Creepypastas

Bonus Room

I don't know why so many of these things have roots in childhood. It seems like a bad cliché at this point. "When I was a kid", there was this strange event... that odd creature... or the other thing that made me do something-or-other.

Yeah. I don't know WHY so many start like that.

For me, I can't explain this any other way than starting when I was little. It's the crux of the entire thing, and I apologize in advance if it seems like I'm just following in the footsteps of others.

This is real. This is awful. I feel like nobody's going to listen because of where the story begins...

When I was growing up, my parents would often take me out for pizza. It didn't have to be a special occasion, I didn't even have to be a good kid, it's more that they wanted a night out and I came along for the ride.

Julie's Pizza.

Julie was awesome. She'd put on cartoons for me whenever I showed up, or sometimes the old 60s Batman show in repeats. This was where I was first exposed to video games, as there was always a cabinet or pinball machine waiting by the entrance. If you jostled them just right, like Julie would show me, you could even get free games.

I spent a lot of time at the machines. Sometimes my folks would even bring me there for lunch, and let me play through while they'd go shopping or would undertake other boring parent tasks.

I got good. Real good. My favorite game was Spy Hunter, and after that was Rampage. The games would change just as suddenly and mysteriously as they'd arrive... just due to rotation... and whatever came in next was my new victim. I wouldn't stop until I beat them all, or at least came relatively close.

I knew the theme music by heart, and I could see the screens in my sleep. Sometimes I'd be somewhere else entirely when a flash of genius would pop into my head. Oh – THAT'S how you defeat the third boss! Of course!

As the years passed and I grew into my teens, I even started beating other kids in local gaming competitions. By this time I'd moved away from Julie's and into arcades... and I really feel terrible that I didn't think to go back at least once before the place closed and I could never see her again. She always seemed like she was crazy about me.

At one of these competitions, I hit my highest score on any game. Sure, scoring was different from game to game, and having a million points on one might not be as important as having the same total on another, but this was different. I actually made the numbers roll back to zero, which was something nobody there had witnessed before.

I played a few different games in different challenges that day. Funny thing is, I don't even remember which one it was.

I racked up prizes left and right, and though I felt bad when the other kids and teens would get dejected I felt it was only fair that the best man win. There were even a few adults participating, and most of them didn't get as far as the rest of us.

One guy, though... he didn't take it well. He was standing at a cabinet next to me, competing on a different game. I guess he didn't appreciate the little "pew pew" and "boosh" noises I was making under my breath. He asked me to knock it off twice.

The third time, when I started doing it again without even realizing it, he actually shoved me! Here I was, this lanky kid of about thirteen, getting pushed around by a fat, hairy dude with a cheese-smeared Night of the Living Dead t-shirt.

A couple men in dark t-shirts and pants quickly came up on either side of the bully and quickly escorted him out of the building through the back. I had never noticed these guys hanging around, but was thankful. I was then approached by a third man dressed in black suit, striped tie, and an ID badge that said "OFFICAL".