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Dude, I heard, that seven days after you play Sonic R, your Saturn boots up, the TV
flickers to life, and the Tails Doll lurches through the screen.
Then is hovers over the foot of your bed, staring at you with it's dead eyes.
Staring. O.O
Staring. O.O
Staring. O.O
Until you go stark, raving, mad.
The only way to survive the curse is to get a friend to buy Sonic R and recommend it
to someone else.
Sadly this cure is damn near impossible...
____________________________________________________________________
I knew this guy who knew this girl, who rented Sonic R. That night, she get into bed,
and felt the warm lump of her cat under the covers. She reached down to scratch it's
head, and it licked her hand.
She turned out the lights.
Then she realized that she had already put the cat out for the night!
Terrified, she peered under the sheets.
All she saw was a glowing red jewel and a pair of lifeless eyes staring back at her.
She passed out. When she woke up, there was a little yellow post-it next to her bed
that read "Tails Dolls can lick too".
True story.
____________________________________________________________________
Well, this one time, my friend's cousin friend was playing Sonic R when the phone
rang.
He paused the game, answered the phone, and heard the song "Can you feel the
Sunshine". He though nothing of it, so he started playing again.
The phone rang once more.
He answered it.
*Can you feel the sunshine? Does it brighten up you day?*
It must have been a prank. He went back to playing the game (and probably beat it by
then).
*Riiiingg*
He looked at the caller ID. It was coming from the second line in his house.
He got up and ran to his bedroom and locked the door. Little did he know he was
locking himself in there with one of the most horrific monstrosities ever created. It feed
on innocence. It hovered a few inches off the ground. It had soulless eyes. And it had
time to KILL.
Later, the kid's mother found him curled up in the closet, sucking his thumb. His hair
had turned white with shock.
Aren't you glad it Sonic R wasn't on the Sonic Mega Collection?
____________________________________________________________________
Did you know that if you lock you self in the bathroom, turn out the lights, and sing the
lyrics to "Living in the City" backwards, a glowing red jewel appears in the mirror?
Try it if you dare.
____________________________________________________________________
Well, this one Christmas Eve, my friend's cousin's neighbor was sleeping, and woke
up to the sound of sleigh-bells.
"Oh, Boy! Santa," he thought.
He put on his quietest slippers and slipped quietly down stairs.
He turned the corner into the living room.
Nothing. There was no jolly fat man to be seen. The room was empty, save for the
darkened tree.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The sound of sleigh-bells could still be heard. They were coming from a large gift
under the shadowy pine.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
Curious, the boy approached the jingling package.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The box trembled slightly.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The gift bore no tag.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The child couldn't help himself and tore into the wrapping, hopping to solve the
mystery within.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
It was a doll.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
A Tails doll.
Tinkle. Tinkle. Schuuuumpy.
The next morning, his parents found the boy dead. His hair was white with fear. His
eyes were rolled back in his head.
A copy of Sonic R was lodged down his throat.
Merry Christmas.
____________________________________________________________________
Sally was a Sonic fan, pure and simple. At age twenty three, she was just a little too
obsessed with the speedy blue hedgehog. Her room was adorned with every piece of
Sonic merchandise she could find, be it the McDonalds's LCDs or those shoddily
constructed SatAM plushies. Her library contained the British choose-your-own-
adventure books, and her CD tower contained such rarities as "Sonic Boom" and the
Japanese Sonic X soundtrack. Yes, her collection was complete.
Or, so she thought.
One day, she and her boyfriend (the newest in a long line of tubby gents that
pleasantly reminded her of Big the Cat) were walking around "Little Tokyo", scouring
shops for Sonic X trading Cards. Along the way, they discovered a musty old curio
store. In the window, there was a particularly strange looking stuffed animal, with
especially vacant eyes, and a red jewel on it's head.
It was a Tails Doll.
Being a completest, she had to have it. She and her boyfriend ran inside and asked
the proprietor how much it cost.
He refused to sell it, saying that it was too valuable.
Sally offered him all she had, and he still wouldn't part with it. She look at the Doll, but
she knew she had to have it. Reaching out with a trembling hand, she out picked up a
bottle of Lychee Soda from a nearby case and smashed it on the register.
She stabbed the Shopkeeper in the throat.
Sally's beau was stunned. He told her she was mad! He told her she was demented!
He told her to stay away from him!
She told him to DIE.
Moments later, covered in blood, Sally came to her senses and realized what she had
done. She was a killer and had snuffed out two innocent people's lives.
But at least, she could now complete her collection. That Tails Doll was hers!
Only, when she looked back at the display, the doll was nowhere to be seen. The
window was utterly, totally and undeniably empty. As she looked down at her quivering
gore-coated hands, a song began to play on the late shopkeeper's radio.
"...Can you feel the Sunshine?..."
____________________________________________________________________
You see, there was this friend of mine that used to come over and game with me. Her
name was Tomoko, a Japanese lass, and a big fan of Sega and all things Sonic.
One day we were playing a heated game of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. We were
playing City Escape and I was kicking her butt with Shadow as usual. Suddenly, we
became aware of a polyphonic noise competing with the refrain of "Gotta Follow My
Rainbow".
I muted the TV.
It was a hauntingly familiar song. Lyrics began to form in my head, spun from long
forgotten memory. "Take me Back in Time, to another..." It was the theme from Sonic
R's Lost Ruins stage.
It was coming from Tomoko's cellphone.
I told her that was a cool ring-tone, but she shook her head and told me it wasn't hers.
The music ended. The message light blinked to life. When Tomoko checked her
voicemail, all she heard was a garbled noise that sounded something like "Shurlpy", or
"Shumpy". Something like that. The odd bit, however, was that the number on the
caller ID was her own.
