A Corrupted Save File

(WIP - May be uploaded prematurely just so it won't be lost.)

I have a question to ask you before we begin. Have you ever died? It sounds silly, doesn't it - being asked that. Of course you hear of someone supposedly defying death from time to time, whether it be because of a surgery gone wrong only to have them be brought back with a zap to the chest or simply a stroke of luck that, without such, would result in death. My experience... Well, it does involve a zap I guess, but not quite in the same context or for the same reason. At this point you're probably expecting some cliche mess to be thrown at you expecting you to find it well-written and to praise the author like most numb-nuts do - or maybe I'm wrong. Hell, a lot of things have gotten confusing for me lately, so I could just be overthinking this. I'll stop ranting now and get to the point, namely of where all of this started: With the zap.

I'm an avid fan of Nintendo, although the reason for me telling you this is more to explain later events - so I'll cut to the chase and tell you that on my Wii system I have a LOT of game files packed onto its memory and even on an external memory card that I have plugged into it nearly all the time. You'll understand why this is so important later.

One night after I had come home from hanging out with my friends (because we had to cut our camping trip short due to a storm coming in that was sure to make the trip hell if we didn't leave), I had decided to simply make my way over to the Wii. After all, it was my favorite system at the time and I must admit that lounging back and playing a game with something to eat and a blanket sounded wonderful. I turned on the system and went to the kitchen to prepare myself an enchilada that I had left over from dinner a few nights before.

I popped it into the microwave and did what I believe all people do while waiting for food - I began munching on the spines of my fork, idly listening to the rain pounding against the window. It always annoyed me when it rained like that - when you couldn't quite tell if it was hail or not because of how hard the rain was hitting the window. I waited patiently until my food buzzed and soon slipped it out of the microwave - damn near burning my hand when it slipped. Damn lightning startled me.

After grabbing a blanket and bringing my food into the living room, I sat the items down and made my way over to the station, which was unplugged. I had forgotten that a friend of mine had brought over the Xbox One to show me how it worked and let me know how awesome it was. Meaning he wanted to rub it in my face. I apparently hadn't remembered to plug my own system back in after rubbing the front door in his face.

I got down onto one knee and began plugging it back in - having no idea why he had to unplug every damn cord to plug his own in. Gray cord for the wii motion thingy-mah-whatzit? Check. Cord that makes the screen all fun? Checkaroo. Power cord? Nope. I grabbed it and pressed it into the appropriate slot, slipping it in. Checkadarrydingo. I patted my hand against the back of the system, mentally priding in my proper care for the system that I had ever since a few weeks after the release. It had seen me through thick and thin since getting it, and luckily I hadn't had to delete a single save file off of it since getting it!

If I told you exactly what happened in the few hours after that, I'd be lieing. At least, I'd be lieing if I told you what happened REALLY. What happened in my mind is an entirely different story. What I mean is, you know how you can dream, but that's not what is happening in real life? That's what I mean - except I wouldn't really say I was dreaming. In a dream, you wake up when you die.

Death isn't easy to describe. The best words I can use for it is having someone drip ink on you and letting it spread over every inch of your skin, it seeping into your pores, your mouth, your eyes, everything, until you're nothing but a dark blob of ink. It was cold - everything was. My hair felt cold against my forehead, along with whatever was consuming me. I didn't need to breathe of course, but when I did it on reflex, my insides chilled.

A firm grip on my shoulder made my body nearly jump out of itself, although moving was an impossibility. I don't even know how I felt the hand on me with whatever was covering myself, nor did I quite understand exactly what it was. The grim reaper was the first thought that came to mind before another hand grabbed me. Another, then another, until I had begun to lose track. I think some of them were wearing gloves, and the hands were definitely male and female, yet there was something different about nearly all of them that made each unique from another.

They seemed to pull at me - or at least that was what I thought. They were tearing the substance covering me, pulling it away from me. It was a horrifying thought, as I knew that some was inside of my eyes, my mouth, my ears, yet luckily such simply was pulled out whenever the gunk was pulled away from a surrounding area, like my lips for example. I warmth filled me as I began to understand that whatever it was that was holding onto me was here to aid me, and despite my attempts to open my eyes, they burned from whatever had been inside of them.

I felt myself laid down onto the ground, which felt soft and warm. Their hands left me, but I knew they were still there, watching me, as if to see I was alive. My eyes opened briefly, but I was forced to close them. I kept trying despite this, and finally a glimpse of something was able to be caught. It seemed to be long yellow hair, braided at the front of either side of the forehead. Her face was curved - a woman's face, I realized. Her ears seemed more pointed than I thought was natural. The light that had blinded me once again forced me to shut my eyes. I desperately tried to open them, but the effort I needed before wasn't required. They simply opened, and I was staring up a light illuminating a room.

A steady beep, beep, beep filled my senses, and only after the briefest moment of looking around did I realize where I was. I was in the hospital - a little needle in my arm and so on. I wasn't in my normal clothes, meaning someone had changed me, which sent a shiver down my spine. I glanced around and found my hand raising to me heart, recalling what had happened. What HAD happened? Even now I couldn't quite place what I remembered. A dream? Had I... Died and come back? The idea of it seemed impossible, but before I could continue thinking of it, a doctor walked in.

He explained to me that I had been shocked when plugging in a game station due to an electrical surge caused by a blast of lightning hitting a nearby power station. Apparently if I had been awake for a few more moments I would've seen the power go out. It had caused a fire, but my house was okay due to the light being easily noticeable from the black-out. I asked him if my home had damage to require repairs and such, and he ran a finger against his mustache - a rather large one at that - as he contemplated if he heard it. He said he had no idea and left, since I had no more questions, and once he was gone and was allowed to think I realized what I had found strange about him.

He looked so... Cliche. He had the little headband thing with the disk like a pizza-cutter on his head. He had the stetha... Steetha... Something-scope around his neck. It was just kind of weird, but from what I saw of him he still looked like he knew what he was doing. I tried to remember the name I glanced on his nametag, but all I remembered was an 'i' somewhere in there.

I was interrupted from my thoughts when another doctor walked in, this one taller than the stubby man that had come in before. He looked more real than the last one, and as he spoke, he described very similar events - although he said my house had burned down due to nobody being able to contact the fire-fighters in time. Just wonderful, don't you agree? Yet, I had a question nagging at me, probably the same one you have. Why two doctors? I mentioned the other one to the man in front of him, and he told me he was the only doctor who was looking over me at the moment besides the normal nursing staff. I was assigned to him and there shouldn't have been another doctor in there.

I was weirded out of course, but he explained that it was probably just a doctor that knew about my situation and, upon passing by the room, noticed me waking up and came in to calm me by telling me what happened. I nodded, glad I wasn't visited by some weirdo dressing up for Halloween late or something. I asked the doctor if I could lay down, realizing how exhausted I was, and he gave a quick nod and left me to rest. I shut my eyes to think, recalling the doctor - recalling what had happened before - recalling a lot, really. Then finally a realization dawned on me, and I couldn't help but laugh to myself.

Had I just seen some kind of knock-off of Doctor Mario?