The Entity in Red

When I was a little kid, the two things I loved in life were Mario and the Virtual Boy. So naturally, when Mario Clash came out, it was like a dream come true. Well, almost. To sum it up, it was a 3D version of the original Mario Bros. You had to take out all of the enemies in the level to progress. Sure, it got repetitive, but it was fun. Overall, it was pretty mediocre, but back then I didn't care. When I got it for my ninth birthday, I was excited. I played it for as much as I could.
Sadly, I had traded the game and Virtual Boy for a copy of The Legend of Zelda on the NES. Much to my regret when I found out I didn't like the series. Recently, I bought the Virtual Boy, people gave me looks but I didn't care. I finally got the damn thing. After hunting and looking through all of the shopping websites, my friend Dylan finally managed to find a copy of Mario Clash.
I was pumped to play my childhood game. It never dawned on me to ask where Dylan found it. He told me he didn't like the Mario Series after an incident he had. He didn't tell me much but, he didn't have to. I understood he did this for his friend, me. He also gave me a few other games like Mario's Tennis, Galactic Pinball, and a stupid game called SD Gundam Dimension War, but Mario Clash had to come first.
So, I started the game, and the nostalgic feeling came flooding back like a tidal wave. I was grinning like an idiot.
I had forgotten how fun it was to destroy Koopa's with their shells and see them go through pipes. It felt satisfying seeing all of the enemies go down with a single throw.
After a bit, I reached the Bonus Chance. However, something went wrong, the coins that usually fly out at Mario were instead these little red blocks and they were twitching. When Mario grabbed them, he started to slowly become glitched. When the score screen popped up, Mario glitched. I shut off the Virtual Boy to take a break from THAT thing. Do you know that feeling your body has when you feel like you're in extreme danger? You start to recoil and tense up as the adrenaline flows through your veins, and your nerves start to feel very cold? 
That's the feeling I had when I took this screencap. 
I don't know if what I was playing was a glitched-out or hacked version of the game. But that doesn't matter, what kind of sick FUCK puts THIS in a children's game? 
My eyes needed a break as well, I forgot how the Virtual Boy messes up your eyes. I rushed to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. (And to take a piss that I nearly failed to contain when that fucking thing looked at me.) When I got back, Mario was gone, and the only that was on the screen was, run. There was "music", in the form of a slow, steady drum sound resembling a heartbeat. My feeling of dread went to the max, I thought to myself "Run? ..From what?" Suddenly, the TV turned on, showing the same thing. Now, I didn't have to use the Virtual Boy. I could just use the controller, I felt relieved yet scared at the same time. That doesn't usually happen, but at least I got a break from having to destroy my eyes. I sat down and picked up the controller, after a few seconds, I got uncomfortable in my seat, and tried to move but.. 
I couldn't move, I tried to scream but I couldn't. All I could do was use the controller. I was forced to play the game, whatever the thing was, it was most likely the cause for it. I gave it the nickname, Red Entity. It seemed fitting, but nicknames don't matter now. I don't know if Red wanted to kill me or just, torture me. None of them sounded good, I was sure I had to beat the game to get out of its grasp. Text popped up on the screen reading.. 
This had to be some sort of hack. But this opened up more questions than answers like, who's the Red Entity, who made this? When? How? And most importantly, why? The "why?" was the question that bothered me the most. To this day, I can't answer any of these questions. My immediate assumption was that Dylan did this to pull a joke on me. But that couldn't be right either. Dylan didn't know how to make a game, let alone do any hacking. Unless, he was an extremely good hacker without telling me, but that didn't feel right. He also had a hatred for Mario, so doing this didn't feel like him. 
Maybe it was some kind of art experiment? Some group project made by a bunch of really talented and crazy people, and they lost the game somehow? Or maybe they intended for some random person to find it? 
It was all just fruitless guessing. As far as I could tell, there was only one way to figure out what the deal with this game was: To play it through to the end. Maybe, just maybe, there would be something in the credits, an explanation by the creators as to why they made this. Or it could be something much more cryptic and strange, maybe even something horrifying. 
I considered trying to get to the score screen again, to see if the Hellbeast would look at me again. But I decided against it. I wanted to keep moving forward. I was also somewhat worried that trying that again might cause the game to become even more strange. 
I then noticed the music that was playing, it sounded, strangely familiar. Almost like a distant memory of some kind. 
As I listened to the familiar tune, I finally got it. It was the Password theme from NES Godzilla Monster of Monsters. But, the thing was, it sounded more, crunched up. It personally made the whole experience more tense, like, I was being watched. By someone, or something. 
I finally made it past a few more levels, level 86 to be exact. One of the final levels of the game. This time, the theme finally switched to something else. 
At that point, I wish it hadn't. 
The second the music switched, Mario was suddenly transported to another location, it looked mostly similar to the entire game. Two platforms, one in the foreground, the other in the background, and a massive pit in the middle. But, there was one slight issue. 
The entire game was now blue. A chilling blue. 
The music was a twelve-second loop of a low-pitched choir vocalizing, that sounded very familiar to me. Now, above Mario and the rest of the level, there seemed to be rows of identical white statue faces on the wall. These statue faces had a permanent look of horror on their faces. I got this sudden, horrible feeling of anxiety. I had the feeling that the farther I progressed through the level, the closer I was getting to something unspeakably evil. 
There weren't any enemies, but these were the longest levels in the game, which took seven minutes to complete. 
I didn't want to admit it to myself at the time, but I realized something playing the blue levels: This game has the power to make the player feel certain things. 
I don't mean in the sense that you get irritated playing a crappy game, or get unnerved by something scary in a game. What I mean is that certain events in this game can instantly make you start feeling something. I know that sounds completely insane. I don't blame you for not believing me, I wouldn't believe any of this either if I didn't play the game myself. But there is something very, very wrong with this game, and I still don't know how to explain it. 
There were only seven of these types of levels. Thankfully, despite them lasting for seven minutes, it felt like it went by rather quickly. After beating the final 'unforgiving cold' level, which is what I nicknamed them, Mario was finally taken back to the horrible-looking red environment. We all love to hate. 
But, I was finally happy to be back where I was supposed to be. 
After a minute, I had finally made it.. level 99. The last level of the game. 
The second I entered the level, I could tell something was wrong, there was no level. It was only Mario, in some dark void of some kind. I couldn't move him, as, it seemed to be some sort of cutscene. There was not this type of cutscene in the game. If there were any, it would be just before the level started. Not during the level itself. 
The theme was, once again, the Password theme from NES Godzilla Monster of Monsters. But, it didn't sound so crunched up this time, it sounded a lot clearer. More like an HD remix of some kind. This was impossible with the hardware-software of the Virtual Boy, hell, even some more modern consoles couldn't produce sound like this. 
After a few seconds of nothing, Mario, in his red glory, moved around for a moment, looking around. Until a pair of red eyes showed up in the foreground. The Password theme slowly transitions to more of a rock/battle theme. I had a feeling I would have to fight the Hellbeast, better known as the Red Entity. 
 
Category:Mario
Category:Virtual Boy
Category:Mario Creepypasta