"Extremely Sppoky" Creepypastas

EarthBound: The Photographer

What's that? ANOTHER EARTHBOUND CREEPYPASTA? Yep. This was probably written a couple months after the last one. I decided to try again, this time fueled by a concept with a decent amount of thought and pre-planning put into it rather than just answering the question "wut is spooky???". Let's see how it turned out, shall we?

Alright, hear me out. What I'm about to tell you is weird, but believe me, it's true.

It had been about 10 years since I played EarthBound. The game was a pretty big part of my childhood and if I hadn't had wanted a Gamecube so badly, I would still have it and my SNES today. After such a long time, I actually began to regret selling it. I seriously wanted to play the game again, but I didn't have the cash to fork over for an original cartridge and another SNES. Instead I, decided to just download an Emulator and ROM.

I found the ROM of EarthBound at some generic, kind of shady looking sight. I think it was called something like "ROMSforREALS", but I can't fully remember. i made that up. There is no rom site called that I got the emulator from a separate sight called "CoolROMS", I think.  that one is real though The download process took no time at all for both of them, and once I got every thing set up, I dived right into the game. I felt so eager, like I had just gotten EarthBound and an SNES on that faitful christmas day.

On the naming screen I had kept everything at default, just as I did all those years ago. The nostalgia was almost enough for tears when I began the game. The meteor.. Pokey... Buzzbuzz... All of it brung back memories. Once I finished the beggining sequence and was able to go off to Onett, I was greated with a familiar jinghe worst misspelling since 'awfut' as I stared to walk away from Ness's house. It took me a few seconds, but when the bearded, top hat-wearing character floated down, I sank down in my seat a little. It was HIM... This guy was seriously annoying. He was a photographer who came down at certain points of the game, took your picture, and float back up. When I had first played the game, I remember him being not only annoying, but later on, sort of creepy. I mean, he's some old guy who takes pictures of these kids almost everywhere they go. A little creepy, if you ask me. Anyways, he said his usual lines he says every single time he visits, and then spun back up into he air, giving me control of my character, Ness, again.

Oh yeah, notice how I finally split a story into proper paragraphs. Pretty refreshing.

The game played out just as it was supposed to, except for one thing. When I started to walk around the first town, Onett, I was stopped by him again. I knew it had been a while since I played the game, but I felt as if it was a bit early for him to take another picture. Just to get to the point a little quicker, this happened throughout the whole game. In fact, as the game progressed, the frequency he appeared worsend until, once I got to the cave o the past, the road to the final boss, it was unbearable. I KNEW he wasn't supposed to appear there, but he did anyways. About every five steps, that jingle played and the music started and he'd say his lines and take a picture and leave. I was not going to try to play this ROM anymore. I knew by now this was obviously some trolling hack and I just stopped playing it.

You played it until the FINAL AREA and JUST NOW you realized it was a ROM hack??? 

About a week later, I was browsing for things that I could remove off my computer when I decided to check any pictures. I was surprised by what I found. Screenshots, screenshots everywhere. All of them were from EarthBound and they were all of the photographer and Ness and friends. The hack had been tacking screenshots every time that guy showed up. I was pretty T-ed off and got rid of everyone of them. I got rid of the rom aswell and that was the end of it.

Well, atleast I thought.

Just days later, something showed up in my inbox. I couldn't tell who it was by, but it just said: "Pictures taken instantaniously". I rolled my eyes and deleted it. A day later after that, I got another email presumable by the same person. it read "I'm a photographic genius, if I do say so myself!" whith a picture of some random people people at a park. Whoever made that hacked rom must hack tracked me down and is now trying to mess with me, I thought. The next day, I got another email from the troll. "Alright, gets ready for an instant memory!" it's a RP now apparently  it said, this time acompanied by a photo of one of my relatives. My cousin when he was young. Uh, how exactly did he mange to find a picture of my cousin? I don't have any on my computer at all. I wanted to block him, which I did, but the very next day, I got yet another email from him . "Look at the camera! Read?" YOU HAD ONE JOB It had a picture of my mother, who was also at a young age. I started to feel as if this wasn't just some stupid joke. What did he mean by "Ready?" anyways, aside from being part of the photographer's lines?

It was about 2 weeks before I found out. During that time, I had guess that the troll hack had had his fun and left me on a creepy cliffhanger. When I opened my inbox just this morning, I was dead wrong. The email read "Say fuzzy pickles!" The photo that accompanied it was just... unbelievable. It was a sepia photograph that was in poor quality. Four kids, all around the age of about 13, were against a brick wall. Their mouths were staped together and they seemed to have been missing their eyelids. They staired back at me with a sickeningly cold stare. They were all presumable corpses. Worst of all, everyone of them were dressed as one of the main characters. In fact, they were almost exactly how I'd imagine they'd look if they were real. The one who resembled Ness had his right hand proped out by a stick or bar running up his arm and his fingers were poised to resemble the peace sighn he gives when he gets his picture take in game. His mouth was even stapled into a contorted smile.

What a nice, tasteful use of shock factor material, wouldn't you agree~? ... Not really.

As soon as I'm done typing this, I will call the authorities on this psycho.

I just checked my inbox again. It was a photo of a blank black screen. Wait, now there's a picture of some dim grey light. Now there is a picture of some carpeted stairs. They kind of look like mine. There is a picture of a dim light. The back of a computer chair with someone in it. Please, for the love of hgvvmchggmhnv tf uktykygukyfuk ykftug7u5y6 rl7 head-slammed-on-keyboard simulation. no keyboards were harmed in the making

......

What a wonderful photograph. It will alway bring back the fondest of memories...

Huh, this wasn't as bad as I remember it being. In fact, had I been a more competent (and spell-checking) writer at the time,  this probably could've been comparable to the popular video game creepypastas of nowadays. It's a coherent, fairly engaging story, and it was grounded in reality rather than being some possessed cartridge BS. Basically, the plot was some psycho killer posing as Camera Man from EarthBound made a ROM hack, traced the guy who downloaded it, and murdered him. No paranormal entities involved. Pretty scary. It did have some common creepypasta sins though, like the protagonist being an idiot and !!OMGGGG SHOCK FACTOR!!; but it's not actually too bad.