Archive of Our Own

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(Sunny)I couldn’t believe it, all of our whining had paid off. For the better part of two weeks, Mari and I were trying to convince mom and dad that I was old enough to stay home while Mari was out. Mari told them she’s fifteen and needs to socialize with her friends (but left out the part that she wanted to go out on a date with Hero alone) while I was trying to be as responsible as possible. Meanwhile, Kel and Hero were doing the same, the original plan was for just Kel and I to hang out, but then we invited Aubrey and Basil. It took some convincing for Kel and I’s parents, Polly seemed to trust Basil a lot more, and then… well Aubrey’s mom kinda grunted, but that evidently meant yes since Aubrey got excited. We were all going to be hanging out this weekend while Mari and Hero were out, a whole night with just the four of us… and we knew what we wanted. See, Hero was gifted this new game for his birthday by a distant relative, it was called Resident Evil or something, but it was supposed to be really scary! The others wanted to go through it since it was October, and they all looked to me, I was the most experienced out of us who played video games, so we decided I was going to play while they watched. We just had to wait for Mari and Hero to leave before Kel busted out the game, they wouldn’t approve of us playing a game way outside our age range…“You got everything?” Mari asked. “Hero and I’s phone number? Everyone’s parents phone number? Emergency services?”“Yes, you taped all those numbers on the fridge Mari” I answered.“Okay, speaking of” Mari began. “Mom made food for you guys, it’s the big container with the red lid, the rest of the stuff is off limits, dad’s thawing some meat for later. Dad also said two cans of soda each, so that’s eight cans total, I counted eleven a moment ago, so if I see two or lower cans left, I’m gonna be upset.”“Yes, I’ll make sure the others don’t drink too much caffeine.” I answered, annoyed. Kel, Aubrey, and Basil were already upstairs in my room waiting on me.“Alright.” Mari began. “Let’s go over this one more time…”“Mari, you’ll smother him like that.” Hero laughed. “Sunny will be fine, we have our phones (he held up his Nokia, I knew Mari had one too) and Sunny’s pretty responsible, aren’t you?”“Yes, yes…” I replied, I started pushing Mari out the door. “You two have a nice night out, I’ll see you later!”“Alright, alright!” Mari said. “Stop pushing, I’m going, I’m going… I love you Sunny, be responsible, I’ll be home around midnight, that’s around six hours, so enjoy…” Mari smiled, she and Hero left.Finally… time to get this started! I went into the kitchen and pulled out the big container mom had left for us, as well as eight cans of soda. I balanced the soda on the container and left towards my room, being careful with them on the stairs (seriously, I never liked these stairs, someone’s gonna fall down these someday…) and quietly entered Mari and I’s room. Kel had already got his PlayStation set up, Aubrey and Basil were looking through his photo album.I set the container down on the floor. “Alright, Mari counted the soda, there’s enough for two cans per person, so make them last. Here’s some food mom made, Mari estimated we have about six hours before she gets home, I doubt we’ll have enough time to finish the whole game… Kel you got it?”“What do you take me for?” Kel smiled, pulling the game from under his shirt. “Hero was so focused on what clothes he was going to wear that he didn’t even notice. He’s a bit silly, Mari wouldn’t even care if he wore a T-shirt and some jeans and they spent the whole day at a fast food place… but Hero’s always trying to look good for Mari.”“I-it’s not too scary… is it?” asked Basil. He was always the timid one, I think he just wants to spend time with us.“I’m sure it isn’t that bad.” Aubrey replied, opening the red container.Mom had made us a huge batch of chicken fingers and divided them into four plastic bags. This was good, cause now we know how much each of us can have… but mom always forgets Basil is vegan… that’s when I noticed a fifth bag with a note.
Dear Sunny, I asked mom this morning about the food, she forgot Basil’s vegan again, so I cooked up these fake chicken fingers for him, the extra bag you can split among the three of you, Basil has a bit more food to compensate. Enjoy – Mari <3
A huge wave a relief washed over me, I was worried Basil would go hungry… wouldn't be much of a host if I let that happened. I started passing out each bag to everyone. Basil read the note attached to his bag.“She didn’t have to go and do that!” he said, but I could hear the joy in his voice.“The remaining bag is for the three of us, you got more food in your bag as a result… we’ll be sure to thank Mari when she gets home. Now, is everything ready?” I look at Kel, who’s set up the system by this point.“Almost!” he smiled, as he got up and turned off the lights. “There, now it’s extra spooky! Better watch out, you might have a hand grab you at some point!”“Do that and you’ll loose your remaining baby teeth!” Aubrey glared at him.I started up the PlayStation, the familiar jingle played before we got to the menu, I was excited. No one but the four of us knew what we were doing, it was like a shared secret that Mari and Hero wouldn’t be part of. It reminded me of the times Kel and I would sneak out early and visit Hobbeez without telling Mari or Hero, but now it’s the four of us.The game started with a guy screaming, a blood splatter, and the title Resident Evil on his eyes. It was impressive, what was the thing that got him? I pressed start and this chilling voice said the title of the game. I was then presented a choice… the guy or the girl.“hmm, which one?” I asked.“Pick the guy! He looked in the opening!” Kel said“He sure screamed like a tough guy… I’d say pick the girl!” Aubrey commentedBasil turned on the light and started reading the manual. “It says here in the manual that the guy is ‘A tough guy who possesses both a strong mentality and great vitality, he has a great advantage with weapons when surrounded by many enemies’ and it says for the girl that ‘She is excellent at using special mechanical devices like lockpicks’ and ‘has a great capacity for holding items, her smell vitality puts her at an immediate disadvantage.”