Stranger still, the Time/Date stamp was set three hours in the future.
Thinking that there was something wrong with her phone, Tomoko bid me farewell and
said she was going to go home and call the phone company.
Two Hours and Fifty Five Minutes passed. My phone rang. I saw that it was Tomoko's
number and answered sweetly "Playtime is over! Wanna rematch Tomo-Chan?"
Silence.
Well, not silence, really. It may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn
there was a barely audible whimper. I asked if she was alright.
She screamed.
I ran out of my apartment, and tore down the hall of our apartment complex. Six
minutes later I arrived at Tomoko door.
I pounded frantically, but there was no reply. I tried the knob, which yielded to my
touch.
The door swung open.
Tomoko was nowhere to be seen. There were no signs of a struggle. In fact, it
appeared as if she had been playing her Saturn moments before, as a certain racing
game was still paused on screen.
The only sound to be heard was the level theme, "Back in Time".
I found it so eerie, that I immediately shut off the TV. That's when it hit me--
The song was coming from my back pocket, where I kept my cell phone!
____________________________________________________________________
As for the true origin of the Tails Doll, I doubt any of us will ever truly know. The tails
doll is a dark mystery, wrapped in an infernal enigma, wrapped in cuddly yellowish
plush.
But I do know something about how it came into our world...
Can you feel the Sunshine?
Tess could not. She felt as if a dark gloom had shrouded every once-pleasant aspect
of her life. In the two, terrible weeks since her boyfriend Ben had mysteriously
disappeared, Tess felt her world crumble into despair. She had become a virtual
recluse, barely ate, and even ignored her beloved video-games. Life had lost all
meaning.
Then, came the call.
When Tess picked up, there was no one on the other line, but she could see that the
call had come from Ben's apartment. Throwing on a coat, she raced out of her house
for the first time in a fortnight.
When she arrived at Ben's place, it was obvious no one was there. Despite having
been searched by the police, the small studio apartment remained exactly as Tess
had remembered, albeit dustier. A thin layer of grime now covered her missing beau's
Shadow the Hedgehog shrine.
She was about to leave when she saw a glint of light. It came from a compact disk on
the floor. She picked it up and turned it in her hand. It was a Saturn game, called
Sonic R. It refracted the sunlight, casting beautiful rainbow-colored rays that danced
about the sullen room.
Tess felt like she could finally feel the sunshine, and it brightened up her day. She
booted up Ben's Saturn and played the mediocre little racer. It wasn't great, but it was
the most fun she had experienced in some time.
The next morning, she awoke with a headache and nausea. It wasn't until her hasty
trip to the bathroom that she realized she hadn't remembered coming home the
previous night. Had she been that tiered?
Over the next few weeks, the nausea subsided, but the true terror began when she
discovered she was late. "Oh, Dear God", she thought, "I can't be-- can I?" Sure
enough, her doctor confirmed that she was indeed going to be a mother. But, who was
the father? Ben?!
The question was moot, for several months later, Tess was discovered in a ditch. The
cause of death was undetermined, but stranger still was the fact that all medical
evidence suggested she had given birth shortly before her demise. However, no child
was found near the body, only a small plush fox with two tails, and uncannily vacant
eyes.
___________________________________________________________________
“Living in the City,” thought Patty as she connected the Sega Saturn to the school
auditorium’s projection system, “you know you have to survive.”
Life had never been good for Patty.
At a young age she had been left an orphan, but that was actually the best thing that
ever happened to her. You see, her alcoholic father possessed a frighteningly sadistic
streak that often resulted in swollen bruises across Patty’s frail, young body. She wasn’
t the only one to incur his sudden and relentless rage, however. Her drug -addicted
Mother garnered her fair share of beatings too, though that did little to comfort Patty.
Her mother secretly blamed the girl for her father’s alcoholism, and took every
opportunity to vent her twisted aggression by pinching her and pulling her hair. There
was no shelter from her pain.
Thus, Patty shed no tears when her parents were discovered mutilated in their
bedroom one evening. Even the cops that showed up at the grisly scene were
unnerved. Why, a rookie could have sworn the poor wretch was smiling. The little girl,
stood in a congealing puddle of blood, clutching her plush fox, grinning like a Cheshire
cat.
A killer was never found.
An hour later, neither was the little girl’s plush fox.
She could hear the other student’s piling into the auditorium, jabbering on expectantly,
debating what kind of public service announcement they were going to be forced to
watch this time. Patty reached into her pack and pulled out a sticky, scratched jewel-
case and delicately removed the lustrous disc from within. “You have to keep the
dream alive.”
Her time at the orphanage was quite uneventful and Patty was thankful for that. While
not “good,” per se, it was at the very least quiet. Quiet was always better then a
savage beating. High school on the other hand, was the beginning of a new
nightmare. The kids teased and tormented her mercilessly. She simply didn’t fit in, and
the other students were willing to remind her of that fact every chance they got.
Cheerleaders threw paint on her. Jocks humiliated her. Nerds talked down to her. It
was almost as if there were only two cliques at Belmont High – one consisted of Patty,
and the other of everyone else.
In situations such as these, some kids turn to extreme methods of coping with their
grief. Some become extroverts. Others turn to the mind-obliterating contentment
drugs. An extreme few even cut themselves to feel the passion of pain. Patty’s escape
was much worse.
She played a certain video game.
And in an unfathomable way, it played her in return.
She placed the disc in the antique system and pressed the power button. There was
no turning back. Sounds of confusion reverberated throughout the auditorium,
underscored by the song Supersonic racing.” It wouldn’t be long now.
