Hello. My name’s Terrance. I work for a gaming company. I will not tell you what gaming company, but I will tell you that I work as a game tester. I test the games before they’re released, so I can find any unwanted glitches or bugs.
It was late at night, and I was finishing up working on a project for the company. I just decided I would finish it in the morning, since there was only a little bit left and it was getting late. When I walked away from my working area, I saw a box full of games.
''Probably for me to test, ''I thought. I walked over to the box.
All of the games seemed familiar to me, except one. It was titled ‘X’. It had no label. The X was written in what looked like sharpie. I picked it up and turned it over. There was a message on the back, but it was hard to read, since the marker had looked like it faded. From what I could read, it said, “Don’t do it. This isn’t the right choice. Save yourself.”
''Maybe it’s a quote from the game, ''I thought.
“Testing one last game can’t hurt, right?” I said to myself.
I took the cartridge and connected it to my computer, since the game had a slot that looked like a USB cord goes it. And the USB cord did go into it. A message box appeared that said, “Are you sure you can trust this?” I clicked yes, and a window appeared. It was black for a second, but after that, there was the game’s menu screen. It had no other sound except for a long buzzing noise.
The title of the game really was X. There was a pixel character on the front, that I was pretty sure was the mythical beast, the Cockatrice. (If you don’t know what that is, go look it up.) It had an almost sad or scared look on its face. There was only one option, and that was Play.
The game was pretty pixel-y, like it was for the NES or something. There was another buzzing sound, but this time it was a lot lower. The background was pitch-black, and I was playing as a little pixel Cockatrice, like the one that was on the front. The controls were pretty simple. The arrow keys were used to go backward, forward, up, and down. The A and B keys were used as the OK and back keys. I walked forward, and the walking cycle was pretty simple, too. I held down the right arrow. Nothing happened other than the walking. Nothing appeared and the background stayed pitch-black.
As the Cockatrice walked forward, the buzzing sound faded and a higher screech-like buzz played. A text box appeared. It said,
“Don’t do this.”
I pressed the A on my keyboard and the text box closed. I walked forward some more and the buzzing faded again. This time, no other buzzing played. Another text box appeared.
This time it said, “Turn back. Please.”
I pressed the A key again.
The next text box appeared when I
walked a few steps forward.
“Help”