If there's anything I've ever been obsessed over, it's cheesy romhacks. I practically inhaled them when I was in junior high, no matter how bad they were. If asked about it now, I couldn't even tell you why I loved them so much, but trust me when I say that I played them all, whether they were Mario hacks, Megaman hacks, or my favorites, Pokemon hacks.

Back then, I frequented a website now long gone that specialized in hosting romhacks, especially those with horror elements. The site wasn't too big, but the admin was dedicated to finding all the coolest hacks, and the few of us who visited the forums had a great time together.

Anyway, I went through the entire list of hosted games, playing both the good ones and lame ones to completion. Eventually, I got to a strange Pokemon FireRed hack.

Now, most creepy hacks tend to be pretty similar in style; you know, lots of blood and gore, haunted areas, maybe some intentional glitches. Juvenile stuff, basically. I'm not saying this hack was necessarily much more sophisticated, but it stood out due to its theme. I suppose you could say it was Celtic-inspired or something. The gist was that Professor Oak (now called the Head Druid), required sacrifices for an upcoming solstice festival. Your job was to collect pokemon, battle them against eight chosen druids to make them more worthy, and eventually bring them in to be sacrificed. If you did a poor job, you yourself would take their place. The sprites were crudely made, but I found the concept intriguing.

The problem was, I had no clue what the victory conditions were. The first time I played, my high-levelled team was deemed unworthy of being sent to the gods, and my character was met with grisly demise. The second time, my technically much weaker team was deemed acceptable and my character lived to see another day while his pokemon were slaughtered.

Confused about the mechanics behind the ending (since it couldn't have been levels alone: I made a few test runs to see how different teams fared: A bunch of rattata and zubats got me sacrificed, but a team with only four pokemon at moderate levels passed). Puzzled, I went to the forums to see if anyone had a clue. The only topic on the hack wasn't of much use, but it did mention that the hacker had gone out of their way to artificially implement glitches from the original Pokémon games. Missingno, the Mew Trick, maybe even more.

Intrigued by this new information, I started another run. The forum poster was right, and I had a fun time encountering 'M and pals again. Amused, I decided to give an old favourite glitch of mine, Glitch City, a go before heading towards the Indigo Plateau (Field of Rituals in the hack).

Sure enough, Glitch City had been implemented, in all its messed-up glory. For once, the hacker's weak art skills didn't matter; the weird mishmash of textures looked great. The place was just like it had been before.

Or so I thought, anyway.

Unthinking, I walked so far from the starting point that back in Pokemon Blue would have made the game crash and burn. Not here, though. I could safely work further and further to the east, and into water, and didn't even realise I wasn't supposed to get there until at least ten steps in. Nothing special, I thought then, the hacker had simply altered the glitch.

After a while, I lost control of Red. No, the game didn't freeze or crash or anything. Red was simply on autopilot, and walked determinedly further from the shore. No button presses could stop him.

Finally, Red reached a large island amidst all the water. A normal island, I might add: nary a glitched graphics in sight, just some sand and short grass. And on that island stood Red.

No, not the Red I was playing as, but an identical sprite to him. My Red walked up to him and stood there. For a while, nothing happened.

Then, the other Red began to talk. And he talked for a long, long, time. I later transcribed his words, but on the first time witnessing them, I simply stared the monitor screen, my mouth hanging open.

"I don't know if anyone actually comes here, but who cares. I have to say this anyway. I haven't told anyone before, and I doubt I'll be able to say it out loud anyway.

My real name is Miles. I'm the guy behind this hack. And I killed my stepfather.

I know that sounds dumb and fake, but there it is. It's the truth. I couldn't hold it back any longer. And I want to explain why I did it. Since I can't do that to anyone I know, whoever might be reading this will do.

I'm a pretty normal guy, and my family was a pretty normal family: mom, little brother, a new stepfather. Not exactly well to do, but with two people working we did well enough to have some nice things every once in a while. My stepfather was pretty distant, since he was more into sports and beer where I was into games and computers, but all in all life wasn't too bad.

