I leapt out of bed, terrified, wondering what was going on. First Night-Terrors were often more terrifying than others, I knew that, but this was something else...


-You will pay for what you did to US-

As soon as I got out of bed, the first thing that came into my mind was to finish what I started; I went over to my Wii U, turned it on, set it up, got out my Wiimote and Nunchuk, and prepared myself for the worst...

And the worst did come.

When the game started it up, everything seemed normal, which was quite a relief. The title screen was back to its old self, the Copyright Infringement in the corner was normal, even Mario looked as happy as ever. Except for when I went onto the save file screen. Three Mario heads popped up instead of planets and each had names. I selected each of them, one at a time, to see what was wrong with them.

The first name read, "YOU WILL PAY..." and glitched out, so that I couldn't select the save file. I moved on to the second one, reading, "For what you did..." This file also seemed to be buggy, because it wouldn't let me in either. Finally, I selected the final and 'newest' save file, "TO US!"

What I didn't realise however as I entered the game, was that my SMG2 box, supposedly right next to me, had a crack in it, but nobody and nothing had touched it and it didn't have a crack in it a few hours ago...

Additionally, my door, completely silent to my ears, slammed shut, all by itself.

The file started at that moment, and nostalgia once more ran through my brain. Somehow I had already forgotten the mysterious save files and had disregarded it as a simple bug. My first reaction though when the game started up was one of not shock or terror. Rather it was of anger. When the level began automatically I was a little bit confused, but the worst part was that this was a whole new level... One that I'd never seen before.

-Galaxy 666, Star 0-

I reckon you're probably wondering, 'Why would this make me angry? It's clearly an awesome Easter Egg that you just discovered unlike anybody else!'

Well this was no ordinary Easter Egg.

In the level there was a simple terrain, one flat platform with a nice pattern made of hard, pale-blue rock. A small, inaccessible staircase lay just behind me, and all I could do was zoom in on the beautiful, peaceful ocean that ran before me... however right in the centre of the ocean was something quite unfortunate, something not peaceful, something terrifying...

A Ghost Ship...

I then panicked and swam through the water as fast as I could towards the Ghost Ship, I found a fairly realistic entrance and swam into it, assuming that this was all just a little joke by Nintendo.

Perhaps they found out about me, knew how much I loved Mario and made me a little birthday present! It is my birthday, yes, but no, that's too ridiculous to be true. As I struggled through the tight entrance to the ship though I accidently clipped through a wall, and found myself in a place with very low gravity, still seemingly underwater but it appeared to be the only area of the ship that wasn't flooded... yet...

Except when I looked up, I found that the deep, ocean water had frozen just above me. Like an invisible barrier protecting me. I looked around me and determined that Nintendo can't have made this. It was too realistic, and too well designed...

And too plain...

I decided to explore a little, since the depths of this ship seemed quite large, though not at all welcoming, and almost instantly I found a lone door - Just sitting there, almost fully inanimate, serving no purpose. I opened it however, for the sake of exploration, and found myself in another, darker area. So dark in fact that all I could see was Mario, and one light in the distance. So far away in fact that I felt like it was there simply to BE investigated.

-Persistent Movement-

I felt like I was running forever as I eventually closed in on the light. It was a dim light, but impossible to miss nevertheless. I was starting to dislike this whole 'SMG2 Dark Side' concept.

Finally, I reached the light, and realised that there was something special about this light. For within the shaded patch at the bottom, there was more than just a mysterious reflection.

It was a pond...

Without another option, I reluctantly jumped into the pond and swam downwards, so fast that I only lost a little bit of breath swimming down. At last, I reached the bottom, and what I saw petrified me to the core...

-A not-so-great Discovery-

I found another light there, and in it was a massive pile of bones. Not just a pile of any ordinary bones though, these bones were owned by an entire fleet of Bowser's Army. OF course! It all makes sense now! That's why the ship looked to weird to be normal! It wasn't just any ghost ship, it was Bowser's favourite airship, somehow it must have been forced down into the sea after Bowser's ultimate defeat in the concluding chapter to SMG1! Shaking, I made Mario lower himself down to the 'Pond' Bed. Still staring upwards at the pile of bones, I realised that within the centre of this pile, there was a short tuft of orange hair. That hair belonged to Dry Bowser. I knew from experience that Bowser can survive lava, and will usually turn into Dry Bowser afterwards, a tuft of eerie orange hair would be all that remained. Still shakily, I also recalled that Dry Bowser has two lives, one in which he is calm, and the other he is angered and revengeful. Powerful too...

Could this be the fully destroyed Bowser? Or did he still have one remaining life?

