Okay, for some context I guess, I’m kind of a shut-in, and I play a whole lot of video games in my free time. I think describing myself as a “gamer” is kinda cringe, but it fits I guess. I’m mentioning this only because it’s sort of what got me into my current situation. I had just 100%-ed Stardew Valley, and after closing it out and scrolling mindlessly through my Steam library for half an hour looking for something else, I realized I really didn’t have anything to play. I navigated over to my discovery queue hoping to find something good.
I flipped through the games, nothing really interesting to me: lazy looking RPG, weird porn game, weirder porn game, borderline diabolical porn game. Not exactly a lot of good stuff to play. I was just about to give up as I reached the last game in the queue, which seemed different enough to catch my eye. The page wasn’t anything too crazy, but it at least seemed unique compared to the garbage Steam had been recommending.
The game was called “Christ Alive” and the description on the store page was so vague that I wasn’t even sure initially what kind of game it even was. It made references to “Difficult choices and sacrifice”, but nothing super specific. The preview images showed a little pixel art priest wandering around in some kind of cave solving puzzles. I looked to the review section and was surprised to see that the game had literally no reviews. I scrolled down to the price section and saw that the game was free and that was all I needed to at least download it.
I checked my clock, it was basically three in the morning, and I had class in the morning so I shut my PC down and jumped up into my bed, nestling myself within a mountain of way too many stuffed animals.
That night while trying to sleep I couldn’t stop thinking about the game, wondering if it would be any good. I found myself becoming weirdly obsessed with this stupid little free game I added to my library on a whim. I got almost no sleep at all, but it’s whatever, I’m used to getting little sleep, I’ll just skip class to sleep in.
And skip class I did, I rolled out of bed at around noon, walked on over to my PC and booted Steam back up. Look, I’m obviously not a great role model, skipping class to just play more games is bad, I realize that.
“Alright, let’s try this game I guess” I muttered to myself before clicking play on the small page still open to Christ Alive.
The game booted up fairly quickly showing a logo for a company called “Erfzonde Development”, which with a quick Google search turned up nothing related to any game dev companies. I assumed this must’ve been their first project and was kinda happy that I might be the first person to find a new dev’s first game. After that, the game opened to a simple black menu with the title written in big red letters and two small buttons beneath it labeled “Start” and “Quit”. An ambient track played in the background, just faint enough that I almost didn’t notice it.
I clicked on the start button and the screen changed to another simple black screen with a familiar looking pixelated player character staring back at me. The character looked so similar to myself that it initially startled me; she had the same round glasses, same splattering of freckles across her face, hell it even looked like the character’s right boob was bigger than the left one, all features that it shared with me. The only difference between her and I was instead of the ratty hoodie and shorts I was currently wearing, she was dressed head to toe in those priest clothes. You know the ones, all black with the little white collar?
After staring at the screen dumb-founded and a little caught off guard for probably five minutes, a small prompt appeared on the screen: “What is her name?”. I hesitated to answer but then eventually typed in my own name, “Mikayla” and pressed enter. The next prompt came almost immediately: “What is your best friend’s name?” Thought this was an even odder question, but I entered in the name of basically my only friend “Ellie”.
I’m sure it’s probably obvious at this point, but I’m not exactly swimming in friends. I don’t really get along well with people, I usually just get nervous when talking to new people and then I start sweating, and then I freak out thinking that they’ll think I’m weird and I just sort of spiral. To be honest, Ellie is literally my only friend, and it’s probably because she’s just as anxious as me. Ellie’s the only person who isn’t exhausting to be around for more than thirty minutes at a time. She’s great, she shares a lot of interests with me, and I don’t know I just like her alright?
Anyhow back to the game, I hit enter, and a third and final prompt appeared on the screen: “Are you ready to play Christ Alive? Once you begin, you cannot stop until your work is done.” At this point, I was definitely weirded out, but sorta just rationalized it as “maybe this is a horror game and this uneasy feeling is intentional?”. That being said, I typed in “Yes.” and pressed enter.
The game’s screen lit up blindingly white for a moment, before transitioning to the pixel-y version of myself standing in what was maybe a basement. It was some kind of concrete room with a hatch leading upwards and another door at the back of the room. I led my character over to the hatch and clicked on it. A small textbox appeared: “You said you were ready, you may not leave now”.
“Alright, other door it is.” I said to no one in particular as I walked my character to the other end of the room. I clicked on the door and was led to another room with a small altar in the center of the room and another door leading out of the room. Clicking on the altar resulted in a textbox asking: “Would you sacrifice a pound of flesh in order to save Ellie’s life?” I thought about Ellie for a moment, and how I’d probably do just about anything for her, the one person who really gets me. Another textbox appeared, and after that brief moment of thought, I quickly typed “Yes”.