They hit her! They actually hit her! Patty could stand being mocked and humiliated,
but this was too much. When the girls on the volleyball team actually smacked her
after an exceptionally bad match, Patty could take no more. That night, while playing
“Sonic R,” racing around Radiant Emerald, he spoke to her, as he often did in times
like these. There was no voice measurable by man, but his bobbing, inscrutable eyes
articulated things that mere words could not express. Dreadful things. Horrifying
things. Exactly the things that Patty wished to hear. Together, they hatched a silent
plan. A plan that would make everything right again.
It was all over in a matter of minutes. Patty left the AV booth and entered the
auditorium. The rank air reeked of iron and sweat. There, in the center of the
carnage, hovering mere feet above the ground, was plush fox with uncannily vacant
eyes.
Patty smiled.
____________________________________________________________________
The Jackson Residence - 8:21am
Suicide. At least, it should have been, thought Detective Norris as he stared numbly at
the young man's body, swaying gently in the air-conditioned room. The late Richard
Jackson had been home with his family the entire evening, going up to play video
games in his room at nine. His parents had been there the entire night, and the quaint
suburban home had been locked up tighter then a Scotsman's piggybank. Christ.
Someone would've heard if the goddamn kid was being murdered.
"Kids," mumbled Lieutenant Michaels, "one day they're playing baseball, next they're
hanging themselves. I blame rap music and video games."
"So you think Jackson killed himself?" mumbled Norris, gazing intently at the corpse.
"Well yeah," stuttered Michaels, suspecting that he had just missed something rather
obvious. "I mean, the kid's mom said he went upstairs to play his games. Next morning
he was hanging from the ceiling fan by a controller. He even left a note." The officer
motioned to a crumpled yellow post-it pad that read "I can't feel the sunshine."
"Then how do you explain his eyes, Michaels," interjected the detective, nodding
toward the blue head, lolling above the makeshift noose. Gold coins sparkled in its
eye sockets. "Are you saying that a suicidal boy calmly jammed two coins into his own
eyes before doing the hanging himself?"
"No, sir…" squeaked Michaels as he backed away from the detective.
All the pieces fit for this to be a suicide, save for those strange coins. Norris had heard
of some cultures placing money over the eyes of the deceased as a payment for
whatever reaper they believed in, but the man seriously doubted a young American
kid would have bought into that kind of hoodoo. A quick search of Richard's room
turned up no signs of occult interests. But then, what were those coins?
The detective reached up and carefully removed the golden discs. The eyes behind
them were the full of broken blood vessels. They resembled crimson rubies, thanks to
the nooses' serpentine grip.
Hold on, thought Norris. They weren't coins at all, but tokens.
Tokens bearing the face of some cartoon animal.
****
Dunkin Donuts - 10:00 am.
Norris sat alone in the local coffee shop, staring at rubbings of the tokens, savoring
the brief relief of a cup of joe. He had questioned Jackson's grieving mother about the
golden trinkets, but she swore that she had no idea where her late son had found
them. Maybe they were arcade tokens or something. Obviously the kid liked video
games. Hell, one was still running in his room when his lifeless body was found. The
game system was now in an evidence locker with the mysterious coins.
"Mom!"
Norris peered up to see a little boy being dragged by his mother across the coffee
shop. The boy was clutching a Game Boy or something, and he was staring wide-eyed
at the rubbings on the table.
"Mom! That man has pictures of Sonic," gibbered the child excitedly.
Norris glanced down at mascots that had embossed the tokens. "You know this
character?"
"Sure! It's Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest thing alive," the boy ranted
enthusiastically, before his mother, wary of strangers, dragged him away. Sonic the
Hedgehog? What the hell is that? Some kinda cartoon?
Norris took a swig of coffee and nearly choked. There was something in his drink. He
spat out the bitter beverage and was horrified by what he saw.
Another Token.
***
The Police Station - 1:00 pm
Detective Norris sat in his cramped office fingering the mysterious token. No one at
the coffee shop had admitted to putting it in his drink, and the beverage had never left
his hands since he purchased the damn thing. This case was getting pretty queer,
and Norris was sure the tokens were the key.
Sighing, he reached out to his desktop, and googled the words "Sonic the Hedgehog."
The internet was lousy with entries. Apparently "Sonic" was some kind of videogame
character. "Figures," mumbled Norris, as the smirking, spikey visage of a blue
hedgehog appeared onscreen. It was the same as the ones on the tokens. Obviously,
Richard was a video-game junky, but the question remained, where did the poor kid
find the tokens? "Hopefully not in his coffee," chuckled Norris grimly.
He entered the words "Sonic the Hedgehog Tokens" into the search engines. After a
brief pause, the results came back.
"Sonic R…."
*Vrrrrr*
*Clink*
The computer's CD drive slid open, revealing yet another token.
***
The Jackson Residence - 5:00pm
He was back at the scene of the crime. The boy's body had been taken to the morgue,
but the room still radiated the chill of death. Richard's mother didn't understand why
the detective was back, but she trusted that he had his reasons.
Little did she suspect, Norris wasn't really sure either.
After considerable research, the detective had discovered that the tokens were part of
an old video game, called "Sonic R." It apparently wasn't a very good game - hell,
some asinine website called it "cursed" - but it was a game none the less. The odd
thing was that there was no mention on any site of the tokens being actual objects.
They were supposed be part of the game. Still, Norris had a hunch, and his hunches
were usually right, so he decided to check back with the Jacksons.
And there it was. Wedged with several other games on a dusty bookshelf, was a copy
of "Sonic R." As Norris reached for it, the setting sun cast swaying shadow across the
room. For a moment it looked as if the boy's corpse had returned, but it was simply a
cruel trick of the light.
