So i checked eBay for several days to get a new copy of Animal Crossing Wild World. if possible not too expensive and buyable at once, since i'm not very rich... After 3 days of seeking, I found it at last. A US cartridge of Wild Word at $1 buyable now, without any shipping charges ! The cart was in good condition and just had the sticker ripped with "ACWW" written with a marker. Something was wrong, thought : the sale started only 5 minutes qago ; but the end of it was for 5 minutes. 10 minutes of sale ! It was impossible to do on eBay since the minimal time for a sale is 7 days. But i wanted so much this game, I immediately bought it.
I got the game 2 days later. The package was strange : The sending adress had just the word "Erik" written. No address, nor last name. I guess the seller wanted to stay anonymous and that he/she trusts deeply FedEx. Nevertheless, The game was there, as described, with the ripped label, but in perfect condition.
I took my Nintendo DS Lite and I launched the game. At the Nintendo copyright screen, I saw something strange. The voice who says "Nintendo" wasn't the usual one that one hear in the Animal Crossing series. It was a lower voice, almost demonish, like in the Luigi's Mansion game, at the same moment, but in reverse... I guessed it was simply a minor glitch...
The title screen showed a simple village, with the neighbors and all, but the sky was red. Not red like in the evening or morning. Just plain blood red, No clouds, no sun, just red. just like if the sky texture was removed... There was no music either. I finally thought that it wasn't the usual Animal Crossing Wild World, but a "bootleg" of it. A pirated copy or a beta version. But by curiosity, I continued my exploration of it, because i like bootlegs. They can be fun to play.
I pressed Start and got the menu. There was already a save. Its town was called "Eirktown" and the 4 player slots were taken. Their names were odd, thought : "TURN" "BACK" "OR" "DIE". More weird, the option for delete a town was not there. Just a void space instead. In lack of choices, I choose the first player, "TURN".
My character was a casual boy, with a Mario shirt and hat, without the moustache of the costume. I was about to enter the house to get an eye on it when i suddenly stayed shocked as i was watching the surroundings. I wasn't in the town displayed at the start at all. I was in front of my house (in its maximal size on the game) and nothing around. Nothing at all. No water, no grass, no flowers, no trees, no houses, no insects... And no music... A deep silence in a real desert.
I tried to enter my house, but a message displayed, like if it wasn't my house and the inhabitant of it was away. But the message said : "DIE!" in a big font size, like when Resetti shouts. Since i couldn't do anything else, I started walking to the north. My walking was long, several minutes. There was nothing to block the village limits. It was an infinite desert.
After a moment, I saw KK Slider. Without his guitar, walking around like the usual neighbors. I was shocked. It was completely impossible. KK never walked and always keeps his guitar. His expression was neutral, but his eyes were big void black holes. When i was approaching him, He reacted, like when a neighboor wanted to ask you something. But this time, before running to me, a message displayed. Instead of KK Slider's name, there was the name "Eirk" and he was saying, like the house before "DIE!". He started walking to me and a music played. The one that plays when you are attacked by the bees, but in a lower tone and in reverse. Scared by the ambient things, I ran out to the west, trying to escape. I ran as fast as i could and i saw KK's muzzle comming closer as he was running too, a bit faster than me. Suddenly, I saw with horror another KK comming from the north, running to me as well. I kept my running, my heart beating, shaking like i never did for a game (especially this one !). As i was still running, other KK clones came, and just when they were about to get me, they were seven. At the moment of when one of the was touching me, the game got an horrible glitch. Coloured lines were blinking everywhere and the DS Lite did a horrible scritching loud noise. Terrified, I shut off the console. I was scared as hell...
Taking back my mind, I thought that someone just made that bootleg to do a creepy joke. After all, a simple game like this can't hurt me. Plus, there was three other files in it. Maybe those ones will be different... So i took back the handheld, turned it on, started the game, and i noticed that the "TURN" file disappeared. So i took "BACK"'s file.
The character was a girl this time. She got black hair and was wearing a Skull shirt. But the face was creepy, Two holes for the eyes, one for the mouth, like a Gyroid. I remember that it was possible to get this face in the Gamecube game, with two save on two memory cards and the Reset button. Other strange thing, I appeared in my bed. I noticed someone was standing near my bed. It was TURN, the player i used in the previous session. But his model lost its texture. It was all white, like the faceless kitty. I saw i could pass through his body. Nothing happens when i try to speak to him. But the model was turning around to watch my movements. Uncomfy with this creepy thing, I went downstairs.
Strangely, The house just got one room (There's at least 5 rooms in the final house you can get). It was empty, with a basic wallpaper and ground, in its maximal size. There was no objects, only paintings. It was homemade patterns, a black one with a simple letter on each of them. When I read them from left to right, it gave me the word "ENODUOYEVAHTAHW" with a spanish ? (upside down) at the end... A coded message, I guess. Not paying attention anymore, I went out.
I was back in the desert as I expected, but this time, there was neighbors around. They were roaming around and they were all in a depressed mood. There was almost all the characters you can imagine, I even saw Nook around... When i was talking to them, they just say "enoduoyevahtahw". After some minutes, I was about to talk to Nook when, suddenly, Resetti appeared from the ground in front of me and shouted "DIE!" like KK, with the name Eirk labelled. After the message, my character made the faint animation like when you are hit by a scorpion. The screen fades in black but instead of going back to my house, I was back to the title screen. As i checked the menu, I noticed that the "BACK"'s file was missing at its turn. I took the file "OR"
This time, I was in front of a simple picture. It was Resetti's face, like if someone put its texture in fullscreen. There was a sound like blowing wind and some voices crying in a very low demonic tone, all of it at low volume. It was a creepy sound. Every 10 seconds, a message popped and disappeared. It was the same every time ("DIE!" again), but written in a very small font first, then it gets bigger as it comes. the sound volume was increasing as well. At the 10th time when the text was too much big for the size of the message box, sound stopped and the pic turned black. And suddenly, 6 seconds later, a very loud crying sound played and Resetti's texture came back altered in black and white, with holes in the eyes and photo-realistic red blood comming from, and the pic was horribly shaking. I jumped in front of this and closed my DS Lite. I was scared as hell to see what will happen next. I don't know why i reopened my DS Lite, but I did it...
I was back to the title screen. There was only one file playable : "DIE". I have a bad feeling about this...
I was playing Blanca this time, the faceless cat. Playing a NPC in this game was impossible, but at this time, nothing could surprise me. My character didn't had any face. I still was in the reddish sky deserted place. But this time, the house wasn't there, and the place was full of gyroids. They were all turned off, facing south, and didn't react when i press A. I walked to the south, unsure of what I will see. Then, I noticed a simple panel surrounded by the Gyroids. The message was "TURN BACK" and gave me the choice between Yes or No. Taking No just do nothing, so i choose Yes, And i see my character not moving anymore, still facing the panel. the game wasn't reacting to my inputs. After 2 seconds, in a half of second flash, it turned around to me with a different face and the camera zoomed on it, just before going to a black screen and displayed an error like in the MS-DOS or UNIX prompts that were showing random numbers and up of them "FATAL ERROR : BUFFER OVERLOAD"
I shut off the game and threw the cart in the fire. That thing was haunted. That thing was evil. I can't describe it... Because the most frightening thing of it, it wasn't the message "Hell awaits for you at your next game" displayed under the numbers of the error ; nor the fact that the game only display this error when turned on again ; nor that the eBay seller's account doesn't exist anymore. The most frightening thing was the flash when the faceless cat changed its face, just before the error.
It was my own face printed on the cat, with black holes in the eyes and blood flowing out of it.