Speed Run 4: Mystery Run

(DISCLAIMER: This story is entirely fictional. I do not mean to target Vurse or the Speed Run series, this is just a quick idea I came up with.)

Most Robloxians have probably heard of or played the Speed Run series. It is an iconic, rage-inducing, yet increasingly addictive staple of Roblox history. There is a dark side to this seemingly bright, colorful game, however.

Chapter One
I play Roblox a lot. Some call it an obsession, others call it a phase. Despite the awkward comments I get about it, Roblox is one of my favorite games out there. My account, All5Nights, (which is a reference to another game I like,) is almost always active. My Xbox is almost always on.

One game that I am always found playing is Speed Run 4. I tried finding Speed Run 3, 2, and 1, but they just didn't have the same appeal as the fourth installment. While playing one day, I noticed something strange- When I got to level 3, (the purple-carpet level,) the music kept on playing the same beginning notes over and over again, like a song that was cut short, then thrown back to the start.

I reset; the music still kept playing. I felt my skin turn cold, but I ignored it and kept on playing. The fourth level always did something weird to me- the music never played, it was just silence. For me, this was a normal occurrence; to this day, I still have no idea if that's normal or not.

Chapter Two
Level 5-6 went on as normal; no glitchy music (or lack thereof.) Level 7, however, made my gameplay even eerier. The notes of the song played like how it played in level 3- only the first few notes, then it repeats. Despite the regret and guilt scratching at my back, I put on a brave face and continued.

Level 8 was even worse- the music was even faster now, and still played only the first few notes. Then, I got curious; what if I jumped into one of the sewer drains? The pipes were sideways facing, and you were supposed to jump on top of them, but I was able to make it into one of the pipes.

For a while I sat there, not knowing what to do. I couldn't get out unless I died, but I needed to finish the level. Out of curiosity, I ran to the back of the drain, searching for ways to get out, or better; a badge or secret. Surprisingly, I didn't get a badge, but was teleported to a new game titled, "Mystery Run."

Chapter Three
When the game loaded, the room was completely black. In my inventory was a lantern, which helped with the removal of light in the room. The walls had a carpet texture, with black smoke textures shrouding the room in darkness. In front of me was an NPC of the creator of the Speed Run games himself- Vurse. Of course, it wasn't the real Vurse, so I pressed "X" to talk to this NPC. It responded with a string of letters and numbers:

"45 52 52 4f 52 3a 20 47 61 6d 65 20 6e 6f 74 20 79 65 74 20 72 65 6c 65 61 73 65 64 2e 20 30 31 30 31 30 31 30 31 30 31 31 31 30 30 31 31 30 31 31 30 30 31 30 31 30 30 31 30 30 30 30 30 30 31 31 31 30 30 30 30 30 31 31 31 30 30 31 30 30 31 31 30 31 31 31 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 30 30 30 31 31 30 31 30 30 31 30 31 31 30 30 30 31 30 30 31 31 30 31 30 30 31 30 31 31 31 30 31 30 30 30 31 31 30 30 31 30 31 30 31 31 30 30 31 30 30 30 30 31 30 31 31 31 30 30 30 31 30 30 30 30 30 30 31 30 31 30 30 31 31 30 31 31 31 31 30 30 31 30 31 31 31 30 30 31 31 30 31 31 31 30 31 30 30 30 31 31 30 30 31 30 31 30 31 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 30 31 30 30 30 30 30 30 31 31 31 30 30 31 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 30 30 30 31 31 31 30 31 30 31 30 31 31 31 30 31 30 30 30 31 31 30 30 31 30 30 30 31 31 30 31 31 31 31 30 31 31 31 30 31 31 31 30 31 31 30 31 31 31 30 30 30 31 30 31 31 31 30 30 30 31 30 31 31 31 30 30 30 31 30 31 31 31 30."

Me, being the geek I am, decided to put the letters into a hexadecimal translator- I took coding in high school, and commonly code as a hobby. I used hex-code all the time. What I got was this:

"ERROR: Game not yet released. 01010101011100110110010100100000011100000111001001101111011010000110100101100010011010010111010001100101011001000010111000100000010100110111100101110011011101000110010101101101001000000111001101101000011101010111010001100100011011110111011101101110001011100010111000101110."

Well, the "game not released" thing was kind of odd- I guess Vurse made a teleport in his game to a newly developing game, and the NPC's wouldn't cooperate with players until the game was fully released? I'm not sure, but I put the binary into a simple online translator. Here's the full message:

"ERROR: Game not yet released. Use prohibited. System shutdown..."

After the message was finished, the game kicked me, the excuse being, "This game does not exist yet."

(Note: I copy-pasted the message before I got kicked, but translated it after I was kicked.)

Chapter 4: The Next Day
The whole experience yesterday made my blood run cold. I decided to go back to the game through the pipe since when I searched the game there were no results. This time, I didn't talk to the NPC- I simply walked past him with no context. There was an opening in the room, which lead to a hallway. As I walked, I caught glimpses of the outside; lighting changes, small openings in the carpeted walls. Nevertheless, I kept moving on.

At the end of the hallway was a gray room. In front of me was another opening- It had the iconic golden speed pad of the 4th section to Speed Run, so I stepped on it and started the parkour course. There was no music, and it vividly reminded me of the 4th level of Speed Run 4.

When I got to the end, there was another NPC. This one was fully white, other than an orange spot on his chest and back. I decided to talk to the character, to which it responded:

"53 54 4f 50 2e 20 54 48 45 20 47 41 4d 45 20 49 53 4e 27 54 20 4f 55 54 20 59 45 54 2e 20 59 4f 55 20 43 41 4e 54 20 42 45 20 48 45 52 45 2e 20 4c 33 34 76 33 20 4e 30 57 2e."

Again, more hex-code. This time, the translation was eerier than the last one.

"STOP. THE GAME ISN'T OUT YET. YOU CAN'T BE HERE. Ļ̸͙̞̖͙̗͎̣̙͐͊̈̈̀̉ͅ3̷̨̡̨̬̺͗̑̒̔̑̇͘4̶͔̖̘͎̹̅̀̔̆̓̇̍̇͝v̸̟͕̞͉̮̔́̇̇3̷͖̥̮̤͈̑̈́̑̂̓͝ ̵̥̱̈́̊̈́̄Ṋ̴̺̜̀̄̽͜͠0̸̨͈̻̲͍̇̋̓͐̿ͅW̴̧̼͚̹̼̒̓̅̅͋̉͜͠."

And, yet again, I was kicked. This time, though, I was able to catch a glimpse of the figure right before I was kicked. Its face turned into the iconic Roblox smile instead of the plain, faceless, neon character I had previously seen.

Chapter 5: Possible Continuation???
I tried entering the game once or twice before- the teleport no longer works, I just die instead. I may continue the investigation on this odd phenomenon later. I contacted the developer and I am still waiting for a response. I don't think he will respond, though; he doesn't need to deal with a game that doesn't exist, right?