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Nick Wilde let out a loud yawn as he sat in the police car and waited for the return of his partner. She'd told him that something important was going on in Bunnyburrow today and demanded they drive down as soon as possible.
"C'mon Carrots I can't just sit here all day..."
Nick muttered to himself and looked at his watch, she'd been gone for about thirty minutes already. He was ready to get out and make sure she didn't manage to get lost in her own hometown when he spotted her running back to the car carrying something in her arms.
"Nick! Nick! I got it just in time!"
She was panting when she jumped back into the vehicle, pushing the box into Nick's arms as he struggled to keep himself from dropping it in confusion.
"Got what? What's going on?"
"I'll tell you when we get back to your place. It's a surprise!"
The entire car ride back to Zootopia Nick caught Judy glancing down at the box in excitement and giggling every time she saw him looking at her in bewilderment. Eventually he stopped the car in front of his apartment complex and she started to explain.
"Oh my gosh. Okay so, my parents called and told me they were going through my old stuff from before I left for Zootopia."
"What, they were about to throw out some stuffed carrots or something?"
"No, worse. They almost threw out this."
The rabbit opened the box, still in Nick's scrambling hands, and produced something familiar, a small videogame console.
"I drove you to Bunnyburrow and sat out there for half an hour so you could grab your old videogames?"
"No! I mean, yes, but not exactly. Look, I used to play it all the time when I was just a little bunny and I was feeling kinda nostalgic recently. When Mom and Dad called and said they were going through my old stuff I decided it'd be the perfect chance to grab it and play again."
The fox rubbed his eyes in a tiny amount of frustration and sighed loudly.
"Alright, alright, I'll forgive you this once since it's so important to you. I don't understand why you'd even waste your time with that thing."
Judy gasped and covered her mouth in shock.
"Nick! Didn't you play videogames when you were a kid?"
He rolled his eyes.
"Parents couldn't afford them. Even when they were used they were too much."
She looked down sadly, then perked up immediately afterwords.
"Hey, don't you have the next week off for vacation time?"
He nodded and played with his sunglasses.
"Yep. Surprised I still had time left."
He grunted when Judy plopped the console back into the box and pushed it into his chest.
"Then tell you what, I'll let you borrow it for the week and you can catch up on the videogame time you missed as a kid. It'll make up for the long drive and sitting in the car today. That sound fun?"
"Carrots listen, I really don't care about-"
"Oh no, missing out on the classics is a crime Mr. Wilde. As an officer of the law it's my duty to make sure you don't break the law."
He couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face. Even if the entire thing was completely ridiculous he appreciated what she was trying to do. He had no choice at this point but to go along with it.
"Okay officer Hopps, I'll be a good boy and play videogames all week for you. There's just one problem."
Judy tilted her head and frowned.
"Huh? What's that?"
Nick pointed to the empty slot in the console, as well as the space surrounding it in the box.
"You forgot to get games to go with it."
Her jaw dropped and the expression of horror on her face made him laugh out loud. She pulled the box out from his arms and removed the console, panicking as she checked every inch of the cardboard case.
"Oh no, oh come on!"
She buried her face in her hands and groaned out in frustration. She couldn't believe this. She was in such a hurry to take the console back to the car that she forgot the cartridges to go with it. She was sure she'd be getting texts from her parents about how she left them very shortly, if they hadn't been sent during the drive back already.
"I'm so sorry Nick, I really should've been paying attention."
Nick put his arm around his partner as his laughter died down a bit.
"Carrots it's fine, look, if it makes you feel better we can go get some used games from a pawn shop or something. Just because I couldn't afford them as a kid doesn't mean I can't now. Unless videogames are too much for someone with a police officer's salary."
Judy blushed and nodded, feeling a bit less horrible about her blunder as Nick started the car back up and headed to the nearest pawn shop. When they arrived she told Nick to stay in the car to keep whatever she got him a surprise.