He picked up the game, and opened it's slightly sticky jewel case. Inside, a shiny disk
glinted back at him.
Son of a Bitch! The CD was gone.
It was another token.
That made five in all.
The lights went out, leaving Norris in the comparative gloom of the dusk. He called to
Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, but there was no answer. They were probably in the basement,
looking for the circuit breaker.
*CLICK*
In the shadows near the bed, a small TV/VCR combo in the corner flickered to life. A
distorted fanfare warbled out of the tinny speakers, and the words "PREPARE FOR
CHALLENGER" faded onscreen. Bathed in the ambient blue light of the screen, Norris
cautiously stepped toward the television. Being a cop, he was not easily spooked, but
this was getting kind of eerie.
*CLICK*
The TV was off, once more.
The hairs on the back of Norris' neck began to rise defensively. The temperature
seemed to drop, and a red glow enveloped the room. The very air itself stank of
death, and all Norris could hear was the oppressive buzzing of flies.
Something very soft, and slightly fuzzy brushed up against his hand.
Detective Norris looked down and did something he had yet to do in his thirty years on
the force.
He screamed.
***
The Jackson Residence - 6:00pm
When the detective hadn't come down in nearly a half an hour, Mrs. Richardson
climbed the stairs to her late son's room to investigate. She hadn't heard a peep from
the man since his sudden arrival.
She put her ear to the door.
*Thump*
*Thump*
*Thump*
"Detective Norris?" she inquired through the closed door.
*Thump*
She carefully opened the door and peered inside. To her horror, Detective Norris's
body was hanging from the ceiling fan by his own necktie, his lifeless body bumping
idly against the wall.
*Thump*
Two gold tokens had been jammed into his eye sockets.
____________________________________________________________________
In the going on four years I’ve been running this site, I have received a lot of tales.
This is not the only tale that offers an origin to the curse, but it is perhaps the oldest.
What follows is an obscure legend from what was once called the Naka region of
Japan.
Long ago, there lived a doll maker. Unlike many stories, he was not the finest in all
the land. His dolls were of mediocre craftsmanship – cast in inferior porcelain, wearing
simple robes of linen, and painted with an unsteady hand. He was not a bad or lazy
man; he simply had neither the talent nor the means to produce the high-quality dolls
that the feudal nobility demanded. He tried his best, but his dolls remained upon the
shelves and his wife and son remained hungry and impoverished.
One day, he received word that the daimyo in the next region was urgently seeking
the services of a doll maker. The lord’s daughter favored a masterpiece of a doll ― a
finely crafted work of art, clad in the most elegant of silks and jade. A clumsy servant
smashed the doll’s face by accident and consequently the child had fallen gravely ill.
The lord believed that only upon mending the doll would the child be saved. Knowing
that fixing the doll would gain him notoriety and honor beyond his meager abilities, the
doll maker bid his family goodbye and set off on the long trek to mend the doll and
hopefully the child as well.
Three nights into his journey, the doll maker came to a bridge. Upon crossing the
water, he was beset upon by a trio of thieves who beat him savagely. When they saw
that the traveler carried only doll making equipment, they tossed his bags into the
river and fled. With nothing left, the doll maker wept and awaited death.
But death did not arrive, as such. He was discovered by a bewitching beauty. A
gorgeous young woman who walked as softly as the breeze approached him,
concealing her face behind an elegant fan of silk. “Why do you cry?” she giggled.
“Am I not beautiful?” The doll maker apologized, for surely this ethereal beauty
belonged to a house of great stature and recounted the events of that evening. At
the end of his tale, she touched his shoulder and led him deep into the forest to her
elegant estate. There she dressed his wounds and seduced him.
The next morning, the woman offered to teach the doll maker to make dolls without
porcelain in exchange for his everlasting love. Desperate for the knowledge, he
eagerly accepted. Using cord and cloth, she taught the man to sew whimsical forest
animals and stuff them with straw and fluff. Under her guidance, the doll maker
created brightly colored likenesses of the hedgehog, the spiny anteater, and a large
cat.
“Bring these to the child and she will love them,” the woman said. She gave him a
necklace with a red jewel on it as a token of her love and sent him on his way, telling
him to return to her as soon as he was successful.
The doll maker finally made it do the daimyo’s estate. Though he could not mend the
broken doll, he offered the sick girl his stuffed cloth animals. She adored them and
the doll maker was richly rewarded. With his new skill and reputation, he could finally
support his family. He made haste for home, making sure to avoid the forest where he
met his beautiful benefactor.
When he got home, he gave his wife the jeweled necklace, saying that it was a gift
from the daimyo. With his son as his assistant, he began making the strange cloth
animal dolls which were now highly sought after. Many years passed and the family
became rich and respected.
One night, the doll maker heard his wife calling to him from his workshop. Upon
entering the room, he discovered his wife nailed to the wall. Her mouth was sewn shut
and black tears were streaming from her bloodshot eyes. The doll maker tried to run
to her, but blocking his path was the beauty from the forest, clutching the jeweled
necklace in her hands. She appeared as young as ever and from the two silky tails
that twitched angrily behind her, it was clear that she was a kitsune.
The forest spirit giggled, nastily. “You promised me your heart and soul, doll maker,
and I always collect. Your payment is late, so I will simply have to take more. I will
have your soul, your wife’s, and everyone that enjoys the fruits of your labors. After
all, these stuffed creatures are our children.”
When the doll maker’s son returned home, he discovered that his parents had
vanished and the workshop had burned down. Sifting through the ashes, he
discovered that all of the dolls had been immolated, except one ― a captivating
kitsune doll with two tails and a red jewel upon its head.
flickers to life, and the Tails Doll lurches through the screen.
