"I always liked Super Mario 64 when I was a kid. I remember playing it at my aunt's house all the time. Well, one day, a popup appeared out of nowhere, when I was watching gameplay footage on Youtube. I was a little startled and was about to close the window until I realized it was a website showing a perfect, pristine copy of Super Mario 64 for sale. There was a photo and all. I don't usually trust these things, but the nostalgic feeling overwhelmed me, and I wanted to buy them.

The whole thing was peculiar, seeing as how the game's owner wanted the buyer to send an envelope containing R$20 to the address on the website, rather than using something like PayPal. What made things even weirder was that when I tried to access the site (I typed the URL) after encountering… problems with the game, the page was nowhere to be found.

A few days after the R$20 has been sent, I receive a package containing the new copy of the game. The first thing I noticed when I opened the small box was that the “official sticker” with Mario flying in the air had apparently been ripped off or something. In its place was a piece of masking tape with “Mario” crudely written in permanent marker. I felt a little bad about it, but as long as the game ran, I didn't care.

I mounted my Nintendo 64 and put the cartridge on. The screen turns on with the familiar face of Mario that you can stretch and twist as much as you like. I remembered laughing all the time at the results as a kid and decided to mess around for old times' sake. I moved the cursor over Mario's ear and pulled it to elven proportions. I was about to do the same on the other ear when suddenly the TV made noises caused by static. Mario's entire head started to get deformed and twist in a way I didn't even know was possible for the model. Random sound effects from the game started playing along with the static. While all this was going on, I could hear a faint voice whispering in Japanese. The voice was stuttering and whimpering.
I immediately turned off the game and tried again. I didn't bother with Mario's head this time. I just selected a new file and started playing.

When selected the file, the game skipped the opening monologue of Peach and the courtyard outside. Mario has just been placed right inside the castle. Scarier still, Bowser said nothing. I tried to ignore it and play anyway. However, I also noticed that there was no music. Just dead silence. There weren't even Toads around to talk to. The only door I could enter was the Bob-omb Battlefield. The other doors didn't even respond to my commands.

The portrait of Bob-omb Battlefield was not the usual image. It was just a stark white screen. I was still trying to convince myself that these were just minor issues and that they would have no bearing on the game at all. Once I entered the portrait, the image suddenly went from a blank canvas to the Lethal Lava Land painting. You know, that slightly unsettling image of the flame with the evil smile? Yeah, that's when I started to get very suspicious.

The mission select menu popped up, and yet another weird detail was present. Instead of “Big Bob-omb on the Summit”, the mission was called “TURN BACK”. I have no idea what prompted me to press A, but I did.

The level looked normal. Everything was as I remembered it. I thought I could finally enjoy my favorite childhood game. But then I saw him. Luigi. I was absolutely shocked. He was never in this game. His model wasn't even a Mario color swap. He looked like a completely original model. Luigi just stood there until I tried to approach him. He began to run at unexpected speeds. I followed him and crossed the level. Strange things happened while I was chasing him. Each time I picked up a coin, enemies and music would slow down, and the landscape would turn a darker, more morbid color. It gradually got worse until I collected the fifth coin. Then the music stopped. The enemies lay on the ground as if they were dead. I was very scared, but I

kept chasing Luigi.
I went up the hill. There were no cannonballs rolling around trying to take me down. I really wasn't surprised at this point. Luigi was always out of my sight as I ran. Once I reached the summit, I saw yet another object out of place. A small country house was all that was seen at the top of the hill. Luigi was nowhere to be found. The house was certainly strange for a Mario game. It was old, plain, and broken. Regardless of my fears, at that moment, I made Mario enter the house.

As soon as the door closed, a disturbing portrait of Luigi hanged immediately appeared along with a very creepy sound. It sounded like a violin scream accompanied by a piano thumping loudly. Mario fell to his knees and cried for approximately 5 minutes, then the screen went black.

I returned to the castle. Mario fell out of the painting. The image changed from Lethal Lava Land to the image of Luigi hanged. The room was different this time. It was now a small hallway. Toads with blank faces and white robes lined the hallway. There was another painting at the far end that completely freaked me out. It was a photo of my family. It wasn't a photo from the time Super Mario 64 was released. It was a very, very recent photo. I remembered posing for her last week.

