I played Ocarina of Time a lot as a kid, so when I heard there was a new Zelda game coming out, I was naturaly excited. When Majora's Mask came out, I bought it with money I got from mowing lawns and walking my dog. But when I played it, I was to scared to even get past the first part of the game. I haven't played it since, but when I saw the game again at a flea market, I had to give it a try. But instead of the sticker on the game, it just had the words "ZELDA MAJORA N64" written with sharpie. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now I know my mistake.
When I arrived home, I went into the garage to retrieve my N64, which I beloved so many years ago. I was mildly surprised to find that in the console was my old copy of Ocarina of Time. I dusted off both things and plugged it into my tv. After putting Majora's mask in, I was slighty confused to find that there was nothing on screen. I realized what I had to do was blow into my cartridge, and put it back in. After doing so, I saw the N64 logo, and there was no turning back now.
After I pressed start on the title screen, I was suprised to see there were already three save slots in the game. The first was called "YOU". The second was called "ARE". The third was called "DEAD?". I thought it was wierd, but I didn't take much note of it. The wierd thing was, all of the save files had three hearts, but they all looked complete. I was curious, so I decided to start up the first one.
When the game loaded, I was astounded to see that Link was inside of the moon, but check out the first save file. This was the last mistake I would ever make.this was no ordinary moon. Upon closer examination, I was appaled to see that there was no kis with a mask. Instead, it was a hyperrealistic model of my brother, Ethan! He was dead on the ground with a pool of blood surrounding him! The pool of blood was so massive that is had a current, and I wasn't even aware that the N64 was able to produce models as high quality as my dead brother. Dazed and confused, I immediately shut off the game and swore to never touch it again.
I went to sleep. The next day, I woke up to a call from my mom. "Ian, I have some bad news. Ethan is dead!" I dropped the phone. How could my brother be dead? I heard "Ian! Ian!" from the phone, so I picked it up. But when I responded, it wasn't my mother's voice anymore. A shrill, ghastly voice whispered from the other line, "Play the game". The call ended.
Intrigued, but scared, I felt the call to action to contionue playing this fated game, that seems to have murdered my brother in cold blood. But before I was about to turn on the game, I heard a demonic roar. On edge, I fell back and wondered what the roar was. I heard it again, but I wasn't as scared as I was before. Turns out, it was jsut my stomach, because I had not eaten that day. So I decided to get some fresh air and leave my house, to go get some lunch. My cravings included Mcdonalds, specifically chicken nuggets, mind you, hunger was just as scary as the game at the time.
After taking a detour for a Mcdonalds 50 piece chicken mcnugget (for a total of $10.70 after sales tax), I ate twenty and saved the other thirty for the rest of the day in case I got hungry again. After returning home, I obeyed the words of the voice on the phone (who I later learned actually was my mom) and started the game. The third save file was different this time, now the question mark is gone! This scared me away from the third save file, so I started up the second game.
When I opened the file, it was at the part where Link is with the dancing dead guy. But it was no dancing dead guy, it appeared to be a hyperraelistic model of my other brother, David! We most terryfying aspect of this whole predicament was that the dancing was spazzed out, as if it were corrupted (or as if he was doing the harlem shake). His dancing scared me, not ebcause it may be corrupted, but because the game David had better dancing than the real David! I assured myself that that this was not actually him because of this, and I decided to shake it off, and power down the game, in hopes that I will never bear witness to those slick moves again.
I got onto my MAcbook Pro as if it was any other day, and opened up Facebook to view my favorite meme accounts. After a few minutes of liking funny posts, I got a message from David. It said, "You shouldn't have done that." I was confused. Done what? "Play the game, Ian." Then my feed was filled with videos of what I had just witnessed in the game, but with Play the Game by Queen as music. I knew something was going on so I decided to play the game once more. This would be the last mistake I ever made.
While eating the rest of those chicken nuggets, I built up the courage to power up the game, to witness what the last save file may hold for me. I was flustered to see that the last save file was still makred "DEAD", but this time it had an exclamation point (DEAD!). This terrified me to the bone, but I decided too press on, consuming the chicken nuggets to quell my fear. To my suprise, Link was nowhere to be found~! Instead, the character I was playing as was Mario, and I was on a strange level, witha giant snowman.
The level had no enemies, and MArio was slowly getting hurt as if he was in poisonous gas. I wandered the level for as long as I could, and died. But the camera didn't zoom in, and Mario seemed to be bleeding hyperrealistically from his mouth. Then, all of my family appear on the screen. "We've been waiting for you, Ian." Their voices slowly turned demonic as they all said in unison, "It's me, Lucifer. You died a week ago, and for punishment for your sins, I've devized a plan to cause you the most suffering possible. Not only did I force you to play this game, but I've poisoned the chicken nuggets."
I immediately spit out the chicken nuggt that was in my mouth, but the damage already began to be done. Out of the tv screen, Lucifer explains to me, "the chicken nuggets have been injected with polio, and you will not die becaues you are already deided. You will only suffer." I began to feel a minor illness not involving the central nervous system, sometimes called abortive poliomyelitis, as well as a major illness involving the CNS, which ended up being paralytic. In my case, the infection produced minor symptoms; including upper respiratory tract infection (which surfaced as sore throat and fever), nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, constipation or, rarely, diarrhea, and influenza-like illness. In my body, the virus entered the central nervous system. My rare case progressed to paralytic disease, in which my muscles became weak, floppy and poorly controlled, and, finally, completely paralyzed; this condition I now know to be acute flaccid paralysis. Encephalitis, an infection of the brain tissue itself, did occur in my case, and is usually restricted to infants (key word being usually, I happen to be unusual). Because of this, I suffered confusion, changes in mental status, headaches, fever, and, occasionally, seizures and spastic paralysis
This is my story. I have been laying on the ground, poisoned by the chicken nuggets injected with polio for five years. Just as Eazy-E was injected in cold by Suge Knight with the AIDS virus. Except Eazy-E died. I don't know how you're reading this, but regardless, if you are, heed my warning. Chicken nuhggets are not safe in large quantities. As I learned and ignored in the hit film Food Inc, never trust what you eat.