The Yellow Germ

My brother wasn't the most mentally stable person, I'll admit. He was described as... crazy, by one of his teachers that we talked to, at the school he recently dropped out of. Our mom isn't the most pleasant, either. She yelled at him for doing all these terrible things like; destroying school property because he was mad, or throwing scissors at people because they made him cry, and other similair things to this, I'm sure you get the picture. She just kept yelling, "Why can't you be normal like the rest of the world?!", whenever she was upset with his actions. I never really blamed him for anything. He was sick in the head, so I really can't be mad at him for what he does. He's literally not in complete control of himself.

So, my mother grounded him. Not sure how grounding him would have helped the situation at all, but I can't really talk her out of it once she's made up her mind. My brother, we'll call him Quincy, was of course infuriated and sad at the same time, as most kids would be. I felt really bad for him, but I really didn't know what to do to help. Then I had an idea. Quincy always loved playing games. It made him feel happy. So I thought I'd give him my old Gameboy Advance that I had sitting in a cupboard somewhere, gathering dust.

I found it laying on top of my box of old toys, along with the games I had. When mom left the house, I handed him the old portable console and my collection of games. "Don't show this or tell mom about this, okay?", I whispered as I gave him a sly wink. He gasped in awe and laughed at what I said. He thanked me for it and gave me a hug. I don't mean to brag but, I was always there for him when everyone was against him, and he knows this. I think he really loves me more than anyone else. And I love him too, he IS my small bro, after all.

Anyway, since then, everyday when I came home from school and mom was out, I sat with him in his room to hang out and watch him play games. It sounds a little boring on my part but, it was just nice to see him happily tapping away at the buttons.

By the end of the month, he had almost played through my previous collection of games, which consisted of; Super Monkey Ball, Spider Man 2, Batman Vengeance, Advanced Wars 2, etc. etc. And he enjoyed the heck out of all of them. He was happy, and that made me happy.

But, here's where things took a turn for the worse.

One day, after school was done and I came home, I heard Quincy crying and screaming upstairs. Horrified, I dropped my bag and scrambled up the stairs, only to find Quincy on the floor, wailing and yelling like he had just seen someone die in front of him. He was screaming something but, I couldn't make out what it was. I tried asking him what was wrong but he just kept on screaming.

I called emergency services and explained to them that my brother was having an awful breakdown. After which, I called mom and explained the situation to her as well. An ambulance arrived shortly after and Quincy was transferred to the hospital for examination. At the time, he was still in that state of unrest.

When my mom got home, she drove us to the hospital.

I'm skipping about an hour ahead after reaching the hospital, I'm sure you're uninterested to hear about the paperwork, searching, and walking we had to do.

A psychiatrist told us that Quincy's distress is caused by something Quincy called, "the yellow germ". The yellow germ? What was that about? I asked for an explanation as to what that was, but even the psych was unsure about it. He just said that it was probably some random thought stemming from his mental state.

Since I had not told my mother about the Gameboy I gave Quincy, I decided not to question any further than that. It was a rather short visit since Quincy was put under medication to calm him down. We returned home later that day. I wondered to myself, "Quicy isn't right in the head but, he doesn't make things up. What could this yellow germ be?". It kept me up that night. Just what was this yellow germ that Quincy talked about? Was that what he was screaming? Was this yellow germ in the house? I couldn't stop thinking about it at all.

So morning came, and school is awful to sit through when you're dead tired, but whatever. Rather than concentrating on class, the thought of the yellow germ kept coming to mind. I could not shake it off. It was like a brain tumor.

So fast forward a few days, my mom and I return to the hospital to pay Quincy a visit, since the doctor told us that he was stable enough to be talked to. The thought of this yellow germ still lingered in my head, today I was going to ask Quincy what he meant by that. As my mother was filling in some documents at the hospital reception, I snuck into Quincy's room.

He was surprised to see me enter without mom, but he was overjoyed nevertheless. It was good to see him too. With the thought fresh in my mind, I straight-up asked him, "The doctor said you were talking about a yellow germ. What did you mean by that?".

His expression went dark, as if I just asked him a terrible question. Still, he told me what he remembered that day.

"I just finished playing Gunstar Heroes with both characters on that day. I was still excited from all the action, so I just picked up the next game and slapped it into the cartridge slot. I can't remember the name of the game that I played since I rushed through to get to the action but, it was horrible. There was this yellow germ floating everywhere and it went into things and turned them into monsters. I could shoot some of them but I couldn't with others. They kept hurting me and whenever I killed one of the monsters, the germ would just be there, floating in the air. If I didn't do anything about it, it would come back as the moster. I tried shooting the germ but it didn't work. They just kept coming back. If I touched the germ it would go inside me and make an awful noise. So I tried just running through the game without shooting at any of the creatures. And then there was this yellow man with it's head covered in blood that would chase me, and make me stop dead in my tracks, and hurt me bad. I tried to escape but it kept jumping after me and shooting at me. Everytime I got hit by something, my character would whelp in pain. It was horrible. The yellow germs were everywhere. They all wanted me dead."

At this point, my brother began to cry and mumble. When my mother entered the room, she scolded me for coming in without her and making Quincy upset.

After about, an hour of comforting my brother and talking to him, we said our goodbyes, and we left the hospital. Throughout the car ride home, I was wondering, what game did Quincy play? I don't remember owning a game like that. Was it a game I never played that was in my collection? Impossible, I played all of them. But, surely I didn't have such a horrifying game like that?

The moment I got home, I ran upstairs and into Quincy's room.

I picked up the Gameboy Advance, the cartridge was still in the slot. I gulped as I turned on the Gameboy. As the screen lit up, I read what was on it.

Copyright 2002 Nintendo.

Metroid Fusion.

~dominiichan