Stop reading this. I mean it.
I'm not sure what's happening to me, but I'm going to write down whatever happened in the past few days. I'm not sure whether I still have much time left, but I want to make sure that the public can see what's happened to me.
There's only one thing that I want you to know. If you're offered a Dance Central 3 game for free, DO NOT take it. I've made the mistake and I don't want you to meet the same fate as I have.
Now listen to what I have to say.
"Just take it," said the man. He looked flustered in front of my eyes. Irritated, I grabbed the CD cover and took it with me, but I still didn't feel right about taking the game inside it when I didn't give any money in return.
You see, I was at a sale. This dude's family was cleaning their house or something and needed extra cash, so here I was at the garage sale. It wasn't too far from where I lived, so it wasn't a surprise that I came along to see what I could buy. I was nosing around when I noticed the Dance Central 3 CD cover lying about. Sure enough, the game DVD was there.
Things got strange when I showed the CD cover to the man who sold everything. He was showing some children how the yoyo worked before he charged a couple bucks for a box of them. When I approached, he saw the CD cover I was carrying and stiffened when I asked him how much he would want for it. He insisted that it was for free.
Of course, I tried to get him to accept some money for the second-hand game. He kept shaking his head, and while he was getting agitated, I got confused. The argument lasted for a full five minutes before he demanded me — and the game — out of his property.
So now here I was, cover in hand, walking back home. My trustworthy Xbox 360 would be waiting for me. I had both DC1 and DC2, but I had to slack off when it came to the third game. I hadn't played Dance Central in weeks.
I liked the series, really, and my friends did too. I must have been the one who influenced them into buying the games themselves, but after I lost interest, I stopped dancing. My friends would still come over and we'd have a blast, maybe go against each other, battle, but when they left home I'd be switching the Xbox off by then.
Today, maybe it would change. I missed Dance Central; the first game was okay, but the second one was awesome. I remembered all the crazed dance battles I had and the insane freestyle moved I'd pulled off last month. Maybe I could come up with new ones today. Yeah, I thought.
I got home and decided to try the game out right away. Nobody else was at home, so I had the day to myself. On other occasions I would have taken something from the fridge and sat on the couch, but hey, it was still a young habit. I could change it.
There was nothing suspicious about the CD cover when I opened it and took the disk. I was careful not to scratch it or break it, and then I turned the Xbox on. I could feel my eagerness. The screen lightened and the opening cinematic showed. I hadn't seen them before, but as soon as they began, I could tell that there was something wrong with them.
A dark gray sheen covered everything, and the screen looked messy with poor graphics. There was a black bar on my screen that blocked the middle of the frames, and large pixels colored green and blue appeared where they shouldn't. The characters' faces were pale and lifeless.
I shuddered, but by the time Dr. Tan, the game villain, stepped out, the screen flashed and turned back to normal. For a moment I felt scared, but then I reminded myself that this game was probably a little fried. It wouldn't matter as long as I played it with ease.
Nothing happened after the cinematics. There were two new characters, dressed formally in gray, black and purple. One was a man and one was a woman. The man introduced me to Dance Central 3, and then the screen shut off and no scene followed. Just darkness.
Like anyone else would, I waited, staring dead at the Xbox console as I longed for the screen to flicker or for the speakers to let out music. For about a minute, I just sat there expecting some surprise scene from one of the quirky characters, but no. So I continued waiting.
And then things got even stranger. The screen was getting lighter frame by frame, the gray lifting off and revealing the weak purple of the DC3 logo. Surrounding it were the characters. Each one looked mildly depressed. Their heads hung low. Their eyes were gray. Their appearances were messy, unkempt and downright miserable. Even the villainous Dr. Tan looked down. They all had repeating animations, each character doing something different, but all moves pointed to sadness.
I took out my controller and tried pressing a few buttons. The characters froze, and I thought that the game was becoming unresponsive. Everything was gloomy and slowly paced. I took a moment to see each character. They all had a similar atmosphere of despair.
The screen changed, and once again the characters' imaged faded until he darkness. Something was definitely wrong with this game. I felt the urge to take the DVD out and never touch it again, but of course my curiosity got the better of me. My eyes were still glued to the screen, and even though my palms were beginning to sweat, I refused to let go of the controller.
After a while, I could hear the sound of a dripping liquid. It came out of the speakers faintly, so at first I thought it came from somewhere else. After a while, though, the sound was accompanied by slow, dreary music. I took a deep breath and started to feel conscious of how this game wasn't what I was looking for. It was some hack, some sort of damned rip-off. I was expecting a sudden scream of some sort to freak me out, but only the drip, drip, drip continued to echo. The music was a violin playing, a miserable piece that began to forte.
The screen changed to reveal what had been making the sound.
It was blood.
This happened on the first day. If you've ignored the previous warning, I repeat: stop reading this. I'm not sure if you'll be affected as I have been, but I don't want anyone else falling prey to the game.