DOOM45

3 months ago, since I was bored, I started browsing the /idgames directories, which was the ultimate mod database for the first-person-shooter Doom, since I was such a big fan of Doom at the time. I then came across a WAD file called DOOM45.wad. The author's name was "Redrum Ydoolb", the file size was 10 gigs, and there were about 10 reviews, and what was strange was that all of them read "TO BE SORRY". Despite this, the file had 5/5 stars, and I instinctively downloaded it. I had a high-speed DSL connection, but the download took 3 hours. When the download had finally finished, I opened the ZIP file the WAD came in, but there was no WAD file to be found. Instead, there was a text document and and a program called DOOM45.exe. When I opened the text document, it only read "TO BE SORRY" 45 times. Perplexed, yet curious, I decided to run DOOM45.exe.

What I found was remarkable. It didn't need a copy of Doom, it had an advanced port of the game, and the file only took about 7 seconds to boot up. The title screen composed of a side profile of a marine holding a monster's severed head in his hand came up, and nothing more. I went to the main menu, and started up a new game, on the normal difficulty.

It only got better from there. A heavy metal remake of the first level's music track started playing, my starting weapon was an assault rifle, and I knew I was playing KZiZD, a remake of Doom's first episode. Ecstatic, I proceeded into the first area, and I encountered zombies with various weapons. When I shot at them, they were wounded and eventually killed in ways more realistic than the original game, and then I learned that DOOM45.exe not only had KDiZD, but was also a souped-up version of Brutal Doom, a Doom mod notorious for giving the player several different ways to kill enemies, as well as its extreme graphic violence, complete with new monsters and weapons. I was close to finishing the first level, and already I wanted to play this until the wee hours of the night.

When I proceeded to the second level, it was just as good as the first. The usual death and destruction came about. However, there were two things I had noticed. One, while the first level had a heavy metal remix, the second level just had the original MIDI track of the second level playing. Two, while the background sky of the first level was a mountain range against a white sky, the background sky of the second level was a blood-red sky, but since this was Doom, after all, this wasn't particularly out of the ordinary, so I pressed on to the third level.

The third level was when things had really started to seem off. The music track for this level was a disturbing ambient track from Doom 64, and the background sky was pitch black. This isn't what put me off, though. What did put me off was that the gore now looked extremely realistic, and the monsters in this level were now covered in blood. The zombies, especially, were now able to talk, but in this demonic voice that's hard to describe. Some of those zombies were even more aggressive, whereas some other zombies tried to run away. The former zombies had insulted and threatened me personally, with "I'll rip your eyes out, fucker" and "grow some balls, you worthless shit", while the latter zombies actually pleaded for their lives, with "why are you doing this to me?" and "please don't kill me!" I was baffled by this, but I've seen a lot of horror movies and read a lot of creepypastas, as well as considered that this was Doom anyway, so I wasn't someone who was easily disturbed. Regardless, I moved on to the fourth level.

The fourth level was simply a square room with a switch in the middle. The bodies of dead monsters were littered everywhere, the walls were covered in blood, and the music track was the track where you find a bunny's head on a stick. Naturally, I pressed the switch, but what followed genuinely shocked me. The HUD face, which showed how much health you had, was completely in shock. A message on the screen read:

"You should not have come here. Prepare TO BE SORRY."

An image of a corpse with a shotgun in its hands and a bloody stump where the head should be flashed on the screen, and the music stopped at that instant. I jumped a little by how unexpected an already shocking image just popped up, and five seconds later, the image was replaced with a black screen and the agonized scream of a man that sent shivers down my spine.

I suddenly found myself in the fifth level, but this was no better. For some reason, the only enemies seen was these flying black skulls that were covered in black flames, and the music track for this level was also the track for the final level of Doom II. They were very fast, very tough, and very lethal. I came across a group of these, and I died within seconds of encountering these monsters. The second time I started the level, the normal monsters replaced the black skulls, but I was startled by the fact that the HUD face was now all bloodied up, the eyes were gouged out, and was in the same state of shock as before, not to mention that the usual death screams of the monsters were now replaced with the deafening screams of men, women, and animals that will make your blood run cold, and turning down the speaker volume on the computer didn't work. At this point, I was desperate to finish this game, but quitting was impossible, as there was literally no way to quit this sick joke of a game. Just as I was about to finish this level, a black-and-white face of a woman with three sets of jet black eyes with no pupils spawned in front of me, let out an inhuman scream, killed me instantly, and had me jump out of my chair. However, for some reason, I had finished the level.

I found myself in the sixth level. It was just like the sixth level of the original game, except it was completely dark, and there was no background music. At this point, I wanted to shut my computer off or just smash it to bits, but something inside me told me to keep going. There was no monster to be seen, but what did come up was the faint sound of static. The computer's speakers were still at a minimum, but the sound of static grew louder and louder, until it was about to break the speakers, and then stopped just as suddenly as it started. Still, I looked for something to pop up, but nothing was there, just the empty hallways. A minute later, the static was replaced with whispering. The whispering I could tell was mainly in English, German, Russian, Italian, Gaelic, and sometimes languages I couldn't understand, despite the fact I was taking a multilingual class. Frightened, I ultimately decided to shut off my computer, but just as I was about to press the power button, the whispering stopped, and a giant message on the screen popped up:

"YOU TRIED TO PRESS THAT BUTTON, AND NOW YOU WILL PREPARE TO BE SORRY."

