Cadaver (Story)

## Cadaver

I originally published this story as a part of my Sonic fanfiction on May 20th, 2019, though the events of the story actually occurred at least two to three months before then. Originally, I wrote this story as if one of the characters, my OC Honest the Cat, was telling the story, so I edited it a bit here so that it could stand more on its own. If you want to read the original, it's here on Wattpad.

For some background knowledge/exposition, I had just recently purchased a new HDTV since my little sister had thrown the metal leg of my microphone stand at it accidentally while playing with our cat and shattered the screen. One of the first games I played on it was Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed Bonus Edition for Christmas 2012 (the longest video game title, I know.) I liked to play the cups in Grand Prix mode over and over with different characters, usually my favorites: Ulala, Shadow, Pudding, and Gum.

In this case, I had played through the entire Arcade Cup and had come to the final track of that cup, Race of Ages. I was playing on A-Rank difficulty, and at the time, my chances of winning were slim due to my lack of skill. I was tenth place for most of the race, until the last lap that was. I believe I was playing as Ulala, but I can't remember. Anyway, I got an All-Star powerup at the section where you're racing on a think strip of RAM with holes in it everywhere. I thought, "If I use this powerup here, I will most likely fall through all of the many holes and not make any advancement in place.' So, I decided to hold onto that All-Star powerup for as long as I could so that I could use it in the boat part to get ahead.

I was afraid that the powerup would be taken away if I held onto it for too long, but it didn't thankfully. Once I had made it to the boat part, I was in last place. However, when I used my All-Star, I was able to pass all nine other racers with a combination of All-Star speed and skillful tuning. However, when I reached the portal that caused you to teleport to the finish line, something strange happened.

I was first place with no one even close to passing me, except suddenly I had someone on my bumper. This player came out of nowhere. It was driving in Tails's plane, and it looked like Tails driving it, except that they were green and had no mouth. It passed me and that was when I saw its name, which was displayed next to his icon. It said "Cadaver". I was so outraged that someone had passed me, but I was also severely disturbed by this strange racer's appearance and name. I watched helplessly as this racer passed me and I was put into second place.

However, when I reached the result screen, I was blown away when I saw that I was still, in fact, first place! It was as if this strange "Cadaver" character hadn't passed me at all. In fact, his name didn't appear in the results. The character in second place was Amy. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that this wasn't at all the Amy I remembered. The name was correct, but the icon resembled Tails.

When I watched the winners cut scene where the top three racers stand on the winners' podium, the second place winner was the green Tails Doll that I had seen in the race. Instead of playing a cheerful animation of the racer celebrating their victory, this racer just floated there. Also, he didn't look to be furry like Tails. Instead, it looked like it was made out of a somewhat reflective green fabric. At the last second before this screen faded away, the strange racer's head snapped to focus on me, on the camera.

After it showed the winners' podium, it was supposed to fade to the menu, but instead it went to a picture of clouds flying up the screen, giving the impression that you were falling through the sky. The animation hung up a few times as if it were going to crash, but it eventually did go back to the menu, leaving me with just a faint memory of what I had just witnessed as my only evidence that it had even happened.

In the Sonic fanfiction where I originally published this story, the characters gave an explanation of how I came up with this story:

> "Once I was reading the names of the characters on my tail in the Egg Hangar race, and I misread one of them as "Cadaver". In the Race of Ages, all that stuff with the All-Star power up really happened. Then I got beaten by Beat and was sore, so I came up with that story to make me feel better."
>
>

But you know, the fact that I saw the name of a racer show up as "Cadaver" still creeps me out to this day. It's 11:00 PM when I'm typing this, and I keep pausing and hearing the crickets outside and getting goosebumps. I chose the worst time to do this, but I've been trying to post this story here for three years. I just kept forgetting.

Did I actually see a racer named Cadaver that day? Are they in that save file still, waiting to show up when I get around to playing it again? I've been playing the 3DS version since my old PS3 finally quit on me. However, I backed the save file up to my computer, so I still have it to go back to once I buy a new PS3. Should I even do it? Am I brave enough?

If anyone's interested in acquiring my old save file and playing it yourself to see if you can spot Cadaver, please let me know. I'm not sure if it's possible to save another person's save game if it's attached to a PSN account, but you can for sure play it without saving to see if you can find them. If you *want* to find them that is.

I wanted to post this to the Creepypasta wiki, but apparently they made it against the rules to post Creepypastas anymore? Now you can only post original stories, which aren't Creepypastas, but okay.