I think my Animal Crossing island is haunted.
Okay, I know it sounds insane. I honestly don’t blame you for wanting to click away and write this off as trolling, but I swear I’m serious and I really need help.
So for context, I play Animal Crossing: New Horizons pretty much every day. It’s one of those little after-work pleasures for me; I get home, get settled, make myself a snack, and play for an hour or two. I’m always decorating new spots on my island, redecorating old ones, customizing my character, talking to my villagers, and completing all of my silly little tasks for the day. It’s a great way for me to relax after a long day and escape from the outside world for a little bit. But lately, things have been getting really fucking weird.
Two Fridays ago was just like any other. I got home from work, kissed my boyfriend, changed out of my work clothes into my comfy clothes, refilled my water bottle with some ice cold water from the fridge, grabbed a quick snack, and relaxed on the couch for my daily island adventures. I noticed that the game took a bit longer than usual to load, but didn’t think much of it as I leaned back and shut my tired eyes, waiting to hear the cheerful home screen music.
The music never came.
After maybe three minutes, I opened my eyes out of confusion and saw that the home screen had, in fact, loaded, but there was no music. Just silence. Okay, so your Switch was muted, you might say, but I swear it wasn’t. I checked and the volume was all the way up. It wasn’t a big deal though, at least not at the time, and I chalked it up to a glitch or something. I pressed A and watched as Isabelle popped up on the screen to make her daily announcements.
“Good afternoon, everyone!” the text read. Isabelle looked the same, cute as ever, but there was still no music. Just the gibberish sound of her speaking (if you’ve played any AC games, you know what I’m talking about). Except there was something… off about it. It wasn’t the usual high-pitched cuteness. It sounded deeper, more garbled. Had my Switch gotten wet at some point? Concerned, I closed out of the game and inspected my Switch thoroughly. Nothing seemed off about the console. I even opened another game, and the audio sounded perfectly fine. When I reopened Animal Crossing, everything was back to normal so I shrugged to myself, figuring it was just some weird glitch, and went about my usual stuff. I added a little garden to one unkempt corner of my island, caught some new bugs and fish, and closed out of the game after about an hour. Honestly, I completely forgot about the whole thing for the rest of the night.
Obviously, if this had been the only weird occurrence, I wouldn’t be writing about it now; and for a little bit, this really was the only weird occurrence. Everything was completely normal for a while and I had totally forgotten about the audio glitch. Until yesterday.
The usual routine: get home from work (yesterday was a particularly stressful day), change, water and snack, game. Surprisingly, my island loaded immediately. There was literally no loading screen, which was awesome! I clicked quickly through Isabelle’s announcements, eager to get playing, and took a bite of my snack as I waited for my character to come out of my house. When she did, however… it wasn’t the same. It was technically my island, but it wasn’t. For starters, it was nighttime, which was weird because it was only 5pm in real time, so it should have still been pretty sunny in the game. My character was also holding an axe right off the bat. Hadn’t I ended my last play session without any tools being used? I scrunched up my nose in confusion and started to run around the eerily dark island. Right away, I noticed that there was, once again, no music. Just the sound of the wind and my character’s feet hitting the terrain as I passed by the little streams and trees I had carefully curated to give my island that cute, natural look - but the water was pitch black like ink. The trees were barren, their branches far longer and more crooked than usual. My once-cute and cozy island was now like a horror movie.
I practically dropped my Switch in shock when I came across the body.
Dobie, one of my favorite villagers, and the one who lived closest to my house, lay sprawled on the dirt path in a pool of blood. I don’t know how it was even possible for this game to be so gruesome, but it was. His skull looked like it had been bashed in with something. His lower jaw hung loose, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. He looked like he was twitching still. I ran up to him and pressed A to talk.
“Hrnngh… gaah…”
The villager’s moans and gurgles sounded eerily realistic. I could practically hear him choking on his own blood. I quickly exited out of the game and threw my Switch down on the coffee table, tears pricking the backs of my eyes and hot vomit bubbling deep in my throat. I ran to the bathroom and puked.
Someone must have hacked my Switch and replaced the game with some twisted bootleg or something. That was the only realistic explanation. This all had to be some kind of sick joke.
My boyfriend came running from the other room after hearing my vomiting and stood in the bathroom doorway, concern plastered over his face.
He spoke, but it sounded all garbled. It was pitched higher than usual, too. Almost like gibberish.
I slowly looked up from the toilet bowl. “Wait… what?” I muttered.
“I was asking if you’re okay. What happened? Did you eat something bad?” He sounded normal now, so I chalked whatever had just happened up to my head being fuzzy from puking. When I gathered myself enough to explain, he just looked more confused and concerned. He asked me to show him my game, which I did, but when it opened everything was completely normal.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “It seems fine. Maybe you nodded off or something and didn’t realize you were dreaming?”
I stared down at the screen in disbelief. I knew what I saw. I could have sworn I was awake. But… maybe he was right? It had been a long day at work. Maybe I did just fall asleep and had a weird fucking nightmare. It felt wrong but it was the only reasonable explanation.
Needless to say, I went to bed early last night without dinner.
I woke up at 2:58am last night, incredibly thirsty, and stumbled to the fridge in my half-asleep state to get some water. As I stood at the sink chugging that delectable night water (IYKYK), eyes half closed, I swear I heard it.
