One ordinary Tuesday night, I was playing my favorite game- Pac-Man World 2, for the Playstation 2. As I sat back after defeating Spooky once again, I checked my completionist percentage.
To my surprise, I was sitting at 99%, even though I thought I managed to get every single collectable in the game- Apples, Cherrys, Pac-Dots, Tokens- All of them!
So, to rectify this, I went over the entire world map, checking all of my items. And, in the Level Pac Dot Pond, I was missing the Galaxian. Huh, I guess I forgot to get it.
I started up the level, but for some reason, the title card had a completely black sky. The small pond behind the fence was red, and, most obvious of all, Pac Man had a worried expression on his face. The loading time was a lot longer than it normally was, too.
Once the level actually starts, it became immediately obvious that something was wrong. The sky was still black, but there was also no music! This was one of my favorite tracks in the game! Now nervous, I make my way through the stage.
As I guided Pac Man past the angry beetle, there was another startling change. The river was a deep crimson instead of the nice teal of before. It acted the same as the regular water, but this was just another drop in the ever filling bucket.
Hopping around to the namesake of the level, I collected the pac dots with caution. Was this a glitch? Everything seemed to be working fine. Maybe I managed to unlock some unused beta content? Perhaps there was just a palette error in the game's code. I guess I'll just clean the disk after I finish the missing bonus level, just in case.
Grabbing the Steel Power Pellet, I hop into the oddly colored water and break the box holding the galaxian. It pops out, but like the rest of the level, it was colored super weirdly. It was a deep black color, greatly contrasting almost the entire game, and also seemed to be messed up- parts of it seemed to disappear and reappear. The galaxian stayed on screen for quite a long time before the text that would take me to the bonus stage appears.
But, instead of the bouncing silver text saying "Prepare for Maze" it had a much more sinister message: "Prepare for Annihilation." What the fuck? This was scary now. Everything else I could pass off as unused content or a glitch, but this seemed so much more sinister, almost intentional.
And then, it put me into a maze, if you could call it that. It was themed after the maze from Shark Attack instead of the one from the right level- as metal pipes formed a pathway over a pool of water (thankfully still blue) with a couple of swimming sharks in it.
However, instead of an actual Pac Man maze, the pipes made a straight line. The ghosts were on one end, and a line of Pac Dots trailed to the other.
With no other choice, I grab all of the dots, but grabbing the final dot didn't end the bonus level. Instead, it made Pac Man walk off the edge of the stage, falling directly into the water below. The moment he touched the water, static filled my tv, so I couldn't see what was happening. There were some loud, horrifying screams, realistic splashing noises, and terrifying chomping and crunching sounds.
I watch on in horror as the tv static fades away, going back to the maze screen. Now, the water is red again, but instead of being a simple color swap like in the actual level, it looks a lot more like actual blood. So much so, that I could practically smell it.
A familiar set of red shoes and orange gloves float in the pool of hyper-realistic blood, connected to yellow stumps.
"Holy shit." I whisper to myself, not wanting to wake up my parents, "They killed Pac-Man!"
But, the game wouldn't leave that screen; I know I had extra lives, but nothing else was happening, and the only thing I could hear was a slight sloshing noise.
I did everything I could think of. I tried pressing buttons on my controller I tried turning off my PS2, and I even tried to unplug the TV. Nothing happened. It was stuck on that same screen.
As I reached for my last resort- removing the game disk completely, more words popped up on the screen. Black, Times New Roman font, completely different from the rest of the game, spelled out "You're next."
I was scared as hell, and opened up my top loading PS2 Slim. I took out the Pac Man World 2 disk, and Chucked it onto the ground. Covering my TV with a blanket so I didn't have to see the bloody screen anymore, I stomped the disk into the ground, shattering it.
As I do so, the light coming from the TV shuts off, and I check it. The TV was finally off. Relieved, I try to go to sleep. I had school the next day after all, and, well, maybe I was already dreaming, and none of that really happened.
I had no way of knowing that I would never wake up again.