SMILE

"It was an everyday night that winter...I was bored out of my mind...as a gamer, I usually sat back on these fateful days to play a game or two from my collection. It wasn't a big collection, but was enough to keep me entertained for a few hours before I came up with something else to do. That is...until I didn't have anything left to play. Completing every single game in that collection, I didn't have what to play anymore, so even though it was dark and spooky outside, I decided to put on my jacket and go out to the video game store. It wasn't that late at night yet, it was just dark due to it being winter, I still had a few hours before the store closed for the night.

As I walked down the road, nothing out of the ordinary happened, just an everyday stroll in the cold night, covered in the blackness of the night. When I got to the video game store, I looked up at the owner who was outside, preparing to throw out something. The item seemed familiar to me, and taking a few steps closer, I recognized it almost instantly, it was THE video game I was planning on buying, but the owner made me wonder...why throw out a game like that? I knew the owner, he was a sneaky bastard, he even sold or rented games that were unplayable due to different reasons, either being broken, or defect, especially those that were rented many times before. But this game, it seemed new, so why would he throw it out? I walked over to him, to ask him this question, and to my surprise, the always grumpy guy seemed...terrified...even when I called his name, he jumped so suddenly, he hit his feet in the trashcan. It was weird. When I asked him why he is planning to throw such a new game out, he told me that he heard so many good things about the game, that he couldn't stop himself from trying it, and that is when it got weird. He of all people hated video games, so why would he feel excited to try anything related to video games? I continued asking him what made him decide this game belongs in the trashcan. As we talked, sitting on the small boxes behind his shop, he slowly confessed that even from the very beggining of the game, he felt something weird deep inside, an unstoppable urge to play, and play, and play. He told me that for the last 5 hours he couldn't stop playing, but in the end couldn't even complete the first stage. When thinking about it, suddenly I didn't really care about his story anymore, the sheer difficulty that he described made me even more interested in the game than I already was.

After a while, without even noticing, I was asking him questions about the game instead, and I think he realised something was wrong, because after 10 minutes of speaking about the game, he stood up, grabbed my shoulders, and suddenly started shaking me, while telling, or rather yelling to me, to forget about the game, before it takes hold of me too, like it did with him. I don't know why, but I got even more interested in the game, even though he continued saying that it is cursed and I shouldn't go near the game, I just nodded in agreement, trying to get him off my shoulders already, literally, so when he enters back into the building, I can take that game he tried getting rid of. To make sure he does not stop me, I stayed around the shop until closing time, awaiting him to go home already, so I can grab that game from the trashbin. It wasn't stealing anymore, he threw it away, so whoever wants it can have it. When I felt that it is safe to proceed with my plan, I went back to the trashbin, and taking the game, went on home to try it.

As fun as it sounded when he told his story, I found the game way too easy, I was dissapointed at how silly I was, not thinking about the possibility of it being hard for him because of him hating games, and not playing them enough to be good at them. After finishing level 5, I tried shutting the game off, but couldn't. It's not like the console didn't want to shut off...it was more like my had did not want to reach close enough to the power button...as if someone was holding my hand, preventing it from reaching the button, so all I could do was push on with a sigh, in hopes that I can finish this boring and easy game ASAP and shut it off once I complete it. As I continued on, the game started getting weirder and weirder. At first the screen seemed darker than normal, but I did not care, I just wanted to complete it already. With every 3 or so levels, the game changed slowly, it seemed as if the area was slowly starting to die away...I don't know how else to describe it, imagine seeing a lush forest, with grassy fields, but getting older and older fast, without any rain or anything helping it stay lush, slowly but surely degenerating into a dead place. By the time I reached my limit, the whole field was as dead as it can be, no blood, no gore, only the silent and dead field. My character on the other hand, seemed very lively, almost like it absorbed the life of his surroundings. I was feeling very sleepy, so I wanted to finish this game already, so I planned on making my character continue his journey fast. But then it happened. As odd as it was, the character did not move, it just stood there, as if I weren't pressing any buttons. Then, slowly, he started to move on it's own, but not the way I expected him to move, his head, he turned his head sideways, almost like looking at me from the corner of his eyes. I was too tired to be shocked, so I looked into his eyes too. We kept watching each other for several minutes, without any movement. Maybe I was scared after all, seeing how he looked into my eyes, and I looked in his, I felt that if I took my eyes off him, something bad would happen. It didn't last long..I was human after all...I couldn't hold back anymore..I blinked, and at that moment, his eyes darkened to black, and inhumanely twisted his head to look at the screen, looking at me with two red dots in those black eyes, while having a frightening grin on his face. It was....terrifying to say the least...so I tried backing away from the TV, but with every movement I made, he took a step toward me, almost as if walking toward the screen, then when I hit the wall, he suddenly jumped at the screen and almost as if he jumped out of the screen, I saw him fly toward me, before blacking out....and..."

...