“So basically, either I take more health or more inventory with a lockpick…” I summarized. “I guess this depends on how much I get surrounded… but Jill would allow me access to areas faster… hmm…”Basil continued “Back of the box says you have to pick up whatever you find to defend yourself… says you’ll be fighting zombies, monstrous spiders, mutated snakes, and unknown horrors… but it also says you’ll be exploring hundreds of rooms between a mansion, an underground lair, a graveyard, guesthouse, a garden… so it seems there’s merit to both, either more health to take on monster attacks or more space to use items… oh it does say each character has their own story too!”“hmm…” I pondered, I think I knew who I wanted. “Sorry Kel, but this is my first time playing, I’d rather have access to more rooms and items than more health…”“It’s cool, we’ll just have to play the guy next time!” Kel smiled, he was always happy just to hang out. “Turn off the lights Basil, let’s start!”“Wait, we haven’t even warmed up our food.” Aubrey stated. “Let’s get that done first, I don’t want to miss a second of this!” We warmed up our food, got some blankets, opened our first soda, and once we were all settled, we began.The opening cutscene was chilling, it talked about families being eaten, a whole division of a police team going missing. I heard some shuffling behind me, it was either Aubrey or Basil, but they seemed to be getting nervous. Kel meanwhile laid happy as could be, he wasn’t scared in the slightest, nor was I, I guess this was just cheesy B-movie horror stuff. When the first guy fell down screaming, I heard Aubrey gasp, she acts tough, but she’s a bit of a softy… Kel just giggled at the bad dialog, I’ll admit, I about lost it when Chris yelled ‘no! Don’t go!’ as they just stood around in the field. It then showed us the cast of characters, evidently there were three other people, Berry, Rebecca, and Albert, but unless they were unlockable, I could only play as Jill or Chris.“That was a bit much…” said Basil. “Is this a horror game or an action game? Creepy intro though.”“I heard Aubrey shuffling and whimpering.” Kel smiled. “Seems she’s a bit scared.”“Am not!” Aubrey replied. “Those monsters were nothing! You must have heard wrong!”Then we got to the PlayStation graphics… oh boy, it looked good I guess, but then they started talking, and all four of us laughed.“Stop it! Don’t open that door!” Kel mimicked. “They can not be serious…”“I’m sure the game itself is scary… they just got bad voices.” Basil said optimistically.“Let ME handle this!” Aubrey mimicked. “Chris is our old partner!” she began giggling, I was laughing too.The two (Berry and Jill) went into the next room, I finally got control and oh my god… I’ll be honest, I’ve played some games before with some, interesting controls, but this was by far the weirdest I’ve ever played… I just kept running into the wall.“Uh, Sunny? What’s wrong?” Kel asked. I gave Kel the controller, he started moving. “What the-?Oh my god this is bad, like really, really bad…”“Let me try…” Aubrey took the controller. “Dear god, I can’t seem to stop running into the table… Basil try this!”“Wow” Basil replied after trying the controls. “Yeah, this is… interesting, but maybe that’s part of the challenge? Work around the controls?”I took back the controller and moved around in the room, eventually, after a minute, I began to understand how the controls worked. Up and down would move my character forward and backwards regardless of the camera, and left and right turned them accordingly, I guess it made sense if I was in first person, but here, it was a little finicky. I walked up to Berry and we sat through the cutscene, I then went into the next room and explored, only to be met with my first enemy.The Zombie was eating a man, the sounds were terrifying, when he turned his head, I heard Aubrey whimper. She was tough, but she could also be frightened of scary movies, I guess we all have our own fears. The zombie started coming to me and I realized… I didn’t know how to shoot! How lame is that? I ended up getting bit because I didn’t take the time to figure out how to fight!“Run Sunny!” Kel exclaimed. “Back through the door! Hurry!” I did just that. Berry was in the room checking on the blood when the Zombie came after me, he ended up shooting it. The game was taking pity on new players, but showing them that this game can be dangerous, I’d better learn how to shoot. After the cutscene I began fiddling with the controls until I finally learned how to aim then shoot, I really hope that aiming was a suggestion with these controls.“Sorry guys.” I said. “I forgot to learn how to shoot… seems I have a knife and a gun… I also noticed an ammo count… I’m guessing I can’t shoot if I run out, so we’ll try to use the knife as much as we can.”“Th-that sounds dangerous!” Aubrey replied, a little shaken from that first zombie attack. “What if they attack you? Doesn’t Jill have less health?”“Yeah…” I admitted. “We’re still early on, should we reset and pick Chris?”“Nah.” Kel stated. “We only have so long before Hero and Mari get home, let’s just play with Jill for now, I know you’re an excellent gamer Sunny, I think you can do it!”Wow, well now I have to do good, the others believed in me! After a bit of cutscenes with Berry, he left. I began running out of the room when Basil spoke up.“Hey Sunny, I’ve been using the light of the game to check the manual. See that typewriter? Well you need ink ribbons in order to use it, that’s how you save in this game… but ink ribbons are limited…”“Wait, you mean even saving is limited?” Aubrey asked. “That’s so inconvenient for us given we could hear Mari and Hero at any moment, and on top of that, if you run out, you can’t save!”“Seems that’s part of the challenge.” Kel replied. “Ammo, inventory space, saving… all that’s limited.”