Part 26 - We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boone!

Back at my apartment, we had left Jewel's Catch One, both of us in high spirits! Though, as soon as I'd booted up my laptop, went to YouTube to see if anything new had been posted, that I saw that a few people that I was subscribed to had all either commented on, liked or favorited the same video.

A video uploaded by Frictional Games. The people behind Amnesia.

A video called "Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs - Teaser".

Seeing the title nearly made my breath catch and get stuck inside my throat. A Machine for Pigs? Why did that game title not convince me that the fact that there was now a sequel to The Dark Descent in the making, not the wisest idea thought of by man kind...

True, as it was, that I was a huge fan of Amnesia, I couldn't shake the questions that my mind was now asking me...was the world truly ready for this game?

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Toby scratching Tabby behind the ears, she was sitting down, her tail swishing from left to right. "Hey, come over here for a second...there's something that we need to see, and quite honestly, it thrills me, and terrifies me at the same time..."

Standing up, Toby walked to where I was sitting, stood by my side and asked curiously, "What'd you find?"

"This..." I whispered as I pointed to the video thumbnail, and Toby bent forward to see clearly what it was. After he'd been looking for no less than five seconds, I felt his body tense up beside me. "Should we watch it?" I asked, my mouse hovering over the link.

With his eyes closed, he took a deep breath, then letting out all of the air that had been in his lungs, took one normal breath and said, "Might as well, the Audience will want me to play it...so maybe watching this will make the game not as scary as the first...right?"

Nodding my head in agreement, though not sure if it'd actually work that way, I replied, "Yeah, I'm positive that by watching the teaser trailer it'll help desensitize your fears of the game..." I clicked on the link and the video began to play.

The first things that I saw and heard, was the Frictional Games logo, and creepy piano music. Something new that I saw was that apparently, A Machine for Pigs was a combined effort between both Frictional Games and thechineseroom, which I believed was also a gaming company known for producing horror games. The music continued, then the first glimpses at the game designs were shown. A place that looked like a wide, and beautifully decorated living room, a furnace or a machine room, an outside alleyway filled with smog, a dimly lit study, a room that might have been a lab with a skylight, another machine room with a spinning fan in the floor, an empty street, with the full moon shining, an alter with a pig's corpse sitting upright in front of a cross...and then a glimpse of some of the gameplay...

The main character was hiding under a set of wooden stairs, and something was breaking the door to the room down. Whatever it was, it didn't sound like the Brute or Servant Grunt from The Dark Descent...this thing was different...then I began to listen more carefully, and I was able to place the sound, with a face.

The enemy of this game, or at least one of the enemies, was a pig...an angry piece of bacon come to hunt the player down...

Then finally, the screen faded to black, and the title of the game was shown, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs...

Still next to me, Toby made a noise and I wondered if he was going to be okay. "Or not...I swear to never eat bacon ever again..." He whispered, and stood back up, "Has there been a date given for when it'll be released?"

Taking a peek at the description of the video, I learned more about the game, along with an estimated release for it. "They're saying that it'll be out in early 2013, but get this, it's actually an indirect sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, A Machine for Pigs will be set in the same alternate history, and that it'll take place within the same universe." I closed out of YouTube, and shut my laptop without turning it off, "And here I thought that Amnesia: Justine was the sequel to The Dark Descent..."

Laughing, Toby spoke the truth of what the coming of this game would mean for well over one thousand minds world wide, "Either way you look at it, we're screwed! All of us on YouTube with gameplays, who have either already played the original Amnesia, or plan to play it, are going to be expected to play this one." He looked over at Tabby, who had curled herself up into a tight little ball of fur, it was then that he became silent for a few minutes, and when he spoke, to me, he almost sounded defeated, "It's not that bad of a game to play if there's someone else in the room with you, but when a person watches a video of a game that's a survival horror, they expect to hear a scream or two..." He sighed, and I gently placed my hand on his shoulder.

"I know...before I even had the dream of becoming a YouTube Partner, even a little while before I actually went out and bought Amnesia, I had watched a few gameplay series of others playing the game..." I smiled guiltily as Toby turned to look at me, the expression on his face showing that he had one thought on his mind, and I knew what that thought was. "I really didn't know who you were until the day that I moved here."

Incredulously, he shook his head, "You watched gameplays made by other people before you played the game for yourself?"

Nervous because of his question, I wasn't sure if what I had done was considered a taboo within the YouTube world. So with my voice barely above a whisper, I muttered, "Yeanobe?" I had just combined all of the possible responses into one, foreign word, leaving no chances for me to be wrong.

Tilting his head to one side, he had obviously become confused by my decision to made a new word to use with answering his question. "Yeanobe?"

"It's the words 'yeah', 'no' and 'maybe' all mushed into one impervious word, it's impossible to answer a question wrong with the powers of yeanobe..." I smiled and Toby began to laugh, his sudden laughter startled Tabby, causing her to fall out of her ball shape, and hold her head up to search for danger.

"Your word sounds like a name that'd be used for a character in Star Wars!" He walked up to me, and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, squeezing me just a little bit, "But enough distracting me..."

I opened my mouth, and he let one arm go of me and he pressed a finger to my lips.

"And enough confusing me. Did you really watch gameplays of Amnesia before you played the game?" With an enticing smile on his lips, I answered shamelessly.

"PewDiePie, CinnimonToastKen and GoldGloveTV, and I've watched a few gameplays of some custom stories, some of which, I don't even intend to play."

Toby frowned, "You mention that PewDiePie guy an awful lot..."

Laughing, I told him like it was, "He makes great gameplay videos, plus, he's funny!"

When Toby still didn't smile again, I gently poked his side, quietly whispering, "Poke, poke, pokity poke."

Cracking a small grin, he began to give me another tight embrace, "Just tell me this: Is he better than me?"

My thought process had been temporarily destroyed because of Toby's off-the-wall question. Had he asked that as a joke? Or...But we'd done nothing of the sort...and it was entirely impossible for me and PewDie to...well...

I felt my face grow red, and I pressed it slowly against Toby's chest, then muffled, I asked, "Are you making a joke? Or are you being serious? Or am I just interpreting your question all wrong? If it's the final choice, then please, I beg of you, kill me where I stand..."

Trying to tilt my head back with one of his hands, Toby gave up after about five seconds of gently trying to get me to look at him, "Brixta? Why won't you look at me?"

"Because yeanobe wouldn't work...and I'm ninety-five percent sure that I've screwed myself over royally due to my never ending stupidity...and now I'm a babbling baboon with nothing better to say, except for: blarg."

His laughter to what I had just said, started off slow, then soon enough, I was feeling the vibrations of his laugh all through my face. "Could you please try explaining how that works?"

Taking a deep breath through my nose, I could smell Toby, and my mind cleared a little when I'd breathed in his nice scent, yet, not completely recovered, I mumbled, "Not exactly..."

He laughed some more, my brain beginning to function again, bit by bit. And to think, all of this had started because of a teaser trailer for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs...good thing it hadn't been a serious conversation.

Though, finally after what felt like an eternity, I had recovered from my shock, and stood facing Toby, "Sorry, I was just more than taken aback by your question, especially since there are three possible answers...I just don't know which would be more suited to give to you."

He took a minute to think, and then slowly, began to blush himself. "I hadn't even thought of the double meaning..."

It was then that we both just dropped the topic of who was better, Toby or PewDie, but if he really had've pushed the subject, I would most definitely answered with Toby, he not only made me laugh, but he was also mine, which was an added bonus.