Entering for Don't Starve , thanks .
And about running , dogs always make me run away ...

Not a story abut running away.
Rather a story about not running away.

I was 10 years old.
It was early December.
It was kind of a right of passage among my friends at school to steal something from a shop.
I stopped off at the local games shop & stuffed a white dwarf magazine up my jumper.
Can't really say why I picked that magazine.
Probably because I thought that, being flat, it wouldn't get noticed & it looked more interesting than the model railway stuff or the comics.
Anyway, the counter guy grabbed me as I was walking to the door & pulled the magazine out.
He locked the front door (there was no-one else in the shop) & took me into the back office.
I received a lecture about the economics of stealing vs running a shop.
He showed me a picture of his family that was on the pinboard.
He told me that he had to call the police or he could lose his job & that would ruin Christmas for his daughter.
I started crying & said that anything the police did was bound to less than my mum would do when she found out.
He decided to let me go.
He even gave me the magazine for a Christmas present.

I didn't go into that shop again for about 10 more years.
When I did go in, the same guy was still there.
I mentioned the event, but he didn't remember.
I tried to pay for the magazine, but he said it would screw up their till balance.
Unfortunately, the shop closed down a few years ago.
I felt slightly guilty about that when I found out.

I wonder how things might have turned out differently had I just legged it out the door.

Anyway, my vote goes to
Battle Realms

BUMP!

SPAM :D

Bump-a-roonie

BUMP!

Run and run and BUMP :D

This is a true story. Today I spent the whole day at home alone, playing some games nonstop, y'know, enjoying life. First I started with some Bastion, continuing my challenge attempts with them Idols activated. After a couple of hours I decided I had enough of the gamepad since my keyboard was feeling might lonely, and decided to replay some Half-Life. Turns out I still remember quite a bit of the game despite being years since my last playthrough, and I have a very crappy memory. But those newfangled graphics were too much for me, so I figure to pay the old Duke a visit. All is well so far until I start hearing some strange noises. Nobody's home and it doesn't seem like it's coming from the neighbors' either. And then it happens again, except I'm also starting to feel unwell, weak. After freaking out a bit, I decide to calm down and ponder this situation while considering my options. Well, in the end turns out I was just hungry.

In for Don't Starve. Thanks.

A long time ago, in a city far, far away

a male child was born to two crazy humans

the father decided to run away

the mother decided to chase after him

and thought the best course of action would be to let the baby boy fend for himself

which he couldn't do, of course

eventually the neighbors called the authorities, due to the excessive crying coming out of the apartment

and discovered the baby boy, abandoned, dehydrated, malnourished, but still alive

they put him in a hospital and then an orphanage

around four years of age, he was adopted

and at the moment he's sitting here typing this

that said, the Runaway game looks quite intriguing. :-)

And judging by your avatar, still quite malnourished!

Stop typing & eat something!!

;-}

ROTFLMAO :-)

(Sorry for the delay, I've been real busy. For this story, gave me the idea to write it. Original post for this giveaway is [url=http://www.gog.com/forum/general/runaway_for_the_winter_without_starving_giveaway/post21]here.)

PART 1 / 2

This is a ghost story, a real one that happened to me and many others. But first I have to say, I don't believe in ghosts, I have always been more like an investigator, I need to know the things behind everything and I think there's always an explication for almost everything. But this event was just too weird... ^_^

I can't remember exactly when this happened, but I think it was when I had 11 years old or in the earliest 90s. During a summer and when my family was on vacation, there was this plan of a family reunion (from my father's family side) in Purén, a little town located to the south of Chile where my father and all his brothers and sisters were born and raised (they are/were 10). By that time my family were living in Vallenar, a city in the north of Chile where I was born and raised, so to get to Purén we had to travel over 1300 KM... Because this trip was going to be very long, we have to leave my beloved cat (and friend) "Remington" to the person who was going to take care of our house in Vallenar for a month or so.

