Back in the late 90s, there was a kid named Tommy who lived in a quiet neighborhood where all the kids played outside until the streetlights came on. But on rainy days, they’d crowd into each other’s rooms and play video games on old consoles like the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis.
One day, while exploring his grandpa’s attic, Tommy found a dusty, unmarked game cartridge inside a wooden box. The label was blank, but curiosity got the best of him. He wiped it off and plugged it into his console.
The screen flickered, and then the game booted up with eerie 8-bit music. It was called “The Lost Boy” — a platformer game where you played as a boy running through forests, empty towns, and pixelated graveyards, looking for your missing shadow.
There was no start screen, no pause, and oddly... the character moved on his own. Tommy couldn’t control him.
The weirdest part? The places in the game looked exactly like his own neighborhood — but darker, lonelier, like it was stuck in a permanent sunset. As the boy kept walking, text would flash on screen: “I know you’re watching, Tommy.”
Tommy’s heart raced. He tried turning the console off, but it wouldn’t power down. The game just kept going. Then, in one of the levels, the pixelated boy walked up to a house that looked exactly like Tommy’s.
Then the screen turned black.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang downstairs. When Tommy peeked out his window, there was no one there... except a pair of wet footprints leading from the porch to the front gate.
No one ever found out where that game came from. Tommy tried to destroy the cartridge, but it always returned — on his desk, in his backpack, even under his pillow.
Some say, to this day, if you find an unmarked cartridge at a garage sale and plug it in, the game will play scenes from your neighborhood. And when it does... don’t answer the door.