I reached for the power button on the N64. There was no way I was going to play this anymore. However, even though I had already pulled (for those who didn't have an N64, the on/off button on this console was a pull, not press) button, the game was still on. I pulled it back and forth but to no avail. I tried shutting down the entire system, but it never came off the screen. I was even still able to control Mario. I couldn't leave it there forever… and so I kept playing. I went to my family photo, and I jumped inside. Only one mission was available, of course. This one was called "Run, Don't Walk". I selected the mission. “Let’s-a-go”…
The level started in a flooded corridor with platforms floating in the water. Mario landed on one of these and turned the camera to show what was behind. A silent, black void was slowly approaching Mario. He didn't look like anything. It doesn't even look like finished graphics. Just a giant, black block blob. I started jumping from platform to platform. With no goal in sight, I kept running from the darkness, slowly but surely picking up speed. It kept going for what felt like hours. I was really doubting that there would ever be an end. Mario was going around in circles. Finally, the black mass/darkness/thing / took Mario and enveloped him in darkness. He didn't scream or resist. The thing consumed him.

Mario dropped out of the painting and back into the castle. I lost one of my three lives. The room was different now. Some of the Toads were gone, and the picture looked different. My family and I were in the same positions, but our bodies were partially decomposed. It looked too real to be photoshopped. It looked more like someone took our dead bodies and took a picture.

Regardless, I jumped into painting again. Mario was in a small room. There was still a single mission available. It was called "I'm right here" and written just like that. I selected the mission and prepared for the worst. Mario landed in a small, darkroom. There is no visible output. The room was empty except for a piano in the corner. I knew what that meant. I was stuck in there with Mad Piano. I approached him and he started chasing me as usual. There was no way to harm him, so I had no choice but to let Mario take the damage.

When he lost all his health, the usual death animation didn't happen. Mario ended up being attacked by the piano. He fell with his blood and guts spilled onto the floor, and the camera showed a top-down view of his body. A distorted version of Big Boo Haunt's "merry-go-round" song began to play as the screen slowly transitioned from the in-game photo to a photorealistic sketch of Mario's dead body in the same position. It was very upsetting. I was crying softly as I contemplated the image. I lost another life.

My family photo was shown again. We are even more rotten than before. The view of the painting became magnified as if it were teleporting again. I was greeted with a photo of Peach's Castle outside. The castle was crumbling into ruins. The fields were on fire. The sky was pitch black. Bowser's laughter was heard in a loop and while in the background the children mockingly chanted "You couldn't save her!" This went on for a long time, until, a close-up of Peach's face accompanied by an extremely loud scream, interrupted the cycle without warning. Peach's mouth was open like she was screaming, and her eyes were empty, like black holes.

Suddenly, I was back in the hallway as Mario was thrown out of the painting again. Now, all the Toads were gone, and my family and I looked very disgusting. The maggots were in holes in our flesh. Guts were falling out of our bodies. My father's eyeball was hanging out. It was too much to bear, but something still insisted on marching forward. I jumped into the painting, with only one life left.

This time, there was no name for the quest. Just a blank space where the title would be. I selected the mission, and Mario landed on a very small island in the middle of the ocean. There was a lone sign. It read “DIVE”. I did exactly as I said, and went into the water.

The sea was dark and empty. There were no fish. I wasn't even able to see anything in the water other than Mario. I swam down. I continued on for some time, but Mario never ran out of breath. I counted about 10 minutes swimming until I decided to go back up. As soon as I turned Mario around, he came. A huge, and I mean huge Unagi the Eel came out of nowhere and swallowed Mario. I was amazed. It went by so fast I wasn't even sure what I saw. The Game Over screen did not appear. All that happened was a fade-out.

The photo of my family and I was shown again. We were simple skeletons now. Once again, it felt very real. I couldn't move the camera. She just focused on the image. I turned the game off and on. I chose my file, but it only went to my family's skeleton photo. I tried to do this 3 more times before giving up. I desperately wanted to stop, but some force stopped me from leaving. I decided to choose the only other saved file. The camera once again centered on the skeletal figure, but this time they were in a different position. Like they were a different family."