MaRIo III (The Three-quel)

Admin note: This story was erroneously thought to be the official third entry in the MaRIo series for several years. It is in fact not, as there never was a third entry written by the original author. Someone saw it posted in a YouTube comment section, for some odd reason assumed it was the real deal, and reposted it here claiming it to be such.

My best friend was taken to a psychiatric ward a few weeks ago. Nobody has a clue what is wrong with her. It has been really hard watching her, especiallly in the few-months time-span before. Her family was slowly falling apart, piece by piece. Ever since her father passed away. I still don't know how he died, but it was causing a wreckage in the mental states of his children, it seemed. His son killed himself, and his daughter has been hospitalized. I grew up with both of them, so it has also been hard for me. It is hard to watch a family fall apart like that.

I visited my friend at the ward yesterday, to see if she had recovered any. To my dismay, she hadn't. Her state of mind was only... declining. She kept talking about these games, these.... Mario games. Her father gave them to her brother, and her brother gave them to her. I was never much of a "gamer" myself. But they loved to play all of the old-school games, especially the three Mario Brothers. Hah, pardon me, I got off track...

Anyways, when I walked into her room, a smile came across her face. That was good to see, I guess. But it was the only happy moment of the short visit. "Oh, it's you!" She said as I walked. "Just wanted to drop by and check on you." I told her. "There's nothing for you to check on." She said. "I'm fine. I just need you to go and finish it."

"Finish.... finish what?" I asked, a bit confused. "Super Mario Bros. 3. I finished 2, now you go see what's on 3 so I can finally find out what is happening to me." Well, I didn't want to argue. I had thought she was simply just... losing her mind. This brought tears to my eyes. But, I was going to do what she asked. I wasn't going to lie and told her I played it and nothing happened, or tell her no. I was gonna go play the game and come back and tell her what happened. After exchanging a few more words, I left for her apartment.

When I arrived there, you could definitely tell that the place had been poorly kept. There were pieces of paper everywhere, game controllers strolled out in chaos, and the TV had been left on and was on static. I looked at all the pieces of paper on the ground. I found one that read "MaRIo" at least 100 times. It couldn't have been any less than 100. Other pieces were scribbled on and I could hardly read them and I did not want to get a headache trying.

But anyway, I sat down and checked out the NES that was laying on the floor. Super Mario Bros. 3 was already in, which for some reason read "Super MaRIo Bros. 3" on the label, with a controller ready. I guess she was already about to play it before she was taken in. I pressed the power button to play a few levels before I headed back to the ward and gave her whatever news she wanted to hear.

However, there was something wrong with the game. There was no title screen and I didn't get an over-world map. I was simply placed in a level... with a few things that were definitely off. Mario didn't have his head! It was instead Birdo's head... why was that? I has assumed that they had "hacked" it or whatever. The sky was read and I was greeted with a text that read:

"ONCE ONE OF US, AND ALWAYS ONE OF US. WE WARNED YOU THAT YOU WOULD RUE THIS MaRIo, AND YOUR FINAL STEP IS ABOUT TO BE TAKEN. THE EMPIRE WILL RISE."

This shook me up a little. What a... grim message. What empire? Was I playing Star Wars or Mario? And why was Mario's name spelled like that? I pressed A, and moved on. There wasn't much in this level. All I had to do was move foward, didn't have to jump or fight any enemies. Just... held down the button to keep Mario moving foward, until I reached the end and grabbed the card to finish the level. I got a mushroom, which is the lowest of the three cards you could get out of the fire flower and the star.

Expecting to jump onto an over-world map, I was thrown into another level! The same thing as before! I even got a mushroom card at the end like before! This a third time and it was beginning to bore me. I didn't know how my friend was going to take what I was going to tell her, because I was about to turn the NES off... before something happened. The screen froze for a few seconds on the three cards I had gotten, which were all mushrooms. Then the screen went to black. After a few seconds of black screen, I was greeted with an enlarged Mario sprite, who still had Birdo's head. The three cards from before came back onto the screen, and Mario held them in his hand. He stared at them, with a.... look of... terror. Fear, sadness. Mario turned towards the screen, and the screen flashed. It did so continuously, until it stopped with a picture of Mario... with his new head. It was... one of the Toad's heads. And one of the cards in his hand was now blank.

