Victim

Day 1
I was only 11 years old at the time. My father and I had just went out and purchased a brand new Nintendo 64, black, and I was so excited to play it! We went to a flea market, and there was a stand setup that had a ton of used Nintendo 64 games. The Pakistanian man approached me and said that each game cost $5. I only brought $8 with me, so I browsed carefully, and I found a Super Smash Bros. cartridge. There was a few dirt scratches and a a giant red X over the back panel. Thinking nothing of this, I quickly paid the man, and me and my father returned home. I was eager to play it! After about 7 minutes of waiting, my dad finally said it was working. I shoved the game in, turned it on, and watched the introduction video.

My dad had left the room, him and my mom were going out and I would be home by myself (I begged for this.) As soon as they left, I turned up the volume and pressed enter on the controller. The screen went dark for 5 seconds. Remember, I had just bought this system and used game, so I knew it wasn't going to play perfectly, so I became impatient. After 30 seconds the game loaded up, a really loud screeching noise played for 2 seconds before a loud crash was heard. I dropped the controller on the ground and stared at the TV screen. The menu options loaded up, some distorted letters on the menus "1-PL ay e R" and ''Op TIO n s". For the condition I bought it in, I just figured it was the wear and tear that caused these strange glitches and noises. I ignored it, picked up my controller, and went to Vs. mode. I browsed the gameplay options before going back to the submenu. I hit the character select screen, the screen flashed white, blue, and then finally red, a demonic sound "FREE FOR ALL" played. The game instantly shut itself off. Much to my dismay, I tried this a few more times to no avail. I picked up the game cartridge, proceeded to blow out any of the dust, and put it back in. I turned the game on, and the introduction video was lagging really badly, and the colors were inverted. As soon as Master Hand appeared, the screen instantly froze and took me directly to the character select screen, Free-For-All was played normally, regular colors were displayed. All characters were unlocked. However, in the slot were Ness would of been, I saw a picture of a real-life boy, his named displayed as "VICTIM". I proceeded to put my cursor and little number chip on his picture. The announcer said "GAME OVER" in a really loud, distorted voice, colors inverted, and the music seemed to go in reverse before the game flashed white and shut itself off.

Stunned, scared, and nervous, I began to believe that this was no ordinary name. No one named "VICTIM" who looks like a real boy should be in a cartoon fighting game. I decided to put the game to rest of the remainder of the day. My parents came back and I explained what had happened, and they were understanding of it, I showed them the game.

Everything played normal, no odd textures, sound was playing fine, the original 8 characters were unlocked, the "VICTIM" character was gone. My parents were happy that the game was working for me! But even I had my doubts.

Day 2
After school, I came home with my friend, Clark. Both of my parents were working, so it was just me and Clark. I offered him some juice and cookies and I started up the N64. A loud alarm sounded saying all game data has been deleted. Clark had brought over one of his controllers from home and plugged it in. The introduction video was skipped completely, and the title screen only showed for a split second before the screen flashed white, and a loud screech was heard. The menus remained red, much to Clark's suprise. He stated that this is alot different then his version of the game.

We finally picked the options (he showed me a fun way to play). When we got to the Character Select screen, all the character slots, except for the slot named "VICTIM" were gone. The "VICTIM" slot didn't have a picture of the boy anymore, just a greyed out sihlouette. We put our markers on the sihlouette and pressed start. We got to the stage selection screen, but a second later we were thrown back into the character selection screen, the "error/you can't do that noise" played. The Victim button had multiplied, my marker on one, Clark's marker on the other. After closer inspection, I noticed that our faces occupied the "VICTIM" slot this time. Clark told me he was feeling sick and was going home. He ripped his controller out and ran out the front door.

I was booted back to the title screen, and the words "TEAM BATTLE" played on a constant loop. I was so frightened, I turned my system off for the rest of the day.

.....................................More to Come Soon..................................