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Blog & StoriesIn the autumn of 2011, I was at my friend Danny’s house, a sprawling Victorian relic on the edge of our small town. Danny and our other friend, Leo, were helping me navigate the twisted corridors of a classic dungeon crawler on his ancient console. We were deep in the game, snacks and soda scattered around us, when a sudden hunger pang hit.
We ordered a large pepperoni pizza, and while we waited, the atmosphere in the room began to feel… off. The console was in the middle of a boss fight, but out of nowhere, it paused itself. The TV went mute, the screen frozen on a crouched character, and the room fell into an unnatural silence. We looked at each other, puzzled, but Danny just shrugged, saying, ‘It does that sometimes. Old wiring.’ We didn’t think much of it, chalking it up to a glitch.
The pizza arrived, and we dug in, the greasy slices a welcome distraction. But as we ate, strange things started happening. The paused game screen flickered, the character’s eyes seeming to track our movements. Leo laughed nervously, ‘Maybe the pizza ghost wants a slice?’ Danny didn’t laugh. He had told us before about the house’s history – the previous owner had been murdered in a small storage room off the hallway, and Danny had experienced unexplained phenomena since his family moved in.
We were in the upstairs living room, a long, narrow space with only a TV stand, a leather sofa, and a small glass coffee table in the corner. The stairs came up through a hole in the floor, hidden behind a half-wall, so anyone coming up would be invisible until they reached the top step. On the opposite wall, where the stairs met the landing, was a compact closet door – the one that had been sealed shut for years, ever since the murder.
After finishing our pizza, we tried to get back to the game, but the console wouldn’t respond. The screen was still paused, but now it showed a different scene – a dark, empty room that looked suspiciously like the storage closet. The silence was oppressive, and I could hear my own heartbeat. Danny whispered, ‘It’s not the wiring. It’s him.’
A cold draft swept through the room, and the closet door creaked open a few inches. We froze, staring at the crack of darkness. Then, the game unpaused on its own. The character, previously idle, began to move – but not under our control. It walked through the dungeon, turning corners, inching closer to a door that matched the closet door in the game. Leo grabbed my arm, his grip tight. ‘What the hell is happening?’
We watched, transfixed, as the on-screen character reached the door and opened it. Inside, the game showed a figure – a silhouette that looked like a man – standing in the darkness. The character took a step inside, and the screen went black. A moment later, a single line of text appeared on the TV: ‘YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME.’
A loud bang echoed from the closet, and the door flew open, revealing nothing but an empty, dusty space. But as we stared, a faint, raspy voice whispered from the closet, ‘Who is there?’ We scrambled to our feet, knocking over the coffee table, and fled down the stairs, not stopping until we were outside, gasping for breath in the cold night air.
Danny turned to us, his face pale. ‘I told you not to play that game in there. He doesn’t like it when you play games.’ We never went back to that room, and the console was left abandoned, the game frozen on that final, ominous message. To this day, I still wonder – what was that thing in the closet, and why did it want to play?
