The ocean of emptiness

If there was a company that gave paranormal occurrences logical explanations, I’m going to be first in line. There was this odd story that I would do anything to forget. But since I want to type it too, I’m going to risk never forgetting it to share it with you.

Oblivion was the fourth game in the elder scrolls series. Until now, I would I have associated it with happiness. Now I associate it with nostalgia and fright. One day, my video game broke. It just froze. I haven’t saved for a long time and had a ton of items. So it was a bad experience for me. So I decided to play Fallout 3. Then that game broke too.

I then realized it wasn't the games. It was the console. My anger increased. I calmed down with some coffee and then called Sony. They said that they will send me a replacement. So I waited. 3 days late, the new console came. I looked over it. It only had slightly less memory than my original.

My next step was getting my games back. I bought my new oblivion copy from gamefly. It felt great to be playing again. After I did my homework, I booted up the game. I noticed that it took up only 5.6 mega bites. I just thought that the files were compressed.

I went through the intro without incident. When I went out to the open world, I noticed that the quality was less stable. I decided to fast travel to one of the towns (which I forgot the name of) near the water at the corner of the map. As soon as I got there, I decided to swim in the water at the edge of the map. This is where things got more sinister.

The farther I got away from the surface, the thicker the fog got. As soon as I couldn't see anything, I decided to go back to the surface. But when I got there, the surface wasn't there. I was creeped out. The thought of all land disappearing sounded strange to me. As glitch-filled as the game is, it is never released with glitches that break the game. Bethesda would have noticed by now, as the game was a few years old.

I thought I headed in the wrong direction and swam in the opposite. After a few minutes of nothing but water, I went to the map to fast travel. But all the land disappeared on the map too. I paused and called my friend on my cell phone. I asked him if he heard of the glitch, as he’s a glitch expert, but he sounded confused. I told him what happened. He said I should contact the developers.

I called Bethesda and told them what happened. They said they would have to come tomorrow. I was upset, but said ok anyway. I decided to keep playing. When I resumed the game, I noticed a bright light. There was also music playing I never heard. It reminded me a little of minecraft. I swam toward the light. As I got closer, it got smaller. Then it was gone.

I paused the game to get some coffee. In the middle of my drink, the phone rang. It was someone named John China. I answered it. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hi.

John: This is John China.

Me: What do you want?

John: I’m with Bethesda. Coming over.

Me: Bethesda said they’ll contact me tomorrow.

John: When did they say that?

Me: A few minutes ago.

John: If they did, they changed their mind. Wait one hour, ok. Bye (hangs up)

Me: Hello?

I looked up google to see who John China was. All I found was a picture of him at the age of 8 and the fact that he is 36 now. I suddenly heard a noise coming from my TV. I ran to it to see that someone resumed the game. What shocked me was not that, but that I saw my character being attacked by ghosts. The ghosts looked normal, except that they looked pasted in. I heard the ghosts giggling with excitement. Then the game over screen appeared. There was black text added to the bottom that said “You shouldn't have entered the ocean of emptiness.”

I pressed resume. I spawned back in the ocean. What calmed me down was that land was in sight. I went on my map. What surprised me was that all the towns and cities were taken away. I went on the land to find nothing but forest. Then I heard a high pitched groan. One of the ghosts from earlier appeared in front of me. I ran for the water, but I changed my mind and ran into the forest. After 10 minutes or so, I found a chest. It was just under a tree. This was not common in elder scrolls games.

I searched it to find a bow and 30 arrows. I loaded the bow and shot the ghost. To my surprise, it died. But the way it died was strange. It groaned then just disappeared. I cheered for my accomplishment. My pride was shattered by another groan as my character was lifted into the air then hit the ground hard and died. There was text on this game over screen too. It said “Why do you fight this? It’s too hard to defeat.”

I was about to turn it off, when the doorbell of my dorm rang. I opened the door, hoping that the person at the door was a friend here to rescue me. It was a man with a cop uniform and an assault rifle. He said “Playing that game? Found the ocean of emptiness? Well, that’s why I’m here.”

I said “Is a gun necessary?” The man said “I’m Nathan China.” I said “Do you know John China?” Nathan said “Yes. He’s my brother, in fact. He told me where to find you and your history.” I snapped “How the hell do you know that?” Nathan said “Since that rogue code called ‘the ocean of emptiness’ was made, we here at Bethesda were asked to monitor all activity on elder scrolls games.” I began to feel upset. “Is that true? It can’t be. I don’t know what to say.” Nathan said “Just hand over that disc. I can ensure you that everything will be ok.”

Without question, I handed the disc. Taking it out while it was playing caused my ps3 to crash, but I didn't care. I just wanted to stop thinking about how Bethesda was watching me. It was too hard to handle. Before Nathan left, I said “Never come back!” Nathan said “You will never see me again.” And that was that last I heard of the ocean of emptiness.