My twin brother Parker and I grew up when creepypastas about cursed games were hyper-popular. We had a shared passion for any content revolving around this genre. My ten-year-old brain couldn’t get enough of those shitty jump scares of classic Nintendo characters with blood leaking from their eyes. As we grew older, our love for the concept only grew stronger. This love for these games shaped me into what I am today. I am an anonymous Twitch streamer (I will not mention the account here for privacy reasons) who mostly plays horror content. Even though others complain about the way I live, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My brother was also influenced by his childhood to become an indie game developer. He never got very popular, but his name was out there in some niche circles of programmers. A few months ago, he began collaborating with another much more popular creator to make a Mario horror game. I was pretty excited about this, and I asked my brother if I could get an early copy for testing when it was ready. He said he had no problem with doing so as long as I didn’t stream it, and I was fine with that, this was more of a personal fascination for me.
Around a week ago, while I was making dinner for myself at home, I received an email from the person my brother was working with. A smile spread across my face as I read the message. They had sent me an early copy. I wasn’t expecting it since my brother wouldn’t tell me anything about how far they were into development. Nonetheless, I was ecstatic. As soon as I was done eating, I quickly turned on my computer and loaded up the game.
The game immediately loaded up to a seemingly normal Mario except for a few small things (a regular for this genre). The game’s title was replaced by “Iki”, and the two-player game option was gone. The game loaded up to an almost normal 1-1, with some of the block placement being off. Mario’s speed was slightly slower than usual, and the music was off. Occasionally the sound would cut out for a few seconds at a time, leaving me with an uncomfortable silence.
I decided to go down the pipe to skip most of the level and go to the secret room, but I was met with something else. The screen cut to black, and a person slowly faded in and out of view. Its head was tilted downward, and the upper half of its face was obscured. I could see the person’s mouth, or at least what was left of it. It was rotten, and their lips seemed to have been chewed off. At the time, I was amazed and confused, wondering how my brother and his friend had achieved this. I was immediately pulled back to the screen as I got a notification asking if the game could have access to my webcam. I accepted, and the figure’s head jolted up. Even though I couldn’t see its eyes, I swear I could feel it staring straight through me. Its mouth opened louder with a sickening squelching crunch noise, and a deep, gravelly voice escaped its throat. “Was this all worth it to you?” It spoke.
Suddenly, the game kicked me back to the start screen. I continued playing, anticipating more, yet nothing happened. The game seemed very unfinished, and I was growing bored quickly. I ended up closing the game, and I noticed a text file on my screen. I opened it, and it read as follows: “Parker, I hid something for you in the warp zone; go to world three and face me.” Intrigued, I did as instructed. Upon reaching the warp zone in 1-2, all sound cut out. As soon as I pressed down, the screen cut to black again. To my horror, an image of the man from earlier slowly came into view. However, this time I could see his entire body. He had hollow, rotted eyes, and he was hanging from a rope coming from the ceiling. “You’ll get what’s coming to you” was written at the bottom of the image. It looked way too real.
I heard something whip out from under my desk, and my computer turned off. Something had ripped the power cord from the wall. Shocked, I jolted out of my chair and sprinted to my bedroom door. I tried to open it, but it felt as if something was blocking me from the other side. I began to panic, and then I smelled something awful. The smell of rotting flesh was bellowing out of my closet. I knew I didn’t want to deal with what was inside, so I tried to quickly push a shelf in front of it. As soon as I got close, the doors burst open. I was blown to the ground by the impact, staring up into the closet. The man from the image was inside there, and he was moving. His hands were unnaturally long, and they slowly reached up for the rope, tearing it down effortlessly. It looked directly at me, lunging for my throat. It easily wrapped its finger around my neck and began to tighten its grip. The man seemed incredibly angry, even though I had done nothing to him.
As my vision began to fade, he suddenly began to let go. I looked up at his face. Without its eyes or lips, I could tell that the thing seemed confused and disappointed. It leaned in close and opened its mouth, a pungent aroma leaking out. I closed my eyes, as I thought it was about to bite me. Breaking through the silence, it grumbled, “You’re not Parker.” I felt it completely let go of me, and when I opened my eyes, it was gone. My computer was plugged back in, and the developer had left me one more message in my inbox. “Wrong email,” it read.
After that, my power went out. I wasn’t able to sleep that night, wondering if what happened was even real. I considered calling 911, but I didn’t think they would believe me. The next morning, I received a call from the police station. They had received a frantic call from my brother, and when they arrived, he was strangled to death. I thought this was where it was all going to end, but yesterday I decided to look at the news section on Reddit. To my horror, I saw the picture of the man’s corpse. In a panic, I checked the article it was from. “Indie game developer found dead in apartment; possible staged suicide?”