The Beast

Seeing as it was Spring break, I was bored as always. The best choice was to try and find some games to pass the time. A quick search of Google provided me with what I was looking for.

"Beast.exe"

I had no clue what the game was really about, but I was not one to question, I downloaded the game, then got to work.

The title screen was simple enough. Your basic new game, load game, options, challenges, and quit. The wallpaper seemed to show a chalkboard, with a table in the center surrounded by chairs. The graphics of that wallpaper were some sort of an 8-bit variation, but 3-D.

I started out with a new game. I immediately get spawned into the same room with the chalkboard in it, except the words were written on the chalkboard, "''Get to the end". ''I went out the room and my character instantly pulled out a pistol. I found myself in a building, hard to tell as the ambience of the place was weird, like a black fog has settled over everywhere. A nearby window showed a lazy 'jpeg' of a dark city.

I went to moving around, and noticed odd details. The sound seemed odd, as if it was really muffled, really 8-bit, as if the creator seemed to not really care. A continous sound of shuffling was heard in the background, and another sound, like a whimper was heard. It sounded really close, and I'd be guessing it was my character or something.

With nothing interesting, no enemies even, I thought this was an unfinished game. I later entered another dark room, with a bronze horn on the table. I picked it up, selected it, and then my character put the horn to his mouth and sounded it. A few seconds later, nothing. I'm guessing it did nothing until a low moan was heard in the room. Then the words appeared on the top of the screen

"The Beast comes, get ready!"

What beast? There were no enemies to speak of. I went out the room, and jumped in fright, shooting the low polygon pistol at the nearby wall. A creature came running, light speed right at me, it couldn't have been about 2 feet from my face. It had the shape of a human, but with disgusted features. It's bald face was bloodied, and looked like a smile was carved out of it. It had simple, torn clothes, though it's hands were outstretched, red, with the fingers looking as if it was claws. In one of it's inhumane, retro hands, held a pistol.

I was frozen enough, and the low-quality sound of clicking meant my pistol was out of ammo. The creature seemed to not attack me, but kept twiching uncontrollably at me. I figured it was friendly, and went with my way. Through the door, came the first enemy of the game. It was the same model of the Beast, though it seemed to be frowning. The enemy came at me, then suddenly dropped dead. I noticed the Beast helped me out by killing it, and was looking at me, still smiling. I figured it was my ally, so I collected ammo from the enemy and went on my way.

I continued playing the game, hours and hours, going through random environments, train stations, forests, cities, caves, featuring new type of sick monsters, one with a knife and an outstretched jaw, one that might've looked like my main character, but darker and more bloodied, same goes for my ally. I collected more weapons, shotguns, machine guns, etc. The overall game was actually pretty fun, killing the enemies were satisfying enough, and going through all the randomnized locations were entertaining enough to keep me playing. The end consisted of a giant zombie, where we just have to defeat it. After the defeat, a congratulary message appears above, the Beast utters a low, repeating noise, and then I get sent back to the menu.

Though the game was still wrong, it was scary in a sense, the enemies were gruesome and bloody, even my own ally scared my half to death whenever he appeared out of the darkness. The lighting of the game was dark, gritty and the details were all obscured by the darkness which consists throughout the levels. The ambiance just set a mysterious, gloomy tone. No human voice was heard, just the occasional pained grunts from my character, no one 'real' to meet with in the game.

The challenges were fun though, it was just a basic twist to the game, like the enemies are now explosive, the shotgun appears more often, and neat little secret locations. The objective of the challenge was always marked on the same chalkboard, the same room. And I had to do the same, get the horn, use it, get scared half to death, go out the door, then go on my way.

But the game seemed to be getting more weird, mostly my ally. After an enemy is killed, the same, low moan was heard repeatedly, with a quick twitch of its head. It seemed to be laughing, I don't know. The enemies appeared less blodied, a little more humane. And overall the game got harder. Enemies were faster, my ally wasn't as good as it was, and I was dying suddenly, out of nowhere. Some shots were heard and I was on the ground, waiting to be revived. Another really low moan was heard, then the Beast comes out of nowhere and helps me up, its face close up to my face. My guesses were the Beast was trying to kill me or something, was it another player or just an AI?

After the game got more twisted and darker, there was the final challenge of the game, "Kill the Beast". I guess it was referring to my ally, but I had no idea why. I figured it was another enemy, so I went on my way. The horn didn't call the Beast, so I had to go alone. After killing the last boss, I was met with another congratulary message, and was back on the menu. The menu has changed considerably, the chalkboard room was dirty, the message "You are given another chance" is on the chalkboard in red. It was the same challenge, so I went to work again, to try and kill my ally somehow. The level scared the hell out of me.

I was in the same, dirty chalkboard room. I went out, to appear in a hospital. It was bright now, the lighting seemed more hopeful, but there were these weird sounds in the background. Like inhumane roars, gunshots, crying, the game overall screwing with my head. Bringing hallucinations, such as fake monsters, fake death scenes, fake guns, whatever. The sounds were all fucking with my head, I was hugely paranoid. I checked around every corner, thinkning there was a monster, checking the same rooms, firing off warning shots, to try and wade off the sounds.

I then went into the room with the bronze horn. I used it, then nothing. I couldn't get out of the twisted level. Nothing happened, so I guessed the game was glitched and called it quits, I never really played it again.

After Spring break was over, I completely forget about the game, guesses were, I uinstalled it. While doing homework, I heard the sound of a low-quality horn playing, as if it was retro or something. I looked around and then at my desktop, the words the same font as the game.

"The Beast comes, get ready to die!"