As she walked into the shop Judy started looking at the few old games available when she noticed the silver fox selling something to the tired looking ocelot at the front counter.
"Trust me Cass. It's legit, found it in the basement while I was clearing out more room for the photo collection."
"Oh good, so it's a basement game. Alright I'll give you five bucks for it."
"What? Dude c'mon you know it's worth more than that!"
Judy edged a bit closer to the pair and took a peek at the item in question, gasping loud enough for the both of them to notice her.
"Oh, hello officer. I'm just doing some business with my friend here, it'll just be a minute."
Judy couldn't take her eyes off the object in the fox's hand, gulping a bit as she got closer.
"Um, are you selling this by chance? See, I found my old console but I left the games back home and uh..."
The silver fox smirked and looked at the ocelot who shrugged.
"Whatever Patch. Just don't make this a habit."
"Sweet. Alright officer, I'll give it to you for like, fifty bucks."
Judy narrowed her eyes.
"Thirty."
"Forty."
"Thirty five, and I won't bring up how you're trying to sell an item in someone else's store."
The ocelot giggled when she heard this but covered her mouth when Patch gave her a frustrated look.
"She's got you there. You'd better just listen to her Patch, no one's going to pay full price for your basement game."
"Ugh! Fine, whatever. Thirty five bucks. You'd better not like, write me up after I get home either."
Patch grumbled and handed the game to Judy, who handed her the money in return as Cass imitated the sound of a register.
"Cha-ching. Payment's been made. Everyone better head out now, it's closing time."
Judy smiled and held the game close before turning to the silver fox who was shoving the money in her pockets and mumbling to herself.
"Thank you so much, my friend is going to be really happy."
"Uh-huh. Have fun dude."
As Cass closed up the store behind her, Judy got back in the car and gave Nick a huge grin.
"You'll never guess what I got you."
"Is it one of the classics you were talking about?"
"The classic Mr. Wilde."
She held up the cartridge and Nick took a minute to look it over before replying.
"Happy Carrot Farm."
"Yes! Nick this is like, the best game ever! It was my favourite growing up!"
He was surprised, not in the way she probably expected, but it was certainly some kind of surprised.
"So you got me a game about carrot farming to play for an entire week?"
"You don't just farm carrots. You farm other vegetables too, and you get helpers to make things easier."
He couldn't help but sigh again, only a bunny would think a game about carrot farming was the best thing ever. He bit his tongue though, she already felt bad enough about forgetting the games she wanted to have him play, and if this one was the best he could only imagine how much worse the other ones were.
"You know what Carrots? I'll give it a shot. If you think it's great there must be something special about it."
"Thanks Nick. I promise I'll get the other games from my folks next time I visit home."
He gave Judy a hug and dropped her off before the drive back to his apartment, and the inevitable week of virtual farming ahead of him. As soon as he got inside he carried the console over to his television and fiddled with all the connections needed to get it working.
"Geeze how'd people even get these things working to begin with? I don't even know what half this junk is."
It took some time and some internet searching but he figured out where everything went and stood back to admire his handiwork.
"Yep. That's a fine piece of old electronics right there, and the mess of wires I'll need to take apart when I'm done using it."
A quick look of the cartridge, and a gentle puff of air into the dusty innards later, Nick popped the game in and turned it on. He was met with a bright cheerful screen featuring the titular Happy Carrot Farm and it's happy little residents.
"Oh boy, I can't wait for my carrot growing adventure to begin."
He laughed and pressed start, laughing harder when presented with his exact words being spoken by the little farmer on the screen, but without the obvious sarcasm.
"Okay, maybe I'll get some kinda fun out of this."
The game itself was pretty simple. Nick moved the little rabbit farmer around their land watering patches of dirt and planting seeds before being given a notice that night was coming and it was time for bed. He turned to his clock back in reality and sighed.
"Yep. That sounds about right, I'll come back to my new life of vegetable taming tomorrow."