After the very long trip we finally got there and it felt like travelling through time: It was my first time in Purén and it was a really small town, with old houses with humble and good people, in the middle of just a green land... and there it was, the old house where my father was born. It looked small from the front, the part that connected with the "main street" of the city, but from the other side you could see that it was just the second floor, and after a long staircase, it had a very large green field, and in the middle, a big cheery tree, which I still have some very good memories of it...

After taking care of the car where we made that trip, I finally met my father's family members, or at least the ones that were still alive... Some of them I already knew, but here they were, with all their children I have never met before and because everyone were Italians and half-Italians, you can imagine the picture... it was exactly like in the movies: all laughing, cheering, joking, screaming, hugging, like noise Italians... I think they were more than 30 people, and I was like (O_O)!

The house, although old, it was very fresh, cold, big and strong, with many rooms and a big basement, who was essentially almost the first floor of the house. I think this is when I first smelt "old" in the air, and also, here is when I found out that this was the house were my father's mother (or better said, my grandmother) died, when he was 12. His father (my grandfather) was dead too, long ago, so I never met them.

Because there were so many people in the house, they organized all the rooms with the people who would sleep there. My room was where all the minors would sleep (yeah, I was one of them... :P ) and we were 4 kids, including my sister. It was the room to the right, from the main entrance of the house that connected to the main street. With us was my mother too, I don't why, but I guess because she had patience enough to handle us all... :P , or because she was too cool, you could even play videogames with her... :)
The room to the left, (the one in front of us) was for the older kids. I don't know how the rest of the rooms were distributed, to couples I guess.

Anyway, here is the good part of the story, the first day, after the very long and tiring day and after everybody ate, we were dispatched to our rooms, but before that, my uncle (the one in charge of the house) said: "By the way, you kids don't worry if you hear odd sounds or something like that in the night, it's just because the house is old, and old houses make weird sounds... Don't pay attention to them". By that time, I thought: "What the hell is he talking about...?" (-_-)

Nobody paid much attention to those words, and me, the others kids and my mom, after a while playing cards, went to bed and turned off the lights. I remember I was alone in my bed next to a front window, and at my side, was my mom sharing a bed with my sister. It was almost midnight and I was tired, so I was trying to sleep, and while I had my eyes closed I could clearly hear that the others were still talking and joking lightly when I started to hear a very low sound, like steps that were coming from the center of the house. I didn't pay much attention, and the others were still talking. Then, the steps started to sound louder and louder very slowly, that's when I opened my eyes because I notice something very weird with those steps: Every step sounded with an echo... and you could hear one per second, very slowly and heavy. I remember when my mom who was talking with my cousin (a girl older than me) said "Ssh..." and my sister said "What's that?". For that moment I didn't say anything, because I was intrigued by that kind of sound from each step.
Somebody said "It's getting closer..." and my cousin said "It's coming from the hallway?". I thought that it could be my uncle or someone else, but that sound... All the lights of the house were off, you could barely see, and the only light was from the stars and the moon through the window to my side. Some of the kids hid under the sheets, but -typical of me- I got off my bed and slowly went to the door. I was hoping to open it and see who was walking there when somebody said "Don't open it!". That's when another sound started, like someone passing his/her hand over the wall while walking slowly. For a moment, I froze while thinking "What the hell is that?!". After some 10 seconds later the sounds stopped and I slowly started to approach the door. I wanted to put my ear on the door to hear better what was going on in that hallway, when the sounds started all over again, like someone slowly turning. I could clearly hear through the wood those sounds and the echoes and I was literally "sweating cold". Slowly I got away of the door, while the sound started to sound less and less louder, and going away to the center of the house (where the eating hall was), until it faded away completly.

For a minute nobody spoke a word. Some were still hiding under the sheets and I was the only one standing... or better said, "paralyzed and cold" in my place. After a while, all started to say: "What was that?!" "Get away from that door!" and "What were you thinking...?!". I didn't say anything. All I can remember after that, is that I went to my bed, I covered myself completly with the sheets and started to think in good things (my cat, videogames, candies...) to sleep fast.

