We’ve all been to yard sales before, I used to love scoping out yard sales and trying to see what odd trinkets I could manage to find, and occasionally fix up old tech to either flip or use myself. I don’t think I can stomach doing that anymore though.
Last month I spied an old Xbox 360 on one of the tables, and I do mean old. It was one of the white models. Just looking at it gave me a rush of nostalgia so I asked the guy at the table how much it was. He was about my age, I almost would have considered him cute if not for the fact that he pulled a pinch out of a can of dip and stuck it in his mouth before answering my question. “Thirty bucks, haven’t touched it in years so it won’t be missed.”
I fished a few tens out of my wallet and asked, “Do you have any games for it?” He made an expression like he just remembered something and reached under the table, after a second it retracted with what looked like a large black computer part. “You’re gonna love this, it’s a custom made external hard drive, this fucker can hold up to two terrabytes of data on it. Its got a bunch of games on there already but there should also be some still installed on the console itself, just don’t delete any of the games on there cause you’ll never get them back without my password. I’d give that to you as well with the hard drive but honestly I forgot it years ago.”
“Is the hard drive gonna cost me extra?”
He gave it a long hard look, checked me out for a second debating with himself whether he thought he could get away with asking me out or not, and eventually said. “Honestly I have no use for it, it was specifically made for the 360 so I wouldn’t really gain any benefit from keeping it. Let’s say ten, maybe twenty bucks cause it’s good but really old.” I shrugged, pulled out another two tens and handed it over. I said, “Seems fair.” and started putting the console and hard drive in my tote bag, along with the two controllers that came with it.
When I got home I was honestly pretty excited to see the games on it, I always loved finding old forgotten gems. As the console booted up I heard the startup noise and got sent straight back to my childhood. After I reached the homescreen I only found it fitting to sign into my old account. It’d been years but thankfully I still remembered my password from when I was 9.
What I saw in front of me could only be described as… an atrocity. The bright pink and black avatar accompanied with the name “Fairygirl17” reminded me that I was a very stereotypical scene kid from a very young age, and to be completely honest some part of me never grew out of that.
After spending way too long changing my avatar and deciding on a new profile name I eventually made it back to the homescreen. I remembered to plug in the hard drive and set it up before opening up the game library. There was a treasure trove of games just waiting to be found. There were some of the greats like Halo, Call of Duty, even some of the classic Lego games, as well as some of the silly Xbox avatar games like Doritos Crash Course, Motocross Madness, and the Kelflings games.
I scrolled for who knows how long reliving every flash of nostalgia, feeling the warm chills crawl up my back as I saw games like Bioshock, Charlie Murder, Dead Space, Fable. Each game I saw I remembered when I played it with my older brother and sister, I recognized so much until eventually I started looking through the weirder stuff. Games that were obviously either made by one person from another country, broken english names and such. I looked even deeper and just found weird games that were probably just made as projects or quick cash grabs, they must have been at least a little fun because they were still installed. After probably hours of me inspecting each individual title out of curiosity I landed on one that really caught my interest. Pinman. The cover was just of a regular old pinman like you’d see on a street sign or a crosswalk.
I don’t know why it was so interesting to me, it just seemed so out of place. So obviously, I pressed A. I started the game and in front of me was a black silhouette man, as advertised he was a generic pinman. There was no tutorial, it didn’t tell me to do anything so I just started walking. The camera was in the third person, the world was pure white, yet the shadows were abnormally high quality. There were structures, but they appeared to be the same smooth white texture as the ground I walked on, there was a wide ramp to go up, and so I followed it.
As time went on the structures felt slightly more complex. Long bridges, an upward spiral, a building that could be somewhat compared to a parking garage, and yet through all I saw it was just sparse enough to make the world still feel so empty. I looked up but the skybox was more of the same. Eventually I started seeing other characters. None of them talked but it made the empty world feel that much more alive.
I wandered farther but the only sound I heard was the steps of my character trudging on. I thought I could hear wind but if I could it was extremely quiet. I kept walking on, the world felt somewhat peaceful, if not a little ominous. I didn’t know why I was enjoying it but I was captivated, and vaguely creeped out.
