I would often read stories about hunted dolls, ghosts, and all kinds of spooky supernatural things one wouldn't believe. Yet always felt drawn to those stores, a thrill of sorts running through me every time i finished reading, only to have paranoia set in afterwards, Rinse and repeat.
But what i didn't count on is having a tale of my own to tell.
Let me roll back to a couple of months ago.
A normal day at home, nothing to do and no one to really pester me, boredom sparked and drove me to the computer. "What should i do?" I'd mutter, clicking around on the desktop, drawing little blue squares around everying until i accidently highlighted an old picture.
Upon opening it i remembered that it was a screenshot I'd taken some time ago on Feral Heart.
Ah yes, memories of friends derping about.
Deciding to once again to try and re-kindle my love for the game, id hop onto the site to download it again.
As luck would have it, it wasn't letting me download anything. Blaming it on the browser and
Too lazy to get a new one, id simply ask an old friend of mine over skype if i could get ahold of their copy.
They agreed with hesitance, stating that they had modded it up quite a bit and may cause me to lag and glitch. Simply waving it off by saying that i could fix it should things arise, they sent over the copy.
With a copy of Feral Heart, and rearing to get back into the role playing scene I'd log into my old account. Greeted by the first and only character. Back then i had a thing where i would have only one character and grow them up slowly, only getting a new one when the last had "passed away", deleting it afterwards to make it realistic in a sense. As much as i missed the old characters, it kept me focused on one character and their story. Growing more attached to them then most would do.
"Guardian" I had called them, a Doberman sworn to protect and peruse justice, while struggling with his over obsessive ways.
While Tweaking the characters appearance i noticed a couple of presets available for use in the presets folder. A Doberman Preset. It was perfect.
I played as this character for a good month or so, joining and leaving many groups along the way. I'd grown attached to the canine and his struggles through life, sometimes i liked to think he grown on me when greeted by his default expression of cool smile. Infact i even went as far as greeting him with "Hi old friend, what trouble shall we get into today?" each day.
Times changed, and after a particular disagreement with a group and their characters i started feeling slight resentment to the character, not that it was his fault in any way. But the warm memories had been trampled by the groups drama and the leaders tyrannical ways. So i decided to create another character which would take Guardians spot on the front page, still keeping my Doberman friend on standby while wounds healed.
After a couple of weeks playing this new character i started noticing the game glitching up, a little surprised as it seemed fine weeks ago. But then again, i added some new maps and mods, so it was easy to see how it could occur.
Glitches mainly consisted of;
Ending up in a random place after trying to go through a portal, finding myself in a place different from when i logged out from, missing textures and sounds not working and randomly falling from heights. Luckily there was no fall damage in this game to worry about, or damage at all.
Most of these where easily fixed with a re-log or just letting the game do its thing.
None of this struck me as strange until one day i logged on to find different markings on my new character. "Scars" Except in the God awful red you would find on the newbie wolves.
And expression defaulted to Sad. Automatically i thought it could of been my friend who occasionally borrowed my account to play around with the creator or run around randomly on my characters only given that they don't smear my reputation. I asked them about it over Skype and admitted to being on my account but not to changing the markings. I insisted they must have and forgot about it, leaving the conversation at that.
I would go to change the markings back, rather annoyed since it was hard to remake something the same again.
Going about my day in the feral heart world as normal.
At least, semi-normal.
I started getting random whispers from someone with no name.
Saying "Where have you been?", "Where are you?" or "Did you forget?" Over and over randomly through out my time logged on. They weren't spamming me, just sending it every so often.
If i was to try and reply with anything id only get a "..." back.
When i went to go look at the character eventually by double clicking on the text. It would bring up the box with only the character name in it.
"FrEnd"
Thinking little of it, i would go to block them so my roleplay would no longer be disturbed by this dudes creepy whispers.
The rest of the night after that was peaceful.
Next morning however, was a different story.
After my morning rituals of roll out of bed, eat, shower and do nothing for 2 hours, i eventually hop back on to Feral heart to see if anyone in my group was on.
Only, my character was gone.
Guardian once again the first character on the screen.
Enraged, i hoped onto skype and tell my buddy off for deleting my character and they should know better! They pleaded innocence to the incident, saying that they hadn't been on and was busy studying with a friend. Even getting on call with the friend to confirm this.
Cooling off, i realized that they where telling the truth and suspected some sort of glitch going on with the game. Although i found nothing in the forums about it.
Not bothering to try and create them again i went back to FeralHeart to go play on my old friend Guardian. When opening the character screen, i noticed his emote had changed. Come to think of it, it was different before too. Sad, was the emote before. And now it was..angry?
Since when did character emotes change?
I ignored it, not wanting to really think about anything after the loss of the character and just wanting to get into the game, i logged in with Guardian.
And then things got really strange.
Once logged in, i found that the character was hard to move around.
The sky and land textures had changed to and eerie colour.
No one was at stone bridge.
No one was on at all.
Just Guardian, sitting at stone bridge.
The grumpy emote he was wearing was putting me off, so i tried to turn it to something else, only, when i did, it not only changed to smile, but his whole position changed completely.
Sitting at only what i can describe as an awkward angle.
This was really getting on my nerves.
"The hell is wrong with you" I would verbally mutter with a sigh, waiting for some person to jump on so i had at least someone to talk to.
A whisper would pop up.
The Same no named person.
"You forgot about me, and ignored me. I was so lonely."
Now pissed i would type something back.
"Zophrenia<< Who are you? Could you just tell me that and stop being such a creep? I thought i blocked you."
For a couple of minutes there was nothing. Not a peep.
I had almost thought i scared them off finally.
A blood chilling screech sounded from the game, so horrifying i had to rip the headphones from my head and throw them across the room and still heard it sound for about 15 seconds longer.
Turning back to my screen it was now zoomed in on Guardians face.
Smile twisted, eyes glowing with nothing but a white pupil and that awkward angle looking up at the screen. Directly at me.
"Hi friend, what trouble shall we get into today?"
Blue text would pop up at the bottom of the screen while another wave of screeching would sound.
Terrified out of my wits, i slammed the off button on the computer so hard i swore i might of broke it. Leaving the computer alone for the rest of the day, thinking about what happened for the rest of the night.
The next day after turning on my computer i decided i would delete Feral Heart and drop it for awhile, before doing so, pulling out the screenshots folder so i could maybe one day go back on the images and want to play again.
Many months later i went through that folder just as the past me thought I'd do. Once again Yearning to play the game once more.
Only to stop dead in my tracks when i came across one picture.
That one picture that'll haunt me for the rest of my days.
I will show you all what it looks like. But be warned, i have no idea what the effects are of having this image on your FearlHeart will do. Hopefully not bring your creatures to life as it did mine.
http://oi59BannedImageSite/347cil3.jpgRemember, jealousy is a powerful thing.
Don't let it consume you or your friends.
