You Don't Exist

This is the disturbing story that caused me to distance away from anime or even Japanese stuff, after the experience I had, and it still haunts me through this day.

It was 8:30 P.M. in the night. I left my work at a local game shop in the city. I walked to my home. As I arrived, I checked the mailbox to see if there were some crap or something inside.

As I inserted my hand inside the mailbox, I saw something that caught my attention. It was a CD case with no label on it.

Taking a closer look, I opened it and saw a CD-R disc with no title.

I went upstairs to my bedroom and inserted the disc onto my computer, only to find out that something was... not right. The installation process seemed normal. I clicked "Install", prompting the game to start the installation process.

Several minutes later, the computer began to glitch out of control. "What is happening?!" I shouted as it lasted for a full minute before my computer screen went black.

After the screen turned black, it faded. Eventually, the game booted up, revealing that it was a video game.

On closer inspections, the background was just a black void and it creeped me out more. The music playing was the Lavender Town theme, instead of its usual intro music, but more distorted and glitchy. It played throughout the game.

The option only presented was "Load". I had no other choice but to click it. I saw one save file, which had a playtime of 0:00, so I clicked it. Then, I heard a distorted, pixelated laugh upon clicking the file.

The Lavender Town theme still played even with the laugh.

As it loaded, instead of the message to where Tomoya narrates the preamble, it was something else. Something that I now found disturbing.

"......"

"......"

"Why?"

"Why is this happening?"

"After all of those years, I have been robbed of Nagisa's trust, so as Kyou, Fuko, and even Ushio, so as the others. Why should I play fair with them? I was nothing more than a curse. You were nothing more than a curse..."

I was scared out of my mind. I was eventually aware that this game might be a sequel to the first Clannad.

I continued pressing buttons and the next few dialogues were nothing more than "...". Then, there were two choices for me to pick, though there was no question asked.

"Want to go?"

"Want to ignore?"

I picked the first one and the music stopped. There was a black screen that lasted for 8 seconds, and then I heard static bursting out of the game.

It flickered for three times and I saw a blue text formation at the black screen. It said: "There is no way to be."

I gulped in fear as the game was going to a darker tone.

After that strange message, I was now in the game.

Then I noticed something off. Instead of the intro playing like most visual novel games, I was thrusted into the game, skipping the introduction completely.

However, instead of the picture being in the school, the picture was at a graveyard at dead night, to where there was a big gravestone. The Lavender Town theme played again.

The character I was controlling was Tomoya, but he looked sad as his image appeared.

He said, "It was all my fault. Instead of being happy with my family, it went to a tragic end. I lost everything, including Nagisa, Ushio, and even the trust of others."

I teared up a bit. When his image disappeared, I knew that the gravestone had engravings of Ushio and Nagisa who died, but how? I was disturbed more.

His image went back and talked more about the situation. He commented on how his life was ruined by the deaths of Ushio and Nagisa, after they died of illness.

He then said, "There is nothing I can do better. Only the past of me would do better. I was nothing more than a failure."

Then, his image had changed and it creeped me out.

His image was hyper-realistic; his eyes were two black voids, which were crying blood, and his smile was even creepier; he had a deranged look on his face.

There were sets of sharp fangs and his smile stretched at an unnatural length. The image stayed for a good 10 seconds and it took me just two seconds to etched it to my mind for good. Chills began to run around my body.

"I had been a failure, don't you think?" Said Tomoya with a distorted voice.

"No," I shook in horror, "this is not what your usual behaviour is!"

The music became more distorted and it was blaring to my headphones.

The creepy face of Tomoya and the background disappeared. But before that, I was left with three choices.

"Go."

"Never come back."

"Stop."

My hands became clammy and sweaty in fear. I was completely unsure which one of the choices to pick, so I tried to save the game, but there was no "Save" option, making things even stranger.

I clicked the second option, but there was a message popped out. There was a voice. It said, "Don't do that!" Clicking the third option, nothing happened. I had no choice but to pick the first option. Then, I heard a screeching, distorted noise, which it was the laughing sound from earlier, but played backwards.

After three seconds, I was now in the next stage, only this time, I was now in the school. Things were very different...

I was inside Tomoya's classroom, but there were candles at the table. Another dialogue box appeared.

"You will be laid to rest, Ushio and Nagisa."

"Tomoya-kun, what's the matter?" Kyou said.

"..........." Tomoya didn't say anything.

The Lavender town theme played and the picture shifted to students standing in the front of blackboard with the image of Nagisa and Ushio in the blackboard.

I had no idea why these students were mourning in the middle of the school. This was weird. The students were just standing and doing the same thing as them, saying the same thing to Tomoya.

My body felt tired, I shut the computer off, and I went to the washroom to wash my gaunt face. When I looked at the mirror, my reflection was a pixelated version of my own reflection.

Its eyes were black voids and crying with blood, with the same chilling smile as Tomoya from the beginning of the game. Its hair was unkempt and feathered out and its body was purely white. It was very disturbing and I freaked out.

I rubbed my eyes out and that strange reflection of me was gone, but my reflection never appeared. My face became pale, my eyes were tearful, and my body was weak. More tears were streaming down my face. This game was playing a sick little mind game to me.

After that, I immediately noticed that the Lavender Town theme was playing a little slower than usual and it was glitchy, even with the volume lowered.

I was disturbed and I was shivering. My eyes became glassy, frozen, and milky from the fear. My body temperature soared, as if… I was having a fever.

Chilly air began to permeate my house, and I was feeling it. The fear… The fear of that game was going to my body and even my own mind.

The next few hours, I went back to my own computer. I turned the monitor on, only to find out that the game seemed to freeze. There was a black screen.

Even with the mashing of buttons, the black screen never disappeared. I stared at the black screen until forty-five minutes later, when white message appeared, something that I dared to read.

“YOU DON’T EXIST.”

By that, I screamed in terror. The message just stayed there forever and it stayed there. I turned the computer off, but that creepy message was into my own mind.

I had puzzled the odd events of the game. It turned out that the main character, Tomoya, had suffered more tragic fate than what it was. The death of Nagisa and Ushio had caused his life to turn around at the worst ways possible.

The game closed itself off, and suddenly, I saw a virus in my computer, when the antivirus strangely scanned my computer.

It was an unidentifiable virus that wiped not just the game’s data, but every file. I was eventually shocked in complete dismay. The game... was nowhere to be found at the desktop, even if the CD was there. All of my files were gone, including the browser.

The only thing left was a .png file, named “YOU DON’T EXIST”. I clicked at the folder and saw a .png file. What that photo had made me deeply disturbed.

It was a photo of me looking in the mirror inside the washroom, with the same pixelated reflection from earlier, and with those haunting features.

After that experience, I began to stay away from anime and Japanese media as possible, as that experience left a scar to my brain and my life... forever and ever.