"This Sonic was a monster, a pure evil, sadistic, all-powerful, nightmarish, demented monster... and all of his victims, including Tails, Knuckles, Robotnik and possibly Kyle, are just his little toys, and the game is the very gateway into his chaotic, nightmarish world and the very Hell his victims are trapped in."
— Tom
Sonic.exe originated as a Creepypasta by Jack Cranely (seen here
) concerning a man named Tom who receives a bizarre CD in the mail from his friend Kyle, who hasn't been heard from in a while. Disregarding Kyle's note telling him to destroy the CD, Tom plays it and is disturbed by the title screen showing Sonic with bleeding red eyes and black sclera. As he plays the game further, Tom bears witness to just how monstrous X, this incarnation of the blue hedgehog, really is.
In 2013, the official sequel was made. However, it doesn't focus much on the game itself (in fact, only two of the three new scenarios were described), rather what happens when you play the game.
On October 31st, 2017, Jack Cranely posted a remake of the entire story. If you wish to look at the tropes of the Sonic.exe remake, click here.
Currently, following the aftermath of Jack's deplatforming after being exposed for being a sexual predator (as well as his eventual abandonment of the creepypasta for good), Sonic.exe's ownership has been relinquished to ASTRANOMICONX, who attempted to work on a new canon before it was discontinued with ASTRA wanting his version of X to die off. Ownership was later again transferred to JoeDoughBoi, who made a new canon for him.
Sonic.exe provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: At one point, Jack, the author to the original Creepypasta revealed X's official Backstory which, amongst other things, explains his nature, his personality, why he resembles Sonic in the first place, how he's able to steal his victims' souls, and what he actually does to his victims.
- And I Must Scream: According to the backstory for the titular character, this is the fate of all Sonic.exe's victims due to him simply taking their souls and placing them in bodies that look like Sonic the Hedgehog characters just so that he could "make them his slaves", as well as killing their "bodies" in gruesome manners.
- Apocalyptic Log: The letter written by Kyle that comes with the package, as well as Derek's diary.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In-game, X succeeds in killing Tails, Knuckles, and Eggman in Tom's playthrough. In Derek's playthrough, he's killed Shadow and Sally, though Derek refuses to finish the game as Rouge. Outside the game, X has claimed many victims, thanks to Shannon Goldman and the Cult of X distributing the game, and will go after anyone else next.
- Continuity Nod: Tom and Kyle are mentioned in the sequel. Apparently, they weren't the first to play it...
- Cosmic Horror Story: A bizarre attempt at one, given X's nature and what it does to people, not to mention the theft of souls.
- Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Kyle's letter tells Tom not to play the Sonic game. No guesses as to what Tom does right after reading that...
- Eldritch Abomination: X himself is this. According to his official backstory, he was created in the gap between dimensions and originally did not have an appearance resembling Sonic himself. He's omnipotent within his home world, to the point where he can make his world seem a lot like Sonic's at first glance just to give his victims a sense of false security. And the Sonic characters that X kills? Those are actually his previous victims, trapped in the bodies of Sonic characters and forced to be his "slaves" (all the while they're being killed in-"game" in very gruesome manners just to play with future victims before he steals their souls).
- Evil Laugh: X does it regularly. Tom comments that it sounds like that of Kefka. The playable version uses Kefka's laugh, naturally.
- Evil Twin: X to the real Sonic. According to backstory information, however, he didn't start out that way. He only adapted an appearance resembling Sonic because he's a huge fan of him.
- For the Evulz: All the things X does, like trapping Sonic's best friends in a hellish dimension for torture and/or kill them, are simply to satiate his sadistic and depraved instincts.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: In the sequel, when X cuts off his contact with Cole, Derek exclaims, "Goddamn you Sonic.exe!!!"
- Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Tom is shown to be distraught after X kills Tails and Knuckles. After Knuckles's death, Tom decides to take a nap, and has a nightmare that he's in a dark room with only a light bulb above his head as he hears Tails and Knuckles calling out, "Help us..." and "Why did you give us to him?" He hears X laughing evilly and telling him that he's next, too.
