 I was asked to clean out my father's house, after he had passed away. He was a huge gaming bird. He even camped out for the release of the NES, when he was about my age, 19. He had them all, Atari 2600, Atari Flashback, Magna Box Odyssey 2000, 500, NES, SNES, N64 NGC UI, Gamaboy, Gamaboy Color, Gamaboy Advanced, DSDS Lite, C3DS Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 1 to 3, DSD and PSDva. He might have even had the Wii U, if he was alive long enough for the release. I was in my father's house, alone, cleaning out the basement. I grabbed one of the last cardboard boxes down there, and I noticed how light it was. Wondering, why it was so light, I peeked inside, to find that one old NES game cartridge. It did not have a game label on it, it only had Mario crudely written by my father, with a permanent marker. I became curious. Why was this game all by itself in a box? Why was the label torn off? Why was it written on? And why was Mario spelled so crudely? Since my father handed me down all of his games and consoles, which included his NES, I decided to take it home and figure it out for myself. I got home and set up the NES. I immediately popped the game and started it up. Things already seemed a little off. The game had no startup scream. It simply just placed me at the start of the first level, of what appeared to be the classic game that we all know and love, Super Mario Brothers. Well, the game is old. I thought to myself, maybe it is just a little glitchy, and that is, why it skipped the startup scream. That divided its midnight release, after all. So I continued. As I expected, the game was rather glitchy. Sometimes, when grabbing a fire flower, it would make Mario small, and stars only worked 75% of the time. As well, Toad never said the message yet, for you at the end of every castle. You know, thank you, Mario. But our princess is in another castle. He never said anything that lost, until World 7's castle. Only one stepped closer to becoming one of us. This message made me chuckle a little. I assumed my father had acted the game for laughs, and that was why it was so glitchy before. Things got weird after that. In level 8-1, the sky was a dark red, and the music was a little slower than usual. The whole level was nothing but five minutes of walking. No enemies or obstacles, just the ground. Reaching the end of the level, I grabbed the flag. The ending fanfare did not play, and the fireworks sounded more like gunshots than 8-bit explosions. Okay, that lost strange. I thought to myself, what lost the point in that? Oh well, into the next. Level 8-2 was even stranger. The sky wasn't even darker red, and the music played even slower. This time, there were enemies. I was approached by a Koopa Troopa, and for points, I jumped on him. The delightful little noise that plays, when you jump on an enemy did not play this time. Instead, there was a squish, accompanied with the crackling of bones and a slight groan. This was weird, and sadistic. It did not seem like something my father would do. In fact, he in no way condoned anything scary in my house, as I was growing up. He never allowed my older sister or myself to play any scary games or watch any scary movies. We did at our friend's houses of course, but that is besides the point. I moved in, and ran into a Koopa. To make sure the earlier sound was not a glitch, I jumped on it. The same sound played. I was becoming, unsettled, to say the least. When I reached the end of the level, the same thing happened, as it had at the end of the previous level. I noticed something even more weird. The spot on the screen that showed what level you were on did not display World 8 to 3. Instead, it showed World, followed by the symbol in the flag at the end of every level, that looked like a skull. I know it is not actually a skull, but it looks like one. The third level of World's skull was even stranger. The sky was a dark red, much darker than before, and the music did not even play. The enemies that I came to were already dead. Their bodies appeared twisted and mangled, like someone had beaten them to death. I reached the end. There was no flag or anything like that, just a castle. It had welcome, Mario. Painted in the front of it, when I assumed to be blood. Reluctantly dot dot dot I entered. The black screen that shows your status between levels showed that I had X-Zero lives, and I was in World the End. I was tailing trembling with fear. Just like was this game. The castle was like the first level of World's skull, there were no obstacles, enemies, or slow music. I walked straight for what seemed like at least 15 minutes. My time reached zero, but the level kept going. It felt like Mario was not alone. Like, someone was watching his every move. My only questions were, what was Mario's mission in this sadistic, twisted game? What did he want to accomplish, and why? I had to finish the game to know. Finally, I came to the end of the level. There he stood, poser. His eyes were missing, and his belly appeared fleshless. I prepared to fight him, but he quickly grabbed Mario. He began to laugh heavily, realistically, sounds that cannot be made in an 8-bit console. It became clear to me. This was not a hack. Poser bit Mario's head off. Mario's body shivered and struggled, as Bowser dragged him behind the battle scene. You know, where Princess Peach was supposed to be. I was expecting to see just Princess Peach, oh, who am I kidding? I was not expecting anything that would save me from this nightmare. I saw Toad, Luigi, and Peach. However, both Luigi and Peach had Toad heads in their bodies instead of their own. Bowser grabbed the Toad's head, and stuck it on Mario. He placed him next to the others. Bowser then proceeded to rip his own head off, and began to pull out his intestines. Text appeared. Press me for a harder quest, and even you can become one of us. I threw my controller at the screen. So hard that the screen actually broke. I ejected the cartridge and threw it at the wall. It fell into pieces, and I noticed that there was a note inside. I picked it up and read it. Dear son, you're next. Dad, I threw both the game and the letter in the fire that I started in my fireplace. I