As soon as I hit enter, the game transitioned to a cutscene where my character approached the altar, grabbed a knife sitting on it, and in a single swift motion, chopped her right pinky off. As soon as the cutscene finished, my vision started swimming as my right hand immediately flared up with the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Searing pain throbbed in my hand as I regained my sight and saw that my right pinky had been completely severed, sitting lifelessly on my desk next to my mouse. Blood squirted from the stump where my finger had been attached, spraying over everything on my desk.
I didn’t even notice my finger come off till I felt the white-hot pain, just one second I’m looking at the cutscene of my character and the next searing blinding pain and my finger is sitting limp on the desk.
For the next two hours, I won’t lie; I cried, screamed, and said things that probably shouldn’t be repeated online. At one point after regaining my sense, I tried to stand in order to bandage up my finger, but found myself unable to stand, as though bolted to my computer chair.
“What the fuck is happening, SOMEONE HELP ME!” I screamed, hoping my neighbors, the mailman, anyone at all would hear me and come help. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like anyone could hear my pleas for help. I tried sending a text for help to Ellie, but the message would fail every time I tried. It seemed that I was truly isolated.
After the pain had faded enough that I could at least think clearly, I turned back to the game, trying desperately to close it. I was instead met with a textbook reading “Now the consequences are clear. Every choice is real. Two rooms remain.” As I closed the textbox, the door in the game opened up to the next room.
I continued screaming at the game to let me go, screaming for help from anyone who may hear, and just screaming in general. Still unable to stand, it eventually dawned on me that the only way out of this may be to beat the game, so I reluctantly decided to keep playing. The next room was much the same, a concrete room with an altar in the middle. I slowly and hesitantly made my character approach the altar, where I was met with another textbox: “Would you sacrifice an eye to save Ellie’s life?”.
I immediately burst into tears upon reading this. I didn’t want to give up an eye, I really didn’t want to give up an eye. Part of me wanted to type “No”, but then I thought about Ellie, clearly this game has some kind of power, would it really take her life? I obviously couldn’t let that happen. But I was really scared of what would happen to me if I typed yes too. I must have sat in that chair looking at that textbook for an hour before I eventually worked up the courage to type “Yes.”
Again, a cutscene played, I won’t go into too much detail because it was truly awful, but the character on screen plucked her own eyeball out with her bare hand. The whole time it was happening, I could feel it pulling on my own eye, an invisible force slowly and methodically pulling it from my face, until it came loose with a sick sound I don’t think I’ll ever forget, a slow wet suction-y sound. It made the pain in my hand feel tame by comparison, sending me reeling and screaming and crying in my chair for a long time. I grabbed an old T-shirt that I could reach from the chair and used it to wrap up my now empty eye socket, hoping that it would somehow help stop blood loss.
After a long time, and the pain was still sharp and present, but not debilitating, I turned back to the screen to be met with another message: “Wise choice. Remember, your choices are real. Life can be forfeit.”
I made the small video game copy of me walk into the final room. The room was once again the exact same layout, but this time the central altar was much larger by comparison.
It took me a long time to even work up the courage to make my character approach the final altar, scared of what it would even ask. When I did finally find the courage, the small textbox read just about the worst possible thing I could’ve imagined: “Would you sacrifice your life to save Ellie’s life?”
I’ve been staring at that textbox for nearly the last twelve hours, hoping someone would come to help me, but it doesn’t seem like that’s gonna happen. I’ve tried to get up from this desk every possible way I could imagine to no success. I’ve realized I’ll have to make a decision some time because eventually I’ll just die of dehydration, sitting here at this desk.
I decided to start typing this story up on my phone before I made my final decision just to warn everyone, if you somehow see Christ Alive online, ignore it. Don’t play it under any circumstance. I don’t know why it seems like no one else has ever heard of it, or what actual power it has over me, but it’s obviously something evil.
I’ve been thinking about it this whole time though and I think I’m going to tell it “Yes” that I would sacrifice my own. Obviously, that’s an insanely hard decision to make, but the way I see it, I wouldn’t be able to live within myself if I basically caused Ellie’s death anyways. But fuck this sucks, I’ll have to type something eventually. I’ll do it whenever I work up the courage, but that probably won’t be for a while. If I make it out of this alive, I’ll post an update so everyone knows I’m alright. If I don’t make it, I hope Ellie will be okay.