The fucking home screen music.
The music that was normally comforting to hear during the day now made me drop my glass on the floor. I was too shocked to even register the fact that I was now standing barefoot amidst a puddle of water and shards of glass. As if in a trance, I made my way to the living room; my Switch was exactly where I left it on the coffee table, except now it was on, the blue-white light illuminating the space around it. It was as though it was beckoning to me. Somewhere in the cheerful music, I could practically hear my name being called to me. My island was calling to me, and I answered.
I sat on the couch and picked up the Switch. Without even pressing anything, the screen went straight to Isabelle. Her eyes were pitch black and her voice was deep and garbled like that first day. “Good evening, everyone!” she said. “Tonight we have a very, very SPECIAL GUEST on our island. Everyone say hello to FUCKING USELESS PIECE OF HUMAN FECAL MATTER! We will be hosting a party for our special friend in the town square. Put on your best party outfits and bring a homemade dish for a potluck!”
The screen went to black for a moment, followed by my character coming out of my house… Or at least, I assume it was my house. The animations were the same, but the only thing on the screen was my character. The rest was black. I started to move, but was stopped by a text box popping up on the screen. “Put on your party outfit first!” it read. I opened my inventory - the only items in there were a piece of clothing, a covered food dish, and… a kitchen knife? I didn’t even know that kitchen knives were an item in the game.
I couldn’t exit out of the inventory before putting on the clothing, so I did just that. My character did her little spin animation to reveal that she was wearing… my pajamas. The ones I was wearing in real life, except they were covered in blood. I shuddered, but something pressured me to keep playing. It was as if something was moving my fingers on the buttons and I was just watching as my character walked slowly toward what I can only assume would be the town square.
After walking in pitch blackness for what seemed like hours (but was probably only thirty seconds, realistically), I came to the town square.
All of my villagers were seated at a long table that was laid out with table placements, covered food dishes, teacups - like they were just having a late-night tea party, but instead of performing the usual cute animations that they might normally do during game events, like talking to one another and dancing around, they were all sitting eerily still, in odd poses as though someone had placed them there. Like corpses.
“Make sure to share your dish!” a textbox read on the screen. I walked my character up to the table and pressed A to place the dish down. Once I did, extraordinarily loud party horns sounded from the Switch; so loud, in fact, that I winced and tried to turn down the volume, but it didn’t help. If this continued for any longer, everyone in the building would be awake. I expected my boyfriend to come running out of the bedroom, but surprisingly, he didn’t even stir.
I felt something warm trickle out of my ear - probably blood, but I couldn’t remove my hand from the Switch to wipe it away. Just then, the party horns stopped and Isabelle emerged from the town hall. There was something too human about her movements as she diverged from the usual Animal Crossing animations to turn and close the door behind her, walk slowly down the steps, and take a seat at the opposite end of the table as my character. Nothing happened on the screen for a long time, and I began to wonder if the game froze.
“Welcome FUCKING USELESS PIECE OF HUMAN FECAL MATTER!” a sudden text box read, narrated by Isabelle’s increasingly-screeching voice. “Today we are celebrating a very special day! But first, let’s see what everyone brought to eat!”
With a little poof, the covers disappeared from all of the dishes to reveal not only the image of dishes covered in various unidentified meats, oozing with green and yellow pus, some of them bubbling and bursting, covering the “guests” in hyper-realistic toxic matter, but also filled the room - the room that I was physically sitting in - with a warm, wet, putrid odor that smelled like the scent of rot. I gagged at the sight and smell, but once again found myself unable to tear myself away from the screen.
Suddenly, the villagers began to feast.
It was like watching zombies gorge themselves on decaying bodies. I watched in horror as they ripped into the meat, shoving giant fistfuls of the stuff into their unnaturally wide mouths. Isabelle simply sat and watched along with me, a static grin spread across her face. In the light of the room, she looked so malicious. Much different than the usual cheerful appearance of the cute little dog.
When the villagers had finished their feast, some of them flopping over onto the ground with distended bellies and vomit dripping down their chins, Isabelle finally stood.
Once again, I want to reinforce the fact that this is not fake. Nothing about this story has been fabricated. Prior to these events, I never had any serious delusions or episodes that might cause me to hallucinate or lose consciousness. This… this wasn’t me.
The last thing I remember before blacking out was opening my inventory and equipping the kitchen knife.
Thankfully, I came to before anything truly horrific happened. I found myself standing in the dark over my boyfriend’s sleeping body. The kitchen knife was in my hand at my side and the clock read 2:59am. One minute since I had woken up to get water.
I quietly tiptoed out of the room and placed the knife back in the drawer before cleaning up the water and broken glass on the floor, then washed the blood off of my ear and cheek in the bathroom sink. I know that there’s no way anybody else would believe me; if I told the authorities, my family, or even my boyfriend, I’m certain that I would wind up in an institution… but honestly, part of me wonders if that’s for the best, because even as I write this, I can hear that godforsaken cheerful music in the back of my mind. When I close my eyes, I can see Isabelle’s eyeless face and the villagers gorging themselves on meat. I can practically feel the knife in my hand. Part of me wants to sink the knife into some flesh and gorge, just like the villagers. I worry that it’s going to happen again, except this time, I’m not going to wake up before I do something bad.
I’m never playing Animal Crossing again.