He felt a snicker escape his lips again when the little farmer decided to mirror his words on the screen, like it was agreeing with him without realizing he was making fun of it. He chose the option to save the tiny amount of progress he made and went to bed.
The next day was the start of his week off, and the proper start of his time at the imaginary carrot farm. Nick made himself breakfast, sat down in front of the TV like he figured Judy would as a kid, and started the game back up. The bright and happy title screen greeted him again as he chose to continue where he left off. He decided to lower the snark a bit for today's attempt, if only to give the poor little bunny farmer some sort of mercy during what would be a grueling life of watering and growing plants for eternity.
Nick went through the routine of moving the bunny around the farm, watering dry dirt and trying to see if he could see any other screens beside this one. There was no way Judy would've been impressed with this as a kid if it was just this, there had to be more right?
"It's like if someone made a game about the Pawpsicle business. Might as well just do the real thing again."
He rubbed his temples and tried to keep pushing through the hilariously mundane tasks before him. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw another figure step onto the farm and approach the little 8-bit rabbit to start a conversation.
"Oh thank God, there's another person on this farm planet other than me."
"I HOPE YOU ARE READY TO PAY YOUR TAXES THIS WEEK RABBIT."
The figure moved up and down in an irritated manner, as far as Nick could tell, as the farmer took a more depressed looking stance. This must have been some sort of conflict added to make the game more than just mindlessly growing and picking things.
"YOU HAD BETTER PAY UP BY THE END OF THE WEEK OR THE FARM WILL BE MINE. HA HA HA."
"Nice to see even in videogames jerks like this are a thing."
Nick moved his now upset rabbit over to finish the work in the field before the message for night came up again, signaling another chance to save the game. Unlike the first day however, Nick noticed something shining in the field before the screen changed to the next day. He felt himself move a bit closer to the screen now, curious as to what was going on and where this game was going.
The rabbit moved to the field and hopped up and down, a strange object sitting in the center and flashing different colours as little sparkles came off of it and sprinkled over the field. He moved his farmer to the object and inspected it, watching as it hatched into a magical rainbow that flew into the sky and covered the entire farm before retreating into a new sparkling well that popped up in the back.
"Alrighty, there's magic things now. That's uh, interesting?"
The rest of the imaginary day was back to checking the crops, a few carrots had actually come up which he wasted no time picking and shoving in the Sell Box by the barn, and watering the field again. To his surprise the magical orb that landed on the farm hadn't left any kind of mark that he'd have to fill in, anything to get back to the mind numbing work from before. Inspecting the new well gave him a message.
"YOU FEEL FUNNY HERE. MUST BE MAGIC."
"Uh-huh. Maybe that magic will speed this game up a bit."
As soon as the message for night came up Nick saved again and stood up, blinking and staring at the clock again. Somehow he'd managed to spend a few good hours on literally two fake days of the game.
"That's weird, didn't feel that long..."
He stood up and went to make lunch now, a strange tired feeling coming over his body as he sat down to eat a sandwich, looking over at the TV as the game waited for him to come back and keep playing.
"I still don't get why Carrots is so nuts about this thing. Maybe if I was a kid it'd make more sense."
As soon as he was finished with lunch it was back to the farm. The next day brought a surprise. Carrots, tons and tons of carrots, more carrots than Nick even remembered planting the day before.
"Whoa. Uh, what's going on here?"
The now much happier looking rabbit moved over to the field of carrots and a message seemed to reply to him.
"THESE CARROTS ARE AMAZING. THIS MUST BE MAGIC."
The carrots weren't just growing in the field where they were planted, some had managed to grow in normal paths used by the rabbit to move between the fields and Nick swore he saw one starting to grow on the roof of the house.
"I'm pretty sure carrots don't grow on shingles, but whatever, it's magic right?"
