The Nightmare Realm
Words by Dylan Mangan.
You know that myth that we only use 10% of our brains? Well, children are proof of how untrue that myth is. Every child has an insane ability to imagine, create, visualise all sorts of crazy images and stories. As a young boy I had imaginary friends, the most memorable being my two best friends, Fox and Wolf. They were, ironically, incredibly unimaginative imaginary friends, or at least unimaginatively named. You might be able to guess that they were a fox and a wolf. Big surprise. We had a great time though, we played all sorts of games, went on epic adventures around the garden and had 100m races that I always just about managed to win (I wonder why). I don’t remember when they first disappeared, but I’ll always remember they existed and they are testament to a child’s imagination, as are the millions of imaginary friends around the world.
Imagination is a beautiful thing, but it can be easily manipulated and corrupted by mysterious, dark forces. Nightmares are the other side of the Fox and Wolf coin, and like many others I had plenty. There were the classics, featuring the feeling of falling, getting lost, and one really strange one involving a shotgun wielding horse coming for my family. However, there’s one nightmare that sticks with me to this day, one scary character that I’ll never get away from.
The original Ratchet and Clank came out in 2002. One cold November evening my Dad arrived home from work with a peculiar box and brought me into the sitting room. Inside was a PS2, our first console. Oh the excitement! I bounced around with anticipation as he set it up and took out the two games it came with; Ratchet and Clank, and Kingdom Hearts. It was late so I was allowed to pick one to play and I could try the other the next day. In my excitement, I chose Kingdom Hearts which, as anyone who’s played the game’s seemingly endless intro, meant that I only got about 2 minutes of playtime before bedtime.
Lesson learned, and the following day I started Ratchet and Clank. To this day, I love the series and the first game in particular. My first playthrough went as slowly as you can expect from a six year old, but I trundled through the levels until I reached Blackwater City, where I met the creature of my nightmares.
Amoeboids. Or to give them their proper name - scary motherfuckers. At six I was terrified of them. When you killed one it split into two, which split into four etc until they could split no more. I didn’t know their name at the time so named them after the noise they made, which can only be described as “blaaaarghhhh”.
To meet a blargh in the night of Blackwater City was the stuff of nightmares. My over imaginative brain inserted them as characters into a good portion of my dreams for a couple of years at least. That shotgun-wielding horse suddenly had blargh companions who multiplied like rabbits. They were so invasive that even during waking hours I expected them to jump out at me or hide in the shadows at night. They were like Scooby Doo monsters without a creepy janitor to unmask.
The blarghs wouldn’t have been such a big problem in my life at that age if I was any good at the game. The world of Blackwater City wasn’t especially tough, but there was one part that I was stuck on for six months or so. Six months of dying at the hands of the blarghs would be enough to drive anyone insane.
I eventually cleared the level and never looked back, but the blarghs remain to this day.
