The Amoral Disk

Part 1- The Player

A beautiful day in the middle of spring, Allison was walking home from school with headphones on. She hummed the joyful tune to herself but was suddenly stopped in her tracks by a ginger cat. The cat, which had the name "Orange" written on their collar, stared at her. Allison reached down to pet the cat, which they let her. Orange circled around her, rubbing its fur against her leg. Then there was a loud clunking sound from an alleyway that was to her right. The cat ran towards the sound and jumped into one of the dumpsters, to Allison's curiosity, she went to investigate the sound. Of course, it could just be a rat but the banging sounded too loud to be a rat. She set her backpack down and looked through the dumpster, she spotted the cat at the bottom with its fur puffed up. Nothing special, just a few garbage bags and a CD? Allison picked up the CD that was wedged between the bags. On the disk case, there were words written that spelled "Sonic.exe".

Allison played very little Sonic games while growing up, she really only played the old games on her Sega Genesis that was later thrown away. She took the disk and put it in her backpack, she decided to leave the noise alone and started walking again. She sensed a weird feeling in her body but just shook it off. Once she got home, she went to her room and opened her backpack and grabbed the CD. She opened the case and blew the dust off of the disk. She took a closer look at it to see if it was scratched. Not a single thing was on it, from being in the dumpster, that was surprising. She put the disk in her CD player that was hooked on her computer, once put in, a file popped up. The file was named "SONIC." even though the disk said "Sonic.exe".

She booted up the game and was immediately brought to a familiar sight of the Sonic 1 title screen. The main song played but it stayed on the title screen, it was quiet. She pressed the enter button on her keyboard repeatedly, then clicked the screen with her mouse. No wonder why someone got rid of it. Just as Allison was about to take out the disk, a weird laugh played from the game, she faced the screen again but it looked different. Sonic's eyes grew wider and bigger, his ears were a bit pointer than usual and his grin was just black and empty. Along with his quills being longer and having a point at the end. Allison thought that this was a modded version of the game, she pressed enter again and was brought to a character select screen but this is Sonic 1, it should just be him. In the character select screen, there were 3 boxes with the last two having locks on them but no one was in the boxes.

Why would there be a select screen if there is no one to select? She clicked the open box and the screen went black. The first level loaded in, Green Hill Zone. Sonic's appearance still looked different but now she noticed that he wore longer gloves and socks. And for some reason, Sonic only has 1 life. She used the arrow keys to move but for some reason, he couldn't jump. Possibly, this was just a bug in the game or so she thought. Maybe he couldn't jump because there was nothing to jump into, the whole map was just a flat land, no obstacles, no Badniks. All she could do is to have Sonic run to the right. The level felt endless, she let go of the arrow eye to rest her finger but weirdly, Sonic kept running without her controlling him. All of a sudden, there was an edge which Sonic fell off. His death animation played then the words "Game Over" appeared, the screen went black.

"Be not afraid. It's all okay." A voice was heard but it was definitely not Sonic's voice. The game closed itself and the disk popped out of the CD player.

Allison sat there with confusion. Was that it? That was all to it? She put the disk back into its case and set it down on her desk. She felt disappointed in the game but kept it just in case. She turned off her computer and pulled out her homework.