“Right…” I said. “So I have to use my gun when I need to, I can’t hoard items… Healing is also limited I noticed, so I should only heal when I’m in need of it, and I should save when I need to… however with Hero and Mari on a date, if they come back early or if we loose track of time and need to shut off the game, it’ll send me back, so I shouldn’t be too sparing with them.”After awhile of playing the game, I started to get a feel for how this game worked. I could safely use the knife on one zombie, but it was better to run if I was surrounded, using the gun to get out of tight placed. Then there were the puzzles, some took discussion between the four of us, others were straight forward, but it seems this game is both a survival horror game and a puzzle game. I found that I could deposit items in a safebox and pick them up later, so that helped with stocking up what I needed for later. I was enjoying myself, it was like all four of us were in this mansion, working together to escape, I felt closer to my friends.Along the way, while going through the mansion, we had some jumpscares like the zombie in the closet (Aubrey and Basil screamed) and the zombie dogs jumping through the window (even Kel yelped) which I had to run since they were fast! I thought we were in business when we got the shotgun, but the ceiling was closing on us… that was until Berry rescued us, which lead to more of this game’s amazing dialogue.“hehe… Jill Sandwich.” Kel giggled, that broke the tension, all of us had been on edge up to this point, it was nice that the game gave us a moment to breathe and laugh.“And there he goes…” Aubrey said. “I’m not totally convinced we should trust Berry… he seems to be hiding something…”We continued through the mansion, killing zombies when we could afford to and solving puzzles together. We got another cutscene with Berry, that seemed to be the running theme of the game, zombies, puzzles, and cutscenes. Berry gave us a powerful weapon that ‘would work especially well on living things’ (great… and all the monsters up til now are undead.) We continued solving puzzles and killing more zombies, trying to figure out where to go when we found a wounded officer, Richard. Somehow there were people alive in this mansion? He was dying, bitten from some snake that was poisonous. Did he mean venomous? Mari taught me snakes and spiders carry venom, but poison was something like ingesting a plant or mushroom. Regardless, he needed help, and fast.“Where are we gonna find Serum?” Aubrey asked. “I don’t remember coming across that at any time.“I guess we have to check places we’ve been.” Basil replied. “Don’t they keep antidotes like that in vials? Like some of the stuff you see in medicine cabinets.”“Hmm, so I guess look for a shelf full of medicine?” Kel asked. “Let’s go deposit some stuff Sunny, we’ll need a free inventory space if we find this serum.”We left back to the safe room, I started to unload some of my stuff, mixing stored herbs, combining bullets I had with the stockpile I gained. When I was done, I left the room, only to have Kel grab my shoulder.“Sunny! Go back!” Kel said.“Why?” I asked.“I thought I saw something!” he replied, so I went back in the room. “There! That shelf! Those look like medicine bottles!” I checked the shelf, and sure enough, right there was serum!“Wow, we would have been stuck on that for hours! Great eye Kel.” Aubrey said, hearing her compliment Kel was rare, but I had to admit, even I didn’t see that.We made our way back to Richard, we were going to give him the serum, but the guy straight up died on us!”“Well that was completely pointless!” Aubrey complained. “He just ended up dying on us! What did we even get out of that?”“We got the serum.” Basil mentioned. “And we got his radio… I’m guessing there was no way to save him, but the game didn’t want us continuing without the serum or the radio…”“Yeah, games do that.” Kel remarked. “That new Pokémon game did that, I needed a ticket for a boat to help a sick captain to give me cut to get into a gym to-”“Okay, okay!” Aubrey interrupted. “I get it, we’ll need the serum… don’t have to go all gamer on me, I’m more of a movie girl.”“You should try Pokémon with Sunny and I” replied Kel. “You too Basil, you guys would love it.”“Maybe later.” Basil replied. “For now, we’ve got this game, I’m guessing we’ll be meeting the giant snake soon… ah… there it is!” I had been continuing while they were discussing Pokémon, by the time they were done, I was already in the boss fight with the giant snake.“Snakes are disgusting!” Aubrey squealed, I looked back only to see her cowering behind her pillow. I guess Aubrey doesn’t like snakes? I’m indifferent, snakes are cool, but they’re dangerous.“Sunny, Berry gave you those acid rounds to deal with living creatures!” Kel remarked. “That doesn’t look like some zombie, I bet you the game was stocking us up for this fight!”I unloaded my acid rounds on this snake, he kept circling me, I had to run! By this point the awful controls had become second nature, and I was able to get around him easily, eventually, we won, but he just… left…“He’s running away! Get him!” Kel yelled.“Music’s gone, I think he’ll be back later.” I replied.“That was scary! I don’t like snakes all that much.” Aubrey added, still hiding behind a pillow.“Unlike spiders, snakes don’t help with my gardening…” Basil replied. “They’ll eat rodents, but they can also bite me… I guess both are venomous, but spiders help me against pests.”Basil’s gardening story reminded me of his earlier mention of monster spiders. I was hoping it was just a single boss and not multiple spiders.We eventually made our way through the mansion, solving more puzzles until we got these three crests, we had been collecting them before, but now we had all four, they opened the way to the game’s guesthouse. On the way, we were given a huge amount of herbs… which I didn’t exactly find comforting. So far we had green and red herbs, which, to explain, green mixed with red was a full heal, three greens would do the same, but red can’t be used alone… so I was surprised we now had blue herbs.“Blue?” Kel asked. “What do they do?”“Let me check.” I said, picking the check option. “It seems to heal poison?”“Wait, so why the serum?” Aubrey asked. “If we could just use herbs?“Different poison?” Basil suggested. “I’m not sure, video game logic I guess.”I had just exited the menu when Richard’s radio had Brad trying to contact us, but unfortunately, he couldn’t hear us. So we decided to continue to the guesthouse. Along the way, we drained a moat and were immediately attacked by monster (regular sized) snakes.“SNAKES!” Aubrey screamed. “Kill them!”“Wait, they’re slow…” Kel remarked. “Just run away, they can’t get you.”I decided to follow Kel’s advice and just run away, we kept on going, finding more and more blue herbs, which unnerved me. I really, really hoped the snakes were the things that were venomous, since the only other creature I knew of that had venom… no I didn’t even want to think about it! We finally made it to the guesthouse, there we encountered the most lovely, nightmarish music I had ever heard.