Mario Kart: The Death Shell

I've played every single Mario Kart game, and I'll admit some were better than others, and some were pretty much the same. I was only missing one copy: Mario Kart DS. I wanted that damn game so bad, but it was the time of the month where I had to use my money on more important things, like food.

So one day, I decided to take a walk after being cooped up all day inside my house. And that's when I found it. There was a celebration going on, a ceremony at the high school near where I live. They had a big open field. There were races going on, things for kids like bounce houses, and food--lots of it. I decided to check it out, since I had nothing better to do.

So I got welcomed by some people working at the high school that day, and I started to walk towards the tables with the food on them when I stepped on something. It was at the bottom of a grassy hill: A black DS Lite. It was facing the road and sidewalk, so it looked like somebody just threw it out of their car or dropped it by accident. My lucky day!

I picked it up and checked to see if it had any games in it, and it did: A copy of Mario Kart DS! I couldn't believe my luck! I inserted the game back in and opened the DS up, only to see that the top screen was cracked right in the middle, like how iPhones look when you drop and crack them, so it seemed pretty much unusable.

I didn't mind, I already had my own DS. I slipped the system into my pocket and began to walk home. It was a pretty cloudy day. I hated these days. They always make me feel so morbid. After about walking 10 minutes, I arrived back in my home and went inside. I removed my coat and proceeded to throw the DS in the trash, but keep the game and put it in my own DS.

I started my system up, and then a picture of Mario popped up in the little box on the game selection screen. It was a face shot of Mario, but something was odd about it. He had no eyes, just holes in the middle of his head. I took this as a glitch of some sorts, and then proceeded to the game.

The title screen was normal, and so was my first race. This was a blast! It was a bunch of Mario Kart maps put in one game, and I was playing it for about half an hour before something very odd happened.

I was in seventh place, knowing I would just catch up to the other NPCs eventually. I drove at a steady pace when I got an Item Box. It was a Blue Shell, the shell that gets the person that's in first and makes their life suck. Except there was something... odd about this shell. It wasn't blue! It was black.

I just assumed it was an item added to this version of the game, so I used it without thinking. The Black Shell flew out of my Kart, and proceeded to the person that was in first, which was Mario. (I was playing as Luigi at the time.)

The shell just nailed Mario, and instead of a normal Mario shout, I heard violent screaming as I passed him. That's when I saw why. It was only for a split second, but as I passed Mario, I saw that he had fallen out of his Kart, lying on the ground. He was deeply breathing, and I noticed there were spikes in his chest--the kind of spikes that are on the Blue Shell. Blood was oozing out of him at a steady pace, and his whole body looked burned. His hat was still on fire, but his skin was red and mangled and he had bits and pieces of skin that were still there, but I could mostly see his flesh.

I just took it as a trick of the eyes, but I noticed something odd about the board that tells you which place you're in. Mario was last, and it showed his face with no eyes. As I neared the end of my second lap, I noticed Mario was still there, so I stopped my Kart to get a better look.

He was seriously dead. What I saw before was true. As I stared in horror at the scene, I just let the other characters pass me. I just decided to quit the race, and I put down the game.

I came back to the game the next day and decided to try and race again. I noticed Mario was not a playable character anymore. I continued. Whenever I was in seventh place, I got the item no matter what. I kept using it, and it would always kill the character in first. I noticed this item could never be used on me. Whoever was in seventh never got the item, but I always did. It seemed that I was the only one who could get the item.

It always happened the same way: Burned to a crisp, spikes in the chest, blood oozing out slowly. All the characters I used it on lost their eyes on the scoreboard and were no longer playable. I was curious to see what would happen if I ran out of characters, so I continued this process until the only character left was Luigi. The character I always used.

I started a quick race to see what would happen, and to my surprise, the race started normally, except there weren't any other racers, just me. I was playing the course Luigi Circuit, but I noticed two odd things. The sky was a pitch-black color, there weren't any item boxes, and there wasn't any sound.

I just started to race to see what would happen. As I turned the corner on my final lap, I saw the finish line, except characters were blocking it--all of the characters I used the shell on. They were standing there with spikes in their chest, burned to a crisp, and blood forming a puddle at their feet.

I stopped my Kart to see what would happen. The scene was creeping me the hell out. They just stood there, menacingly staring at me--No, not at Luigi. At the screen. At me.

None of them had eyes. Text appeared at the bottom of the screen. It appeared to be what all the dead characters were saying.

"Why would you do this to us? You are a monster!"

I stared at the screen in horror. Were they talking to me?

"You must suffer the way we have suffered--and you will, from now until the end of time!"

They all proceeded to pull out the Black Shells and aimed them right at Luigi.

"This is going to be fun!"

They threw the shells at Luigi, and I was given a morbid animation of Luigi exploding and his limbs flying everywhere. Fire blazed on his Kart, and poor Luigi just sat in a pile of his own limbs and blood. The image just simply stayed like that. I stared in shock at it for about 5 minutes until I managed to close the DS and throw it out my window.

I thought it was all over, but I was dead wrong. Now, on the seventh day of every week, I have a dream. A dream where I can't see anything, just feel. I feel spikes getting impaled in my chest many times, like I'm being stabbed. I am then lit on fire and just left there. No one comes to help.

I will always try and stay awake that seventh day, but I somehow always fall asleep no matter what I do. I need help...

Please, if you find a black DS lying in the grass somewhere, anywhere, with a Mario Kart game inside of it, whatever you do, do not pick it up.