It worked...

PART 2 / 2

The next day, in the morning, everyone was talking about that event, except some of the adults.
I thought that it was possibly a great joke made by the older kids in the next room, but, even they were scared. They didn't stopped talking about it, and just like us, they heard those steps and also heard a hand passing in the wall next to them. So I imagined a person walking in that hallway with the arms extended while walking. But the next question I thought was: "If they didn't do that, who were then?". My next suspect was my uncle, but from the origin and end of those steps, didn't make much sense, because his room was away and in the opposite side of the house. After the breakfast me and few of the kids tried to "recreate" the sound and origin. I could confirm the origin (it was from the eating room) but we couldn't make a sound not nearly close to the echo effect. The floor was made of wood, but the sound was totally different.

For the second night, everyone went to the bathroom before bed (nobody wanted to "go" in the middle of the night, because you needed to go through that hallway...). I was really, really tired, during the day I helped my dad to clean the house, move some things, cut some wood, so I slept really fast and I didn't wake up until the next morning. The funny thing is, that morning, now everyone was talking about it, and soon I found out that during the night, near the midnight, it did happen again exactly as the night before. I did't hear a thing, I was a sleeping rock (:P)

During the breakfast while everyone was there, my uncle and some of my aunts in a really serious way, started to tell us that from time to time, those "sounds" were the way that their mother (my grandmother) visited the house to ask for some company or a visit to her grave. And while they were telling this I thought "Is this for real?". After that my uncle said, that he was expecting something like this, because it was going to be the first time in decades, that all her sons and daughters were going to be together again, and now with all theirs families. My family is very religious (I'm not, I'm the black sheep! >.< ), even my dad was going to be a priest, he studied for that and regreted just before the "no wayback point" (Thanks dad! :D). So everyone took this very seriously and decided that we all should visit the cemetery to pay respects for the "nonna".

That morning after breakfast, everybody went to the cemetary. You can imagine the picture: over 30 people arriving to the small cemetery in cars and to visit just one grave... Although the situation was kind of funny, it was also very beautifully overwhelming.

Strangely, after that visit, everybody was calmed and during the time I was in the town (a month) never again happened something like that event. During that time, it was one of the happiest times of my life. I did everything: Swam in a river, travelled through mountains on foot, ate fresh cherries from that tree, helped rebuild the house... it was really fun indeed.

The sad thing was when we finally returned to Vallenar. I was very eager to see my cat again, but to my surprise, when we arrived to my house, he was nowhere to be found. The day passed and he didn't appear. At first I thought that maybe he went away and would arrive soon, but the next day I knew something was odd. My father called the person who was in charged of the house and my cat and he said that from the first day he never met the cat, ever. I was really angry, I didn't know my cat was missing for a month already and nobody did something about it. I did a complete search of my cat, I went from house to house, ask people, and even went to the radio and talk about it, but I never saw my beloved cat again. I don't know what happened to him and my only regret is he maybe thought that he was abandoned and decided to go away forever... :(

Well, that's my story. I hope that it wasn't too boring, but I wanted to share this with all of you.

Thanks for reading :)

There once was a monkey who entered a giveaway to win Battle Realms. The end. :)

In for Battle Realms!

Because it's Monday, I'll tell you a discusting story.

Once I decided to make baked apples in the microwave. The syrup had gone lumpy, but I thought it was because it had been in the fridge for too long so I poured a good portion of it on the apples and put it in the microwave. After a while, I started hearing this odd popping sound. Then came the really weird smell. When I took the apples out, I discovered what had happened: the syrup hadn't gone lumpy, it had been found by ants who had climbed into the syrup on masse and died there. Most of the "syrup" on my apples were dead ants that had exploded in the microwave. I can't tell you about the smell, or the mess. it took me around 10 years to eat baked apples again.

Not much of a story, but at least it's true.