All my queries were solved when the hair began to budge.

I understand now... when Bowser was finally defeated it threw the entire Koopa Kingdom into chaos, and there was a great battle between the two games, explaining why there was no lock-on technology (one of my friends told me about a rumour involving lock-on technology with SMG1 and 2), in which the Mushroom Kingdom prevailed and banished the entire enemy kingdom into the great ocean out of everyone's way. When the Mushroom Kingdom was finally safe, Mario realised that what he had done this time went too far, and attempted to return to the implosion spot in which Bowser died to revive him, he then made a horrible discovery and took Dry Bowser down to the last airship in which all of his people were stuck. He had previously hoped that nobody would ever find this secret, but then I exposed it.

Perhaps this is my punishment.

-eBay-

The Orange Tuft of Hair continued to vibrate until Dry Bowser broke out of the pile of bones and roared ferociously, I screamed in my seat, terrified to the point of fainting by this sudden outburst. Dry Bowser quickly closed in on Mario, while I swam for my life up to the hole where I had found this place. Unfortunately, the darkness prevented my escape, and at last, I ran out of breath. I watched in horror and fear as Mario slowly drowned, clutching his neck in agony, then unlike a normal death, Mario collapsed into a very strange position, while Dry Bowser continued to move, and finally engulfed Mario in his great jaws.

Words popped up on the screen, "GAME OVER" and the Wii U crashed again. I rapidly switched it off and stood up. I stretched my limbs and drank from my water bottle, it calmed me down a little.

"What a remake," I laughed nervously and went to go to bed. However I found that the door had been double-locked. I tried to hide my fear and sat down again. Then I noticed that the lights had gone off, so I went to turn them on again. Luckily, it wasn't a fuse, it was probably just one of my friends or family trying to prank me, and the lights came on like nothing was wrong. Feeling safer now, I turned around and went on my computer, I opened up a new tab and searched eBay for any unique or strange copies of SMG2, still nothing unusual when I found no results. After a while I decided to search SMG2 in general, and my luck was great, the first option that appeared described itself as 'Excellent Condition' and '5 Star Gameplay.' I chuckled awkwardly at that, and clicked on that sale. It was amazingly only 5 dollars! What a weird bargain for such a mind-blowing game!

The creepiest part though was one of the reviews.

It read like this:

User06162636: tis game is shite, i fucking hat teh gamploy n i dont lik Mario attitude

dont by ths pric of a gam [0 STARS]

"Interesting name," I thought, before clicking on this user's profile. he was still selling one game on his profile, under the title, 'i hop u lik super mairo galxy.'

It was being sold for 1 dollar and it turns out that this must have been the right game, I knew that as soon as I looked at the only two reviews.

One was this:

AnonymousGuest: A beautiful, mind-blowingly nostalgic, tear-jerking game with wonderful graphics and epic, stylistic gameplay. [5 STARS]

And the other read like this:

Guest: Please don't buy this game, whoever you are, if you're reading this, then your fate is hidden in this game, so just please, DON'T PLAY IT!

And for those of you who already did... I'm sorry, I really am...

But never look behind you... [0 STARS]

I was starting to get sick of eBay's bullcrap.

-Thanks for playing!-

Feeling angrier than ever about this stupid rip-off of a game, I turned around and clenched my fists. Nothing there. I stood up and turned to my door. Still locked tight, I made a final decision out of desperation. I recalled my karate lessons and my football training, and prepared my favourite skill, the Scissor Kick. Since it could also be used as a fighting move, I controlled myself like a fighting video game character from Super Smash Bros.

"A-UP!" I screamed as I blasted the door down, using all of my remaining strength. My fear had finally faded, not for long... Tired to the point of exhaustion, I strolled over to my bed and tucked myself in; warm and cosy, I happily drifted off to sleep.

Unlike earlier on, I was lucky enough to avoid a screaming nightmare. I had a very nice nap, but when I woke up, I didn't like what I saw. Remembering the previous night, I got out of bed and opened my curtains. From the light behind me I could tell it was around 9:00 in the morning, but when I drew back the curtains, all I could see was darkness.

"Huh, strange," I thought, "Perhaps one of my friends put up a giant black piece of paper over my window. The damn twits."

However when I turned around I realised that it was not paper, rather it was pure and utter darkness.

The only other thing I could see now in my bedroom...

Was Dry Bowser.

His mouth wide open.

His demonic eyes gleaming with evil.

And they surrounded me.


So that's the story of my life. Want to know what happened to me afterwards? There's a simple answer to that...

Just play Super Mario Galaxy 2.