The Link With Red Eyes
Story by TheGlitched64
Super Smash Brothers brawl; bought by millions and played by many more. Loved across the regions. No one could find anything suspicious, or creepy in this game, except maybe why the characters can take so much abuse without any blood or, any repercussion really. But hey, it’s a Nintendo game. The point is, there is nothing “off” in this game. No one would find anything to be considered as “creepy.” Except me.
It seems that I, and I alone, seems to be the lucky bastard that got an off copy. What I found hidden in the code of my game… I don’t usually like to talk about. I mean, what if it wasn’t me who found this? What if this was a little kid who had gotten this for their birthday? I cringe everytime I think of it. I cringe at the thought that people out there could be so fucked up.
But I am getting off track. What did I find? Well, it also started when some of my mates and I played a few tournaments. It was the holidays, so my friends would frequently come over to visit, and brawl was always the game of choice. At least three hours of the day would be spent on brawls, tournaments, special brawls, the whole lot. We even beat Subspace Emissary five times as a team (a time for each difficulty.) The K.O. counts were rising, so we decided to battle using random characters every time we played a brawl. This made the game more fun because, we never knew who we would get or what would happen.
After one of my friends left, my other friend and I continued playing some 1 on 1 brawls before we changed to another game like… Mario Kart or… maybe a Mario Party game? (We liked a lot of the party Mario games.) After everyone was selected, as well as the stage (all randomly of course) we were off to Castle Siege. I was Luigi; my favourite character, my friend was Ike, his favourite character. The Computers were a white furred Donkey Kong and a black Toon Link, with red eyes.
Toon Link was… a little off. He had little black pupils in side his red eyes. They looked like the eyes off the regular black Link’s eyes, but, on Toon Link instead. As you might know, Red Eyed Toon Link has no pupils. Only this empty, slightly creepy void. However, apart from this weird glitch, it all played normally, and my friend won.
“Aah well.” My friend said “Wanna play Mario Party?”
“Sure!” I said, reaching for the power button. However the game, loaded another brawl, and a stage to. I thought I must of leaned on the remote. That was a mistake.
“Sure!” I said, reaching for the power button. However the game, loaded another brawl, and a stage to. I thought I must of leaned on the remote. That was a mistake.
It was all the same. The characters. The stage. All the same as before. At the time, my friend and I thought this was a huge, once in a blue moon coincidence, and we couldn’t help but play the match because of that. This is where things went extremely wrong. The music slowed down, as did the characters, like someone had gotten the clock item. However, no one could have because we turn that item off in the options. Everyone was slow, except for Toon Link, who, was acting like he was the one who got the mysterious clock item, his eyes becoming less like pixels and more like real eyes. Toon Link walked up to DK, who wasn’t even moving by this point, and thrust his sword, right through DK. His screech was lower and deeper than his usual audio. He didn’t disappear, he didn’t respawn. He just layed there. It was like in stamina mode, when you lose, you just lay there, glowing red. Only, this wasn’t stamina mode this was just a normal stock brawl.
We were creeped out, no question, this was not supposed to happen and this was not a glitch. This was something else. Our characters were now motionless, staring at Toon Link, it began to glow as if it had gotten a final smash. The sky darkened much more than usual. He got Ike in the final smash but as Link slashed away, Ike began to fall apart. There were no organs. No blood. Just Ike’s sprite. Fallen apart, all over the place. At this point we just stared at each other in amazement, and fear.
“Get the camera” I said. But as my friend went to grab the camera, Toon Link grabbed Luigi’s head and snapped a full 180 degrees. He collapsed, as my friend got the camera. Shit. The one SD card I owned was in the Wii, not in the camera, and besides, it was all over anyways. The victory screen popped up and everything was normal. We don’t really know what happened and it took two hours of searching to find anything odd. We only found Toon Link’s K.O. count in the stat screen. “666.”
This was nuts but my friend and I, we couldn’t stop playing. Fascinated, we needed to play it again, and figure out what exactly was happening. It can’t be haunted, it’s just too far fetched. We had to find more. We played for God knows how long. Minutes turned into hours, which turned into days, which turned into a solid week. Sleep was no longer a problem. We didn’t need it. Work wasn’t an issue neither of us cared if we got fired. We cut off all communication with friends and family, my one friend almost becoming more and more like my adopted brother. I am unsure if I can explain the feeling that came over us, it was like nothing else mattered. Nothing but this game.
As the characters got beaten up by Toon Link their character models would stay beaten up, tired and worn out from battle to battle and on the character select screen, like we, the players, should of been. They were taking our load, our stress.Our obsession.
Four days in, some characters began to be unplayable, replaced with a question mark as they do before unlocking. Even starting characters would disappear. 216 hours in… what's the record for sleep deprivation? 11 days? As our micro sleeps grew more frequent we would see brawls would get longer, like the AI was waiting for us. Five life matches started lasting up to an hour. What we thought was a blink, could have been a good 5-10 minutes. We soon ignored each other when we fell asleep, We began to lock each other out, it became all about the game. It is all the game. Nothing but the game.
250 hours, and only three characters remained. Toon Link, Luigi, and Ike. Link’s eyes now looked just like real eyes, red, bloodshot, staring. Luigi and Ike seemed the only characters who began to age and tire with my friend and I. They could barely bring out their attacks, We didn’t pick stamina mode. We didn’t move, or attack. It did it all for us by now. As reality blurred with our own illusion. Was any of this real?
Reality feels like a dream and dreams feel like confusing nothingness. It’s over. It won. The Link with the red eyes won. I picked up the cover and started looking for the characters that were. I stared. I stared at the cover for hours… was it hours? Time means nothing anymore. Toon Link’s face now filled our screen, grinning. It’s eyes seemed so fucking real, they still do!
“JAMES!” I screamed, breaking the silence of the past 200 hours, of all but the game. “Get the phone, and call the police.”
“Why Luke?” My friend asked, he seemed almost shocked, and scared of the sound of my voice.
“Look! There! On Mario’s cap.” A camera. The tiniest hole. The camera was covered by the manual. I never look at manuals… maybe if I did…
“Why Luke?” My friend asked, he seemed almost shocked, and scared of the sound of my voice.
“Look! There! On Mario’s cap.” A camera. The tiniest hole. The camera was covered by the manual. I never look at manuals… maybe if I did…
The feeling I had of someone watching us was right. We had proof that someone was screwing with us. I just… hope this documentation stops them. If I can get this out to anyone who will listen… Please! Someone help! Paranoia is the biggest killer.
The following documentation was found in a room where two young adults were found in a room by authority. They had both taken a cyanide pill and the case was ruled as a suicide pact. The game was studied and the camera was found to have no feed. It never had a recording at all. Recall of the game was but was decided against. Due to this being an isolated incident not directly corresponding with the game itself. The people who read this are torn on whether this was real, or just the boy’s paranoia after lack of sleep. I guess no one will know the truth of what happened those nine days.
Maybe… Maybe it’s for the best.
This is one I narrated! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saS8RsU8EnI