On the Steam Summer sale one rainy day in 2015, I was browsing through the cheap games. The one-hit wonders… you know the type. I had a little money left over from a recent drinking binge and I had some time to kill before I went back to college, so I thought why not get a new game to add to my collection?
I was aimlessly browsing through the vast array of games; Shark Attack Deathmatch 2? Seems too good to be true. Subnautica? Nah, too expensive.

What’s this? A game called SpeedRunners stood out to me. It was a simple game where you could race against your friends and I had enough for the four pack. I thought why not, my friends would be glad to get a game as well; so I bought it.

The initial few hours were spent playing the tutorials and trying my best to beat a trio of bots set at the Unfair difficulty level. I wanted to make sure I could beat my friends, you see. I don’t know what I did.. in fact to this day I do not wish to find out, in case I do it again. But something strange happened when I accidentally pressed a combination of keys. I got a pop-up that resembled a Steam chat window, from a guy called Casper Van Est. He typed a few messages to me, telling me he was a developer of the game. I didn’t believe this at first and assumed it was some prank easter egg.

It was certainly an easter egg, but it was no prank. Casper told me that there was nothing to worry about, and that I had just happened upon a little bit of code that he put in SpeedRunners to see how many people would discover it, without the knowledge of the other developers. The final message read, ‘Check your level selection screen’ and suddenly the game restarted and went back to normal.

I did just that. I loaded up the mode called Solo Run, chose my character – I had gotten particularly fond of the Red Hothead – and proceeded to the level selection menu.

There it was.

A new level for me to try out. I was super hyped by now, I thought I had discovered Casper’s little easter egg and I was the only person to have found it thus far. It was called ‘Asylum’. Okay… a bit creepy but nothing to worry about I guess? Just another map.

I clicked it, but nothing happened. Suddenly, I heard an eerie noise coming from my computer. I picked up my headphones to hear it better; but it wasn’t coming from my headphones. It was coming from the game itself.

I saw a devilish figure with large tentacle-like fingers and fiery arms reach out and grab me. I was terrified. I couldn’t seem to let go! None of this was real, right? I had fallen asleep at my computer and was having a nightmare about a recent game experience surely?

Whatever it was, I wanted it to stop badly. I tried waking myself up. Closing my eyes hard, hell I even bit my tongue. I could taste blood in my mouth from how hard I bit, but I did not wake up. What the hell was going on?

My vision darkened… then went white. The next thing I knew I was standing in what seemed to be some sort of hospital.

No wait…

…an asylum. What the hell was happening?

I looked round and saw three other people. One was a doctor with a blood-stained uniform. One arm was ripped off him and he appeared to be bleeding from his eyes, all the while crying.
The other looked like some patient – he was also crying, but without the blood pouring from his… as I looked closer I noticed he had no eyes. Just empty voids filling the space where his eyes should have been. I looked to my right now. I saw one more person; some creature who was on fire.

He wasn’t crying like the other two; he was screaming in what seemed to be excruciating pain. I tried to help him, but I soon realized I could not move. I heard a voice coming from some sort of announcement system. It was talking to me; I could feel it deep within myself. The voice said ‘you are part of the game now, everything you do is being monitored. If you want to survive, win the game.’

Suddenly, I heard a countdown. 3… 2… 1… GO!

The other three ‘players’ ran ahead of me suddenly, and my instinct kicked in. Of course I wanted to survive! I ran as fast as I could and managed to catch up to the other three, but suddenly one of the put out his foot and tripped me up; I went falling to the ground. I got back up and continued to run. Once more, I caught up with the other three runners, and this time I avoided such trips. I was always a fast learner; this time I managed to trip the patient up. He fell to the ground behind me and screamed for help; help which I could not offer. I had to win. I had to get back home! This was no longer a game…

As I caught up to the doctor, I noticed he had something in his hand. It was a wooden crate. He dropped it behind him and I nearly broke my neck trying to avoid it. Close call. He only had one, but in dropping it to try and falter me had had not seen a bunch of spikes in the wall directly in front of him. I watched as he was impaled and began screaming in agony. Screaming for help which once again I could not provide.

I ran on ahead, almost vomiting from emotional and physical stress. I could see the final opponent directly ahead of me; the Hothead-like character. He looked worryingly behind him as if he knew I was on his tail.