There's No Escape

For as long as I can remember, I've been a huge fan of "The Fairly Oddparents." I was only nine years old when it first aired on Nickelodeon, and I owned every bit of merchandise that could be sold in stores. Eventually, I grew up and started moving on to other things. I finished school, I got married, and I even had a little girl. However, the show about a boy and his fairies still held a special place in my heart.

One day, my daughter asked me if I'd get her that Nintendo 64 game with the Conker squirrel on the box art. I figured out right away that she was referring to "Conker's Bad Fur Day" and I told her no.

"Why not?" she asked me.

"Well," I answered. "It's not appropriate for kids. Sure, he looks cute, but he swears a lot and we don't want you repeating anything he says."

She reluctantly agreed with me and then proceeded to ask me to buy her a "Fairly Oddparents" game. I don't know where she got the idea that I'd been a fan of it back in the day, but I didn't have the heart to tell her no such game existed for the Nintendo 64 (at least officially).

Instead, I told her that she wouldn't have to worry a thing and went on my way.

Before we go any further, for those of you wondering, I'd like to answer your question on why we even owned a Nintendo 64 instead of something like, say, a Wii U or Playstation 4 or even an Xbox One. Well, my brother and sisters and I had grown up with an N64 since it was the only game console our parents could afford at the time. I felt bad that my daughter didn't get to experience the same kind of joy and wonder I had when playing "Super Mario 64" or "Goldeneye," so I decided to buy a used one one Christmas and I never looked back.

Anyway, I decided to go to a flea market and search for a homebrewed N64 game that bore some similarities with my favorite cartoon (or at the very least shared its name). At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Sure, there were many antiques and blankets and clothes just strewn about on the tables, but I couldn't for the life of me seem to find any N64 games, much less homebrewed ones. I had to keep looking, however. I didn't want to disappoint.

Several minutes later, I finally came across an N64 cartridge that just happened to be lying on top of a bag of old toys from the '70s and '80s. It was pastel pink instead of gray and it just had a plain label with "Fairly OddParents" written on it, but I couldn't really be surprised. It was a homebrewed game, after all. It did seem kind of off that it didn't have a price sticker on it, though, but I asked the guy who was selling it anyway.

"It's only a dollar," he answered. "That's it. Nothing more, nothing less."

Fine with me, I figured. I wouldn't have to spend a whole lot of money on it. I produced two one-dollar bills out of my pants and gave them to the man. He glared at me and the money for a little bit before finally giving me the cartridge and my change.

Once I got home, I showed my daughter the game, and she was overjoyed to say the least. After I inserted the cartridge into the console and turned it on, we were eager to get started. I went first, hoping that my walkthrough would rub off on her somehow.

The title screen came up, but instead of the jovial and cheerful music I'd heard on the show, there was complete silence. No jingle, no piano medley, not even any humming. The logo looked just like it did on the show, but the colors were remarkably washed out and not at all pleasant to look at. The background was a charcoal gray, and neither Timmy nor his fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda were anywhere in sight. It didn't even flash "Press Start to Play" like I would've expected. So I pressed the A button and tried to shake off the uneasiness I was getting.

It immediately cut to Cosmo and Wanda talking to Timmy about something. The audio was extremely distorted and ear-piercingly loud so I couldn't make a word of what the hell they were saying, and it didn't help that there weren't any subtitles on the screen to faciliate things. They appeared to be inside some sort of building that was very much unlike the cartoon this game was supposed to be based on. The walls were completely white but they had an eerie bright blue glow to them, the floor was covered with brown speckled marble tiles, and there weren't any windows around for what looked to be miles and miles on end. Jorgen von Strangle was standing in a corner in the background, just glaring at something. After about a minute or so, he turned to look at the camera and I could've sworn he was looking right at me.

Thankfully, the cutscene was over in a matter of seconds and I was now in the first level. Now Timmy was in a dark forest that consisted of nothing but dead trees and some moss. Cosmo and Wanda seemed to have disappeared entirely, which meant that the poor boy had to be all by himself for this. At first, there were no enemies in sight, which made me a bit relieved since this was the first level and from my experience, first levels are always supposed to be easy. There were, however, some NPCs that looked a bit out of place. They looked a lot more like people who'd be right at home in "Goldeneye" than anything else; they had much more detailed textures compared to Timmy and behaved rather erratically. I couldn't help but wonder if the creator had intentionally programmed them that way or if it was just their coding glitching up. So I kept moving along and hoped that within the next few minutes or so, I'd find the exit and move on to the next level.