“I’m scared… I don’t like this music.” Aubrey stated, which it’s rare for her to admit she’s scared.“Yeah, this music is making me nervous too.” Kel agreed, which was rare for him to agree with Aubrey.We went through the double red doors in the guest house… and I froze. I felt my heart hammer against my chest, my sweat became cold, and I began shaking. Above my character was a monster sized spider. When I heard Basil say they were in the game, I was nervous, but I felt like I could handle it, or that it was a single boss… but seeing it now? The way it moved… the way it crawled… I couldn’t…“Aaaaahhhhhhh!” I heard Aubrey shriek. “Sunny! kill it! It’s so creepy!”“Sunny? Why aren’t you moving?” Kel asked. “Oh no… it’s the spider… you’re just like Hero! Um… pause the game!” I couldn’t move, I just stared as the spider got closer to me, Kel reached over and paused the game for me. Luckily the spider wasn’t on the pause menu, but I knew it was there, waiting for me…“Hey Sunny… you okay?” Basil asked. “It’s just a video game, there’s no spiders in the room… just pretend it’s a zombie.”“If you’re too scared… maybe we should stop?” Aubrey offered, which I so desperately wanted to…“Yeah… maybe we could just… I don’t know, hang out?” Kel replied, but I could hear the disappointment in this voice. My friends were counting on me to play the game. I tried to breathe, deep breaths, this was just a game, there wasn’t a spider in the room with me, I had to calm down and focus on the task at hand.“I’m… I’m okay… it’s like Basil said… just a game…” I told myself more than the others.“You sure?” Kel said. “You don’t have to do this Sunny… we can switch to a movie or-”“I’m fine.” I said. “I’m totally fine, I just have to calm down and focus.”“We’re here for you Sunny.” Aubrey said. “If you’re sure, then we’ll be behind you.”“okay… let’s do this.” I unpaused the game and unloaded my shotgun into the monster spider’s face… it took some running and shooting, but eventually it died. I was relieved… for about five seconds before the babies burst out of the spider (I never heard Aubrey shriek so loudly… I don’t think I’ve ever jumped back from a video game either) and then came another spider along the hallway, so I had another big one and a bunch of tiny ones to deal with… well, this is it… this is how I die… Mari will come home to a husk of a brother! This time I was the one to pause, I had to stop and breathe a bit.“Sunny… are you sure-” Basil began.“I’m fine.” I began. “Listen, thank you… really… I’m… I’m not good with spiders, and this is really, really scary, but I can do this… just give me a moment…” after a minute, I unpaused. I was able to kill the big spider and step on the small ones.Good news, it seems the game was taking mercy on me… it was only the two spiders, thank god. We continued through the guesthouse, past some giant (like head sized) bees, which we then got commentary from Basil about how bees help pollinate flowers. We read a document about a large plant and a virus, and made our way down into a flooded containment room? Or was it a lab? Either ways, that’s when the sharks arrived.“Oh fun, sharks!” Aubrey remarked. “I assume they’re zombie sharks or something…”“That’s just overkill.” Kel said. “Sharks are already killers, why make them zombies?”“To go after humans… specifically?” Basil suggested. After de-flooding the containment area and watching the sharks die, we headed back up. We eventually made our way into a giant room with a large monstrous plant, the Plant 42 we had just learned about.“Basil what is that?” Aubrey asked.“Um… a giant monstrous Basil plant!” Basil joked, we all laughed. Luckily this one was more stationary that the snake, after some shooting, it grabbed us, but Berry saved us with a flame thrower. After the cutscene, we made our way out of the guesthouse only to run into Wesker… which I totally forgot existed, but somehow he’s still alive! He mentioned the locked rooms in the mansion, which I guess was where we needed to go next.“You know… I just thought of something.” Kel said. “Don’t police bust down doors all the time? What’s to stop us from doing that?”“Hey, you’re right!” Aubrey stated. “Why can’t we just bust down doors!”“Video game logic.” Basil said. “If we could do that, I don’t think this game would be long or interesting as it is.”They were discussing video games all the way back to the mansion. However, when I got to the door, the screen changed to show something was chasing us. When it got to the door, Aubrey screamed, it was some sort of weird lizard monster! It didn’t look too friendly, I think it was finally time to switch to the shotgun!“Ah… great… lizard monsters…” Kel replied. “My favorite.”“Mine too.” said Hero, turning on the lights.We all turned towards our door. standing in our bedroom doorway was my sister Mari along with Hero, It couldn’t have been six hours already… could it? both of them didn’t look happy or look like they enjoyed lizards all that much. We had been so engrossed in the game and our video game discussion that we didn’t hear the front door open.“Hero! Mari!” Kel exclaimed, I looked over to see my sister… I didn’t like the expression she had. “Uh… it’s only ten… what… what are you guys…”“We had a fun night out.” Mari said, with some strain in her voice. “We figured we would spend the rest of the time at home downstairs, so we came back to check up on you… but we heard a scream, came upstarts and found you guys playing… I don’t even know…”“It’s a game a relative got me.” Hero answered. “It’s rated M and is supposed to be on my desk back home… isn’t it Kel?” Kel looked down, we all did, we were having so much fun, this had been the best night, and now it was over.“We’re sorry…” I explained. “We just wanted to have a fun night and this seemed like a good game to try…”“Well now you’re all going to have nightmares!” Mari replied. “I don’t suppose the two of you are looking forward to being walked home in the dark are you?” Aubrey and Basil looked unnerved, tears in their eyes.“I’m disappointing in you guys.” Hero said. “This was a huge trust allowing the four of you to stay home by yourselves. I can’t believe you would go behind our backs and do something like this!”