It started when I was fourteen. My stepfather was a huge fan of fishing, often dedicating entire weekends to it. One time, he decided to take me with me to the cabin, to teach me the ropes. I went along with it, even though fishing's never been my thing. We did kinda get along, after all, and I figured he trying to be a good dad.

The first time went well, so he decided to take me with him regularly. Once or twice a month, we would go the cabin and fish and just hang around. And drink, in his case. He usually took a twelve-pack with him, but one time, he also brought a full bottle of cheap whiskey. He offered me some, but I turned it down. It smelled foul. It didn't seem to bother him, though, because he guzzled it down like it was water.

That's when it happened.

I was at the brink of sleep when he suddenly lurched to me and started pawing at me. When I tried to push him away, he pinned me down and kept slurring about how much he loved me and how happy he was to have me.

..You know what happened next. I fought back, of course, but it did me no good. I yelled and screamed, but we were far in the wilderness. There was nothing I could do to stop him.

In the morning, when he finally woke up, I said nothing to him. I didn't want to even think about it. Not then, not ever. He didn't even seem to remember what had happened, all he talked about was about yesterday's catches and how about how withdrawn I was being.

I couldn't tell anyone, not even after we had gotten home. Who could I trust with the truth? They would laugh at me, disbelieve me, assume I was telling tales for attention. That's how I felt like, anyway. My mom, she might have believed, but I was afraid telling her would break her heart: she loved my stepfather more than anything else in the world.

So, I bottled it all up. It was a drunken mistake, I thought, not something my stepfather would ever do while in his right mind.

Yeah, right.

Next month, he wanted to take me to the cabin again. I refused. Not because I thought he would do it again, but because I didn't want to be reminded of that shit.

And then he whispered into my ear: "But I love you."

My blood ran cold.

I had honestly thought he had no recollection of what had happened that night, or at least that it had been simply the alcohol doing it. But no: he knew, oh yes he did, he simply needed the liqueur to get bold enough to do the deed. And now he was much bolder, bold enough to tell me exactly how good being with me felt, how he loved me even more than he loved my mother, and how (he lowered his voice even further) if I didn't return with him to the cabin, he'd make the life of my mother and little brother that much more miserable.

So I went back there with him. I went back there ten more times.

...I thought I'd be able to talk about it by now. But I still can't.

I can talk about how I killed him.

It was the last time we went to the cabin. He was stinking drunk that night, so I knew my time had come. With some coaxing and patience, I was able to escort him to the lake, and suggested he take a little swim to simmer down. And he did. And he drowned.

I called the cops myself. They didn't question me much, and bought it when I said I had tried to stop him. Drunkards drown all the time in the summer, after all. It was nothing special.

I'm glad I got away with it. That bastard deserved what was coming to him. I don't regret getting my revenge.

But...my mother is still grieving, and so is my brother. Our family of three struggles to make ends meet. I still think I did the right thing, but it hurts people I love have to suffer.

Why did it have to happen to me? What have I done to deserve this? I know life's unfair, that things happen at random. And yet...

...

I've been working on this hack since I first got the rom. This is the final thing I'm coding in. Thanks for playing."

And with that, the screen faded to black, only to return to the title screen.

I searched the net for any traces of Miles and his hack online. The only site that hosted it was the one where I had gotten it from. I pestered the site admin until he told me Miles had sent it to him personally. A little more persuasion gave me his email.

I never got a response to what I wrote to him, except from Mailer-Daemon. His email address was no longer in use.

Miles, if you are out there, I just want to say how sorry I am about what happened to you. I know that doesn't make things better, but there it is. My heart goes out to you.

By the way, it turned out all my theories about which pokemon were accepted and which weren't at the end of the game were completely pointless. I ran some further tests by taking the same team to the Field of Rituals six times. Half the time I won, half the time I lost.

The end result was completely arbitrary.