Goldeneye: The Forbidden Level



Goldeneye: The Forbidden Level

Victor Foxx

The Game
I'm still in shock... I can still see the walls watching my every move... and the nightmares... oh god, the nightmares... night after night. I don't think I can handle them, anymore.

It's been two weeks since I played that game... that level... why does it still torment me?

I guess you all must be wondering why I'm acting like this, right? Well... to be honest... even I still don't know. It all began with that game...

I was a huge fan of Nintendo 64 back in the day. I remember playing all the classics, like: Super Mario 64, Earthworm Jim 3D, Battletanx, Flying Dragon, and lord knows how many of those WWF games; but, the one game I loved to play above all the rest was Goldeneye: 007. That game was like a drug to me. I could never stop playing it, even as I got older and the newer generation game systems started to come out, I still played that game like there was no tomorrow.

Eventually, by the time I turned 16, I had grown bored of Nintendo 64 and all the other game systems. So I decided to get a job and start being a responsible adult, you know? Helping with the groceries, paying my own way, things like that.

By the time I was 19, I had gotten myself a decent apartment over on the North side of my town. I had just finished unpacking all of my stuff, except for one box. I opened the box to see my old Nintendo 64 and all the games I had with it... I can't believe I forgot I packed this, it must've been in my closet for the past 3 years.

Anyways, I was feeling a bit nostalgic, seeing my Nintendo 64 for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, so I took it out and plugged up all the cables into my TV. I put in Super Mario 64 and turned it on. Thankfully, my Nintendo 64 still worked. I spent I don't how many hours playing game after game after glorious game until I finally got to the last game, Goldeneye. The cartridge seemed a bit different than from when I last saw it. The sticker on the front was ripped and the artwork of Bond had the eyes cut out. Huh... did I do this at some point? I just shrugged it off and put the game into the console. The game ran like normally and, luckily, it still had my save file on it. I had beaten all the areas including the Aztec and Egyptian levels.

I was playing my favorite game for the first time in years. I played for hours on end, well into the evening and nighttime. I played through all the levels on the highest difficulty, kicking ass and taking names as I barreled through level after level. Before I knew it, I had beaten all of the levels. I swear, it had felt like I played for maybe an hour, but when I looked at the clock, it was well near 1 in the morning... I had been playing this game for 3 hours straight. Once I had broken my concentration of the game, needless to say, I had to get some food in me. After I made myself a couple sandwiches, I walked back into my main room to find a new level in my save file. I looked at the file as it didn't seem to have a name. Well... it did, but I wouldn't count "???" as a name. So, as any curious gamer would do, I went to the stage and pressed confirm so it could give me a description of what the stage was. All it gave me was "..." which I thought was really odd. I looked to see what my objectives were.

Keep moving and never look back

I felt creeped out by this point and I tried... I really tried to exit out of the file, but... something in me wanted to know what this stage was. So... I pressed start. ...Silence... darkness... nothing seemed to be here. As soon as I took control of Bond, I realized that I had no guns, just my fists. I started to walk forward. It didn't seem to lead anywhere. I thought this was a glitch in the game, which I could understand, being that this level never seemed to exist before... but then I started to hear noises.

The sound of... a heartbeat. Still, there was darkness... an unending darkness that just made it all seem unsettling. As I kept moving forward, the heartbeat was getting louder, yet, still keeping the same speed. At that moment... I swear I could see something... what looked like a door. As I got closer, I saw that it was a wooden door, no walls indicating that it led somewhere other than the other side of the darkness; but, then... I opened the door. ...What the hell? I stepped inside, the walls... covered with what looked like muscle tissue and eyes everywhere... watching me. I kept moving forward, being the curious dumbass I am, and I heard the heartbeat start to speed up, not by much, but it was increasing in speed. The hallway wouldn't end... it just kept going, Deeper and deeper into the hallway I went, keeping the "never look back" part of the objective in my mind. Eventually, I picked up a gun, the unsilenced PP7... yet, there were no bullets. I kept going forward, the eyes within the tissue just staring at me as I walked by, the heartbeat steadily increasing in speed the further I go into this neverending hallway.

Finally... I hit a wall. Nowhere to go... besides back where I came; but, the objective said not to look back. I had no choice... I slowly turned myself around only to realize I was stuck in a room, covered in all the tissue and the eyes just glaring at me. Suddenly... a giant eye opened up within one of the walls and looked at me, a text box appearing.

"We told you not to look back... you have failed your objective."

Just then, I could see veins appearing in the eye, the eye growing a darker shade of red by the second as the heartbeat in the background started to beat rapidly. The iris slowly turned from a green to a bright shade of red as the room started to shake violently, the heartbeat going crazy in the background... but then... silence... darkness. The heartbeat stopped, no more sound... nothing to see anymore. I was sweating at this point, shaking with fear as I wondered what the hell I just witnessed!

I reset the game, hoping that it was all just an illusion. The Nintendo and Rareware logos appeared on the screen like normal, but when it got to the main menu... the background was covered in that same muscle tissue and eyes, still staring at me. The picture of Bond in each of the files had his eyes missing... nothing but black holes! Each stage was the exact same! The "???" took over every single level no matter which file I entered! What the hell happened to this game? It never acted like this before!

I took the game out of my Nintendo 64 and walked outside, slamming it to the pavement and stomping on it until there was nothing left but bits and pieces. I tried to tell my friends but... they didn't believe me. They called me crazy, said I was delusional, that nothing like that ever happened with their Goldeneye games!

Even now... the eyes are staring at me... no matter where I look, where I am... even when I close my eyes... I can still see that giant, veiny eye giving me that blank, death stare...