Then is hovers over the foot of your bed, staring at you with it's dead eyes.
Staring. O.O
Staring. O.O
Staring. O.O
Until you go stark, raving, mad.
The only way to survive the curse is to get a friend to buy Sonic R and recommend it
to someone else.
Sadly this cure is damn near impossible...
____________________________________________________________________
I knew this guy who knew this girl, who rented Sonic R. That night, she get into bed,
and felt the warm lump of her cat under the covers. She reached down to scratch it's
head, and it licked her hand.
She turned out the lights.
Then she realized that she had already put the cat out for the night!
Terrified, she peered under the sheets.
All she saw was a glowing red jewel and a pair of lifeless eyes staring back at her.
She passed out. When she woke up, there was a little yellow post-it next to her bed
that read "Tails Dolls can lick too".
True story.
____________________________________________________________________
Well, this one time, my friend's cousin friend was playing Sonic R when the phone
rang.
He paused the game, answered the phone, and heard the song "Can you feel the
Sunshine". He though nothing of it, so he started playing again.
The phone rang once more.
He answered it.
*Can you feel the sunshine? Does it brighten up you day?*
It must have been a prank. He went back to playing the game (and probably beat it by
then).
*Riiiingg*
He looked at the caller ID. It was coming from the second line in his house.
He got up and ran to his bedroom and locked the door. Little did he know he was
locking himself in there with one of the most horrific monstrosities ever created. It feed
on innocence. It hovered a few inches off the ground. It had soulless eyes. And it had
time to KILL.
Later, the kid's mother found him curled up in the closet, sucking his thumb. His hair
had turned white with shock.
Aren't you glad it Sonic R wasn't on the Sonic Mega Collection?
____________________________________________________________________
Did you know that if you lock you self in the bathroom, turn out the lights, and sing the
lyrics to "Living in the City" backwards, a glowing red jewel appears in the mirror?
Try it if you dare.
____________________________________________________________________
Well, this one Christmas Eve, my friend's cousin's neighbor was sleeping, and woke
up to the sound of sleigh-bells.
"Oh, Boy! Santa," he thought.
He put on his quietest slippers and slipped quietly down stairs.
He turned the corner into the living room.
Nothing. There was no jolly fat man to be seen. The room was empty, save for the
darkened tree.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The sound of sleigh-bells could still be heard. They were coming from a large gift
under the shadowy pine.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
Curious, the boy approached the jingling package.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The box trembled slightly.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The gift bore no tag.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
The child couldn't help himself and tore into the wrapping, hopping to solve the
mystery within.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
It was a doll.
Tinkle. Tinkle.
A Tails doll.
Tinkle. Tinkle. Schuuuumpy.
The next morning, his parents found the boy dead. His hair was white with fear. His
eyes were rolled back in his head.
A copy of Sonic R was lodged down his throat.
Merry Christmas.
____________________________________________________________________
Sally was a Sonic fan, pure and simple. At age twenty three, she was just a little too
obsessed with the speedy blue hedgehog. Her room was adorned with every piece of
Sonic merchandise she could find, be it the McDonalds's LCDs or those shoddily
constructed SatAM plushies. Her library contained the British choose-your-own-
adventure books, and her CD tower contained such rarities as "Sonic Boom" and the
Japanese Sonic X soundtrack. Yes, her collection was complete.
Or, so she thought.
One day, she and her boyfriend (the newest in a long line of tubby gents that
pleasantly reminded her of Big the Cat) were walking around "Little Tokyo", scouring
shops for Sonic X trading Cards. Along the way, they discovered a musty old curio
store. In the window, there was a particularly strange looking stuffed animal, with
especially vacant eyes, and a red jewel on it's head.
It was a Tails Doll.
Being a completest, she had to have it. She and her boyfriend ran inside and asked
the proprietor how much it cost.
He refused to sell it, saying that it was too valuable.
Sally offered him all she had, and he still wouldn't part with it. She look at the Doll, but
she knew she had to have it. Reaching out with a trembling hand, she out picked up a
bottle of Lychee Soda from a nearby case and smashed it on the register.
She stabbed the Shopkeeper in the throat.
Sally's beau was stunned. He told her she was mad! He told her she was demented!
He told her to stay away from him!
She told him to DIE.
Moments later, covered in blood, Sally came to her senses and realized what she had
done. She was a killer and had snuffed out two innocent people's lives.
But at least, she could now complete her collection. That Tails Doll was hers!
Only, when she looked back at the display, the doll was nowhere to be seen. The
window was utterly, totally and undeniably empty. As she looked down at her quivering
gore-coated hands, a song began to play on the late shopkeeper's radio.
"...Can you feel the Sunshine?..."
____________________________________________________________________
You see, there was this friend of mine that used to come over and game with me. Her
name was Tomoko, a Japanese lass, and a big fan of Sega and all things Sonic.
One day we were playing a heated game of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. We were
playing City Escape and I was kicking her butt with Shadow as usual. Suddenly, we
became aware of a polyphonic noise competing with the refrain of "Gotta Follow My
Rainbow".
I muted the TV.
It was a hauntingly familiar song. Lyrics began to form in my head, spun from long
forgotten memory. "Take me Back in Time, to another..." It was the theme from Sonic
R's Lost Ruins stage.
It was coming from Tomoko's cellphone.
I told her that was a cool ring-tone, but she shook her head and told me it wasn't hers.
The music ended. The message light blinked to life. When Tomoko checked her
voicemail, all she heard was a garbled noise that sounded something like "Shurlpy", or
"Shumpy". Something like that. The odd bit, however, was that the number on the
caller ID was her own.