“I am too…” Mari added. “I think Sunny and Kel should do chores around the house for awhile.” She looked at Aubrey and Basil, “I can’t really punish the two of you, but I’ll find something to make sure you’ve learned your lesson.”Something was off about all of this, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt I was missing an important detail. I’m not sure why, but I reviewed their words in my head… wait… Mari didn’t mention anything about telling our parents! Why wouldn’t she… oh! Of course! I had an idea, this was a gamble, but we were having so much fun I had to try for it.I calmed down and looked at them. “I know we’re in trouble Mari, I know you’re disappointed in us Hero. We’re very sorry… but… can we at least finish the game?”“I’m sorry?” Mari asked, as if I were speaking another language. “You think we’re just gonna let you finish that game? Absolutely not! We’re going to put everything away and we’re going to go downstairs and read! You four are in so much trouble, I can’t even think straight.”“Fine…” I replied, getting ready to throw out my gamble. “I guess when mom and dad get home we’ll have to face the music… right? Kel and I won’t be trusted to stay home by ourselves anymore will we? I guess that means you’ll have to stay home with me from now on, right?”I’m not sure if the others figured out what I was doing, I was looking down, but I knew Mari had put the pieces together. I could see the whites of her eyes as she realized I caught onto her ploy of not telling mom and dad.“You… you won’t be able to have these sleepovers if you do!” Mari said, though I could hear the panic in her voice. “You guys ought to be punished, but not that harshly.”“Yes, I agree, you said we’d do chores and you’d figure something out for Basil and Aubrey.” I reminded her. “But we want to finish the game, if you won’t let us do that… then I’m telling mom and dad what we’ve been up to. You know what’ll happen if I do.”“Y-you wouldn’t-” Mari began. She had this look of absolute shock, I could see Hero’s face go pale out of the corner of my eye, the room was silent, everyone knew what I was doing. This had become a battle between Mari and I, we both had something on the line here. The four of us would never be allowed to have a sleepover again if mom and dad found out we broke the rules and played an M rated game. But Mari and Hero wouldn’t be able to go out on dates alone if Kel or I needed babysitting. They loved watching us, but mom and dad sometimes had nights out, I assumed Mari and Hero needed nights out alone as well. I was willing to take Mari’s punishment, but I wanted to beat this game!“This game has been so much fun” I replied. “We’ve been working together, solving puzzles, fighting monsters. Yes, it’s scary, but in a good way. I’m not asking for much, we’re still willing to take your punishment, but we just want to finish the game! And I’m willing to gamble our sleepovers against your dates!”You could feel the tension in the air, it seemed like everyone had held their breath. Then, Mari started to laugh, like she just got some joke… I couldn’t tell if the laugh was good or bad, but I didn’t let it show.“You’ve grown up so much Sunny.” She smiled. “Alright, you got a deal, but Hero and I will be in here to watch you, after all, it is an M rated game, if there’s anything I think you kids shouldn’t see, we’re done. Let me see the back of the box Basil.” Basil gave her the case, his hands shaking. “hmm… ‘animated blood & gore, animated violence…’ that doesn’t seem too awful… all I see right now is ‘you are dead’ with blood.I looked over, I forgot to pause… I was so startled by what happened I didn’t even hear the lizard man kill my character. I’ve been saving pretty frequently, so I think I just lost a minute at best. But it was still annoying that I had died, I was lucky so far… I think it’s fair to say this wasn’t my fault though.“Well Hero” Mari began. “We should grab a drink and join in on this… I can’t believe Sunny learned that skill from me… breaking the rules and getting away with it…“S-sure…” Hero said, following Mari downstairs.“Sunny! I can’t believe you did that!” Aubrey whispered. “I’ve never seen Mari look so… scary!”“That was so awesome!” Kel complimented. “I could see Hero’s look of terror when you threatened his alone time with Mari.”“At least it all worked out right?” Basil said, nervously. “I’m not looking forward to this punishment, but we’re not going to get in trouble with your parents!”Mari and Hero came back up after a bit, each with a soda in hand, Mari sat closest to Aubrey and Basil, I think she could tell from the scream and the shaky hands they needed her, Hero sat beside Kel and Mari.“Oh scoot back a bit you two, mom and dad always said it’s bad to sit near the T.V.” Mari requested. We obliged, not wanting to press our luck any farther. I can’t believe this, my gamble actually paid off, we were going to finish the game, and now we had Mari and Hero to help us.Good news, they lizard monsters only needed four shotgun blasts and made a death noise, which was much easier than looking at a zombie for the blood pool. Bad news? The zombies were replaced by the lizard dudes, and those guys ran. This meant my pistol and my knife were glorified paperweights, the shotgun was now the defacto main weapon, and it took four blasts at minimum to take these guys down.“I’m not seeing much blood.” Hero remarked. “Only green explosions from those lizard guys.”“There were zombies earlier.” Kel replied. “While Sunny’s backtracking, let’s catch you two up to speed.Kel, Aubrey, and Basil took turns telling them all the horrors up to now, how we were searching for Bravo Team (or what’s left of them) how we fought the giant snake, the difficult puzzles, the keys (I hated whoever made keys a thing) the giant spiders (I heard Hero gasp) all while I was going through the mansion again… there were so many lizard dudes, I was thankful I stocked up on shotgun shells, otherwise I’d be out of luck! I ended up getting the Colt Python, which was just another pistol, but whatever, anything to save my shotgun bullets… that is until I found it two shot the lizard dudes!“Woah! Sunny that gun is powerful!” Kel remarked.“Yeah, which means I’m gonna need it later, I’d better stick to the shotgun.” I replied.“Good thinking…” Mari responded. “Very resourceful… this game is called Resident Evil? And you play as this girl?”