The Cartridge That Remembered

The summer I turned fourteen, my family moved to a small town called Ashford, a place where the only entertainment was the old video rental store that still smelled of stale popcorn and plastic. That’s where I found it, a beat-up N64 cartridge with a faded label that read ‘Eternal Kingdom.’ No one in town had heard of it, and the owner, a man with a glass eye named Mr. Haskins, said it had been in the back room for years, left behind by some kid who never returned it. I was bored, and it was cheap, so I took it home.

That night, I blew the dust off the cartridge and slid it into my console. The game started normally enough, a standard fantasy adventure with a hero named Kael and a quest to save the realm. But something felt off. The colors were too bright, the music too cheerful, and the characters’ eyes seemed to follow me. I shrugged it off, thinking it was just my imagination. Then I noticed the glitch: a figure in the background of every area, a tall, thin silhouette with no face, just a smear of static where its features should be. I paused the game, but the pause menu didn’t come up. The save file was corrupted, replaced with a single word: ‘STAY.’

I laughed nervously and turned off the console. But the next night, I couldn’t resist. I loaded the game again, and it started from the beginning, but this time, the hero’s name was changed to ‘LYLE,’ my name. And the ghost figure was now following me, always at the edge of the screen, never closer, never farther. I tried to delete the save and start a new one, but the menu only showed the same corrupted file, with a new word: ‘REMEMBER.’

I called my friend, Danny, who was into urban legends. He said there was a rumor about a cursed cartridge that had been circulating for years, supposedly created by a grieving father who encoded his dead son’s spirit into a game. The son had drowned in a lake near Ashford, and the cartridge was found near the shore, still in the console, the screen frozen on a single frame. My blood ran cold. The name of the lake? Lake Marrow. And the date on the tombstone? The day I moved to Ashford.

I wanted to throw the cartridge away, but I knew I had to finish it. The ghost had started to appear in my room, not on the screen but in the corner, a dark shape that whispered my name. I went back to the game, determined to beat it and break the curse. The levels were twisted, corrupted versions of the ones I had seen before, with rooms that looped endlessly and enemies that would sometimes stand still, as if watching me. The final boss was a giant version of the ghost, and as I struck it, the screen crackled and the game glitched out, showing a series of images: a boy’s face under water, a mother’s scream, a funeral, and then a message: ‘DROWNED. NOW YOU KNOW.’

I turned off the console and sat in silence, my heart pounding. The room was dark, and I could hear a faint, wet sound, like dripping water. I looked at the cartridge on the table, and to my horror, it was wet. I picked it up, and water dripped from the vents, staining the label. I heard a laugh, a child’s laugh, from behind me. I spun around, but there was nothing. I ran out of the room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where my mother was reading. She looked up and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was waiting for me in my room.

I stayed up all night, avoiding the room, but when I finally went back, the cartridge was dry, and the console was unplugged. On the screen, however, was a single message, burned into the phosphor: ‘YOU CAN’T STOP ME. I’M IN THE MACHINE.’ I never played the game again, but I still hear the dripping sound in the dead of night, and sometimes, when I look at my reflection, I see a child’s face watching me from behind mine, with eyes like empty sockets and a waterlogged grin. The cartridge sits in a drawer, locked away, but I know it’s only pretending to sleep. It remembers, and it wants me to remember too.