~New Friend, A

I have always liked video games even though I’m not very good at them but I kept playing them. One game that I was particularly interested in was Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I didn't really play it before but after I beat Super Mario Sunshine and wouldn't stop complaining about needed something else to play. He suggested it and once I started I didn't want to stop. So I didn't stop except to eat sleep and use the bathroom. Of course all my sisters and my mom and uncle would get annoyed with it but they never really made me stop playing it. It seemed that it was the only thing to make me stay happy while trying to cope with my dad’s death. Well that and drawing.

So anyways, one night I was sitting on my grandma and Uncle Paul’s living room floor playing Ocarina of Time like usual but since they had something to do in the morning they went to bed and allowed me to keep playing the game while they slept as long as I kept it down. I played for a few hours and then I got a bit sleepy. I looked at the clock and it looked to be about 2:32 in the morning. I had just reached the Belly of Lord Jabu Jabu so I decided to save and head to bed, but while trying to save a text box popped up saying “You can’t save here…” I said in a whisper, “What? Why can’t I save?” I tried again and again to save but the same message popped up. I tried moving around but that didn’t work either. Frustrated, I decided to just start the level hoping that I could save inside. Again the message popped up. I wanted to just leave the game on but if I would have my grandma would yell at me for wasting electricity so I just continued to play the game. I got to where the princess was and tried saving again. “Aha!” It actually worked. So I saved the game and headed off to bed.

The next day I woke up excited to continue on the adventure. I grabbed a bowl of cereal and headed over to the gamecube where I sat down and started it up. Sadly it froze at the Nintendo Gamecube logo. I tried turning it off and on again but it still didn’t work. I opened the tray and tried cleaning the disc and blowing dust off the tray but that didn’t work either. I was confused but it was an older system and game so I thought that that’s just what old consoles did. I got up and went around the house looking to see if grandma and paul were back yet. They weren’t so I decided to try one last time before giving up. Finally it worked and I started my game back up. As soon as it started text box popped up saying “So you decided to actually save me huh?” I was a bit confused but I thought it was just that annoying Princess Ruto. I didn’t remember her saying anything like that before and I’ve tried playing through the game multiple times only to fail after the Gerudo’s Fortress. I shrugged it off and continued playing the game. I just got the Zora’s Sapphire when the game froze. I started to freak out because I forgot to save in the temple and I didn’t want to start it all over again. I begged and pleaded. “Come on baby. Pleeeeeease work. I’ll take a break if you let me get this and save.” A text box appeared. “Don’t leave me…” I asked out loud  “Don’t leave me? Who am I not leaving?” Another one appeared, “Please I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be in the darkness by myself again.” I started panicking again and quickly ran out the house and down the steps back to my house. (I lived in an apartment right under my grandma’s). I came in the door and yelled “Mom, are you home?” She answered with a grunt. I went in her room to see her tucked into bed snoring. “Mom you have to come see this! Quick come on!” She shrugged me off and said “Get Kayla to go with you.” I sighed heavily and ran into my sister’s room. “Kayla come here quick!” I heard her sigh and what sounded like a book closing. “What Luna? I’m trying to read.” I grab her hand and pull her up the stairs saying, “No time! You gotta see this!” I bring her into the living room where the TV is and I point at the screen. “Is that a part of the game?” she asks me finishing up reading it. “Not that I know of, but I think it was responding to me!”

“Responding to you? What’d you say?” she asked curiously.

“I told it that if it worked I would take a break from it.”

“Luna…I think you’ve been playing to much. You DO need a break.”

“I have not there’s never enough video games.”

With a sigh she walked back down to our apartment. I sighed heavily and said “Well what do you know?” I sat back down with my cereal and game and pressed start on the controller to save it. Lucky for me it saved but another text box popped up. “You’re going to leave me again aren’t you?” A bit puzzled I pressed the A button wondering who’s making these boxes appear. I continued on with the game and didn’t get any more text boxes for a few hours when I was going to get off again to go back home. I pushed start and tried to save. “You can’t leave me. You just can’t!” I pressed A and tried to save again and again. A voice shouted from the TV “I SAID NO!” I jumped back and squeezed the controller. I looked up and asked “Who are you?”

Another text box appeared, the words being typed out slowly each letter making the sound of a keyboard click.

“You should already know. I’m the one they all fear. I’m the one that you know and love so well. I am the one that remains silent, words being spoken for me.”

I sat baffled by these words. I don’t like it. I don’t want to continue. I get an uneasy feeling and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I feel someone staring at me. I don’t want to turn around. I don’t want to know what it is. I just want it to kill me if it was going to. I sat for about 10 to 15 minutes paralyzed by fear. I finally got the courage…I took a deep breath and exhaled the quickly turned around. To my surprise nothing was there but I could still feel the presence. I let out a sigh of relief but I didn’t let my guard down. I turned back to face the television and a new text box appeared.