Stranger still, the Time/Date stamp was set three hours in the future.
Thinking that there was something wrong with her phone, Tomoko bid me farewell and
said she was going to go home and call the phone company.
Two Hours and Fifty Five Minutes passed. My phone rang. I saw that it was Tomoko's
number and answered sweetly "Playtime is over! Wanna rematch Tomo-Chan?"
Silence.
Well, not silence, really. It may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn
there was a barely audible whimper. I asked if she was alright.
She screamed.
I ran out of my apartment, and tore down the hall of our apartment complex. Six
minutes later I arrived at Tomoko door.
I pounded frantically, but there was no reply. I tried the knob, which yielded to my
touch.
The door swung open.
Tomoko was nowhere to be seen. There were no signs of a struggle. In fact, it
appeared as if she had been playing her Saturn moments before, as a certain racing
game was still paused on screen.
The only sound to be heard was the level theme, "Back in Time".
I found it so eerie, that I immediately shut off the TV. That's when it hit me--
The song was coming from my back pocket, where I kept my cell phone!
____________________________________________________________________
As for the true origin of the Tails Doll, I doubt any of us will ever truly know. The tails
doll is a dark mystery, wrapped in an infernal enigma, wrapped in cuddly yellowish
plush.
But I do know something about how it came into our world...
Can you feel the Sunshine?
Tess could not. She felt as if a dark gloom had shrouded every once-pleasant aspect
of her life. In the two, terrible weeks since her boyfriend Ben had mysteriously
disappeared, Tess felt her world crumble into despair. She had become a virtual
recluse, barely ate, and even ignored her beloved video-games. Life had lost all
meaning.
Then, came the call.
When Tess picked up, there was no one on the other line, but she could see that the
call had come from Ben's apartment. Throwing on a coat, she raced out of her house
for the first time in a fortnight.
When she arrived at Ben's place, it was obvious no one was there. Despite having
been searched by the police, the small studio apartment remained exactly as Tess
had remembered, albeit dustier. A thin layer of grime now covered her missing beau's
Shadow the Hedgehog shrine.
She was about to leave when she saw a glint of light. It came from a compact disk on
the floor. She picked it up and turned it in her hand. It was a Saturn game, called
Sonic R. It refracted the sunlight, casting beautiful rainbow-colored rays that danced
about the sullen room.
Tess felt like she could finally feel the sunshine, and it brightened up her day. She
booted up Ben's Saturn and played the mediocre little racer. It wasn't great, but it was
the most fun she had experienced in some time.
The next morning, she awoke with a headache and nausea. It wasn't until her hasty
trip to the bathroom that she realized she hadn't remembered coming home the
previous night. Had she been that tiered?
Over the next few weeks, the nausea subsided, but the true terror began when she
discovered she was late. "Oh, Dear God", she thought, "I can't be-- can I?" Sure
enough, her doctor confirmed that she was indeed going to be a mother. But, who was
the father? Ben?!
The question was moot, for several months later, Tess was discovered in a ditch. The
cause of death was undetermined, but stranger still was the fact that all medical
evidence suggested she had given birth shortly before her demise. However, no child
was found near the body, only a small plush fox with two tails, and uncannily vacant
eyes.
___________________________________________________________________
“Living in the City,” thought Patty as she connected the Sega Saturn to the school
auditorium’s projection system, “you know you have to survive.”
Life had never been good for Patty.
At a young age she had been left an orphan, but that was actually the best thing that
ever happened to her. You see, her alcoholic father possessed a frighteningly sadistic
streak that often resulted in swollen bruises across Patty’s frail, young body. She wasn’
t the only one to incur his sudden and relentless rage, however. Her drug -addicted
Mother garnered her fair share of beatings too, though that did little to comfort Patty.
Her mother secretly blamed the girl for her father’s alcoholism, and took every
opportunity to vent her twisted aggression by pinching her and pulling her hair. There
was no shelter from her pain.
Thus, Patty shed no tears when her parents were discovered mutilated in their
bedroom one evening. Even the cops that showed up at the grisly scene were
unnerved. Why, a rookie could have sworn the poor wretch was smiling. The little girl,
stood in a congealing puddle of blood, clutching her plush fox, grinning like a Cheshire
cat.
A killer was never found.
An hour later, neither was the little girl’s plush fox.
She could hear the other student’s piling into the auditorium, jabbering on expectantly,
debating what kind of public service announcement they were going to be forced to
watch this time. Patty reached into her pack and pulled out a sticky, scratched jewel-
case and delicately removed the lustrous disc from within. “You have to keep the
dream alive.”
Her time at the orphanage was quite uneventful and Patty was thankful for that. While
not “good,” per se, it was at the very least quiet. Quiet was always better then a
savage beating. High school on the other hand, was the beginning of a new
nightmare. The kids teased and tormented her mercilessly. She simply didn’t fit in, and
the other students were willing to remind her of that fact every chance they got.
Cheerleaders threw paint on her. Jocks humiliated her. Nerds talked down to her. It
was almost as if there were only two cliques at Belmont High – one consisted of Patty,
and the other of everyone else.
In situations such as these, some kids turn to extreme methods of coping with their
grief. Some become extroverts. Others turn to the mind-obliterating contentment
drugs. An extreme few even cut themselves to feel the passion of pain. Patty’s escape
was much worse.
She played a certain video game.
And in an unfathomable way, it played her in return.
She placed the disc in the antique system and pressed the power button. There was
no turning back. Sounds of confusion reverberated throughout the auditorium,
underscored by the song Supersonic racing.” It wouldn’t be long now.
