I can’t take it anymore “, I said to the walls surrounding me. Tears were flowing down my cheeks. I wanted the guilt that I experienced earlier that day, to go away. “I can’t take it anymore.”
My name is Alexander. I’m 14 years old and now live with my grandparents after the death of my mom, dad, brother and sister 4 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice and caring people, but sometimes I still wish
Loz
my family would still be here. And what will happen to me when they die? Will I go to an orphanage or… Or, I don’t know.
It’s funny how some things go. The one day, you want your annoying brother and sister to just disappear from the face of the earth, but the other day, when they’re actually gone, you want them to come back more than anything in the world. I still regret the fights we had from time to time, even if they didn’t last longer than 4 minutes. But now…
I was staring into a void. It was raining, I noticed. Oh no, there come the tears again. A distraction, that’s what I needed. I turned my computer on, logged in and went on the Internet to look for some good ROM-hacks that I could play on my SNES emulator.
Loz5
I had a lot of emulators and I still played on each and single one of them, but the one I keep coming back to, was my ZSNES, probably the most famous SNES emulator among all of them.
When I was scrolling through the list of hacks, I found a particular one that caught my interest somehow, called: “A link to your past”. I took a quick look at the description and noticed that this hack was the work of one of my favorite ROM-hack developers with the username: Azerty889.
The username always seemed oddly familiar to me and each time when it seemed that I would be able to figure out why I recognized this username, it would just slip out of my head and I’d be back at square one.
I was skimming the text in the description, when I suddenly read: “Dedicated to Alexander”. It shocked me at first, but I rationalized it afterwards: He probably knew my name because I had played every single one of his hacks and always left positive commentary afterwards. He had most likely noticed the constantly reoccurring nickname and checked my profile page where he must have seen my first name. Maybe he wasn’t even talking about me, but about someone else, a close friend or a relative or something, with the same name.
I shook it of as a coincidence and downloaded the ROM without any more hesitation. A feeling of sudden impatience struck me. This guy truly makes the best hacks out there. Instead of just making the game harder by adding spikes, bottomless pits or unfair enemy placement, he actually adds new items, areas, secrets and sometimes even alters the storyline. There is not a single ROM-hack he ever made out there that disappointed me even in the slightest.
I downloaded “A link to your past” and booted up my ZSNES, eager to see what masterpiece I was about to play. The title screen wasn’t different: The three pieces of the Triforce were slowly floating towards each other to then fuse, with the epic title music starting to play directly afterwards. The sword impaled the Z and I pressed start.
Link woke up in his house at night end gets told by his uncle to stay in bed. That’s how it started and if you’ve ever played the game you know how the hack continued. A feeling of disappointment came up as nothing in the game was altered. No new items or areas. Not even the slightest bit of the storyline changed. The only difference was that the characters referred to me as “Alexander”, despite me having chosen for the name “Link”. But that seemed more of like a glitch, instead of an actual change
When I finally beat the third boss, Moldorm, though, I noticed something strange on the back wall. Writing. I ignored the last of the three pendants you’re supposed to collect in the game. I went up to the wall and used the “book of Mudora” on it. Link translated the Hylian characters as: “A seemingly indestructible obstruction along the way can easily be removed by making good use of the combination between speed and power.”
I didn’t know what this meant, so I ignored it, but still kept it in the back of my head. This could be of some importance later on in the game.
I once again continued my quest quicker than I expected, which is not a surprise though, because I had already completed the original game several times. And since this was basically the same thing I didn’t have any problem finding my way. Possible commentary that I could post was roaming through my head: “It was disappointing.”, “You could have done much better.”, “The result was sub par.” All these comments seemed so rude. And if there’s one thing I don’t like to be, it’s being rude.
I was on my way to the palace of darkness, when my adventure suddenly came to a hold. A rock was blocking a side path. My first reaction was obviously to try and pick it up with the “Titan’s mitt”, but… Nothing. Link did the animation he usually does when he can’t pick up an item. I tried bombing it, using the dash attack that Link learned to perform with the “Pegasus boots”. And I even got so desperate, I tried using the bow and arrow, the boomerang and even the candle to light it on fire. Nothing, the rock wouldn’t budge.
Eventually I remembered the weird text. This certainly was “a seemingly indestructible obstruction”. But I still hadn’t figured out what the cryptic message meant. Power was of course the “Titan’s mitt” and speed the… The “Pegasus boots”. But how was I supposed to combine the two.
I tried dashing into it first and trying to pick it up afterwards. It didn’t work. I tried it the other way around, but I got the same result. I then used them simultaneously by dashing into it and right as I was about to bump into the rock picking it up. I was surprised to actually see it work. Now that the boulder was out of the way, I went down the path.
