One day, I was walking home from school. I only lived about a block away, so that was easy. But as I was walking home one day, I saw something peaking out of the sand. It was a little grey videogame cart. It had to be for the old gameboys, or maybe the gameboy colors. This was on, like, the last day of middleschool, in 2005. Shows you how old I am, right? I took it home, and put it in my Gameboy Advance (which I swore I was going to get rid of, any day now, really. No, really! I'm gonna get a DS... Eventually.)
It didn't have a label. That should have given me a clue something was up. But I put it in the Gameboy, and it was Tetris DX. Awesome! I looked through it, and I found them. The highscores table. And at the top of the highscores table was someone named DAN, with a highscore of 683,092.
I started playing. Trying to beat that highscore. But I had homework to do, so I didn't get very far. I went to school and told my friends about it the next day. They found it cool, and we all got together and started speculating about who DAN was, and whether he missed his game, and how he got so good at Tetris.
I came home, and stayed up... Honestly, way too late, trying to beat it. That night,t hough, I only got 49,594 as the highest. But something weird happened. When I left for school, there was a note on my front porch.
"Don't beat my score - DAN"
There was a little picture of a stick man with a knife in his chest.
I figured one of the guys from school had put it there. Maybe Ben. Eh, whatever. Pranks aren't very funny if you just come out IMMEDIATELY and say you did it.
It happened the next day.
"Don't beat my score - DAN"
This time the stick figure was decapitated. I put it in my pocket and went to school. I didn't even mention it, 'cause I figured that they knew I'd found it. And that night, I went home, and played Tetris.
And that morning, I got a note from DAN.
"Don't beat my score - DAN"
The stick figure was being shot in the groin by another one.
I was getting annoyed, but my friends were smart guys. They know comedy. Rule of 3s. After three times, it stops being funny. At lunch, I kind of tried to lead the conversation that way. See if I could get them to tell me about it. Tell me it was all a joke, just fun and games. But they seriously had no idea.
Eh.
Okay. That's how they wanted to play it? Fine.
I kept playing. Every night, I went home, and played Tetris.
Every day, I got another note.
"Don't beat my score - DAN"
And a stick figure who'd been murdered in a new, creative, gruesome way.
And then one night, finally, after a month of this, I was doing it. I was getting really, really good. Seriously, I was starting to kick ass and take names. I was up in the 100,000s regularly. Even the 200,000s sometimes.
And then, this night, I was getting in the groove. You know how there's the right level of tired, the right level of drunk, where you're REALLY GOOD at things?
Well I hit it. I'd been up all night, and I was getting good.
Icould tell this was it. This was going to be my high score. No, this was going to be THE high scre. I was so excited. It was going to happen. I was going to beat Dan. The Tetris tower was getting bigger. And bigger. I was in the zone, racking up points like it was my last day on earth.
And that was the night. My best night. My highest scoring Tetris night. I was playing up until the sun rose. And I went out on the porch to see if DAN was coming.
And you know what happened?
Nothing.
Monsters aren't real. There aren't killers stalking you, waiting for you to break some arbitrary rule, some made-up thing that only they know about. Fall into some arcane trap or push the wrong button and have your world destroyed. Have your life torn apart because of some weird videogame. That only happens in horror movies and creepypastas.
Although, to be fair, I only got 128,859
So maybe I just suck at Tetris.
