Knuckles

(Trollpasta by Zy) (Possibly NSFW near the end)

Hi. I'm Dylan, I'm about 20 years old and I love video games. Especially Sonic the Hedgehog video games. Knuckles has always been my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog character of all time, mainly because I share a lot of traits with him.

Sonic and Knuckles for the Sega Genesis is probably my favorite game of all time, because Knuckles. Though I wonder, if Knuckles has his very own game centered around him, like Shadow and Silver(allegedly) had? Because that would absolutely be the best thing ever!

So I searched the crevices of the Internet to search for any possible clue that a Knuckles-centric game existed. Alas, I found this one site called Knuxtruth.org that seems to be hosting a beta copy of a game for the Sega Saturn simply titled "Knuckles". From what I can remember, the website claims that the game was based on the Sonic X-treme engine and it began development in early 1997. However it was scrapped almost immediately (only 2 weeks after it started) because of "unknown reasons".

I was yet to find out what "unknown reasons" actually meant.

So I downloaded the game and opened it up in my Sega Saturn emulator. It started off with a classic "SEGA!" screen, then "Sonic Team presents..." fades in. I braced myself for whatever's next, only to find a plain black screen with the games' title: "NAKKURUSU", which is really just "Knuckles" in Japanese.

Below it there are two options: "New" and "Seting". Yeah, it was spelled that way. On the bottom there's the copyright. But what's a little more unsettling is the background music. I recognized it as "Unknown From M.E." from Sonic Adventure, albeit sounding lower pitched than I remember. That's weird, I thought. Until I remembered that this game is from 1997, so I thought that it must be an early draft meant for this game or something.

I shrugged all of that off and pressed Start.

Immediately I was greeted with a title card saying "FLOATING ISLAND ZONE". It faded out, revealing a nicely pre-rendered yet pixelly Knuckles sprite in the middle of some forest. I was thrilled, but I asked myself, "What am I supposed to do in this game? I mean, sure, it's just a beta, there couldn't possibly be any set plot or anything..." I continued to run around in the forest and I saw what seems to be a random grave. I looked at it and upon closer inspection, the tomb has the word "Knux" on it. It dissapeared a few seconds after. That was pretty creepy... but nonetheless, I pressed on.

I experimented with the controls, and he can jump and glide well... although his gliding seems a little buggy and it's pretty annoying, but then again what do I expect. I also noticed the lives counter at the bottom flicker randomly between 0, 5 and 99... this couldn't possibly mean anything, could it?

After a few seconds of gameplay, it cut to black. Did the game crash on me or something?

Then I heard screaming sounds. It sounded like Knuckles being tortured, and it's worse than anything I've ever heard in my life. Not even Loud Nigra can top this. The game popped up again, and this time I see Knuckles chained in what seems to be an old dungeon. Knuckles was crying and I can clearly see him and hear him (yes, hear him) this time. He definitely looked like he's been through a lot of shit, because there are several bruises on his face and his shoulder was bleeding. I immediately covered my mouth in shock once I saw that.

The camera stayed in front of his face for a few seconds and I couldn't control him. It seems to be the beginning of a fucked-up cutscene.

I heard a female voice, saying something along the lines of, "You're not like all the other echidnas... but I still love you anyway!", then lets out an insane laugh. I stood there as Knuckles stared at me. It's as if he would do anything for me to put him out of his misery. Knuckles eventually spoke in a faint, desperate voice.

"hhhhhheeeeeelllllllppppppppp......"

What the hell kind of game am I playing?!

The camera panned to reveal who the girl was.

To my surprise, it was Julie-Su from the Sonic Archie comics. She eventually spoke to Knuckles in a way I can't really describe, other than psychotic. I can't remember the exact details of what she said, but it was horrible. Something about how Knuckles was different and unwanted, how he has a child as his only friend (Tails?), and other shit. As a result, Knuckles cried some more. His cries sounded more real than ever, it's not even like voice acting but it's as if someone mourned over the loss of their relatives or something. It made me cry as well, knowing my favorite character is getting tortured like this.

