Mostly Harmless

It was another one of those days where my homework was all done and I had no idea what to do for 3 hours until my brother got back from work. After sitting on the couch and talking to the dogs got old (which wasn't that long), I went on YouTube for a while. Somehow I went from watching Spongebob YouTube Poops to some weird thing called Ode to New Spongebob to a video about Sonic.exe to a review of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker on SEGA Genesis. It looked awful, but I couldn't help but think about how funny it would be to go around killing bad guys while hearing Beat It, so downloaded it along with a Genesis emulator. One that was on the Nintendo Wii, might I add. Believe it or not, it was just as bad as it seemed in the video. I proceeded to get some of the better Genesis games like Toejam and Earl, Earthworm Jim, Space Harrier, Battletoads and Double Dragon, and a bunch of others I can't recall. I skipped over Sonic the Hedgehog, though. As a diehard Nintendo fan(boy), that blue porcupine was the bane of my existence. Eventually I just had to give it a try, because what's the point of having a Mega Drive emulator without Sonic? That's like getting a Nintendo 64 to play Superman. I downloaded it, and instantly loved it. The graphics were all nice and colorful, the music was very Genesisy for lack of a better word, and the gameplay was addicting. It was fun watching him roll around at the speed of blast processing. I played the heck out of it until I knew where almost every enemy was. To up the challenge a bit, I looked around to see if there were any cool ROM hacks. There was this one called Sonic Megamix, but it looked boring, so I kept looking. I found another that caught my attention by the name alone. It was called "An ordinary Sonic ROM hack". Ordinary? Clearly the title was supposed to be ironic and the hack was anything but ordinary, but how? Did it add some super cool new ability? Would the gameplay be completely different? Could I play as Mario, Simon Belmont, or something like that? Or, did it maybe show something so twisted and evil that it wouldn't even be possible to describe? After having watched Ode to New Spongebob, I tried to push that last possibility out of my mind. The question still persisted: what did this game contain? Maybe the author was being honest and it really was an ordinary hack. Clinging to this possibility, I renamed the file to "Mostly Harmless", after the 2 words that replaced Ford Prefect's 15 years of hard work on Earth.I kept my distance from the game, but it was always there, beckoning me to just play 2 levels of it. Eventually I said, "What's the worst that could happen?" and loaded the file.

Everything went just fine until I got to the title screen, which was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Sonic.exe. (Don't worry, I won't make anymore Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy jokes. Maybe.) At first, everything was normal; Sonic was present in his ring with the ocean in the background, but then the screen was filled with static and a new title came up. Sonic's eyes were now black and bleeding with red pupils, the water in the background was now blood (what else would it be at this point?), and the music was a depressing series of notes being played on what sounded like a bell of some sort. I wasn't really scared by any of this. I had seen more blood while playing Mortal Kombat (not to mention it reminded me of red Kool-Aid) and the music wasn't much worse than the intro to Haunted by Disturbed. I pressed start and proceeded to the game. Once again, everything was fine for a few seconds, but then static came and ruined everything that made Sonic so rad in the first place. The graphics sucked; the ground was a tasteless grey and the grass was orange, probably to stand out from the now red water. The music sounded incredibly familiar, with its slow, reversed piano notes. The gameplay was the worst. The enemies didn't die when hit, my score shot down fast, and collecting what were now red rings made my ring total go down. Again, nothing too horrifying, but very jarring. I tried to proceed with the level, which was probably the only thing that went unchanged, when suddenly something blue appeared from the left and the drowning music played. As it came closer, I started to recognize what was happening. But this time, I had plenty of places to hide in the level, so I thought I was safe. I found a secret area in the ground and waited, but whatever was on the left showed no sign of stopping. When it touched me, I instantly died, but not before a black screen with white text saying "HELLO" appeared. Allow me to just say that there's nothing I hate more in a game than white text on a pitch black background. It seems like every game does it, too, from Ghostbusters's "Conglaturation!" message to the Wii's "The disc cannot be read" screen. Anyway, there was only one thing that could be saying hello at this point, and it clearly didn't want to play hide and seek this time. I tried again, only to have the same happen. I noticed that the blue thing looked like the title screen Sonic after the static, which in turn, looked like... Oh no. So that was where I knew the music from...

I was playing a spinoff of Sonic.exe.

After getting over that fact, I still had no idea what to do. I was down to my last life, so I had to think fast. I couldn't think of anything to do, and the exit to the level was missing, so I was more trapped than a fly in a spiderweb. As Sonic.exe got me one last time, I started to panic. The game over text came up, which meant that something really bad was about to happen. To my surprise, the SEGA logo came up, which would have been expected under any other circumstance. But then...

