The Megaglitch[]
I was at home. I had no plans for the day, so I pulled out some of my favorite games, such as Star Fox 64, Sonic Adventure 2, and Super Mario 64. I was digging through my closet, when I found a bag a hadn't seen in a while. It was a bag with my Sega Genesis and some games for it inside! I was excited, as I had not seen these items for years. I thought they had been lost. I also noticed what was already in the slot: Sonic & Knuckles. I also found Sonic the Hedgehog 3 near the top of the bag, which meant I could play Sonic 3 & Knuckles via the lock-on technology. This was my favorite Genesis game of all, and I had beaten it through with each character at least once years ago. I was eager to set up the Genesis and play, but I had to be careful, because the console wasn't exactly in good condition. I started up the game and noticed that all of my save files were gone.
This wasn't too bad though, because I could beat the game within two hours. I chose to play as Sonic and Tails, and proceeded to play. I got all of the Chaos Emeralds, and then the Super Emeralds. When I beat the final boss, I felt good. I wasn't in the mood to start a new game or run through the previous stages, and I was about to quit playing. But then I remembered the glitches I used to perform. I knew that I could spend at least another half hour messing around with glitches I had learned a while back, but I figured that I could make the experience more enjoyable if I looked up more glitches, and I soon found a series on YouTube that showed every glitch in every zone of the game and used notations to explain and title them. I went through every video and performed most of the glitches shown.
I eventually got to Lava Reef Zone (Act 1). The video also had "Megaglitch" in the title. I thought about how none of the other videos had a name of a glitch in the title, so I thought it must be something amazing. I eagerly watched the video, and I saw many interesting glitches. But about three fourths of the way through the video, a notation popped up that contained the words "The Megaglitch". This annotation was red, instead of the usual white. It explains a way to use a glitch to run through a "loopback" of the level to get to a game crashing spot. You can avoid the crash, but if you do, you will find that the game has "glitched the fuck out." The music is fast, the game lags very badly, the two player mode is unplayable, and there are several other problems. It was not stated if this was permanent or not, so I attempted the glitch myself.
It took me a couple of tries, but I finally succeeded. The game was glitchy as hell, and it was pretty cool. However, only three minutes in, the screen just went black, and then the Genesis turned itself off. I tried to turn it back on, but it only made a few beeping noises, and then shut off. I thought that I might have overloaded the already fragile Genesis, and that I had broken it beyond repair. I felt upset that I would have to pay if I wanted a new one. However, I was still in the mood for a Sonic game, so I put Sonic Generations into my Play Station 3. I wanted to earn trophies for the game, so I went to collect the red rings for each stage. I started with Green Hill, and then Chemical Plant, and then Sky Sanctuary.
When I went to play the Modern stage (Act 2) for Sky Sanctuary, the game stayed on the loading screen and never loaded. I tried a couple more times and cleaned the disk, but still nothing happened. I shrugged it off and instead decided to start with the Classic stage (Act 1). When I selected it, the game went straight into the stage without a loading screen. No music was playing, and Sonic seemed to have a distant look in his face. I proceeded through the Act, which seemed normal. But then the game began to lag. This was frustrating, and I fell through a gap a few seconds later. When I returned from the death sequence, I was at the beginning of the stage, but the colors of the stage had been changed to dark blue, black, and orange. There was also a slowed down version of the Lava Reef music playing quietly. Sonic seemed slightly less distant, and almost angry. The game still lagged, just not as bad. I still slipped up, and was killed by an enemy.
However, this death sequence wasn't the usual death sequence. A loud white noise blasted through the speakers, and Sonic was being shot over and over by the enemy. The lasers that were fired went through him. His body was riddled with burn holes, and Sonic's rage seemed to increased. I finally respawned after a good thirty seconds of this. I was very close to the end of the stage, despite not even reaching the first checkpoint. I took a few steps, and the scream went black and very loud, low-key music began to play. Sonic seemed infuriated. I could not see where I was going, and I fell on some spikes that I knew weren't normally there. Sonic was impaled on the spikes. His eyes burned with anger. the camera zoomed in at his face. He screamed something inaudible over and over, but I finally could make out what he was screening. He was repeating "Megaglitch!" over and over. I was frightened and confused as to what was going on, when he finally stopped screaming. The camera zoomed out and his eyes slowly shut. Just when I thought it was over, the camera quickly returned back to where it was, and Sonic's angry eyes snapped open. He screamed, "You destroyed my reality, so I will destroy yours!" The screen faded to black. The Lava Reef music started up again.
It will never stop playing in my head.