Dark Corners of the Earth

Let me start my story by stating that I am not easily scared, which I suppose is what got me into this mess in the first place. I have long been a fan of horror survival games, such as Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Condemned. I had played horror games until I thought that my senses had been numbed by them, so naturally I wanted something new, something that felt real.

I came across a copy of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, the box art caught my eye, featuring what seemed to be a horrific man glaring at me with his face covered in shadows. It was used, and I only payed $10 for it, thinking it would tide me over for a while if nothing else. As soon as I finished installing the game, I started playing, and could feel something wrong about this game. I arrive upon the main menu and felt a chill run down my spine as whispers in strange tongues filled my ears. I started a new game in normal difficulty mode, if I didn't feel hunted by a game, I very quickly became bored.

I proceeded through the first mission rather bravely. I arrived in the Massachusetts' town of Innsmouth, full of grotesquely mutated people. They called it "the Innsmouth look." I called it ugly. Anyways, I proceeded to a house to question a man about a break-in, only to be greeted by his young daughter, Ramona. She told me that her daddy wasn't home yet, but that I could wait inside. I entered the house, and saw that Ramona had been drawing. I looked more closely at her drawings over her shoulder. To my surprise the drawings looked eerily similar to myself in real life. I passed this off on the assumption that I looked similar to my in-game character whom she was drawing.

I heard a strange sound coming from upstairs, so I left Ramona to her drawing to check it out. As I walked up the stairs I heard some sort of growling from the stairs leading up to the attic. As I examined the door from which the growling was coming from, some monster from the other side of the door began trying to break the door down. I jumped back from my monitor as the creature busted the door down and mauled my character. It sprinted off down the stairs, and I heard a shriek as I blacked out.

As my character regained consciousness, he stumbled downstairs to find Ramona torn to shreds. As I looked around at the horrific scene, I noticed a soft voice whispering into the back of my head in a tongue I didn't understand. The pictures Ramona had drawn of me were different now, the man had hung himself, and a bloody child in the background. My character stood up from looking at the drawing, and without my control, he took off his belt, climbed to the top of the stairs, and hung himself. The screen faded to black, and said in large red letters "Game Over."

I exited the game with shaky hands. As I returned to desktop, to my horror, Ramona's picture of the man hanging himself had become my background. I tried to turn off the monitor, but it wouldn't turn off. I unplugged the computer from the wall, but it kept running. Suddenly, bloody fingertips wrote the words "DO IT" on the screen. I felt as if I was looking through someone else's eyes as my arms took my chair, tied my belt to my workout bar on the ceiling, and put the belt around my neck. Just before I could go through with it, my friend burst into my room, and lifted me out of the makeshift noose.

Sometimes I can still see that little girl in my dreams, telling me to do it...