Remember how earlier I suggested that the hack might contain something so twisted and evil that it wouldn't even be possible to describe? Well, I was right.

A sound I can't do justice played. Imagine taking the sound of someone smashing a set of chimes against a sidewalk and combining it with a dying man's last pain-filled moan. That's not even remotely as demented as it sounded. But the picture that came up... Oh boy. It was that infamous "I AM GOD" fiasco. Even having known what that was and seeing it a few times, I was horrified and startled at the same time. I wanted my bro to come home already. He would know what to say. But above all, I just didn't get it. I didn't the first time I had seen it and still didn't. Was the programmer some hardcore atheist who just really wanted to get his thoughts out? I wasn't the most religious myself, but that just didn't make sense. [Allow religion flamewar to start here] Of course, right at that moment, my brother decided to come home. I shut the Wii off as quickly as I could and pretended like I was just talking to the dog. I couldn't bring anyone else into this, that would have been outright selfish to show anyone else that just so I could comfort myself. He immediately asked, "What have you been doing?" In a panicked and unsure voice, I responded, "Just sitting here." He gave me his infamous "O RLY?" stare and said, "Which movie was it this time?" "Nightmare on Elm Street." Protecting someone can sometimes be more important than telling the truth. "You're a terrible liar, you know." We both laughed. "How about a game of Smash to take your mind off it?", he suggested. "I'll even play as Sonic if you want me to." Every time he tried to play as Sonic, he used the side-B move and rocketed right off the stage. Normally, that would have been funny, but, well, you know. Hiding my shock with arrogance, I said, "Nah, I can take you." I got creamed, but at least it wasn't that other thing. Eventually bedtime came, but I just laid there, watching Sonic getting killed over and over which always led to the same screen. I wondered, "What did I miss here?" Despite everything, the game seemed playable.

The next day was a school day. I tried to perform to the best of my ability, but I couldn't quite do that with most of my thoughts being in blue and red. Not like it mattered or anything, the end of the year was coming and we hardly did any learning. After science class, my friend whom we'll call C.C. since I have Poison on the mind and I were having our traditional post-science discussion. We had known each other a while and... Anyway, about 2 minutes in, she asked, "Are you okay?" Trying to suppress my thoughts of Sonic, I nonchalantly said, "Yeah, why?" She said, "I don't know, you just don't seem like your normal, upbeat self today." "I guess I'm just feeling a bit tired." I thought about that for a few seconds. "If I told you the reason, you would think I was crazy." "But I already think that. Just tell me already." "I can't." No one else asked about it, but I could tell they all knew.

The next day I woke up in a really, REALLY, bad mood. That right off the bat should have been a sign. I'm almost never in a bad mood unless provoked. Aside from that, it seemed like I viewed everything in the worst light possible. When someone complimented me, I took it as sarcasm and said nothing. Come to think of it, I hardly said anything to anyone. I was afraid they would make fun of me for being so scared of a Sonic game. Even when some of my best friends said hi, I didn't respond with much more than "Hello." In fact, when I approached anyone, the drowning music invariably found itself playing in my head. On the rare occasion that anyone did make fun of me, I found myself unable to retaliate and stood there taking it. On the way home, there was a lot of pennies scattered about. I picked them up, needing all the good luck I could get, but it seemed like the more I picked up, the less I had in my pocket. As soon as I got home, I played some Doom to fight off the hell that had become my world. It was satisfying as anything to blast everything in sight with the BFG, but eventually it got boring and I quit. I noticed my wallpaper had changed. I dare you to guess what it was.

Did you guess that it was Sonic.exe?

...getting strangled by Earthworm Jim while Zitz pounded his head to oblivion and Toejam and Earl kicked it as hard as they could with their Super Hi-Tops, spraying blood all over the place? Because that's what I would like to have seen!! Especially after I found out what it really was. Of course, it was the "I AM GOD" picture, but with different text. This time, it said, "Like what I've done with the place? The only things I forgot were the visuals and my sweet piano riff." I thought about what that could have meant. I went to bed thinking about how my day went, and it hit me.

That blue demon was trying to recreate his world in my head.

I was in a bad mood as it was, but this really pushed it over the edge. He made my day the worst it could be on purpose? And for what? Probably for some sick kicks. When my alarm went off in the morning, I snoozed my clock so hard I broke it. It was no loss, the thing was a faulty piece of trash. I then realized that it was finally Saturday. That in itself put me in a way better mood than I was. I decided to go for a nice long bike ride. On the road, something happened that I thought would never happen again.