They hit her! They actually hit her! Patty could stand being mocked and humiliated,
but this was too much. When the girls on the volleyball team actually smacked her
after an exceptionally bad match, Patty could take no more. That night, while playing
“Sonic R,” racing around Radiant Emerald, he spoke to her, as he often did in times
like these. There was no voice measurable by man, but his bobbing, inscrutable eyes
articulated things that mere words could not express. Dreadful things. Horrifying
things. Exactly the things that Patty wished to hear. Together, they hatched a silent
plan. A plan that would make everything right again.
It was all over in a matter of minutes. Patty left the AV booth and entered the
auditorium. The rank air reeked of iron and sweat. There, in the center of the
carnage, hovering mere feet above the ground, was plush fox with uncannily vacant
eyes.
Patty smiled.
____________________________________________________________________
The Jackson Residence - 8:21am
Suicide. At least, it should have been, thought Detective Norris as he stared numbly at
the young man's body, swaying gently in the air-conditioned room. The late Richard
Jackson had been home with his family the entire evening, going up to play video
games in his room at nine. His parents had been there the entire night, and the quaint
suburban home had been locked up tighter then a Scotsman's piggybank. Christ.
Someone would've heard if the goddamn kid was being murdered.
"Kids," mumbled Lieutenant Michaels, "one day they're playing baseball, next they're
hanging themselves. I blame rap music and video games."
"So you think Jackson killed himself?" mumbled Norris, gazing intently at the corpse.
"Well yeah," stuttered Michaels, suspecting that he had just missed something rather
obvious. "I mean, the kid's mom said he went upstairs to play his games. Next morning
he was hanging from the ceiling fan by a controller. He even left a note." The officer
motioned to a crumpled yellow post-it pad that read "I can't feel the sunshine."
"Then how do you explain his eyes, Michaels," interjected the detective, nodding
toward the blue head, lolling above the makeshift noose. Gold coins sparkled in its
eye sockets. "Are you saying that a suicidal boy calmly jammed two coins into his own
eyes before doing the hanging himself?"
"No, sir…" squeaked Michaels as he backed away from the detective.
All the pieces fit for this to be a suicide, save for those strange coins. Norris had heard
of some cultures placing money over the eyes of the deceased as a payment for
whatever reaper they believed in, but the man seriously doubted a young American
kid would have bought into that kind of hoodoo. A quick search of Richard's room
turned up no signs of occult interests. But then, what were those coins?
The detective reached up and carefully removed the golden discs. The eyes behind
them were the full of broken blood vessels. They resembled crimson rubies, thanks to
the nooses' serpentine grip.
Hold on, thought Norris. They weren't coins at all, but tokens.
Tokens bearing the face of some cartoon animal.
****
Dunkin Donuts - 10:00 am.
Norris sat alone in the local coffee shop, staring at rubbings of the tokens, savoring
the brief relief of a cup of joe. He had questioned Jackson's grieving mother about the
golden trinkets, but she swore that she had no idea where her late son had found
them. Maybe they were arcade tokens or something. Obviously the kid liked video
games. Hell, one was still running in his room when his lifeless body was found. The
game system was now in an evidence locker with the mysterious coins.
"Mom!"
Norris peered up to see a little boy being dragged by his mother across the coffee
shop. The boy was clutching a Game Boy or something, and he was staring wide-eyed
at the rubbings on the table.
"Mom! That man has pictures of Sonic," gibbered the child excitedly.
Norris glanced down at mascots that had embossed the tokens. "You know this
character?"
"Sure! It's Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest thing alive," the boy ranted
enthusiastically, before his mother, wary of strangers, dragged him away. Sonic the
Hedgehog? What the hell is that? Some kinda cartoon?
Norris took a swig of coffee and nearly choked. There was something in his drink. He
spat out the bitter beverage and was horrified by what he saw.
Another Token.
***
The Police Station - 1:00 pm
Detective Norris sat in his cramped office fingering the mysterious token. No one at
the coffee shop had admitted to putting it in his drink, and the beverage had never left
his hands since he purchased the damn thing. This case was getting pretty queer,
and Norris was sure the tokens were the key.
Sighing, he reached out to his desktop, and googled the words "Sonic the Hedgehog."
The internet was lousy with entries. Apparently "Sonic" was some kind of videogame
character. "Figures," mumbled Norris, as the smirking, spikey visage of a blue
hedgehog appeared onscreen. It was the same as the ones on the tokens. Obviously,
Richard was a video-game junky, but the question remained, where did the poor kid
find the tokens? "Hopefully not in his coffee," chuckled Norris grimly.
He entered the words "Sonic the Hedgehog Tokens" into the search engines. After a
brief pause, the results came back.
"Sonic R…."
*Vrrrrr*
*Clink*
The computer's CD drive slid open, revealing yet another token.
***
The Jackson Residence - 5:00pm
He was back at the scene of the crime. The boy's body had been taken to the morgue,
but the room still radiated the chill of death. Richard's mother didn't understand why
the detective was back, but she trusted that he had his reasons.
Little did she suspect, Norris wasn't really sure either.
After considerable research, the detective had discovered that the tokens were part of
an old video game, called "Sonic R." It apparently wasn't a very good game - hell,
some asinine website called it "cursed" - but it was a game none the less. The odd
thing was that there was no mention on any site of the tokens being actual objects.
They were supposed be part of the game. Still, Norris had a hunch, and his hunches
were usually right, so he decided to check back with the Jacksons.
And there it was. Wedged with several other games on a dusty bookshelf, was a copy
of "Sonic R." As Norris reached for it, the setting sun cast swaying shadow across the
room. For a moment it looked as if the boy's corpse had returned, but it was simply a
cruel trick of the light.