“Hehehehehehe don’t you know you have to be quicker than that to catch me?...”

Being the big sissy I am turned back around quickly standing up in the process and darted for the door. As soon as I got to the door I opened it and ran down the stairs back to my house screaming as loud as I could the whole way down. It seemed like an eternity to get down even though it was just one flight of stairs. When I finally did get down there and opened the door and ran into my mom and sister. We all get knocked back and I fell backwards on my butt. I quickly scramble to stand back up and squeeze past my mom and hide behind her.

“What’s going on?! Why are you screaming?! What’s wrong?! Are you okay?!” She frantically asks me.

“I screamed so much my throat was sore and almost completely gone.”

I sputtered out what happened through a now scratchy voice. She of course looked at me like I was crazy. Tears started to roll down my face as I took in the reality that she didn’t believe me. She hugged me then got up and gestured for me to come. I sink down into the couch and violently shake my head. Grabbing my hand she rolls her eyes and basically drags me up the stairs while I scream as much I could saying “NO MOM! PLEASE NO! MOMMY PLEASE I’M SCARED!!” She turned around and put her face close to mine.

“Now stop it! You are going to grow up and quit being so scared you are 17! Act like it!”

She turns back and continues dragging me. I reluctantly follow not being able to have my hand back. She opens the door and walks over to the TV, letting go of my hand. She grumbled a bit and gestured me over. I shook my head violently. She screamed “NOW!” So I walked over to the screen to see Princess Ruto holding up the Zora’s Sapphire like nothing happened. I stumbled over my words completely confused. I looked over at mom but she had already turned around and started to walk out the door. Just then I see a figure appear behind her. It turned to smile at me and I ran over and screamed “MOM LOOK OUT!!” as I ran over to her. She turned around and said “Wha-?” too late….The figure pushed her down the steps and the figure disappeared. I looked down just as my mom…the person I loved the most…..fell down the last four steps. On the last step I heard a horrifying crack as she hit her shoulder on the corner of it then a blood curdling scream then silence. I was horrified and furious. This was my fault….It was my fault. I knew that figure…..I knew him to much…..If I hadn’t mom wouldn’t have been hurt. Kayla walked out the door and screamed seeing our motionless mother. I quietly murmur “Kayla….shut and and call 911…”, then I scream it. “KAYLA SHUT UP AND CALL 911!!!!!” She instantly stopped screaming and ran in the house crying. I heard her talking quite loudly on the phone with the operator so I ran back in the my  grandma’s house and get close to the screen.

“WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?! WHAT DID I DO?! I KEPT PLAYING THE GAME! I DID WHAT YOU SAID! I DIDN’T LEAVE!”

Tears were streaming down my face. A textbox popped up. Behind it came a voice…the same one that screamed at me. The one I now recognized…the now sincere voice.

“I just want to make sure you never leave me. You love me right so why don’t you keep staying with me?...”

I cried and pounded my fist against the screen. Asking the person to please stop.

“If you join me I’ll stop.”

“Join you? How and why would I do that?”

“All you have to do accept my contract and you’ll live forever with me in this game. Forever alive to play the very game you love the most.”

“My family?”

“They’ll be safe from harm. Well at least from any videogames.”

“Do you promise?”

I seen the figures face and upper torso. He was extending his hand and smiling.

“Cross my heart.”

I waited until I could hear the sirens of the ambulance in the distance and asked the figure, “Now how do I accept this offer?”

“All you have to do is take my hand.”

I hear Kayla kicking and screaming at the door which I locked on the way in to protect myself and my mom and sister from the game. I sighed and looked down. When I looked up I seen the familiar characters hand and part of his green sleeve extending out of the television.

With a tear in my eye I take his hand.

“I’ll join you Link but make sure to always protect me.”

“I promise. I’ll always keep you by my side little fairy. My little fairy.”

When the ambulance got there the police were closely behind and I had told them that I didn’t know what happened to mom. I explained to them how I came out and seen my big sister at the top of the steps and our mom laying motionless at the bottom. They immediately ran upstairs and busted open the door. They were surprised to find no one there, just a running gamecube with the same Princess Ruto on the screen holding up a spiritual stone and the computer with this typed out. I tried to tell them it wasn’t her but they wouldn’t listen. I mean, who would?...I know my big sis would never do anything to hurt our mom. I knew she was telling the truth cause I mean….how would she have typed this in such a short amount of time? How could she have escaped? I don’t have the answers but I’ve been allowed to take this because this evidence is apparently “invalid”. Some times adults are so stupid and unimaginative. I believe you big sis. I hope you have fun in your videogame life. I’ll miss you. I know that every time I see a fairy next to Link I’ll know its you. I’ll know because it’ll have that same relationship with him every time…