I once purchased a Super Mario 64 cartridge online from a man who claimed to be one of the beta testers for the game. He didn't tell me his real name, but his username was arnold9812. So I could assume his name must be Arnold. Now, Arnold told me that the game is in pristine condition and had only been played once. When I asked for details he sounded rather hasty and kept telling me the same thing over and over again. Besides that, it was only 5 bucks, and for any game collector, a beta cartridge of a game cost much more to them than 5 bucks.
I agreed to buy it, used my PayPal card, and I tried Emailing him back to ask a couple more questions, but he never contacted me back. I didn't know what to think about that, but one week later I recieved the cartridge. When I opened the box, a strong smell of iron wafted out. And for some reason it wasn't wrapped in bubble wrap, it was wrapped in sandpaper. The sandpaper had reddish-brown stains on it.
The cartridge itself wasn't gray. It wasn't black, red, blue, green, yellow, or gold. It was translucent clear. On the front of the cartridge was a picture of Mario, but it was just his head as seen in the beginning when you can play with his face. But the strangest part about it was the way the face was positioned:
Mario looked as if he had seen something so scary that it had almost killed him. At first I laughed, it looked pretty funny to me. "Why would they pick a stupid face like that?"
I was cracking up, but as soon as I popped the cartridge in, I stopped laughing.
My controller got molten-lava hot. It got so hot, so fast, that I dropped it on the floor. The second my controller hit the floor I heard Mario's voice as the title popped up, but it was a very different. It was very demonic and hyper realistic, as if I were sitting right next to whoever was saying it. "IT'S A ME, MARIO!" and the second the title screen went away I heard the music from the endless stairs, and Mario's head was spinning, spinning, spinning, and it got so fast that it was just a red and white blur, and just when I was yelling in fear, Mario's head exploded and blood flew right into my face and blinded me for a brief moment.
As I wiped the blood out of my eyes, I noticed how the game was playing itself. It picked File A, which had 666 stars, and I said with astonishment. "You can't get 666 stars!" and right when I said that, Bowser's laugh played, very screechy, and very loud, as the game started.
Mario was controlling himself, because I hadn't even picked the controller up, I just watched in terror, wondering what was going to happen next. I was slightly relieved to see that Mario was outside of the Princess's castle, very normal looking. But there were no birds chirping, no water running, just Mario's footsteps. As soon as Mario stepped foot on the moat bridge leading to the front door, I heard a woman scream loudly and the whole roof of the castle blasted off and Princess Peach's severed corpse flew out, landing on top of Mario. In an instant, Mario's health meter was down to one red piece, and Mario started running away after he got up, and the princess was levitating after him, getting faster with each moment, and Mario couldn't escape her. The princess opened her mouth, revealing mega realistic teeth and a mouth that scared the hell out of me. She ate him. The power bar was gone.
Slowly the game world melted, and it looked as if it were reduced to liquid. It faded to black and I saw Mario falling through a nasty looking brown tunnel. He was badly cut and mutilated, and it looked so real that I almost threw up. He hit solid ground and he appeared to be in some kind of cave, surrounded by a multitude of things that I cannot name, because they were so glitchy I couldn't tell what they were. The Hazy Maze theme was reversed and sounded as if it were only coming out of one speaker. The things started swarming in on Mario's body and I didn't see what was happening. But as the things moved away there was writing made up entirely of bloody Mario pieces. "YOU'RE NEXT"
It went black. A text box appeared. "Do you want to live?" it said. 'Yes' and 'No' were selectable.
I chose "Yes", but that didn't do me any good.
The demonic voice said "TOO BAD!" and the princess popped up and she kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger until she filled the whole screen. The camera kept zooming outward to show how big she was getting.
Then the princess floated towards the screen with blood on her mouth. Hyper realistic blood. When her face got close to the screen, it went static as if I had turned the game off, but a minute later I saw her face coming out of my TV, and she was a real person, but she had green, flaky skin and looked as if she had decayed underwater.
I couldn't move for fear and as soon as I could move I took the game out of the console and she just faded away slowly.
"I'll be back for you!" She said in her demonic voice. That must have been who's voice that was I kept hearing. I sat there in horror, and when I stood up my legs felt like Jell-O.
Every time I've played another game on the N64, I keep seeing Princess Peach from Super Mario 64. I played Goldeneye 007 and Princess Peach popped up with two rocket launchers and killed me in an instant. I played Donkey Kong 64 and she showed her ugly face and ripped Donkey Kong's nuts off as it squirted blood everywhere. Every game I play, she always makes an appearance. That game must have screwed up my N64.
I tried contacting arnold9812 again but the username did not exist. I was slightly mad, and slightly scared. I searched up "Super Mario 64 Beta Cartridge" on Google and I could not find any matching results. I must have had the only one in the world.
For two whole days the game sat on my shelf, and I looked at it once and cringed. On day three, I couldn't find it. I searched every nook and cranny of my house and couldn't find the stupid game.
That night, I had an awful nightmare. I dreamed that Mario was walking slowly through the dark castle, with odd noises coming from the dark depths. Mario got to a door with a star on it, and dead Luigi fell out of the door; his rotting body was disgusting. I was so scared that I instantly woke up, and saw that, to my astonishment, the cartridge was laying next to me in bed. I gasped, and yelled slightly, tossing it under the cabinet across my room.
My heart was beating as I stared though the dark room at the cabinet. What I saw almost made my heart stop. The cartridge was slowly hovering towards me, and arms were sticking out of it, as if it were going to kill me with it's bare hands. I jumped out of bed, racing down the hall, and pulled out an Uzi out of nowhere, because I was prepared for any madness that cartridge was going to try with me, and went back to my room, but it wasn't there.
I heard a voice behind me, but it wasn't demonic. It sounded normal.
"Did you enjoy my game?"
I wheeled around and stared into Arnold's face. How did I know it was Arnold? Because of his name-tag on his jumpsuit. It all became clear to me now as I stared at his bloody axe. He must be a serial killer!
He came after me and I tried shooting him, but I didn't have any ammo. I tripped and stared at Arnold as he came after me, holding his axe high, grinning. I felt like one of those stuipid females in the horror movies that never ran from the killer. I instantly stood up and ran into my bathroom, where he began hacking the door down. What he said made me shiver in fear.
"HERE'S ARNIE!"
And his face appeared through the hole, and I had another gun in my bathroom, just because. I took it out of the shower and blasted him. He died, and I exhaled with relief.
I went to my bedroom, which is where I powered my laptop on, ready to tell the tale to the whole internet. This is where I sit now.
Funny, I think I hear something behind me...