BACK ISSUES: A Hedgehogs Can't Swim Creepypasta

I’m telling you guys this because I know you’ll believe me. As I type these frenzied words, I can hardly believe it myself. Something impossible. Impossibly horrible. This awful revelation has its roots in something I hold dare, the subject of this very blog. I know some won’t believe me but I swear everything that follows is the awful, awful truth.

It started when the news of a comic shop opening in town reached me. Being somebody interested in comics, I immediately tracked the place down. Though it was in an odd part of town I rarely visited, I drove down there anyway. The building was right next to an old pharmacy. The place seemed like a typical comic shop, with rows of new books, trade paperbacks, and various toys and collectables lying about. The store also had a large selection of back issues. As soon as I saw that, I walked to the “S” section and started to look for any rare “Sonic the Hedgehog” comics I might not have.

Flipping through the books, it was a typical collection. Lots of issues from the last ten years, a handful that were slightly older then that. Tucked way back at the end of the wrack was something I couldn’t believe. An issue of Sonic #0, from the original mini-series! The very first “Sonic” comic Archie ever published! With a totally reasonable asking price, I scooped the book up and ran to the clerk. He gave me an odd look, smiling strangely, as I handed a few crumpled up bills. “I hope you enjoy that,” he said, nodding slowly. The man looked somewhat familiar yet I couldn’t place his face. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it.

After returning home, I put the bag down on my desk and went about my day. It wasn’t until the next day, after work, that I was able to really look at the book. Glancing at the cover, I immediately realized something was different. Sonic’s eyes were strangely blank, the pupils missing among the white sclera. As far as I knew, no misprints of this issue ever existed. Which meant I had an especially rare version, perhaps a one of a kind copy. I ran my thumb over the cover, making sure that this wasn’t the work of a pranksters or hoax artist. There was no addition paint or white out. This was a genuine copy.

Thumbing through the issue, I noticed other odd art mistakes. Sonic’s missing pupils weren’t confined to the cover. Every time he appeared in the book, his eyes were wrong. Just white starring voids, without the black dot to denote expression or feeling. This wasn’t the only oddness. Passing the page where he first met Caterkiller, I didn’t notice it at first. It was only after backtracking did I see the error. The robot’s teeth had been miscolored red by mistake, almost as if blood was dripping from his fangs. The speech bubble was screwed up too. Instead of saying his name, he introduced himself to Sonic as “Your Killer.” This was a seriously messed up book. No way it was real, I thought to myself. I was obviously holding a fake copy in my hand, albeit a well made fake. Somebody’s idea of a dumb joke.

I kept reading, too curious to put it down. I was going to see this prank through to the end. Scanning ahead a few pages, I hit the part where Sonic reaches Freedom HQ. The first introduction of Sally and the other Freedom Fighters. Yet there was something wrong on these pages too. The dialogue and expressions were normal. But Sally… Her eyes were entirely red. Like blood. Just huge bloody voids where her eyes would normally be. Almost as if someone had plucked them out of her head. That sight made a chill run up my spine.

It’s just a stupid prank, I thought. A prank somebody had put a lot of time into, digitally manipulating the images, printing them out, bounding the pages. Even keeping the old ads intact and then selling the comic back to a shop. The more I thought about it, the less likely a hoax option seemed. As I continued through that first story, with its goofy ending about crying trees, I notice something else strange. None of the characters were smiling, laughing, or joking around. Each of them looked miserable, as if they were in constant agony.

As the story ended, I expected to see that dumb illustration of Sonic and Sally bemoaning a cut down tree. After all, that’s the next image that appeared in the book. Instead, the story from issue 3 began, of Sonic disguising himself as a robot to sneak into Robotnik’s compound. The thought occurred to me again that this was a rare misprint in my hands. That maybe all the weird faces were simply a bizarre coloring error. Except that didn’t make any sense. Why would a future issue get mixed up with the first one? A closer look revealed something more disturbing. Once again, the word bubbles had been tampered with. Rotor screamed “KILL!” on the second page. The word was hidden all throughout the story, normal vowels switched out with the cry to murder. I didn’t want to read this. I didn’t want to feel these things, to see these awful words shoved into the mouths of my favorite characters.

That second story ended prematurely. It’s as if the book was reading my thoughts, as if something was compelling the pages to change in my hand as I passed my fingers over them. But not for the better. For the second half of issue three had been replaced with yet another story.  The back half of issue 47, the start of “Endgame.” The death of Princess Sally. But what was already a sad story had been made more disturbing. Now, every characters’ eyes ran red with blood. Their tears were even blood, spots of red dotting their faces. Bunnie, Antoine, and Rotor seemed tormented by something even bigger then the death of their friend. Their agony became my own, a terrible feeling rising inside of me as I read through the comic.

Enough was enough. I didn’t know where it came from but I sure as hell didn’t want it in my house anymore. I slammed the comic shut, ran across the room, and threw it in the trashcan. Tomorrow, I was going back to the comic shop. I was going to give the clerk an earful, ask him why the hell he was selling photoshopped comics. I was freaked out by it but I couldn’t imagine what a kid would think, an innocent picking that up, expecting a friendly kid’s comic but seeing this weirdness instead.

I went straight to bed. The whole ordeal had exhausted me. I was tired enough that I went right out. Yet my sleep was haunted by the most horrible images. Terrible spectres emerging from my bedroom wall, starring down at me with clasping bone jaws. A runny, crimson liquid ran from their sockets. Like the blood in the comic. As the dream went on, the faces changed, morphing into the cartoon likenesses of Sonic and his friends. Their faces twisted in pain, in torment. They could not beg for an end to their infinite suffering. Instead, they could only scream out one word, prolonged by the pain. “KILL,” I heard them scream. “KILL!” Sonic and Bunnie and Rotor said again. Kill them, I realized. End the agony that they couldn’t escape from themselves.

When I awoke, my skin was damp with sweat. I tried to rationalize. That the dumb prank had just spooked me. That the dream came from my own mixed up brain and not from some outside force, not from some evil dwelling in that dreadful book. I knew what I had to do. I retrieved the comic from the trash, Sonic’s smirk on the cover seeming to mock me. To relish in the pain it had caused me. I jumped in my car and drove back to the comic shop. At the very least, the shop owner would give me my money back.

And that was when the weirdest thing of all happened. As I drove downtown, I looked all around the road where the shop had been yesterday. I passed the pharmacy over and over again, baffled by the empty lot next to it. Finally, I parked my car and decided to investigate on foot. There was no way the comic shop could’ve been knocked down overnight. There was no debris, no sign that a building had been there yesterday. It was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. Holding the cursed comic book in my hand, that was when the memory of the day before came rushing back to me. The reason why the man behind the counter had looked so familiar. It was a face I knew, someone I had seen before. For the man that sold me the horrible comic was… was…