He picked up the game, and opened it's slightly sticky jewel case. Inside, a shiny disk
glinted back at him.
Son of a Bitch! The CD was gone.
It was another token.
That made five in all.
The lights went out, leaving Norris in the comparative gloom of the dusk. He called to
Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, but there was no answer. They were probably in the basement,
looking for the circuit breaker.
*CLICK*
In the shadows near the bed, a small TV/VCR combo in the corner flickered to life. A
distorted fanfare warbled out of the tinny speakers, and the words "PREPARE FOR
CHALLENGER" faded onscreen. Bathed in the ambient blue light of the screen, Norris
cautiously stepped toward the television. Being a cop, he was not easily spooked, but
this was getting kind of eerie.
*CLICK*
The TV was off, once more.
The hairs on the back of Norris' neck began to rise defensively. The temperature
seemed to drop, and a red glow enveloped the room. The very air itself stank of
death, and all Norris could hear was the oppressive buzzing of flies.
Something very soft, and slightly fuzzy brushed up against his hand.
Detective Norris looked down and did something he had yet to do in his thirty years on
the force.
He screamed.
***
The Jackson Residence - 6:00pm
When the detective hadn't come down in nearly a half an hour, Mrs. Richardson
climbed the stairs to her late son's room to investigate. She hadn't heard a peep from
the man since his sudden arrival.
She put her ear to the door.
*Thump*
*Thump*
*Thump*
"Detective Norris?" she inquired through the closed door.
*Thump*
She carefully opened the door and peered inside. To her horror, Detective Norris's
body was hanging from the ceiling fan by his own necktie, his lifeless body bumping
idly against the wall.
*Thump*
Two gold tokens had been jammed into his eye sockets.
____________________________________________________________________
In the going on four years I’ve been running this site, I have received a lot of tales.
This is not the only tale that offers an origin to the curse, but it is perhaps the oldest.
What follows is an obscure legend from what was once called the Naka region of
Japan.
Long ago, there lived a doll maker. Unlike many stories, he was not the finest in all
the land. His dolls were of mediocre craftsmanship – cast in inferior porcelain, wearing
simple robes of linen, and painted with an unsteady hand. He was not a bad or lazy
man; he simply had neither the talent nor the means to produce the high-quality dolls
that the feudal nobility demanded. He tried his best, but his dolls remained upon the
shelves and his wife and son remained hungry and impoverished.
One day, he received word that the daimyo in the next region was urgently seeking
the services of a doll maker. The lord’s daughter favored a masterpiece of a doll ― a
finely crafted work of art, clad in the most elegant of silks and jade. A clumsy servant
smashed the doll’s face by accident and consequently the child had fallen gravely ill.
The lord believed that only upon mending the doll would the child be saved. Knowing
that fixing the doll would gain him notoriety and honor beyond his meager abilities, the
doll maker bid his family goodbye and set off on the long trek to mend the doll and
hopefully the child as well.
Three nights into his journey, the doll maker came to a bridge. Upon crossing the
water, he was beset upon by a trio of thieves who beat him savagely. When they saw
that the traveler carried only doll making equipment, they tossed his bags into the
river and fled. With nothing left, the doll maker wept and awaited death.
But death did not arrive, as such. He was discovered by a bewitching beauty. A
gorgeous young woman who walked as softly as the breeze approached him,
concealing her face behind an elegant fan of silk. “Why do you cry?” she giggled.
“Am I not beautiful?” The doll maker apologized, for surely this ethereal beauty
belonged to a house of great stature and recounted the events of that evening. At
the end of his tale, she touched his shoulder and led him deep into the forest to her
elegant estate. There she dressed his wounds and seduced him.
The next morning, the woman offered to teach the doll maker to make dolls without
porcelain in exchange for his everlasting love. Desperate for the knowledge, he
eagerly accepted. Using cord and cloth, she taught the man to sew whimsical forest
animals and stuff them with straw and fluff. Under her guidance, the doll maker
created brightly colored likenesses of the hedgehog, the spiny anteater, and a large
cat.
“Bring these to the child and she will love them,” the woman said. She gave him a
necklace with a red jewel on it as a token of her love and sent him on his way, telling
him to return to her as soon as he was successful.
The doll maker finally made it do the daimyo’s estate. Though he could not mend the
broken doll, he offered the sick girl his stuffed cloth animals. She adored them and
the doll maker was richly rewarded. With his new skill and reputation, he could finally
support his family. He made haste for home, making sure to avoid the forest where he
met his beautiful benefactor.
When he got home, he gave his wife the jeweled necklace, saying that it was a gift
from the daimyo. With his son as his assistant, he began making the strange cloth
animal dolls which were now highly sought after. Many years passed and the family
became rich and respected.
One night, the doll maker heard his wife calling to him from his workshop. Upon
entering the room, he discovered his wife nailed to the wall. Her mouth was sewn shut
and black tears were streaming from her bloodshot eyes. The doll maker tried to run
to her, but blocking his path was the beauty from the forest, clutching the jeweled
necklace in her hands. She appeared as young as ever and from the two silky tails
that twitched angrily behind her, it was clear that she was a kitsune.
The forest spirit giggled, nastily. “You promised me your heart and soul, doll maker,
and I always collect. Your payment is late, so I will simply have to take more. I will
have your soul, your wife’s, and everyone that enjoys the fruits of your labors. After
all, these stuffed creatures are our children.”
When the doll maker’s son returned home, he discovered that his parents had
vanished and the workshop had burned down. Sifting through the ashes, he
discovered that all of the dolls had been immolated, except one ― a captivating
kitsune doll with two tails and a red jewel upon its head.