He laughed and spent the rest of the imaginary day picking the surprise bumper crop of vegetables that was given to him by the mysterious force taking pity on the little pixel bunny. The carrots sold quite a bit when shoved in the little Sell Box and easily covered the mysterious debt given to the bunny by the figure at the start. As he played Nick started to notice something else about the fields and farm as well, everything was getting brighter and cheery, as if the normal farm was turning into the Happy Farm promised in the title of the game. The change was starting to grate slightly on his eyes though, the brighter colours felt like they were drying his eyes out faster, he wasn't sure how but it felt like it was happening and he was glad when his phone went off in his pocket.
"Huh, what?"
He rubbed his eyes and pulled the phone out. It was Judy.
"Hey Carrots what's up?"
"Hey Nick, having fun on the farm?"
"Ha ha yeah, I sure am. So when were you going to tell me about the magical carrots?"
He heard a laugh from the other end of the line.
"Oh man, the game's about to get really good now. Trust me."
"Alright then, I'll get back to magic produce and appeasing the dark tax gods with cash."
"Oh Nick before I forget, wanna go out for lunch tomorrow? Work's kinda slow and I figured you wouldn't be doing much else..."
He thought about it for a minute, and decided she was right. Aside from the game he hadn't even thought of doing anything during his week off other than sleeping in and watching TV anyways.
"Great! I'll see you tomorrow then. Goodnight Nick!"
Goodnight?
Nick turned to his clock and felt his jaw drop. It was well into the evening now. Had he been picking carrots all afternoon and didn't even notice?
"Uh, goodnight Carrots."
He hung up and rubbed his eyes, which felt twice as sore now.
"Geeze, no wonder they warned kids about these things back in the day. Do bunnies just have more energy for this kind of thing?"
Thankfully, the message for the next night in the game popped up and gave him the chance to save and go to bed back in reality.
Nick could feel the slight burning in his eyes as he tried to sleep that night, and his dreams were full of bright colours and carrots, more than he would've liked to see.
The next morning he pulled himself out of bed and stumbled through his morning routine as usual before returning to the TV for the morning of gaming ahead. His eyes felt much better after a proper sleep and his dreams that night had only fueled his new desire to make it through the game. When he started the console and selected the continue option he was given a quick scene of the night before, the entire farm flashing with colours as the magic force swept over the land again.
As the little pixelated rabbit walked outside it was greeted with another massive crop of carrots, as well as vegetables Nick didn't even remember planting the night before.
"That's weird, when did I get seeds other than carrots?"
He shrugged it off, maybe the magic of the thing in the well had gifted him with other produce to sell. He checked his phone alarm before going back to the harvesting of the miracle crops, he wasn't going to miss lunch with Judy even if he somehow got sucked into the game once more. As he picked the carrots Nick started noticing some odd little details he hadn't picked up on before; The carrots were much brighter and had extra pixels starting to come off of them, some of them even being different colours completely.
"I hope the box doesn't care if they get green carrots this time."
Nick joked to himself as he put the new carrots in the box.
"MAGIC CARROTS SELL FOR MORE."
"I knew that yesterday when I basically finished the debt in a single day. Any other wisdom you want to bestow upon me oh magical Sell Box?"
The game was still for a moment before a new message popped up.
"DO NOT EAT YOUR OWN CROPS."
He raised an eyebrow. Up to this point his rabbit wasn't eating anything anyways, as far as he could tell. He figured at night the bunny ate before going to bed or something.
"I mean, I'm not going to eat them if I need the money anyways. Thanks for the warning I guess."
The game returned to normal after that, aside from some funny looking carrots and what Nick could've sworn was an eggplant with a face on it, probably put in as a lame joke by the designer. As he kept playing he felt his eyes burning again, and the bright colours on the screen were giving him a bit of a headache now. He focused harder and harder on trying to get through the day until his phone went off and sent him jumping up from the couch, gasping and gripping his chest in shock before he checked it.
"What!?"
He'd managed to play an hour past the alarm he set, Judy was calling him now.
"Nick? Where are you? I've been texting you for an hour now!"
