told you I have my ways, this is just one of those ways, I can't leave here, yet, but my friends with great passion for Sonic, can." then the screen went black, and I heard a scream. It wasn't coming from the speakers. It was coming from my brothers room.
I hoped it was nothing, but I went into his room, and I saw an unrecognizable corpse, it was my brother! He had a cut in his chest which looked like the number 58, and his computer was busted up, the door closed behind me, and the lights went out someone appeared behind me, it was, Shannon?! WHAT THE HELL?! She had the most creepy smile, it stretched ear to ear. She punched me in the face, I fell to the ground, and she held my arms behind my back, I struggled to break free. My brothers computer monitor flickered, and Sonic.Exe emerged from the screen, and he grabbed me, he whispered in my ear, "There are multiple disks, and my friends, of course, they can leave the Void." and that was the last I heard before I took on a terrible new form, a twisted version of Sonic, and my brother? Well, I never found him, please whoever finds this diary writing, if you find any of the disks, destroy them, I don't want another soul lost, but this is all I can say, he's coming for me.