About seven minutes in, I bumped into a familiar face: Mr. Crocker. He had his back turned to me and he didn't really move much at all, so I just moved past him. Once I did, however, he slowly started following my every move. Again, I had to wonder if the creator had actually programmed him to follow me wherever I went. So far, the game didn't seem to bring back any of the nostalgia I was looking for but it did pique my curiosity on what the game had in store for me. I kept moving to see what he would do, but nothing happened. Eventually, I stopped right near the boundaries of the game and Mr. Crocker stopped right behind me. We stayed like this for about a couple minutes, and all Mr. Crocker ever said during that time was this: "You can't escape."

I couldn't help but laugh at what he'd said. I'd heard some pretty terrible one-liners before, but this took the cake. There was just no way it was meant to be taken seriously. Anyway, I tried to move away again, but for some reason I was stuck. Was this meant to be a softlock glitch? I wasn't sure and I wouldn't have been because then the screen cut to black and Timmy was transported to a wheat field. My mind couldn't grasp what had just happened, but at least Cosmo and Wanda had come back... or did they? Yes, they were hovering above and in front of him, their faces totally void of expression and their colors faded like the logo on the title screen. They started speaking again, but their voices were much clearer this time so now I could catch what they were saying.

"You know what we have to do, right?" Wanda asked her godson.

Timmy didn't say anything. I watched in suspense, wondering what would happen next. Two options, "Yes" or "No," popped up on the screen. I chose "No" and the two fairies started talking amongst themselves. Subtitles came up around the same time and they read: "This is for the best. Timmy must be punished for his crimes and he must be punished now."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, I'm absolutely positive."

They stayed there for a good fourteen seconds before the scene then faded to black. Five seconds later, a loading screen that looked very bare-bones popped up and I was forced to wait for a solid minute and a half; why I had to wait that long for a homebrewed game to load up is beyond me, but I was still curious to know where it was going. Anyway, I now found myself on a platform that bore a passing resemblance to the Final Destination stage from "Super Smash Bros." Timmy was at one end of the platform and a high-polygon model of Cthulhu was at the other. Cosmo, Wanda, Jorgen von Strangle, Mama Cosma, Juandissimo Magnifico, Binky, and the Tooth Fairy were all there to watch the two duke it out. I didn't know what to make of this anymore. At no point did an Eldritch Abomination, much less Cthulu, ever make an appearance on "The Fairly Oddparents" so I was totally confused by the programmer's choice of including him into the game. To be honest, I wasn't even sure I could continue on like this.

So I saved the game and turned it off, hoping that I would calm down enough to play it again. I was starting to get exhausted anyway, so I went to bed right afterwards. At some point, I started having one of the most bizarre and disturbing dreams I'd ever have in my life...

Timmy was back in the barren forest with no fairy godparents by his side. He walked casually and whistled cheerfully, trying not to let the creepiness of the forest get to him. All of a sudden, Cthulhu popped up in front of him and Mr. Crocker followed suit, stopping the ten-year-old boy dead in his tracks. His pupils shrank, his mouth dried up, and he started sweating profusely. He tried to run away, but Cthulhu wrapped his tentacles around the boy's neck and started strangling him. Timmy tried gasping for air, but it was no use. He could feel his larynx and neck bones break and splinter out of place, and his mouth started filling up with blood. Mr. Crocker laughed hysterically as he watched his mortal enemy asphyxiate to death, happy that he could now snatch Cosmo and Wanda back and imprison them forever. Soon, he simpered as Timmy's limp body fell to the ground and leaked a pool of blood around him.

When I woke up, my daughter's throat had been slashed and her eyes were gouged out. My wife's throat had also been slashed and her eyes plucked out as well; her stomach was cut open and our son lied beside her with the umbilical cord still attached. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and I didn't want to. To make matters worse, I was holding the knife that had killed them. I was so horrified and overcome with sadness that I puked right then and there. How could this game drive me to do such horrible things, and to my own family no less? How could I have been so stupid as to let this game be my downfall? Some time after I'd puked my guts out, the police barged into my house and tackled me to the ground. I was frightened by this, to say the least, and it may have been because of that that I started crying my eyes out. I continued to cry even when they were reading me my rights and dragging me to the police car. The last thing I saw before blacking out was my house being set up as a crime scene.

I'm currently serving a life sentence for murdering my family. I don't even remember doing the deed, yet at the same time I'm filled with so much guilt and regret that with each day that passes by, I start believing more and more that I deserve to die alone in this prison cell. As for you, dear reader, I have but one piece of advice for you; if you ever find a pastel-pink N64 cartridge with just "The Fairly Oddparents" on it, do not- and I mean, DO NOT -play it. Destroy it with as much strength as you have or it will ruin your life.