Maria
On a regular day off with nothing to do, I performed my usual routine of looking through Youtube videos to pass time. Lately, I've been watching some creepypasta videos, but not really finding my interest being peaked. However, one story caught my eye today and held my interest from start to finish.
It was the story of Maria, a young female character from the Sonic the Hedgehog: Battle series. As a kid, I loved playing this game. My sister and I spent hours playing it. So finding a story, let alone a creepy one, about it was an easy hook, line, and sinker.
I was amazed. Everything that was said made sense. Gaps in the story were seemingly filled well within reason, which is what drives the creepiness of the story. It's one thing to make up a story on the spot, put in some jump scares, and puke out some bloody mess. But this was in a league of it's own. It all seemed realistic: the glitches, the discoveries, the lack of overrated scary pictures. This was genuine.
With so much thought being put into this, I decided to dive further into the creepypasta and experience it for myself. Messing with the emulators wasn't too much of a big deal for me, especially since what was needed to do was outlined in the creepypasta. Following each step, I made me way to setting up the Maria theme for the game. And like in the story, once the game launched, there she was in the background of the opening scene.
My first thoughts were that it was all designed to function this way, like a mod. I wasn't too interested in going through the same exact scenarios as the author. So I started playing the game, choosing the dark story of course, and ignored the faint occurrences of Maria as I played.
However, as I kept playing, the game seemed to lag more and more. My computer isn't the best in the world, so I knew I would run into performance issues. But it seemed intentional for the game to get progressively worse in both lag and appearance as I pressed on through the levels.
After completing White Forest as Shadow, I looked forward to the battle against Sonic. But what greeted me instead was completely different from what I expected. Shadow stood on the platform by himself. No scene played like it should have. It just jumped to Shadow standing there. I tried moving Shadow, but the controls didn't seem to respond.
As I started to mash the jump key, all while pressing arrows keys, a text box appeared. It was blank for a while. On the other end of the platform, I noticed something slowly rising from the ground. It was very dark, but I could make out that it was a head, Maria's head. Her character model was slowly rising from the ground.
I laughed, impressed by how I found something that hadn't been mentioned in the creepypasta. The text box remained empty until Maria was completely risen from the ground, just slightly hovering. She was staring at Shadow, her face blacker than the rest of her body. I scoffed as I quickly became bored. I motioned to open task manager so I could close the game. Control, alt...and before I could hit delete, text appeared.
"Do you care, Shadow?" Maria was still hovering. There was a very faint static white noise in the background. I was then presented with two options, yes and no. Feeling arrogant, I went straight for no. But right as I was going to choose it, the cursor went up to yes as I pressed accept. I figured it was just a forced decision through programming.
Maria turned her head away from Shadow and new text appeared. "Do you know what they did?" I was quickly beginning to build interest. This time I chose yes, knowing about the vile acts performed upon Maria by the scientists in the Ark. She turned back to Shadow and asked a new question. "You know?" I choose yes again.
Suddenly, she started crying. "You know nothing." Just then, the screen slowly faded to a picture of Maria, naked. Her legs being held open by restraints on what looked like a metal table. Her wrists were also held by the same restraints. The amount of detail within the picture was exceedingly disturbing as it looked too realistic for the graphics of the game.
I couldn't help turning away, feeling my mind being pushed a bit too far by what I was seeing. The picture began to fade to another one, this time with Maria on her stomach, her rear positioned in the air. The camera was very slowly zooming in on unnecessary parts of her body. I was starting to lose my vigilance to keep playing. I mean, what kind of sick ******** portrays this kind of act in a game?
A text box suddenly appeared as the screen faded to black. "Would you help me?" No choice was offered to me. I heard Shadow's voice say yes. A light appeared with Shadow in it. His surroundings were pitch black, but I could make out a hallway. Within a few seconds, a light appeared at the far end of the hallway. I pressed forward to see if I had control of Shadow; I did. I jumped around and tried to look for anything else before proceeding down to the light.
"Please help me...", a faint voice echoed. It sounded like a girl's voice, possibly Maria's. I knew what was coming. I knew she was going to ask Shadow, ask ME to kill Gerald Robotnik and punish him for the cruel and disgusting things he did to her. I knew she wanted to be avenged. And I knew what I was going to do.
