The Discolored Cartridge
A group of adults assemble in an apartment for a night filled with horror games. One of the games they play is a haunted copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It did not take long before things turned out for the worse, as Arissa was left on the spot to save her friends before they get deleted from the game. Will she be able to take her friends back with her horrible gaming skills? Or, will she have to live with the loss of her friends at the hands of a hedgehog?
Author's Notes
Hey! For this arc, I decided to write the entirety of it, rather than writing a summary on my OCs' profiles! I plan on having 6 chapters besides this one. :)
Hope you enjoy, I've been thinking about this for a while! >:)
Also, Catalina is the owner of Lavatera Arcade, also known as Alexia's mother. She may be important for later, I'm just saying!
Introduction: Speedrun Gone Wrong
It was a very calm night. A blanket of clouds was covering the entirety of Myosotis, but there were no threats for rain. At an apartment in a fairly silent area, many young adults were seen carrying bags filled with snacks & necessities for a sleepover. Inside the apartment were two pinked hair ladies preparing for what was going to be a horror night. One of them, Leslie, prepared the living room with all the games she had collected for tonight, while another one, Arissa, was waiting for her last batch of cookies to be baked.
“Man, this is going to be really exciting! I’m really happy Xeno accepted to join us tonight! It’s not always easy getting that guy to show up in our hangouts. Sucks that his boyfriend couldn’t join in, though. He seemed pretty busy and all”, Leslie rambled.
Arissa took out her batch of cookies and simply smiled at them. “We could always let Sand know how tonight goes! I’m sure he’d love to hear what we find!” Just as Arissa said that, they heard the door ring. At the door were Caspian & Poppy, a shark dude & a human gal, with…a lot of things with them.
“You guys know we’re only doing this for a night, right? Why did you bring so much?” Arissa asked the couple while also staring at Leslie.
“Oh, well, Poppy wanted to maybe watch some movies and she even brought her collection of games from Lavatera. Also, I do have a lot of things to do before going to sleep. I’m a shark, after all”, Caspian explained to the lesbian couple.
Right behind him was Xenophon, a jackal with a small black bag on his back. “Sup, gamers”, Xenophon declared. “Leslie, you better have the scariest games, otherwise I’ll have to take your gamer badge.” Everyone stares at him. “Just kidding, I’m happy to be with you all! Even if the games aren’t scary, if we’re all vibin’ then that’s what matters!”
With the whole gang assembled, it was game on! Everyone placed their bags and changed to their most comfortable outfits for what was going to be a sleepless night. The snacks were all ready & all the games the gang wanted to play were set on the table. The first game they decided to play was a classic: Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
“...Isn’t that just Sonic 2? Doesn’t seem that special, aside from the fucked up label”, Xenophon questioned.
“Yeah, but this one is supposedly haunted! Catalina gave this to me for free and didn’t even want to say anything about it”, Leslie explained with a hint of confusion as she remembered her interaction with the owner of Lavatera Arcade.
They boot up the game on a Sega Genesis Leslie had borrowed for this special night. The title screen seemed normal, aside from the fact Tails was nowhere to be found. Everyone agreed that Leslie would play this game. And so, everything in the game seemed normal, aside from the fact Sonic was alone and that there weren’t any Badniks in any of the zones.
By the time she got to Mystic Cave Zone, though, things started to look very concerning. A major part of the zone was either replaced by absolutely nothing or by spikes. Things started glitching & it was getting hard to tell where to go. With help from the others, Leslie managed to get to the Act 2.
Unfortunately…there was nothing on Mystic Cave Zone Act 2! Sonic was directly spawned in the inescapable pit and kept dying over, and over, and over. The Game Over screen never came up, and so the game froze on Sonic dying on the spikes. At the same time, an anti-piracy screen came up about not glitching your way through the game for speedrunning.
A scream could be heard, and then the lights went out. Once the lights turned back on, only one person remained, it was Arissa. There were no traces of Leslie, Caspian, Poppy & Xenophon.