This is Tom Nook, our once-beautiful Animal Crossing island is now a godforsaken hellscape, yes, yes. Flee!

This is Tom Nook, yes, yes. The time has come to abandon the island, to flee, yes, yes.

When we first arrived on our island it was beautiful, peaceful. It was a little sparse, yes, yes, but there was promise of a bounteous and joyful future for everyone.

To begin with we built quickly, yes, yes. Our new friend arrived and moved into her tent. She worked hard. She cleaned the island of weeds. She bought a new house. She encouraged new residents to move to the island. She filled the museum with fossils and bugs. Tommy and Timmy’s store expanded. The Able sisters brought their clothes business to the island.

And then, nothing. Yes, yes. Our new friend went into her house and we no longer saw her. Weeds reappeared everywhere. A plague of bugs swarmed across our island. Fruit rotted on the ground.

Recession struck our island, yes, yes. Turnip prices hit an all-time low, making turnip savings useless. Timmy and Tommy turned to selling cheap counterfeit goods they bought from eBay, yes, yes. The Able Sisters ran a prostitution ring out of their store room. Hamlet the hamster developed a crippling addiction to steroids.

The beaches became a no-go area. Lawless and under the control of Redd’s gang, yes, yes. The north-eastern area of the island became an uninhabitable bug-ridden swamp.

Things looked bleak. We all moved into the basement of Blathers’ museum for safety and subsisted by eating the bugs from the museum’s collection.

Then our friend returned!

We were so happy, yes, yes. She cleaned the weeds and sold them to Timmy and Tommy. She used her profits to by new outfits from the Able sisters. Redd’s gang left. Without the weeds, the bugs disappeared. The recession slowed. Turnip prices rose. Hamlet the hamster got clean.

For several days, our friend worked hard and diligently. She collected fruit, planted trees, caught fish, dug up fossils. Our island became more lovely than ever. More animals joined our community – Bitty the hippo, Klaus the bear. Timmy and Tommy’s store became a superstore. Flowers bloomed across the island in a glorious riot of colour, yes, yes.

And then we never saw our friend again. She went into her house and never came out.

Crime returned to our island. Hamlet the hamster abandoned steroids for heroin. Klaus the bear’s body was found in the lake behind his house. He’d been badly beaten before he was killed. Hamlet the hamster denied it but several days later we found him dead and overdosed. Was it deliberate? A sign of his guilt, yes, yes? We never found out.

The Able Sisters left. Our clothes became threadbare. Tommy and Timmy’s store was ransacked, Timmy murdered. We found Dotty the rabbit’s body at the base of the cliffs. Bugs had eaten her eyes. Bugs were everywhere.

Once again, we retreated to Blathers’ basement. We’d eaten all his bugs. We were forced to bring Dotty the rabbit’s body to the basement, yes, yes. We did what we could to survive.

Puddle the frog’s mind snapped. He’d been good friends with Dotty the rabbit. They’d exchanged letters, and she’d given him a turtleshell lamp and now he’d eaten her. He stripped naked, covered his body in excrement and rampaged across the island in a lunatic orgy of violence.

He set fire to our homes, yes, yes. They burned brightly.

We lost Kody the cub yesterday. He went out for wood and Puddle the frog killed him and nailed his body to the front of the town hall before setting fire to himself in the Square. Bugs are eating him now, yes, yes.

There are only a few of us left. We must flee. Yes, yes. We cannot survive on our own without our friend. The island is a desolate wasteland of madness, death and so many bugs. Flee. Flee.

I can only hope you all took the sensible precaution of stockpiling hundreds of thousands of bells you made from legitimate business enterprises during the good times, yes, yes. I will see you on the last Dodo airlines flight off the island.

If you didn’t? Well, good luck with the swim, yes, yes.