Every night children flee from a dark figure who makes his way from the YS3 offices to his sparsely-decorated flat, and women scream at his passing. As the editor, Nathan inspires a similar fear in his journalist lackeys, but his Scrooge-likeness extends to the population at large, and hence a rather unusual Christmas Eve for the Ed this year as Actual Reality throws off all restraint in the absence of a suitable Speccy Christmas game…
Christmas Eve, 6 p.m. GMT
Wrapped in his dark cloak, Nathan strides past beggars and other YS3 writers on his way back home, footsteps crunching in the snow. The children have gone by the time he reaches the places where they were playing moments before, and his walk is a lonely one. He finally reaches his destination just as the clock strikes six, but as he reaches for the key hole, the door knocker morphs into Jon’s face, looking at him with great disapproval and showing a number of molars. Nathan is shaken, but the image is gone as soon as he looks back and he dismisses it easily. When he hears a great clanking sound as he eats his dinner of roast Toffee Cream Slices (delicious hot or cold), he is more perturbed. The fire mysteriously goes out, making the bright and unholy light in the corridor all the more obvious. Then the door to his room is thrown open with a tremendous burst of paranormal energy, blue lightning crackling over its hinges as mist pours into the room. Jon, a ghostly blue apparition of a man, covered with chains and weighed down with an eternal weight, walks in. Nathan hits the radiator and the clanking stops.
“Nathan Cross! Beware!” cries the apparition with a howl from beyond the realm of men.
“Don’t think that sounding like S Club 7 will scare me,” counters Nathan, unmoved by it all, “I have two younger sisters.” He thinks for a moment. “But what are you doing here? Aren’t you, well, you know…”
“Dead?” howls the ghost of Jon with relish. “Yes, and by your hand two Christmas Eves ago. You were unwilling to share the glory of YS3 even then before it was published. But I come with a warning!”
“Not to dress like that? Why have you gone all Vamp? You were the best of reviewers and a great deputy editor. Which, naturally, is why I had to take you out of the picture.”
“These chains were forged by me, link by link in life. With every game I reviewed without playing it, with every journalist that I mercilessly persecuted and with every company I destroyed because I didn’t like the SFX, I forged my own eternal damnation! But it is not too late, Nathan! You may repent!”
“Ah, no, thanks.” Nathan pauses. “But I appreciate the gesture.”
Jon continues unabashed. “Before this article is out, you will be visited by three spirits (or less, if they’re not all needed)! Heed their warning and avoid the same for yourself!” His message finished, Jon begins to fade. “Gosh, I’m tired. Well, catch you later.” Picking up the chains, he slowly leaves the room, leaving Nathan in the darkness. After a suitably dramatic pause, the fire springs back into life, but the editor is not impressed.
Christmas Eve, 8 p.m. GMT
Nathan is sleeping soundly until he is mysteriously awakened. He does not know why he is awake, but checks the clock. Christmas Eve it still is, and the clock strikes eight. Suddenly, a bright light fills the room, casting all shadows away. Nathan turns the lights back off again, seeing nothing. But as he lies back down, a hand touches his shoulder. He looks up to Jamie, wearing a glowing white frock with stars in its sleeves.
“Alright, mate?” Jamie asks. “I’m the ghost of Christmas past. Fancy a stroll down memory lane - quite literally?”
Nathan thinks for a moment. “No, that’s alright.”
Jamie is not to be so easily refused. “I insist.”
“Really, that’s OK.”
“I wouldn’t want you to miss out.”
“I couldn’t trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble, really.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose, now.”
“No imposition. I’d be delighted if you’d come with me.”
“I’d feel like a second wheel, I really would.”
Jamie sighs. “Let’s settle it with a game of Chaos, OK? If my friend wins, you go. If you win, I go. Deal?” Nathan nods, and Jamie calls his mate. The Grim Reaper. Suddenly finding himself atop a cliff with a Speccy, a TV and Death, Nathan takes a seat and the game commences. Lightning flashes in the background and the rain lashes down. Unfortunately, the adverse weather knackers the Speccy before the battle can be decided, so Jamie gets everyone a hot chocolate.
“Take me back home,” commands Nathan. “I’m wet, cold and miserable… although the hot chocolate is great.”
Jamie nods. “Of course. Home. I’ll take you right there. Honest. Just take my hand…”
Christmas Eve, two years previously
In a flash of expensive special effects, Nathan finds himself two years in his past. He glares at Jamie, who shows him to crossed fingers. Nathan sighs. “Do you recognise this place?”
Nathan looks around. “Sure. This is my room, looks like Christmas Eve two years ago, just before YS3 was launched.” As he is speaking, the past Jon and the past Nathan walk into view, talking. The past Nathan gestures for the past Jon to go on ahead, which he does.
“Do you know what happens next?” asks Jamie, looking disapprovingly at the current Nathan, who nods just as the past Nathan runs for cover. The past Jon takes another two steps forward, and is blown sky high by an anti-personnel mine buried under the hard ground and a very nice explosion. The past Nathan runs out from cover and does a little dance as the bits fall around him. “That wasn’t very nice, was it?”
Nathan shrugs. “It was him, or world domination and fortune. Take your pick.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that.” Jamie says quickly. “There’s no problem with the cold-blooded murder.”
Nathan looks puzzled. “But, from what Jon said…”
“He’s rather melodramatic like that, and it seemed like a good thing to write at the time,” Jamie explains. “The real point is that it wasn’t very YS, was it? You’ve lost the original vision with that little escapade. For you to avoid eternal damnation, that’s the thing you need to change. Tell you what, why don’t you do it again, Quantum Leap-style, and get it right this time, eh?”
Nathan agrees, and after a flash of lightning finds himself back as his past self, with the past Jon walking down the path. Seeing him heading for imminent - if spectacular - death, Nathan sprints after him, trips, rolls in front of him, and sets off the mine, killing them both.
Looking on, Jamie smiles with great satisfaction, cracks his knuckles and heads back to present, having sold his soul for thirty pieces of silver. Quite literally, as it turns out, since a pirate buys the YS3 web site.
Merry Christmas, dear readers. And don’t be selfish and psychopathic like Jamie this season, eh?
|