At one point I came across a particularly tall structure. For a moment I marveled at how well it looked for only being the same smooth white as everything else. This 3D world was very well made for how it was structured. I began to climb slowly. Minutes passed and yet still my attention was fully on the game, even more so when I inevitably reached the top.
In the middle of my path was a knife. Just an ordinary kitchen knife. Usually seeing something like that might startle someone, due to how the rest of the gameplay has been. However, I felt drawn to it. I walked over and pressed A. Now it was in my hand. I kept walking. I walked further and further as these structures connected to each other making one large elaborate amalgamation of concrete. As it will happen with all of us, I gave in to my intrusive thoughts.
I walked over to another character, and I pressed A.
The screen flashed a bright red, you could hear the stab and he was on the ground. I had killed him, and I felt awful about it. I felt horrified as I saw the puddle of blood under him, the blade of the knife had been stained red and no button I pushed would make me drop it. So in order to hide my guilt, I kept walking.
It felt as if the game knew what I had done, and it knew how I felt. Suddenly this world was more populated. Instead of a few there were slowly becoming more and more pinmen as I walked farther. They didn’t have faces but I could tell they were staring at me. They didn’t show any expression or emotion but I could feel that they hated me. Any sound or ambience that I thought I could hear before was gone. All that was left were the footsteps. I kept walking but I could still feel their nonexistent gazes. How can you look at someone so hatefully when you don’t even have a face?
Eventually the pressure became so intense that I turned off the Xbox . I couldn’t handle any more of it, I went to the kitchen to get myself some water but my hands were shaking. Something about that felt so real. My heart was pounding. For a solid minute I couldn’t convince myself that I hadn’t actually killed someone. After what could barely be called a meal I decided that I needed some sleep. I couldn’t. I tossed and turned for hours feeling an immeasurable amount of stress and paranoia. I felt like I was going to be caught for what I had done. This game had placed a spell on me and it was strong. I felt scared, as if the crimes I had committed were so unforgivable that I could never show my face in public.
At around four in the morning I’d had enough. I marched back into the living room and turned the console on. I went to the game settings, and uninstalled it. As soon as it was finished I could feel that hold break, I felt calm. I was no longer shaking, my heartrate had calmed. I was fine.
I already knew that whatever that game had done to me will forever be stained in my mind, but going to sleep was more important at the moment. I dreamed about the game, this time it was me walking around instead of the pinman. I wandered much like how I did when I actually played. I once again felt very peaceful. I wandered for hours, eventually I came back to the knife. I left it behind.
I walked further until I encountered a character, I recognized him. Apparently he recognized me too. “Why did you do it?” He asked me calmly.
“I don’t know, I felt like I was supposed to.”
“You took a life because you were given a weapon. You were given no instructions, you just did.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I did it.”
“I know you are, I’m sorry too.”
“Why?”
I knew why, I should have seen it coming from a mile away but dreams have a funny way of fogging your mind. Faster than I could comprehend I saw the knife, I heard the sound and the world in front of me flashed a bright red. I coughed blood and I fell over. I knew I deserved this but all I could think about was the blood pouring out of me.
I opened my eyes and lurched forward. I thought I felt phlegm and coughed but my sheets were spattered with red when I did so. I panicked as I put my hand in front of my mouth only to see dark red blood pooling onto it. I rushed to the bathroom and lifted my shirt to look for stab wounds in the mirror, I didn’t see anything until I looked at my own face.
I had a nosebleed. I was fine. Some of the blood must have gone into my mouth while I was asleep and affected my dream. Still, I felt a little shaken. I cleaned myself up and threw my sheets into the wash while the blood was still fresh, hopefully it’d wash out. I made myself a cup of coffee and decided that I should probably do something to calm myself down. In that one moment I don’t think I’d ever felt that much shock and fear in my life.
I went back to the Xbox to load up the game only to remember that I’d uninstalled it. I still think about it sometimes.I want to play it again, I want to do the right thing this time, but there’s no way I can get it back. I couldn’t find it again. I can’t find it on the internet either. There’s no real evidence that this game ever existed, but I want to play again. If you remember it or even find this game please, let me know.