"Uh, I'm sorry Carrots I was just, I thought I set my alarm for lunch I'll be there soon."
He saved the game and tried not to give himself a heart attack as he rushed out the door and made his way to the arranged lunch location. After a previous incident Judy refused to talk about they'd been sticking to normal take-out places and avoiding the smaller places Nick preferred to eat at.
"Geeze Nick, you sleep okay last night? You look exhausted."
"What? Oh, yeah I'm fine. Just got a bit too much into your game I think."
Judy snorted with laughter and covered her mouth in a late attempt to stifle herself.
"Told you it was a good game Nick. Better be careful, don't wanna get addicted to videogames on your first week playing them."
"Ha ha, very funny Carrots. I'll keep that in mind."
As he stared down at his lunch he decided to at least try to make more conversation about the game.
"So did you zone out when you played it as a kid?"
"Zone out? Like, lose track of time?"
"Yeah."
Judy stuffed her salad in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully before replying.
"Y'know, funny thing is I don't really remember much about actually playing it, just that I played it a lot."
That wasn't too assuring.
"Nick if you're worried about not being able to handle videogames I'll just take it back now and spare you the horrors of liking them"
"Think I can't handle a few more days of fake carrot farming?"
"Well I wasn't going to make this a big challenge but alright, if you need to prove yourself to me then go right ahead Mr. Wilde."
They both laughed and finished their lunches before separating again for the day, Nick returning to his couch and the light of the TV. The colours from the game wasted no time digging into his eyes and making him regret making this a challenge. The happy music was starting to grate on him as well, and the happy looking rabbit he played as made him irritated.
"Once we pay off your big debt I'll be leaving you to do whatever you want pal, then we can both move on with our lives."
The rest of the game day went the same as the last few, and night brought another flash from the magical force. Nick could see the outlines of more plants in the dark this time and gulped. The crop tomorrow was going to be insane. As the next screen popped up it was exactly as he feared, tons of vegetables and plants covered the entire farm now. Looking around he spotted a new kind of growth as well, an ugly looking vine that couldn't be picked and just sat there while Nick worked.
The vegetables started getting more bizarre designs and pixels added to them now, and the colours of the farm and fields had managed to get worse since the previous day. Nick also started to notice that his little farm rabbit was looking tired.
"Oh geeze, was I supposed to feed you or something?"
Nick pulled down on his face in frustration and tried to see if he could look at some kind of inventory or stock for his food, opening up a menu with the list of vegetables he'd picked in front of him.
"I know you didn't want to eat the crops but you need to eat something, maybe a carrot?"
Nick selected the Carrot and Eat, and watched as a message flashed on screen briefly.
"I FEEL BETTER NOW. THAT WAS GOOD."
"Perfect. Now let's get back to work."
The rest of the day was spent trying to keep up with the growths on the farm, it reminded Nick more of pulling weeds at this point than farming, like an all out war was being waged on the magical produce.
At least, that's how he imagined it now. It made the boring task, grating noise and ugly colours more tolerable. When he reached the next night he suddenly noticed his apartment was a lot darker than when he started. A look at the clock informed him it was already past midnight. His eyes were sore as hell now and he was absolutely burnt out. He had a feeling if he even woke up early tomorrow he'd just skip out on the game and do something else.
He took the time to make himself a quick snack before bed, and that night the dreams of carrots turned into a seemingly endless nightmare of vegetables and bright colours, the same music from the game blaring in his mind loud enough to make him cover his ears in pain, he woke up gasping and kicking his blankets off as he looked around the room in shock.
"Okay, alright, that was a bit of an overreaction maybe."
He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes, even though he'd slept the rest of the night they still hurt a bit. For some reason though, he felt like he had to keep playing, maybe to get some sort of closure out of this entire ordeal, maybe to get the worst part over with so he could spend the rest of his time off in peace.
"Like getting a shot Nick, just hold out your arm and take a deep breath."
