The Picture

There’s always been something weird about FreeFlame. The game itself was fine, with a fiery, hellish theme, action-packed RPG game play, and an overall fun and enjoyable theme and game style. But the ambience of the game is off. 

I started noticing queer things a few weeks ago. For one, whenever I would start the game, my phone would immediately start overheating, to the point where it would boil like a furnace just to the touch, as well as start emitting an eerie whistling sound, like a robot malfunctioning. In sudden, terse motions, the game would start powering off and on, and I also have reason to suspect that the recent power outages might be a result of it.

But that’s ridiculous! A well-known game by a trusted company could never conduct such awful activities. So I kept on playing. Until one cool, calm, windy night, the moon glistening through my half curtained window, my controller wedged between my greasy thumbs, and my phone lying beside my bed, did it happen.

I was just cruising through level 14, a relatively easy level, when suddenly, I was hit with a demonic boss fight. But the boss seemed… bugged. Half of it’s head had skyrocketed off the screen, and it’s fire-style graphics were obscurely blurry. The boss was also conveying actions far different from what it was supposed to be like in the tutorials I gathered from youtube. Suddenly, my phone began hissing like it seldom does, and in a valiant effort to prevent the audible noise from reaching my parent’s room, I quickly stuffed it into my pocket. 

But the sound wasn’t muffled or faltered, yet continuously augmented, and my pants pocket was starting to feel warm. Warm like a toaster, warm like an oven, warm like exposed metal, until the heat started to become unbearable. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, and the room all around me started to faze. The controller slipped from the moisture of my hands, and my quivering fingers were squeaking around like 5 blind mice, scavenging for my left pocket. 

Before I knew it, I was burnt into slumber. 

I woke up with a sharp thud, and my head felt like it was screwed to a bloody cross. I look around in a daze, and see a sharp contrast to what I feel. Bright, pink demons squander around, moaning in a somewhat familiar dialect. I lumber from my position, and peer into the depths of this occult place. All around me are multicolored, asymmetric demons, horns and spikes protruding out of their bodies, and a putrid odor reeking from their sides. I hear a buzzing from my left pocket, and reach to find my phone, sizzling from heat and exuding literal flames from its glass contents.

What happened? Where am I? Questions whizzed through my head like the demons through their kingdom, until I was shot with a nudge that sent scissors through my veins. As I pathetically glanced adjacent to me, a horrifying sight awaited me.

A rectangular demon with gaping pores spouting blood, atrocious slime dripping through his veins was staring face to face with me. He started sputtering a vexatious beeping noise similar to the one that my phone always made. That’s when I realized it. This demon was my phone! Somehow, someway, a menace from a preternatural video game had transformed my handheld device into the atrocity from everyone’s nightmares. I was frozen, petrified even, watching as my gargantuan phone retrieved a serrated, baleful blade and sliced it mere inches from my trembling face.

As I scurried away on my behind in a desperate attempt to escape, a miracle transpired. A mystical creature, similar in appearance to a llama, flew in from the skies above and sent one ferocious paw right through the demon’s jawline. My phone flew back, his jaw crunching, and the blood leaking out of him gleaming in an eerie orange glow. The llama growled, an action returned by the demon ten-fold. Suddenly, all of my phone’s apprentices charged at the llama piercing through his fur with their spiky tentacles. 

In a glamorous show of strength and masculinity, the llama sent a sizzling spitball through the crowd, accumulating size and rolling down the demons like a bowling ball to pins. Now, it was down to the final battle- Llama v.s Phone. The phone posed like a bull in a Mexican standoff, pummeled the llama into the air, sending punches and horns flying in every which direction. To this, the llama simply smirked.

In a single valiant sweep, the llama formed it’s hooves together and called an airforce attack, sending a barrage of alpacas raining down on my demonic phone.The demon shrieked in pain, and in one final blow, the llama defeated him. As I stared in awe at the battlefield above me, pinching myself for the 324th time to convince myself I was dreaming, the llama snapped it’s hooves, and I was immediately teleported back to a homely location. A well-acquainted homely location- my room. Nothing had changed, the breeze was still gently blowing through my windowsill, the moon was as bright and cheddar-like as ever, and my video game controller was still perched on my bed where I had left it.

Maybe I really was dreaming, I apprised myself, sinking into my comfy mattress and soothing myself to sleep. And then my phone started humming.