And it gets worse. The screen cut to black and I saw Tails, chained to a table. I heard Julie-Su say something along the lines of "Hey Tails, why don't you see your best friend?", but I couldn't really tell since it was compressed to the point that I can't even hear it.

It cut to black yet again. I couldn't process what the hell just happened, and not long after, I heard another set of terrible screams. It sounded like they were coming from Tails. It was really loud, too, and I can't seem to even turn the volume down because the game made my entire computer freeze. Nevermind that I have a shit computer to play this on.

After a few minutes, it ended. For a split second I saw Tails in the same room Knuckles was tortured, only that he has a bleeding snout and his tails are missing. There seems to be a blood puddle on the floor right below where his tails were. He was crying as well.

I then spawned in the level I was at earlier, except it was raining and the title card now read "sA.+V3T]AiL $$#". "Save Tails, okay...", I thought. I'm surprised I could even remember the exact spelling of it. The level was completely silent, no rain sounds or anything. There seems to be a random bar on the bottom for whatever reason, and above that it says "TIME LEFT". So is this a mission or something? From the title card it's probably obvious enough. But the worst part is possibly the sprite. Knuckles' sprite turned into a mutant version of it with oversized fangs, and he had 4 arms and he was bleeding all over the place. His blood looked strangely realistic, like, almost too real for a video game like this. Not to mention my running speed slowed down drastically.

It froze and then cut to... well, not black this time, but red. Bloody red. I then heard a whisper, "The dead bodies."

Dead bodies? What are they talking about? Before I can take a second to question that, a picture popped up for a split second. It was too dark for me to see. 3 seconds later I heard another whisper. "The dead bodies are following me."

Another picture flashed on the screen. I can see it clearly this time. It seems to be a bunch of roadkill real-life echidnas pasted into a single picture using MS Paint. It was easily the most disgusting thing I've seen so far. But that's about to be topped, you'll see.

The screen cut to black again and I hear yet another whisper, "It's true. She killed the other echidnas. I'm the only one left." Afterwards, I heard Knuckles' distorted scream yet again and the screen flashes white and black a few times, trying to give me a freaking seizure.

It cut to the level again, this time the title card said "SAVE TAILS" and I can hear the rain sounds really clearly, as well as Tails' screams for help. The bar at the bottom begins to reduce its' size pixel-by-pixel and there was some sort of map at the top, with an arrow pointing where Tails is located. I began controlling Knuckles, but I noticed that his movement, holy shit it was even slower than last time. I can't jump, or even glide, for that matter.

By the time I'm at the location, the bar was almost empty. Then a cutscene happened. The HUD disappeared, and Knuckles bursts in at a blazing fast speed. Tails was all tied up and Julie-Su was ready to put him down. Knuckles releases Tails, then shouts out, in a demonic voice, "NO. I WILL NOT LET YOU TORTURE HIM. NEVER!". He then punches Julie-Su. Julie-Su takes it back by stabbing him in the eye, basically pulling out his entire eyeball. As a result, he screamed as blood sprays out of his eyesocket. He then put Julie-Su down and punches her with all of his arms, killing her. He threw her out of the window, then collapsed.

"You're... my best friend...", Knuckles weakly said. Shortly after, he died. Tails runs up to Knuckles, then cries. "Knuckles... no... NO NO NO NO!"

The screen cut to a sickening close-up of Knuckles' face, with "THE END" written on the bottom of the screen. There was no sound effects, no screaming, no music. Just dead silence, with dead demon Knuckles staring deep in my soul. I stared at it for a while, completely shocked. It was so detailed and realistic that it made me puke. I can't take this anymore, so I closed the game.

I simply can't process what I played earlier. I just can't stand seeing my favorite character get tortured like that. Not even in a game about him. I cried for a few hours afterwards, just thinking about that. Eventually, I snapped and screamed, "HOW THE FUCK CAN ANYONE MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THIS? WHO'S RESPONSIBLE OF THIS?! THINK OF THE GODDAMN CHILDREN!" and I broke my computer as a result.

Minutes after, I accessed the site where they were hosting it.

It wasn't there anymore.

Wait a minute, this sounds a lot like that one fanf-