I ended up in an open field, surrounded by trees. In the middle I saw a character. She looked like a young girl, long blonde hair. She was just standing there. As soon as she came in eyesight though, Link ran towards her with sword in hand, uncontrollable. And right as he was about to strike her, the screen faded to black and the loud scream of a girl in agony could be heard. Link was lying in his bed like in the beginning of the game and a he stood up I couldn’t help but notice the red stain on his sword.
I don’t know why, but I checked my inventory. There were two new items: a note and a bottle, filled with a brown liquid. I read the note first and it said: “Happy birthday, dad. I made you some of the chocolate milk you love to drink. Love, Mary” I couldn’t help but laugh, because of how ridiculous it sounded. What did this mean? I took a deep breath and continued my adventure.
I completed the first and second dungeon of the dark world with almost no effort. I had kind of forgotten about the troubling event, when I was suddenly reminded. I was just destroying some bushes hoping to get some extra hearts until a hole appeared beneath one of them and I fell in. I landed on a character, who started scolding me for disturbing his sleep. He then pulled a dagger and threatened to stab me. I was confused as to why the character wanted me dead, but he quickly explained.
“You,” he began his sentence, “you killed her!” I was given an choice. I could choose between saying: “What are you talking about?” and “Yes, I killed her!”. I chose the first option to prevent him from killing me, but he only responded with: “I don’t believe you!” I then got the same options and picked the second one this time. The man stuttered something I couldn’t make out followed by him backing off. I tried approaching the man but he kept running away. It didn’t take me long to figure out this puzzle. I went to my inventory, took the chocolate milk and used it. To my surprise I dropped the chocolate milk and the note, instead of handing it over to the man. And whenever I attempted to pick it up again, Link would just say to himself: "I don't need this anymore. It'll fulfill its purpose..." I didn't know what he meant, but I did know that he was up to no good. Because this room didn't hold any purpose to me anymore whatsoever, I ventured down into a cavern.
Inside the cavern there was a boy. I knew what was coming up, but instead of just standing there the boy ran away. Link started to heavily pursuit him and they ran around in circles for a while. Again I couldn’t control my character. Eventually the boy fell on the ground and begged for mercy. Link, however, knew no mercy. He raised his sword. And the screen faded to black with one last scream being heard.
Link was lying in the same cavern I found the man before, only now the man lied on the floor with the bottle laying right next to him, empty. I examined his body and the boy stated that he was poisoned, because of drinking the chocolate milk. Poisoned. Killed. Just like the boy, just like the girl. I tried folowing the path deeper into the cavern again, but Link wouldn't let me. A textbox would just appear showing three dots. It was only then that I realized that all these characters looked familiar. What could it mean? What could it mean!? I could just sit here for an hour or two trying to figure out what was going on, but then still not knowing what the hell was happening here or I could continue playing the hack and find out.
I pushed on all the way up to the last dungeon. My heart was beating rapidly. I was sure I would get an answer to this as soon as I reached the very end. I went up through “Ganon’s Tower” and reached the boss room in the end. Nothing could have prepared me for what was coming. Nothing.
I entered the room and was expecting to face Ganon, but I didn’t. Instead I was facing a woman with long black hair, and much to modern clothing for the time that the events of “A Link to the past” took place in. I paused my emulator. If the other characters, the boy, the girl, the man, already rang a bell then this NPC must have rang two or three of them. I didn’t instantly recognize her, but it didn’t take long either. My mother.
I unpaused the game and was waiting for Link to walk up to her and kill her. He was just standing there doing nothing, though. I tried moving the character and I was indeed in control. I felt relieved, when suddenly a feeling of dread struck me. I was going to have to kill her. I was going to have to kill my mother. She was just standing there helpless, holding no weapons, just standing still. The music was unbearably sad. I had to do it. I had to. It didn’t feel like I was controlling Link, but I was. It felt like someone else was controlling my body and thus controlling the character too. I walked up to her, each step triggering a text box saying things like: “Oh, hi honey.”, “What are you doing?”, “Honey, you’re scaring me.”, … I pressed the button that would make Link kill my mother. It triggered a cutscene instead. My mom was crying, begging me to stop. I wish I could, but… Link slashed his sword. One last time the screen faded to black, not even a scream this time, just eternal darkness. “Sorry, mother,” I whispered, “but what’s done, can’t be undone.”
My sister, my brother, my mom and dad. All gone, dead, because of me, because I killed them. I checked the description of the ROM-hack again, hoping I would find an answer there. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I wanted to post a comment asking why azerty889 had made this. I wanted to tell him what I thought, but the only word I could type before I would burst into tears again: “Why?” I quickly got a response saying: “A link to your past.” followed by his real life name: Mathias Smith. Or in other words, my dead brother…