Hello. My name is Thol Maestro, but for the sake of me having to write this somewhat quickly, I will refer to myself as Thomas.
All of this shit started a few days ago, when I was at school. It was the last day before school break, and I was about to head home, like all the others were.
That is, until my friend runs to me. I will call him Joe, and he puts a hand on my shoulder, panting.
I awkwardly say hello to him, but before I can say anything else, he hands me a disc.
I look at him weirdly, and then he says this, verbatim:
"Please, for the love of all that is holy, destroy this. I don't want him chasing me anymore."
"I just want to live in peace... please..."
And then he started sobbing. I just shot him another weird look, and waved goodbye, before I walked away.
After I got home, I placed the disc in my drawer. I kinda just forgot about the whole "smashing the disc" thing.
But I swear to you... on that night, when I slept, I was woken up by whispers. Loud whispers.
I couldn't make out what they were whispering, but it kept me up all night. I tried so hard to sleep it off, but I couldn't.
This all lead up to yesterday. I decided enough was enough. Obviously, the disc was the cause of all this.
I really was considering smashing the disc but... my curiosity took over me. How bad could it even be?
Was Joe just pulling a prank on me, to try and scare me off from playing this game?
So, I did what I wish I didn't do. I put the disc in my computer.
Immediately after the disc goes in, I see a file pop up in the middle of the desktop.
It was simply named "SonictheHedgehog" with a white Sonic head icon.
Was this seriously what he was hiding? A simple PC port of Sonic the Hedgehog?
If it really was that elusive of a game, then maybe I'd understand... but it really confused me.
So, I sit down on my chair, grab the mouse, hover it over to the file, and double-click.
The cursor turns into a loading cursor, before it reverts, and the entire screen goes black.
Then, it goes white. I see the iconic "SEGA" logo wipe by the screen, and then fade in.
"Se-ga!" comes out of my computer's speakers. A little smile fades onto my face.
To be real with you, I haven't played a Sonic game in a long while, so hearing that little Sega voice really made me feel nostalgic.
Then it fades to black. "SONIC TEAM PRESENTS" appears on the screen. It fades away.
A grass mountain-like background with some trees, a blue river, blue sky, clouds, and the iconic logo appears on screen. Shortly after, Sonic comes up, wagging his finger.
And that title jingle. I could never forget that. My smile just gets wider. At that moment, I wish I could thank Joe.
Such worries for a game that I've never gotten to experience again until now? It's a deal I would never pass down.
And just as I was about to finish my thought...
The trees' leaves turn orange, the river turns a dark red, and most prominently, Sonic himself.
His happy-go-lucky face is turned into black eyes, red glowing pupils, and a wide grin. Not to mention the blood seeping from his eyes.
And just as fast as it appeared, it disappeared, as the screen turned black.
I had no fucking idea what I saw. Was this some prank, or the sleepless nights catching up to me?
I couldn't think much of it though. Because not long after the screen went black, the Green Hill Zone title card appeared.
At least, what I thought was the Green Hill Zone title card. The only words left being "HILL" and "Act 1".
But when the title card faded away, I was surprised to see that first, it was indeed Green Hill Zone and secondly... that I was playing as Tails.
I played through it. I even started thinking that the weird title card and Sonic thing was just hallucinations...
Nothing was even off. No modifications. None of that "red river" crap, no "orange trees", just a normal Green Hill Zone.
...Until I got to the end of the stage. Sonic was standing there, his eyes closed, looking away from Tails.
I was taken aback a little. I even rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was not hallucinating. I wasn't.
I got Tails to inch closer, just to be careful. I kept doing this until Tails was right behind Sonic.
Suddenly, I heard the Windows device disconnecting sound. I tried pressing the arrow keys on my keyboard, nothing. Tails was stuck in place...
And then he looked at Tails, and opened his eyes. It was the same bleeding black eyes, red pupil face I saw earlier.
The music stops, leaving the instruments that were still playing to hold on their last note.
And then everything goes black.
