I never really wanted to share this. I have been keeping this to myself for years. But It's all coming back up again, and I think it's time to share this with the world. It all started when I moved into my apartment. I knew a few friends there, and I thought it would be a good place to crash. I started unpacking my things, everything seemed where it should be until I stumbled upon my old Playstation 2. I thought to myself, "didn't I sell this a few years ago?" I just assumed the buyer called it off, and I forgot.
Since I had the Playstation 2 and my friends weren't here I should just go out and try to find some Playstation 2 games. I went to a local flea market, but no luck. I did manage to pick up a Playstation 2 controller, and a memory card. I went by a few yard sales, but there were still no Playstation 2 games. While I was driving by I saw one particular sign that read:
"Garage Sale - Video games, toys and more!"
I headed over to the address of the garage sale. There was a table with not to many appealing items. There were a few cardboard games, boxes, and old dolls and toy cars. While I was looking down at the table I felt a gentle breeze on my neck. Like a man's breath. I turned around without hesitating and saw a young man smiling at me. It was one of the creepiest smiles I have ever seen... The creepiest part about it was that, it was just like the Happy Mask salesman from the Zelda games.
I thought to myself, "That's crazy, its just a coincidence because I'm kind of looking for a Gabriel Garza game." The man asked me, "Is there anything you are looking for in peculiar?" I asked him if he had any Playstation 2 games. He showed me into his garage and he looked through a few boxes. After a long search through the box, he pulled out a case. There was nothing on the case, it looked a bit torn up to be honest. But as my eyes focused on the tiny text on the box, it read:
"GABRIEL VIO RETURN".
I knew this couldn't be the original game, but I decided I would take it. I asked the man, "How much?" The man replied, "Don't worry about it, it's free. I'm not even sure if it works!" Then he laughed. Just like the Happy Mask salesman from Majora's Mask. Scared already, I hurried to my car and drove off. Once I got home I plugged in my Playstation 2, put in the controller and put in the memory card. I took out, the game and as soon as I took it out, I noticed flaws.
There were scratches and marks but the oddest thing is the color of the disc. If you have ever seen the Vio's Return disc, you would know the color is green. But on this disc, it was red... almost as a blood red. It looked so real, it scared the living hell out of me. I knew this had to be some sort of hacked version, which made me want to play it even more. I popped the disc in, and to my surprise it ran amazingly smooth. Smoother than any game I have ever seen. It looked perfectly normal. Then the title screen came up.
Once I hit the start button on my controller, there were two save files. One named VIO, one named RETURN. They both had the same time, played, and when I clicked the VIO file, it is 100%, the file had all the tokens.
I went ahead and checked out the RETURN, file. This file instead of all tokens being empty, they had 100 tokens.
I started the file 3, and everything seemed normal. The story about how Vio came back was normal. But when Claire came to the screen, instead of shouting, Heeeeeeey! Like she normally does, she screamed. Like a woman being murdered kind of scream. It made me jump when hearing it. I played through some of the game, trying to forget the awful scream. Everything in the second world, City Island was fine, and everything seemed ok.
After I finished all the levels in City Island, I ended up at Night City. The whispering got extremely loud, to the point where it was breaking my TV speakers.
“I’m having fun…are you?”
“I’m glad you played this.”
“Now you will pay.”
I immediately lost control of Gabriel, and he turned around, towards the screen. He slowly crept up to the screen, while the eerie whispering continued.
“I don’t forgive you.”
“You resorted to pirating."
“You won’t escape now.”
Gabriel was practically touching the screen by this point. Soon enough I stumbled upon Vio's Tower. Once I entered I had new stuff In my inventory. A slingshot. Everything you need to defeat Vio. I went through Vio's Tower and made it to the end.
As I was seeing the ending cinematics and text. Vio had blood started to come out of his head and onto the ground. It was sprinkling, then it started to pour out of his head. He then froze, turned to stone, and exploded. But instead of the normal explosion, you know child friendly... His organs, blood, and body parts flew everywhere. It was so disturbing I took the game out of the tray, and smashed it, hoping to never see it again.
A few days ago, I started remembering it again. For no reason at all, I remembered everything. In so much detail it felt like I was reliving it. But just a few hours ago, when I started to make this post. I saw the disc. The GABRIEL VIO RETURN disc. The disc I had destroyed. It looked brand new, and never used before.