What was this thing? Is this even a game? What kind of sick joke did the author have in mind? As soon as the giant message popped up, I died instantly. The HUD face, however, looked completely normal, as if nothing happened, and still there was nothing to be seen. Apparently, dying in this level takes you to the next level, just like the previous one.

The seventh level came in like the sixth level with no background music, and was composed of a long narrow hallway with blood on the walls and the words: "TO BE SORRY." For some ungodly reason, I was completely paralyzed, as if my motor systems had shut down completely, but I was somehow scrolling down the hallway. Then, a demonic voice that came from both the speakers of the computer and from inside my head said:

"THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME HERE. YET YOU HAVE DISREGARDED ALL WARNING. HELL HAS COME FOR YOU. PREPARE TO BE SORRY."

Then, booming laughter came from this voice, and as the laughter grew louder, a plethora of images containing mutilated animals and screaming faces with eyes gouged out flashed on the screen. The images of the animals were soon replaced with images of something far worse. A beheaded infant, a pregnant woman who was gutted, a teenage boy strangled to death by his own intestines, and a middle aged man whose jaw was ripped out and his throat slit open. Those were the only images I could really remember beside the screaming faces. I was literally paralyzed, meaning I couldn't shut my eyes, and was forced to watch the bone-chilling fear I was going through. The laughter suddenly stopped, along with the images, and was replaced with a black screen. A message then popped up, saying "Thank you for playing. I hope you have enjoyed the game." I was no longer paralyzed, so the one thing I could do at this point was scream. I screamed until my lungs gave out. I screamed for about a few minutes, and I was in such a debilitated state, I had to vomit. When I finally gathered my senses, it seemed as if the computer had rebooted itself. When I loaded up to the desktop, my first instinct was to go to the directory where I had put DOOM45.exe. To my surprise, both the text document and the .exe itself were gone. It's as if I had never downloaded DOOM45.exe in the first place. Then, I heard a loud knock on my front door.

A man in his thirties, presumably my neighbor, was at my door. He had asked me what was all the ruckus. Then, it all came back to me. The blood, the screaming, the images, all came back. I told the man what I could recall, only to get a shocking response. The author was actually the man's father.

According to the man (I'll call him Tim), his father was hired by id Software to make maps for Doom. Everything had proceeded smoothly, until one night, he came home to the sirens and flashing lights of police cars and ambulances. His wife had been butchered while she was asleep, and her eyes had been gouged out in the process, but the killer had never been found. Then the father started to have nightmares about his wife dying and waking up covered in blood, and his sanity slippage started to show in his work. Normally, since they knew Doom was meant to be violent, but his work was starting to be too much even for the guys at id Software. Eventually, he was fired for insistence of adding content that would have not only made Hellraiser look like Barney & Friends, but give one of the most influential games of the 90's an "adults only" rating. To this day, id refuses to disclose his name.

For the father, the situation had only worsened for him. He continued to make his own twisted version of Doom, shutting himself away from the rest of the world. Tim was very scared, so he had decided to stay at the friend's house for a week. When he came back, he found his father dead, with a shotgun still in his hands, and a stump where the head should be. He saw the same things scratched all over the walls: "TO BE SORRY." The computer showed the text document and the program. He was traumatized, the police came soon after Tim witnessed the gruesome spectacle, and the father, obviously, was pronounced dead on the scene.

I asked Tim what were those images that popped up on the last level, and he couldn't explain how they died, who they were, or how the images ended up in the game, although he had a gut feeling that this was the work of who or what murdered Tim's mother. The press had never gotten the story of DOOM45.exe, as it was deemed too shocking for the public.

Tim, since then, was recuperating by having to go to therapy, and said that I should do the same, because playing DOOM45.exe, according to him since he too had played it, would cause paranoia, horrendous nightmares, depression, physical weakness, nausea, and even suicidal thoughts. He said that he was sorry for what his father had did to me, and warned me to never ask anyone about it. Out of an overwhelming sense of disbelief, I chose to take his advice.

A month into therapy, out of bile fascination, I went back to the /idgames archive. The DOOM45.wad file was no longer there.

Confused and perplexed, I asked myself why the file just suddenly vanished. My next move was to register to the Doomworld forums, but the system told me I had to wait until tomorrow, so I forced myself to go to sleep, head full of questions. The next day, I created a topic asking what was DOOM45.exe. I got several replies saying that it doesn't exist, it was probably just another urban legend, and even asking what DOOM45.exe was.

I wonder if it even was real, if it isn't, which I have trouble believing - but which might actually be the case either way, since I've been quite sick lately. And so it might have been that I passed out and dreamed all this up in a very terrifyingly real nightmare.

But if it is real, then I fear for anyone who may be unfortunate to stumble upon this thing. I certainly hope I just dreamed it up, and God knows what will happen if I didn't..