will never be able to get that satanic picture of my beloved characters like that out of my head. To this day, I cannot play Super Mario Bros. And the other morning, I woke up to see Mario carved into my arm. To take my mind off of these things, I began looking through all of the other nice games. On top of the Stackwa Super Mario Bros. 2. However, the label was different. It spelled Super Mario Bros. 2. The picture of Mario delightfully carrying the turnip was instead a picture of Mario with an angry toe head, carrying Birdo's decapitated head instead of a turnip. After that, I just decided never to play any Mario game ever again. Whatever was on this game could only be worse. Thank you for reading. I wanted somebody to know about this before something happened to me. Sadly, about a week ago, my younger brother took his own life. Our father had died about a month before, and I had believed that my brother was depressed without him. They were quite attached to one another, after all. The day before he killed himself, he came to my house and gave me our fathers handed down games and consoles. We were all such gaming birds. I loved the three original Mario Bros. games. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the first one in the giant stack of NES cartridges. However, I did come across Super Mario Bros. 2. I could tell my funny man father had printed off a label he must have made somewhere, because there were a few things different about it. For one, the title was spelled as Super Mario Bros. 2, and the picture of Mario in the cover Mario had a toad's head and lost carrying Birdo's head by the bow instead of a turnip. Here, my father had a rather dark sense of humor. I popped the game into the NES. For nostalgia, I decided to let the game tell me the story about Mario's dream. Only it read something else. After Mario's suffered a terrible fate, he decided to get revenge. He has become insane with rage, and is going to take the life of every mortal who crosses his path. That was rather disturbing. I had best my brother had acted somehow. He knew how, he was a huge computer nerd. I went on. The game did not give me the choice of my character. It simply threw me into the game as Mario, who just like on the cover of the cartage had a toad's head instead of his own. There was no music, and I didn't jump from the sky. I was at the beginning of World 1 to 1. Only dot, dot, dot things were a little different. The background sky was black, and all of the enemies were replaced with embryo-looking toads. This was weird. Each toad angrily charged at Mario. I didn't even have to do anything. Oh. When the toads touched Mario, they turned into skeletons and crumbled to the ground. I wasn't eased by this. My favorite game was this, unsettling game. I guessed my brother must have been very bored. I decided to see how the rest of the game was going to turn out. I reached the end of the level where you fight Virgo. She looked as if someone had gotten to her before me. She was bruised and bloody, and had some flesh and bones showing. I was horrified to say the least. The text box popped up. Please. Mario stepped a little closer, in his own. No. I don't. I'm not. He made another step. Why am I here? Another small step. I'm not who you think I am. Mario pounced her. He began to ruthlessly beat her while she screamed dot, dot, dot realistically. Sounds that can't be made in an 8-bit console. Blood spewed and showered with each his Mario mate. The last time he hit her, which he charged up for, her head rolled off. Mario threw off his toad head and replaced it with Virgos. Another text box appeared. But, you were one of us, you've injured us, you will rue this, Mario. The sky turned red. I heard lots sounded like distant crying of a woman in the background, accompanied by dot, dot, dot lots sounded like multiple evil laughs, played backwards all at once. A demonic, deep voice was heard behind it all. Chills weren't just at my spine, they were everywhere. I whole room got colder, it seemed. I had goosebumps all over. The sounds were growing louder, before suddenly stopping. Mario's burdo head flew off. He still lived, headless. He turned to the screen, and began to softly stop. I wanted to turn off the nest so badly, but something compelled me to leave it on. His cry grew louder. As he cried, an army of toads began to march in from the left of the screen. The noises from earlier resumed. This time, they were loud and the woman was screaming instead of crying. I was sure my TV speakers were about to bust. Only it sounded almost like the sounds weren't coming from the speakers. It's like, they were coming from all around me. The laughter and deep voice stopped. However, the woman's screams began to strobe. It was almost like she was being violently tortured. It strobe more and more, and went on for a good minute and a half, before suddenly stopping. The deep voice came back. I listened slowly to hear what it was saying. The empire will rise. The empire will rise. The picture blacked out. It was replaced with an artist-like picture of a headless Mario. His clothes were bloody and some parts were torn off. The picture stayed in the screen for about 30 seconds before the screen began to blink quite repeatedly. The woman's scream came back along with the laughter. The laughter was mixed with people chanting. The empire. The empire. I fainted from fear. I then had a very strange dream. I was laying on the ground in a puddle of my own blood. I saw Mario coming. He was walking toward me, with an angry looking toe-head, like before. I kept trying to tell him that I wasn't his enemy, but I was too weak to talk. I told him he wasn't who he thought I was. Then, I realized. I was burdo. He jumped on me, just like in the game. I woke up, before he started to attack. Mario. Was carved in my arm. I ejected the game from the NES, grabbed it, and threw it in the street. I ran it over with my car, multiple times, until it was nothing but little pieces of plastic. I now understand, why my brother killed himself. Unless he didn't do it. Whatever was in that game, but have done it itself. I hope, that I'll be alright, although, I think I messed up, running over that game.