“Or the guy on the cover” Kel answered. “He’s got more health, but she’s got extra inventory and a lockpick… now that we’ve been playing, I can say the guy must be hard mode even with the extra health, I can’t imagine having two less inventory slots.”“Hmm… interesting…” Mari said, I felt a happy sensation spread through me, I think Mari was interested in this game. Maybe she would get it… or maybe there are more than one and we would be able to play the second… at the very least if she and Hero liked this enough, they might forget about punishing us! These were the happy thoughts I had going through me when I entered the dog hallway, only to have a monster spider drop on me. I don’t know who screamed more, Aubrey, Hero, and me… but I did what any sane person would do… I paused the game.I sat there, I thought I was done with the spiders, I was so happy at first, only to have them come back and jumpscare me. I figured Mari wasn’t going to let me play when I had a panic attack every time a spider was on screen. But she scooted up to me and started rubbing my back.“It's hard to focus when you're all riled up. Remember to take a deep breath…” she said. She was encouraging me to continue! I took a deep breath like she said, hearing her comfort me was enough to calm me down. I had fought these monsters before, this one just surprised me. I unpaused the game and focused on the task, killing this spider, which I successfully did.“Uh, just a warning Hero, the big spider will burst into-” Kel began, but it was too late, all the tiny spiders came running out and Hero nearly left the room before Mari calmed him down, half laughing, half comforting. She’s a really good girlfriend for him, I guess it’s thanks to me that she knows what it’s like to take care of someone who’s deathly afraid of spiders… yay?After more backtracking and new area tracking, we made our way to a small room (eliminating half the population of lizard people in the process) only to have our good old friend the giant snake come back. This time he definitely looked undead or on deaths door, patches of skin were missing.“It’s back!” Aubrey shrieked. “Kill it! Kill it!” I was beginning to think Aubrey loved snakes as much as I loved spiders, however she didn’t freeze up like Hero and I, so maybe it’s just a slight fear. The acid rounds from my grenade launcher worked like last time and melted the monster into a puddle of blue ooze. That’s when a cutscene began. I smiled, I had a sense that the others were too, because this was Mari and Hero’s first experience with the voice direction in this game.“Wow… you were not kidding when you said it was bad.” Hero remarked“Ah yes, it’s dark down there, so why don’t you go check it out alone.” Mari said, with a smile. “These are supposed to be elite police officers? Reminds me of how incompetent our police force is…”“Our police force isn’t that bad.” Hero replied.“Hero… I’m half convinced Faraway Police couldn’t even solve a theft crime, let alone murders or cover ups like in this game!” Mari responded.So good news, we were back to zombies, bad news, more backtracking. I swear, I’m going to dream this exact mansion in my dreams, down to the tiniest detail. Regardless, Mari didn’t seem bothered by the blood, saying it ‘wasn’t that bad’ which was fine, I didn’t want her suddenly deciding now to end it, even if I had leverage against her. By this point, going back and forth from one side of the mansion to the other had become a huge chore, I had knifed and gunned down most of the zombies by this point, so there wasn’t even anything to do… Finally, and I do mean finally, after going back and forth, we got underground, where Berry was waiting for us. He gave us the choice of going with him or leaving him behind.“Wait, as in he’ll stick around?” Aubrey asked. “Like what any sane person would do?”“Looks like it… but do we trust him?” asked Basil.“Guy saved us like… once? Twice? He’s cool, but he doesn’t protect us…” Kel replied. “Still, I like the guy, so I vote yes.”“I vote no.” Aubrey replied. “He’s been acting suspicious, keeps leaving us rather than sticking with us, and he dropped that rope for a minute… I’m not sure about this.”“Mari and I just popped in, so we’ll abstain.” Hero said.“Speak for yourself… I’d say be cautious… this guy does seem off.” Mari suggested.“I’m not sure, I’d say Kel’s right.” Basil replied. “He can’t be all that bad…”“Ah… thanks guys… 50/50 split… especially you Hero.” I commented, Hero just smiled. “Let’s see… we did just save… unless this is one of those games that have multiple endings… it has two stories so I wouldn’t be surprised. That said… I’m tired of us being the only one pulling our weight, so I’m siding with Kel and Basil.”The game then asked if I wanted him to go first. Which naturally, sparked another debate.“He could lead us into a trap.” Aubrey mentioned.“Or he could shoot us in the back.” Basil said.“Didn’t you say he couldn’t be all that bad? Don’t swap sides Basil!” Kel complained.“Honestly, I’d rather see someone I couldn’t trust” Mari said.“hmm… now don’t take this the wrong way” Hero began. “But if he’s going with us and he’s a good guy, he might get killed, he could also protect us from something behind us.”“Yeah… you’re right.” said Mari. Still… I guess I’ll abstain this time… go for it little brother.”I chose to have him follow rather than lead, I figured I’d rather have my allies behind me covering my back than in front. This paid off when he killed a lizard man… hey, four shotgun shells I got to keep. We reached another officer, he looked worse for wear, his name was Enrico, he revealed that someone among us was a traitor and that Umbrella had plotted everything, he then got shot! I heard Kel gasp (monsters he could handle… but surprise death he gasped at?) while the others were whispering.“So that proved Berry’s innocence, he was with us…” Basil said. “Had he not come along we would have suspected him… but now he has an alibi.”“Yeah… I guess you’re right.” Aubrey admitted. “Still… who else could it be?”“Wesker!” Kel said. “Our commanding officer! He’s the only one left… it couldn’t be Chris unless the other story is wildly different!”“You’re forgetting Rebecca.” Aubrey mentioned, which to be fair, I forgot she existed. “But still, that’s a good point, we haven’t even seen Wesker since the guesthouse before Mari and Hero joined.