A True Ending

[Credit to SEGA, as they own all rights to the Sonic the Hedgehog Franchise. Also credit to the writer of Sonic.EXE for the inspiration]

The production of Sonic and Knuckles 2, a brand new fan-game, was very short-lived. The idea was proposed, our team began development of the game and were immediately swarmed with third-party ideas. Should it be action-packed? Should it be heavily story-focused? Should it have specific gimmicks? New characters? 3D or 2D?

Eventually we decided on an action-packed game that focused on the rivalry between Sonic and Knuckles as they both venture forth to defeat Dr. Robotnik once and for all, in a 2D world. We also agreed that there should be a new character which represented the dark side of Knuckles, something that could get in his way as Metal Sonic did to Sonic, minus the metal.

After a long, intense discussion we decided the game perfectly suited the time at which it should be released, it would be the first true Sonic horror game on Halloween, and the main focus would be Robotnik’s new accomplice, Executor. We hadn’t a very original name, so we simply invented Executor the Echidna to represent Knuckles’ dark side.

We arranged every date for a trailer before the game was released to the public. We were sure it’d be a big hit.

“The best fan-game in a while,” people would say. SEGA might pay us to make it an official game, we’d be rich and famous!

The game starts in the Sky Sanctuary, with a cutscene of Knuckles looking up at the sky, he is leaning against the pillar in front of the Master Emerald’s stand. A shadow appears and the screen flashes once as it collides roughly with Knuckles’ torso. His eyes turn as red as his fur and his fur darkens, he begins to levitate like a demon and laughs maniacally as he looks around. He waves his hand against the Master Emerald and it shatters into twelve pieces, the shards scatter around Angel Island and the screen cuts to Sonic, who is sleeping. Tails wakes him up and appears to be scared.

The strange thing is, we programmed a determined face onto Tails, not a scared one.

Sonic stood up as we programmed him to, looked around and then turned to Tails. We programmed the stage to immediately commence after he looked around and turned to the east. However, Sonic patted Tails’ head once and Tails began crying. Sonic started walking.

The man testing the game spammed all of the buttons on his controller, beginning to panic as he thought that the game was broken, but Sonic wouldn’t stop walking. He stared up to the top of the screen as everything got gradually darker, frame by frame.

He left Tails behind.

The screen turned close-to-pitch-black, only Sonic himself remained visible, running on solid, but invisible ground. Other than Sonic there was only black, no music, no HUD, no enemies, no rings, no bosses, nothing.

We let Sonic walk for ages, curious what would happen.

After a few minutes we began timing. When the stopwatch hit precisely ten minutes, Sonic stopped. He turned to the screen and shrugged, then he just stared.

A red blur glided down from the top-right corner of the screen, lunging at Sonic, a realistic scream was heard and then silence. Just the darkness and the silence.

We couldn’t work it out, had something interfered with the coding? No, nobody and nothing could make that kind of ‘thing,’ in such a nick of time.

Suddenly, we heard a splattering noise, and then spluttering, one after the other. I began to freak out as thick, warm blood splashed the inner screen, sliding slowly down to the bottom, discharging small amounts of electricity as if it actually affected the console.

We waited, hoping the blood would clear, but the top half seemed to be stuck down solid. It spread across the screen and formed a short phrase. It read, ‘Executor’s Ending.’

My team began to panic as I did, we instantly turned off the console and removed the disc, we plugged it into our computer and searched for Executor’s coding in the game, in a desperate attempt to remove the creepy programming.

There was no programming, Executor had just… ‘gone.’

Sparks flickered out of the light above us, and then it died.

A single shattering sound became audible momentarily, and then there was only darkness.

A dark red blur lunged.