There was a strange game at an arcade I used to work at. It’s called the Odd Hand! The way this game works is that you grab this weirdly shaped hand, its fingers are bent as if someone broke them, and the arm it’s attached to is also bent in this way!
But here’s the catch. The arm is also trying to grab you. And it does so in this limping way. So, to win you basically have to grab it first. From what I know this game is only at this arcade. But it’s in the breakroom away from customers!
I never knew why we did this. Because nobody stopped us when we plugged it back in for us to play it. And from what I’ve heard from my coworkers, they also don’t know. But that was until a terrible accident occurred! It all happened ten years ago.
I was alone working the night shift since our janitor was out sick that day. As I had to stay behind and clean the arcade by myself. And as I was cleaning up the breakroom, I noticed that the Odd Hand game was still on.
So, I thought maybe one round of Odd Hand wouldn’t hurt. so, I flipped the switch on and grabbed the hand. But something strange occurred. It started to twitch. And I thought that maybe it was broken so I tried to let go. But the hand grabbed my wrist!
And within seconds I tightened its grasp and it started to pull my arm violently! I started screaming in pain! But my screams were futile as nobody was there. I tried to flip the switch. But the game would not stop!
And as I kept pulling, I could feel my muscles feeling the stress of the Odd Hands pulling! And then it stopped. But my hand was stuck to the machine, so I was trapped there! Eventually the arcade opened back up the next day.
And when my coworkers found me, they tried to get my hand free from the machine. But it was no use. So, they called our manager to help us. He was pissed at us for using the Odd Hand saying that this machine was not to be played under any circumstances.
After he got my hand out of the machine he took me into his office. He sat me down to tell me about the Odd Hand. he explained that he bought it from an old antique store! And after he bought it. A kid who was alone with the machine had his arm ripped off by the machine!
But then my manager paused for a moment. He then said that days later the kid started to behave erratically when he was sleeping. Often crawling in this twitchy state into random rooms of his home. Until eventually the kid killed jumping out his bedroom window while asleep!
That night as I went home, I tried not to sleep. But my eyes had succumbed to slumber, and I had the worst nightmares of my life. For you see there was a sea of bent hands almost like the Odd Hand moving my body around, Both in the dream and in real life!
It was hard for me to wake up from those dreams! It felt as if I was drowning in those dreams. And it got so bad that one day I had my then girlfriend at the time chained myself to my bed. And for the first few nights it worked!
But unfortunately, this would ultimately backfire! For you see as I was in those dreams, I felt the arms suddenly grab my neck! And it started pulling me down deep into the hands more and more mangled the deeper I would go!
things were starting to go dark. But suddenly a flash of light engulfed me, and I awoke in a hospital! My girlfriend and manager were there and looked at my crying happy tears saying how glad she was that I made it. She later explained that I had the chains around my neck!
After my girlfriend left my manager told me that he destroyed the Odd Hand and that I might not have to deal with it anymore. And that night as I started to close my eyes I wondered if he’s right. When I woke up the next day, I had no nightmares!
It has been 10 years since then. The arcade burned down after the Odd Hand was destroyed, I don’t know if those were related. I married my girlfriend. And currently although my arm has healed. I still have markings from where the Odd Hand grabbed me! But currently life is good.