“We’ll have to keep going to find out more.” I said opening the door. “oh fun… lizard men… Kel and Hero’s favorite.” we all laughed, I shot the lizard man dead.At least the lizard men were a sign that I was going the right way… tougher enemies typically meant later areas, at least that’s how it worked in Mari’s JRPG video games she played. I dispatched what I could, only to get chased by a boulder halfway through. I didn’t need Kel, Aubrey and Basil yelling RUN! With Mari and Hero telling them to settle down to know that boulder meant instant death… I charged down the hallway and maneuvered my way to the door.“I’m surprised you did that with those controls!” Kel exclaimed.“what’s wrong with the controller?” Hero asked.“Oh, nothing, but um… Sunny can you give Hero the controller for a second?” Kel asked. I did, Hero started running into a wall.“Oh god… oh god… wow, Mari check this out.” He passed the controller to Mari.“Wow… hmm… oh!” Mari started walking normally. “Oh I see, forward and backward based on the character’s direction, and left and right turn… kinda like a tank.”“Wow Mari, you must play a lot of games!” Basil exclaimed. “Guess we know where Sunny got it from.”“Mmm… so that’s how you aim… Ah, sorry.” Mari gave me back the controller. I knew exactly what she was doing and I had a feeling we’d get to watch her play Chris’s story at another time. “This is Sunny’s game… but I have to say, I’m very interested in this game.”“Ooh… maybe next time you guys could play at our house with Mari playing!” Kel said, I sensed he overplayed his hand though.“Ahem, we weren’t supposed to be playing this in the first place, now were we?” Mari said, Kel looked down, but then Mari continued. “Though, I guess if this isn’t that bad, we could try it out and let it be our little secret.” That seemed to get Kel’s spirits up, Mari knew exactly how to Hero’s little brother smile. So, there was a possibility Mari would play Chris’s story next time… I was looking forward to seeing that.In about twenty seconds I really wish it was Mari playing because as I opened up the double doors, the music got intense, only for me to find the mother of all giant spiders! I could hear Hero backing away behind Mari. Mari didn’t laugh or call him less of a man, she knew exactly how spiders made him feel.“Calm down Hero, it’s just a video game… there’s no real spider in here…” she reassured him. “Man, I swear your fear is only getting worse… maybe it’s time to seek professional help… or exposure therapy!” Nevermind, I take it back, Mari knew exactly how to torment him, though I knew she was just kidding.“E-Exposure therapy? What’s that?” Hero asked.“It means she’ll buy you a pet spider!” Kel said. “and you’ll get to feed it and take care of it and let it crawl around on your-”I paused, I was trying to be brave with the large spider on the T.V. but I could not when I imagined a hoard of spiders crawling all over me. I kinda curled into the fetal position as I tried to calm down… I was somewhat aware of Mari scolding Kel (even though it was her fault) for putting both Hero (I couldn’t hear him, so I assumed he froze up too) and I into this state. After what seemed like forever, I finally got my nerve to fight the monster. It was tougher than the regular, but still horrifyingly sized spiders. When it finally died (and twitched on the floor… ugh…) I was able to pick up the item inside and work on the door.Good news, no more spiders (please? No more?)… bad news… the bolder happened again (seriously? I’m going to have dreams about being chased by large boulders too!) but that was mostly it, beyond that, it was puzzle time, we all studied the map and worked out where to go and we eventually found the underground lab beneath the fountain. Now we had zombies again, this time in lab coats, along with zombies who were…“Is he…?” Aubrey began, but Hero cut her off.“Alright! Mari… what do we think about this? Too much?” We started to protest, but Mari just held up her hand.“Are you guy mature enough to not giggle and laugh? We’ve been pretty lenient but the back of the box said nothing about naked zombies” Mari asked.“Those things are creepy.” stated Kel. “Something about them not having clothes… I could believe the clothed zombies were people that got bit… but these things…”“Could be a lab experiment.” I stated. “Umbrella has been mentioned in documents… maybe this is where they made these monsters?”“T-to answer your question Mari, yes we can be mature” Aubrey stated. “I was just caught off guard… but there isn’t much detail in these video games… it’s all a bunch of blocks and shapes.”“God, it doesn’t even sound like the others!” Basil noticed, as I was attacking it with the knife. He was right, unlike the previous zombies, these had a higher pitch… it was like Kel said… something unnatural.“It seems the boys don’t even care.” Hero mentioned. “Aubrey, you say your fine… what do you think Mari?”Mari pondered for a bit, I got nervous. “I think… as long as they don’t start giggling like a bunch of children. Aubrey makes a good point, they’re not detailed, still, we’re pushing it. But I’m calling this the limit… anything more than this, and we’re done.” We all agreed, and I really, really hoped it didn’t get more… M rated than this. As if on cue, the room with four of these monsters had a poster of a lady like what you’d see on those sports magazines at the store… Mari decided to ignore it, I could tell she was fighting her inner ‘big responsible sister’ to allow us to finish, as part of our agreement… or perhaps she wanted to play the game and didn’t want to look like a hypocrite, she wasn’t 17 yet, nor was Hero… wait who even gifted him an M rated game? We eventually found a film that allowed us to see all the monsters… along with their names.“There were dogs? Nooooooo!” Hero said sadly.“The shark was called Neptune? Laaaame.” Aubrey commented.“Ah, so the lizard men were called Hunters…” I remarked.“T-Tyrant… we haven’t seen that… that looks scary!” Basil said, nervous.