He sat down on the couch and turned his phone's volume to full blast, setting alarms for lunch and dinner so he wouldn't miss them this time before turning on the game.
Another night, another flash, another new group of shadows covering the farm when the flash occurred.
Nick's eyes widened when his rabbit stumbled out of the house in the morning. The twisted ugly vines had covered the farmhouse now, and all of the vegetables took on an unhealthy colour to them. That wasn't the only thing that looked unhealthy though, the small farmer had changed overnight, looking thinner and duller since Nick left him.
"Wow, what happened to you? Have a night like mine buddy?"
"DON'T FEEL WELL TODAY. BETTER WORK FAST."
Nick couldn't agree more. He went to work picking the ugly looking crops and selling them off. He barely noticed that the crops were selling for almost nothing now, as if the invisible people buying them had caught on to how disturbing and odd they were looking. He was lucky he passed the needed amount on the first day or the poor farmer would be in trouble now.
The colours on the farm made Nick start to feel nauseous now, they didn't mix well with the sickly plants at all and the droning music that accompanied this new day wasn't helping. Nick didn't even react when his lunch alarm went off, getting up off the couch like he was on autopilot and making a small lunch, something he felt he wouldn't just puke back up if the game got worse.
His return to the game greeted him with crops that were popping up after he left.
"Oh goodie, now they won't even let the poor guy sleep."
"FEEL SICK. NEED FOOD."
Nick went into the menu and tried to find the most normal looking carrot he could, feeding it to the farmer and watching as the day came to an abrupt end.
"That's weird. Did I do something wrong?"
A shriek of noise from the game made Nick jump back, the flash from the magic force covering the night sky again, as much of the night sky wasn't covered by the sickly plants anyways.
He felt his stomach churn as morning came, the entire screen was a mess of pixels and rotten looking produce. The house was basically gone at this point and his little rabbit partner hadn't come out to greet him like it usually did. What he did see was the figure from before wander into the scene of the disaster and make gestures like they were confused.
"Just take the money and go so I can shut this off already."
Nick grumbled and held his head as he watched the little scene play out. The figure opened up the door of the ruined home before backing out quickly and running away.
"Wait, what?"
A pair of sickly green eyes appeared in the shadows of the doorway as a scream of noise and flashing colours covered the screen, assaulting Nick's senses all at once and making him collapse back in his chair, just staring at it as his mind struggled to comprehend exactly what he was looking at.
Nick woke up on the couch with a puddle of vomit at his feet, his TV was off and the sun was rising outside. He'd passed out until the next day, whatever happened he was out like a light for the entire day.
His head was pounding as he looked down at his phone and saw a torrent of messages from Judy.
"Nick you okay? Where are you? You home? Nick?"
He winced as the light from the phone made his headache worse, putting it up to his ear slowly and hitting the dial button.
"Hello...?"
"Ugh, hey Carrots."
"Nick!? Where have you been!? It's been three days! I was worried sick and you wouldn't even open your door!"
Three days. It'd been three days since he blacked out.
"Uh, I..."
He couldn't tell her that it was the game, there was no way she'd believe him. He barely believed it himself. He turned the console back on and checked the little file he'd made. Over three straight days of game time had been added since his blackout.
"I went to a place for dinner and got food poisoning, stayed in bed the entire time and didn't want to make you worry. I'm really sorry Judy."
He could hear her fidgeting a bit on the other side of the phone, he really hoped she'd buy it, there was literally no other excuse he could give her right now.
"Alright, I was just really worried about you. Try to warn me next time you decide to get sick so I can check up on you properly alright?"
He smiled a bit and nodded before replying.
"Yeah don't worry nurse Judy I'll be sure to call you next time."
He looked over at the console before speaking again.
"Say Judy, how far did you get in the game when you played it?"
"You know, that's actually kinda funny. I don't remember. I just remember my parents taking the system away one day and telling me they thought I was addicted. They said one time I played it for three days straight and almost failed a bunch of school assignments."