As I reached the end of the hallway, a predictable Gerald was sitting in a wooden chair, his arms bound behind his back, his legs bound to the legs of the chair. There was blood on his face and lab coat. His glasses were cracked and I couldn't see his eyes. He was looking down at the floor anyway. A text box appeared with red text that slowly came into view, as if being typed slowly, "Please, kill him."
I paused for a second, waiting to see if anything else would happen. Then, I turned Shadow around, and proceeded to move him back down the hallway. I knew what Maria wanted. I knew the author of the story could empathize and would do what he/she may have thought what Maria deserved. But I knew better than that. I am not a judge, nor am I God. It is not determined by me who lives and who dies. Gerald would have to face his consequences through justice, maybe by GUN.
As I kept moving Shadow down the hallway, mind you I could only get him to walk, Maria quickly sprouted from the ground. This time, her model was accurately colored, however her eyes were black and empty with tears coming from them. A text box ensued, reading, "Why? Why won't you help me?" To my amazement, a text box with a blinking cursor appeared.
Curious, I pressed my S key. Within the text box, the letter S appeared. A cold shiver shot up my spine as I nodded with impression. I figured I would entertain the notion of typing why I wouldn't kill Gerald to see what the game would do.
After typing out my speech, I hit enter. the text box disappeared and Maria remained standing in front of Shadow, not moving a single bit. She slowly looked down at the floor and began crying. The screen faded to black, but the sounds of Maria crying continued. After about a minute, the screen showed Maria in what looked like a room on the Ark. Surrounding her were dead bodies that appeared to be scientists.
They were completely and utterly mutilated. Blood and gore was strewn about the room and walls. Hell, even the ceiling was painted. At this point, I had become disappointed. I didn't expect the creepypasta to result to a horror scene like this. I just watched Maria sitting on the floor facing away from me, her legs pulled close to her body, sobbing.
I sighed and let out a, "This is bullshit." as I proceeded to close Dolphin and be done with the whole ordeal. But what happened next turned my whole world upside down. Maria jerked her head to the left and snapped, "No, you're bullshit!" My whole body froze, my eyes glued to her face. Did I just imagine that? No, that was clear, clearer than daylight. I responded naturally with, "What the ********?"
Maria turned her head back to face away from me again, but she was silent. A minute or two passed with this silence. I thought about what happened and tried to rationalize it. It's just a game, right? How the hell could a virtual character hear me, let alone reply? I finally regained control over my thoughts and wanted nothing more than to close this game and delete all of it's content.
But before I could do so, Maria seemingly reacted before I could "end" her. "Why won't you help me? These men and Gerald... They did things to me you couldn't dream of in your worst nightmares." I stared at the screen, silent in my chair for a few seconds before smirking and saying out loud, "Because I'm in no position to judge others. It's not my responsibility." I didn't know what I was thinking, I guess I was just trying to downplay the entire incident.
But Maria, turning her head to the left again, replied, as if she could honestly hear me... "So you'll just let them ravage me?" Whatever possessed me to think I could have a conversation with a virtual character in my computer is far beyond me, but I once again replied, maybe trying to provoke a response irrelevant to what I say, "Let them ravage you? Looks like you did a good job of that to them." She giggled and then slowly laughed, almost maniacally.
Seriously? She can ******** hear me? No, it's not real. Creepy laughing like that is vague. Everything has been vague responses. It's just a setup, a mod to put me on edge for laughs. I decided to ignore anything else she had to say and open Task Manager. Maria seemed to notice again and stopped laughing. "Stop", she said. I ignored her, pressed the processes tab so that I was absolutely positive I ended the entire emulator, highlighted Dolphin.exe, moved my cursor to end process and...
"DON'T YOU DARE PRESS THAT BUTTON!!!" Maria had jerked up to her feet and was facing towards me now. I once again froze, but this time paralyzed with fear and confusion. How in the name of all that's rational did she know I was going to close the game? It's not like I was pressing escape or using any of the Dolphin options. It's impossible, literally impossible for her to know anything dealing with my task manager.
-to be continued-