“I knew it! Wesker! Look there he is!” Kel pointed. Right there was Albert Wesker, our traitor of a police officer.In the next area, we discovered a new monster. I’m actually impressed, this far in and they’re not reusing enemies! In Mari’s JRPG games they typically recolor enemies and call it a day. But here, we have... what looked like the Hunters with extra limbs climbing the ceilings… I have to aim up at them before they got to me, but otherwise they weren’t too hard, still I didn’t expect to see non-spider enemies crawling on the ceiling after me.Eventually we found Chris, he was locked in a holding cell, no doubt by our traitorous Wesker. We couldn’t open the door to save him, so we had to leave him, at least he’d be safe in there… I wonder how the game would have changed if we played Chris. Would we have been in that cage? Regardless, we had to continue, we eventually got to a lift, only for Berry to join us. We took the lift up to find Wesker at the end of the hall, Berry pointed his gun at us… we’d been double crossed. Wesker revealed he had been blackmailing Berry by threatening his wife and kids if he didn’t follow Wesker’s orders. Wesker ordered Berry to leave, he then explained that he intended to become in charge of Umbrella, he was about to show us the Tyrant when all of a sudden Berry came back and saved us!“Let’s go Berry!” cheered Kel.Berry mentioned that we had to stop Tyrant, I think we were getting towards the end. We entered the room Wesker was guarding, and there he was, he looked big and scary. The cutscene played, Berry must have tried to check out how to kill the monster when he accidentally released it. The Tyrant thanked him by sliding his razor sharp claws into him and throwing him against the wall.“BERRY!” Kel shouted, I had a feeling he grew attached to Berry.“That monster!” Aubrey added.The fight began. Tyrant was thankfully slow, I just had to unload my weapons on him, he defiantly ate the bullets like a sponger.“Careful Sunny!” Basil said. “I’d imagine if you get hit, he might kill you instantly, or take out a lot of health!”It was a somewhat long battle, but eventually, the Tyrant fell. Jill checked on Berry, who was somehow alive (Kel was very happy about that) we started to leave, when we found Wesker triggered the self destruct button. We had to escape, Berry went one way while I went to go pick up Chris. We battled our way past zombies, Brad was helicoptering, checking for anyone left there, we picked up a battery, when all of a sudden, monsters were coming, Chris said he and Berry would take care of it, but a timer appeared. That timer instantly made everyone (even Hero and Mari) freak, we had a limited amount of time to get out of here. I picked up the flair and let Brad know to pick us up. This would have been fine… but the Tyrant came back!“NO! He’s back!” Aubrey yelled. “I thought you killed him!”“This whole place is wide open!” Basil said. “Be careful Sunny!”Oh avoiding him was not easy this time, I had to run nearly the entire helipad just to turn and shoot him once. I got scraped a couple of times, I had to use my last herbs. I could feel the energy in the room, everyone was holding their breath, gasping at every hit I took. Eventually, Brad dropped a rocket launcher (how he did that while flying I didn’t question) telling me to finish off the monster with that. I dashed for the rocket. I had four rockets, four chances to finish this once and for all. I ran to the other side of the helipad, aimed at the monster, I took half a moment to hold my breath… and I fired.The Tyrant exploded… and so did the whole bedroom! I was instantly hugged by Kel, I heard Aubrey and Basil cheering loudly, as well as Hero and Mari too. I don’t think I felt so happy finishing a video game with everyone, it was an experience I’ll never forget. The credits rolled, I got my total clear time, and I saved the game. A record of this wonderful night.“That was amazing Sunny!” Kel said. “That game was… wow… I just… wow!”“It was very scary at times.” Aubrey said. “But I loved every moment of it!“I’m so glad I got to spend the night with you all!” Basil cheered. “This was super fun!”“Those parts where you braved your fears was impressive little brother.” Mari observed. “Maybe this wasn’t such a bad game afterall.“D-does that mean?” Kel started.“Let’s not get a hold of ourselves Kel.” Hero said. “You took my game, you all planned this out for weeks, and played something you shouldn’t have, and most of all, lied to us.” We all looked down… we were still in trouble.“Oh lighten up Hero.” Mari said. “This was a fun experience for them, we were just as rebellious at their age too… they broke the rules, sure… but don’t you think we could let this slide? I’d be interested in playing the other story myself. Perhaps they could watch?“Yeah! That would be so cool!” we all cried. “Come on Hero!”“Alright… alright…” He said. “That was pretty cool… come on, let’s get this put up, it doesn’t matter how awesome it was if we all get caught.”We worked together to pick everything up. Hero hid the game in his hoodie, Mari and I re-hooked the PlayStation downstairs so that mom and dad wouldn’t have to wonder why it was in our room. By this point, they’d be home in an hour, Aubrey and Basil were tired too.“I’ll walk them all home.” Hero said. “That was a wonderful night out and a fun night here, I’m glad we came back Mari.”“Me too.” she said, then she kissed him, Kel and I looked away, Aubrey gasped, Basil just smiled. I’ll never understand why teens and adults kiss, it seems gross. Mari just smiled as Hero looked red in the face. “Have a good night Hero, get these three home and in bed okay?”“O-Okay…” He said. “C-come on you guys, let’s go.” They all left, leaving just Mari and I.“Thanks Mari.” I said. “For letting us finish the game. I wouldn’t have really told mom and dad…”“I know.” she replied. “That was pretty gutsy of you to do, I figured I’d reward your bravery, You don’t tend to speak as much as our friends, so I wanted to reward you for doing so. I think I’ll check out that game myself, maybe see if there are others too.”“I’d love to see you play.” I added, after which I yawned, I didn’t know how tired I was.“Looks like that game was exhausting.” Mari smiled. “Come on, up to bed, let’s brush our teeth okay?”Mari and I brushed, she took some clothes into the bathroom while I changed in our room. I was already laying on my bed when she came in with her pajamas on.“Alright, now it’s straight to bed.” she said, getting in her bed. “Let’s try not to have any nightmares okay? We gotta sell it that you were all good children tonight. Got it?“Okay…” I said, sleep was starting to overtake me. “I love you Mari.”“I love you too Sunny… goodnight.” she replied.“goodnight…” I muttered, and like that, I fell asleep.