- The Hero Dies: Both Tom (as revealed in the sequel) and Derek meet their fate by X.
- Hope Spot: "There is a way to release ourselves. A spell to obtain our souls once more. But we must speak it - but when we speak - no sound. We are all deaf. So failure is inevitable."
- Immediate Self-Contradiction:
- From the original:
I started to think Sonic was actually trying to talk to me through the game... But I was too scared to think that.- In Sonic.exe 2:
11:22 am October 24th, 2011
Wow, pretty interesting way to start off a case on Halloween. - Just Eat Gilligan: Both stories rely on people failing to warn others about the cursed game, people failing to destroy the disc when they have the chance, and people playing the game even when the grave danger is obvious. There are slight hints that X can control his victims subtly enough to prevent these courses of action, but it's never shown outright.
- May It Never Happen Again: Subverted. Kyle advises Tom to destroy the Sonic the Hedgehog disc so that X won't haunt him or anyone else, but Tom is too curious about the game, so he plays it anyway. This results in him being traumatized by the game's violence and it's implied that X comes for him in the end.
- The Most Dangerous Video Game: Quite literally made by a monster that doesn't belong in this world to steal men's souls and make them its slaves.
- MST:
- Retsupurae has done a reading of the creepypasta in their usual (cynical and negative) style.
- Yuriofwind has a reading of the story's "first" act, but he summarized the rest, because the rest is pretty much the same thing as the part he read. He also MSTed the sequel in a 52 minute video.
- Bad Creepypasta has done an MST reading of the original story then later riffed the sequel while playing a drinking game, getting hammered while mocking the story.
- Random Encounters went silly on the pasta here.
- The Annotated Series did this visually to the game version as a Hallowe'en special.
- Tales from the Consoles has riffed the creepypasta in the pilot episode.
- Masterpiece of Shit Theater has offered its own reading.
- Fanfic Theater 3015 of all people has also riffed this creepypasta —right here.
- Man on the Internet does his own MST right here.
- Retsupurae has done a reading of the creepypasta
- No Name Given: The original creepypasta never does give a name for the demonic Eldritch Abomination that terrorizes the narrator, with "Sonic.exe" being the most popular Fan Nickname to distinguish him from the original Sonic. According to the original author's follow-up, the character has taken the nickname as his own name. The sequel validates this name, as well as giving him the alias "X".
- Nothing Is Scarier: Eggman's level takes place in a long, empty hallway that gradually dims as he descends each level. Considering what has already been seen by that point, Tom could only wonder what would happen to Eggman.
- Omnicidal Maniac: After you finished playing, your soul is ripped from your body, you get a number scratched on your chest, and your computer's hard drive is wiped of everything except the Sonic.exe file.
- Pop Culture Symbology: The entity manifesting itself as Sonic in-game is actually an Eldritch Abomination that has a dark cult of its own, specializing in distributing the game copies.
- Schmuck Bait: Tom is advised by Kyle's letter not to play the hacked game. Guess what Tom does.
- Skewed Priorities: Tom is more worried about fictional video game characters being murdered than the fact that Kyle may have died trying to save him.
- The Most Dangerous Video Game: Playing the game, means inviting the Big Bad for you to be taken with him.
- Too Dumb to Live: Tom in a nutshell. He is told not to play the game, but he does so anyway.
- Would Hurt a Child: X kills Tails. Subverted if you know via X's official backstory, that they're actually X's previous victims trapped in a body resembling Tails'.
- You Bastard!:
- As Tom plays the game, Tails, Knuckles, and even Eggman ultimately fall prey to X. Following Knuckles' demise, Tom receives a message: "So Many Souls to Play With, So Little Time...Would You Agree?" Tom then comes to the conclusion that he has sent these characters to their doom, just as Kyle had when he played it. When you get down to it, the game is deliberately designed as such.
- Even worse, in the sequel, it's revealed that the Sonic characters who died are the representations of human souls who became X's slaves.
