Mario Kart 64: See You Next Time

Brad was a major video game fan, especially for Nintendo games. (And more specifically, Mario games.) Brad's first system was an N64, which he got when he was 5. He loved playing games on it, even more than his schoolwork. His parents hid the system from him until his grades got up. When they did, his parents forgot about the system in the attic, and told him to sell all of his N64 games, even Brad's favorite: Mario Kart 64; as the games were useless without a system. Brad did well in school, but when visiting his parent's house one day, he decided to look in the attic. He found his old N64, brand new, no scratches or anything done to it, and a special blue color to add.

Brad tried to find games to play on it, but he sold all of them. He remembered all of them, but he was low on the $ factor. He decided to go to his local game store, Oogie Games; which was always operated by smart video game lovers who always knew knockoffs and tampered games from good games, to get his favorite N64 game: Mario Kart 64.

Brad went into the store to find the N64 section. It was full of games that he used to own, and there was even some copies of Mario Kart 64. There were 2 to be precise: 1 new in the box which seemed to be untouched, and 1 used, but the used cartridge looked great. The sticker and chip looked shiny and new. Since the store was run by such smart employees, the employees marked the new Mario Kart 64 $40.00 and the used one $32.00. Brad thought that it would be foolish to spend 8 more dollars for a piece of cardboard, so he chose the used copy. Although, on the cartridge, there was a name written on it in gray marker, so even a game store employee couldn't see it. The name was "Satin". Brad saw this faint writing, and wasn't bothered by it. After all, he had gotten an array of games that have had names written on them. Squirrel, McCain, Hyde, Presley, Xxaargzx; it was normal to him to have a name on an old cartridge game. He bought it and went to his parent’s house quickly to play it.

Brad was so excited to play Mario Kart 64 in 12 years of not playing Mario Kart 64. He popped it in his N64 and turned the power on. It started up normally, although the music seemed more echoed than he remembered. He chose to play Time Trials with Wario on Rainbow Road. The lights from Lakitu started up, and Wario sped off. He jumped on the first hill, but didn’t take the shortcut and landed with a thud and Wario screamed “WAHHHHH-HAH-HAHHH”. Brad remembered Wario screaming the “WAHHHH” part before, but the extra part he didn’t remember, and it made him sound like he was crying in pain. All of the lights in the sky seemed to be normal, a little redder than usual, but that didn’t really matter to Brad. The only thing in the sky that seemed to be missing was Wario’s face.

When Brad got to lap 2, the main part of the music still played, but the background instruments that made the music happy and sparkly disappeared. The music also seemed to echo. All of the lights in the sky seemed to be missing, except for the Boo, whose eyebrows seemed to be redder than its usual purple color. When Wario passed it, it uttered a soft cackle, the cackle which Boos usually sound off.

Brad finally got to lap 3 of the race. Now, the Chain Chomps didn’t follow their usual zigzag paths along the road. They all seemed to follow Wario wherever he went. Brad even tried to go to the full left side of the road when the Chain Chomp was at the full right side of the road. He missed it, but it hit him like a Red Shell following him. Each time a Chain Chomp hit Wario, his voice seemed to sound sadder, like he wanted to cry in pain. When Wario passed the Boo this time, the Boo let out a cackle that was louder than last time, and just after that, the 6th Chain Chomp came up to Wario and hit him, this time cracking Wario’s neck & back and killing him.

Without any music to comfort Brad, Wario’s body with his kart just lay there. A small pool of blood followed shortly after. In about 20 seconds of silence, a textbox appeared on screen that said “You killed him. Now there’s no way out of this.” Brad was scared of this, as he had never seen this before in the game. Still without music, two options appeared on screen: Try Again and Quit. Brad chose Try Again, but was greeted with the same message: “You killed him. Now there’s no way out of this.” Brad was very scared now. What would happen if he pressed Quit and just left Wario to die? It was his only option, so he pressed Quit, only this time to be greeted by a very similar message: “You killed him. Now there’s no way out of this, Brad.”

Brad was terrified at this point. He went up to turn off the N64. When Brad just put his finger on the Power Button, not even turning it off, the game said in Mario’s voice: “See you next time.” Brad turned off the N64 immediately after the voice ended, but then the N64 produced a high screeching sound that sent Brad flying into his bedroom wall, instantly killing him. Brad’s family heard the noise and went up to his room to see what it was. They cried when they saw Brad’s bloody, dead corpse stuck in his bedroom wall. His TV showed Wario’s dead corpse lying on Rainbow Road. The TV screen still said: “You killed him. Now there’s no way out of this, Brad.”

The police were called to investigate. No evidence was really found of Brad being murdered by someone, but 1 of the policemen quietly stole Brad’s N64 with Mario Kart 64 in it to give it to his Nintendo-loving son for Christmas. But upon close inspection of the game, the policeman found the grey-marker signature of “Satin.” He looked at it through a magnifying glass and noticed that near the “i” letter, there was some erased grey marker. The policeman noted that the “i” originally used to be an “a”.

American Titan