The screen immediately switched to a new picture. Four Toads, one bigger than the rest. To the right of them was a tree, with 2 bodies hanging from it by a rope around their necks. A new text appeared:

"AND NOW WHAT HE BEGAN SHALL FINISH. HE TOLD US HE WOULD GIVE US HIS CHILDREN IF HE COULD BECOME ONE OF US. MAY THE LAST STEP BE TAKEN. COME FORTH, MaRIo!"

Mario, still with a Toad's head, came in from the right on the screen. He pulled out the two cards from earlier that still had mushrooms on them, and he walked over the the bodies hanging from the tree. That old sound that plays when you grab a mushroom or fire flower played, and the cards turned into Toads.

"NO. WE WILL BE SLAVES INSTEAD. JUST PLEASE DON'T." Another text read. Mario then proceeded to crack the necks of the two Toads. He then ripped their heads off, and forced them onto the heads of the bodies hanging from the tree. The bodies jumped down, suddenly alive. Then, I saw a new body fading in... this one looked like it was a girl.... in fact... it looked very familiar.

The largest Toad then ripped his own head off, and threw it to Mario. Mario, just like before with the other two, forced the Toad's head onto the girl's head.

All I could think as I watched was "Is it... is it even possible to do a hack like this?" My phone began to ring. I looked at the number, it was the... ward that my friend was staying at. They informed me that... my friend had just taken her own life. I threw my phone at the wall, angry and afraid. I looked at the screen and... they were all staring at me. Every sprite, their eyes were following me. A new text popped up. "THe eMpiRE haS NOW bEen CREatEd, it WouLD bE A ShaMe if YoU diDnt JoiN usS." At that moment, I recieved a text message from a number that I had not saved in my phone. The text read:

"I asked them to take my children. They should both be dead now. I know for sure. I have done what they wanted and now they want more. I told them that I would oblige them with one more. Don't you want to be happy... forever?"

I threw my phone back to where I threw it before. I looked at the screen again and... oh God, I will never forget it. I still see it. That angry, soul piercing stare of that Toad. The screen flickered furiously and I heard merciless screams and chants. All of them chanting "THE EMPIRE HAS RISEN! THE EMPIRE THE EMPIRE! MARIO HAS FALLEN! THE EMPIRE!" The chants faded out and all I heard was screaming. I furiously ran out the door and ran to my car. I was going to go back to the ward... to give one last goodbye to my friend.

When I arrived and walked in, everything began to fall apart. I walked to the front desk. "Hey, I know she just passed away, but... could I go to my friend's room and see her?"

"What are you talking about? Nobody has died today, and... what are you doing out here?" The desk clerk asked. "What do you mean?" After I asked this, two big men in scrubs grabbed my arms and began to drag me away. I was screaming and wondering what was going on, I had never been so scared in my life. They took me to a room, undressed me, and put me in a hospital robes that all of the patients where. A nurse walked in.

"Thank you, gentlemen. I don't know what has gotten into her recently." What... what was she talking about? "Ma'am... what's going on?"

"Shush! Play with your cards!" She said as she handed me three cards... with a mushroom on each one.

I fell to the ground, and wailed violently. "THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!" I screamed. I screamed this many times before the two men came back in, placed me on the bed and held me down until I stopped screaming. That night, I had dreams of armies of Toads marching towards me... with Mario leading the charge.

I write this while lying on my bed here in this ward. Is this what my friend went through? Was she fine the whole time, but... everyone saw her as a... patient? Maybe her state of mind was fine the whole time and we just... kept seeing her as "crazy."

Thoughts of that text message I recieved still rang in my head... was I.. was I going to be in this "empire" too? No. No, that won't happen. Maybe I'm not actually writing this. Maybe... I will wake up soon and everything will be alright.

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