I felt happy. I was having a thoroughly good time traversing the streets and saying hi to anyone who was outside. I even stopped to make sure that someone who took a tree branch in the face was okay. (I guess you could say I was really helping myself.) I didn't want to go back home and face reality, but eventually I found myself with no other choice. I wanted to go on my computer again to do my usual tech geek stuff: push around .pac files, execute some executables, and jerk around with .jar files, but I was afraid of what I might see on my wallpaper. My good mood was probably just the calm before the storm, and I had seen how bad the weather could get. I eventually ended up doing it, and was immediately disappointed by what I saw. Instead of Sonic.exe, it was an ordinary-looking Sonic. There was no blood in his eyes or on his face, and the eyes themselves were white with black pupils, just like they should be. He did appear saddened, as though he had actually witnessed the animals he saves being captured. And his message? First off, it wasn't red, it was white, and in that cartoon-like font from Team Fortress 2. I love that font. As for the actual message, I again didn't understand. It said, "You have taken control and figured out the secret." Secret to what? Life? The product of 6 and 7? (Ok, now no more Hitchhiker's Guide jokes. For real this time.) The game? My brain clicked on that last one. I pulled up my browser and searched for a walkthrough to An ordinary Sonic ROM hack. The screenshots differed slightly from what I had personally seen, but they all pointed in the same direction.

I was supposed to break an item box to return to the normal world.

So did my breaking of the alarm clock instantly reset everything to the way it was, just like the game? Is that the reason why he looked depressed? And taken control of what? My life? I liked to say that I had control all the time, but I knew it wasn't true. I knew who really had control.

The next day felt like the second, where I was disturbed by the Sonic head but not threatened by everything in sight. I spent the majority of the day doing nothing and thinking about my wallpaper for that day. It faded between normal Sonic and our .exe friend. The text read, "This won't stop until you learn the lesson." What lesson? That Sonic.exe was God? I had far past established that that was not true. I thought about other life lessons I had learned. One in particular was "What kills you makes you stronger." Was that it? I noticed my Sonic wallpaper started to nod his head. I got the impression that despite everything, the worst was yet to come.

The day after was Monday and I had to go back to school. This was the day where I was in .exeland. After science class, I noticed C.C. talking with a whole bunch of people I had hardly seen before. All I caught was, "There's something going on, but he won't budge." I butted in and insisted that I was fine in a rather snappy tone. As I walked on, I expected them to carry on as though they weren't talking about me. Instead, I heard one of them say, "I think you're right. We should help him." My background was Sonic.exe again, saying, "I AM GOD. I CAN RECREATE THE WORLD HOW I WANT." I actually understood this time. I learned the lesson.

The next day, some girl who I assume was the one that wanted to help me asked, "Hey Mike, are you feeling alright today?" I answered, "I'm doing better than I've been in a while. How are you?" We proceeded to strike up a lengthy and overall normal conversation. C.C. joined us while we were talking about our favorite shows, and she seemed relieved that I was finally back to my old self. What could I have figured out that changed me like that?

I learned that Sonic.exe really was God, but so was I.

Let me explain. God created everything, both the good and bad. He had full control over whether it would be used for good or for bad to make the good even better, because what kills you makes you stronger. Sonic.exe altered both the good Sonic universe and my own universe to make me a stronger person and learn my lesson. Sonic.exe wasn't The god that made us, but the one who determined the fate of the game, as well as me, for a little bit. I still am not sure who, or what, he is. Why am I God too? Well, not God, but rather a god, of myself. We all are. Granted, we aren't anywhere near as powerful as God, but because he made us, we inherited a small amount of his power; too little to create even a small mouse, but enough to make a difference in ours and others' lives. How? We decide whether we are good or bad.  There will always be some people who disagree with one's decision of that. In our own lives, there are bad people out there who just want to spread their ways, like that girl that wanted to help me in Sonic.exe's evil universe. But there will always be many more who agree. There's no way to change that. That's why I couldn't kill the enemies in the game. They wanted to be where they were for whatever reason, and I couldn't help it. That is the true conflict of the human spirit, deciding whether or not it wants to stay how it is in the face of difference. It tries to change, but can only do so partially, whether it be a good mind changing in the faces of evil, or vice versa. Other games like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explore the same possibility, where as Jekyll, you can't harm anything with the cane because the doctor has accepted himself, solving the human conflict like I explained, and does not want to change his good nature by killing. In the words of James Rolfe, "Or, you could just say,

THE GAME F%#*ING SUCKS."