The moment I wrote those lines, I got angry at myself and tore the paper apart. It was horrible, I wanted to write something original, but eventually used many previous ideas from other stories. I wanted an original creepy story to be written, but I failed. I was annoyed at my inability to write something good. I always wanted to try my career as a writer, but constantly failed in delivering what I wanted to. So annoying...I looked at my previous tries at writing the story, or rather my trusty ol' Trashcan of Discarded Stuffz, as I labeled it a few months ago. It was full of crumbled paper, I overdid it today, but what can I say? I was dissapointed badly. I put my pen down, and gone to bed instead, it was already midnight. Very late since tomorrow I had school, at least that is what I was trying to fool myself with. It was winter, and there was a strong blizzard raging for the past few days, so school was closed, I guess having school as an excuse helped me force myself to rest. It didn't take long to finally fall asleep. It was a calm night, my tired mind really wanted to rest already, after all that tiresome playing. No...writing...yes...I was only writing about playing...

...

Playing was always out of the question for me. The family could not afford all those gaming stuff that everyone had in their collection, so I could never do more than imagine playing more than I could when my friends came over to play when I was sick, and were nice enough to bring over their video game consoles, so we can all play together. Even if we didn't play that much, it was fun enough to enjoy those hack'n'slash games, and horror games. The bloody games full of jumpscares always entertained me, even when my friends were scared out of their pants. But as we grew older, they slowly forgot about gaming, and slowly about each other...some friends those were...most of them gave away all their games and consoles, with one exception. She remembered in the last minute about the past, and instead of selling the last console, he gave it to me on my birthday, I was happy, but sad, seeing that we will never again play together. I guess it was fate. But even so I could never really try the console out by myself, since she did remember the past, but only after selling the games. So the console stayed there on my shelves for years, getting dusty.

...

It was not until my 18th birthday, that my parents finally got me my biggest surprise ever. A video game of my own, they knew how I missed my friends and playing with them, so they got me the newest game for that dusty console I had. It was an awesome game to say the least, the best hack'n'slash I ever played. I always wondered what it would be like if it were somewhat more horrific, bloody, like those horror games we used to play, so I tried writing stories down, each worse than the other, and the replies I got from storywriting fans just made me more and more sad, because all they did was flame it for all the cliché I used in it. It always made me wonder, what if people used up all the ideas after a while, leaving nothing original anymore? Then no more new stories will be liked because of the repeating of unavoidable 'cliché's? I felt an urge...I wanted to write something, something that would definitely feel new and original. But the outcome was the trashcan of crumbled paper.

...

Days have passed since my last attempt of writing something, I was not even moving from my room anymore, I wanted to write something new, I wanted to, I had to. But I couldn't. I was getting very aggressive even to those close to me. It annoyed me how much I couldn't come up with anything new. Day after day, my anger grew stronger, so much that I even threw my trashbin out the window. It was a mistake. Soon after throwing it out, I heard a loud noise, as if it hit something, breaking it, I ran to the window, only to see that the trashbin hit the neighbour who was trying to ring the doorbell, now kneeling in front of the door, head bleeding as it was leaning onto the door. I never knew my trashbin was that hard as to break someone's head, until I remembered that in my anger the other day, I broke the metal case of the game my parents bought me, or at least it seemed broken, I threw it at the wall and the connecting point of the two sides broke, so technically I did break it, somewhat, and threw it in there. It was a heavy case, because it had a lot of special gift items, being one of the special editions and all. The curse of having my window above the entrance...

...

Noone suspected a thing, since noone was home, I could hide the body before anyone even realised something happened, don't ask how I succeeded, I myself was surprised. But the strange stuff never stopped there. Somehow...the incident helped me...I started writing and I was liking what I was writing, until I came to a stop again...accursed writer's block. I was hoping ideas will come by thinking about the incident again, but nothing. I got so mad I went out shopping again. I don't know what I was doing while I was away, all I know is that I came back late at night, as silent as I could without waking anyone up, closing the door behind me. Only then I realised how red my hand was...at first I thought it was from the cold weather, but red skin does not drip blood from simple coldness...my hands were stained in blood, but I wasn't injured, it was someone else's blood....without caring about my hands, I sat down, and continued writing. I was surprised...it seemed the blood was helping...but what was I doing to get the blood onto my hand? What was I doing outside while being driven by anger? And why was I smiling so happily after possible doing something so horrible?....

...

The following days continued on the same way...getting angry at my writing, going out at daylight, and coming back with blood soaked hands...smiling in an almost ghostly way...never knowing what happened outside...and surprisingly noone ever suspected anything...every day silence enveloping the house when I returned home....why was all this happening? All of this started out as a simple gameplay...playing that.....what was it again.....hack...something with hack in it...my memory is slowly fading....I can't even remember what came first...was it the playing in my room....was it writing.....or was it that sadistic smile on my face that came first...the smile...yes...I could never forget that smile....the smile that was accompanied by that look on my face...as I looked at myself through the glass wall...watching the sliced up bodies of my loved ones behind that sadistic person who resembled me.....with those glowing red eyes and crazy smile....not being able to do anything anymore...standing there....forever watching...from the silent dead plains of the once lush grassy field...as it was dissapearing, leaving only few words in my head as I watched the darkening glass wall...

''[Uninstall?] [Yes/No]''