SMA.exe

Original Author: CynicalWarchild

I was born in 1984. As a kid growing up during the late 80s and 90s, I experienced first-hand the beginning of the gaming industry as it's known as today. The NES, and later the N64 were the systems I played on the most and my favorites games were games like Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda. As I matured however, my taste in games did as well. I still played Mario and Zelda, but I also explored other genres such as FPS games, MMOs, etc etc. Games such as Halo Combat Evolved and Zelda Twilight Princess were my all-time favorite games, and the GameCube was one of the best gaming systems of the generation in my opinion at the time.

Unfortunately, in 2011, I was forced out of my home because the landlord decided to remodel the place and raise the rent up by a couple thousand dollars. I was furious, but had no other option to move to an apartment. I had to sell all my gaming systems, games, and other belongings to keep myself afloat financially. I swear to God I even considered suicide, not because I actually wanted to end my life, but because I wanted to make the landlord feel like a massive sack of shit. He really was. He was an abusive, stereotypical rich corporate cock-sucker who would constantly talk to you in this condescending “I am superior to you tone” constantly

But, this story isn’t about him. After a few weeks of living in an apartment, I finally made enough to move out again and back into a house. It was a cheap little place, but it was more than enough for me. My need to buy my systems back died after I discovered emulators. Getting all the games for free, as well as the ability to hack them and add my own tweaks to them was a god-send.

Fast-forward to 2019. I finally got myself back on track fully. I had a good job, and a house that I owned myself. It was around this time that COVID was first reported. At first, it didn’t worry me, but when 2020 hit, shit really started to hit the fan. Everyone was required to stay in their homes and wear masks if they went out, even if no one else was around. It was September 4th, 2020, and I was at home, bored out of my mind. I was looking for a game to play when I decided to take a break and go out for a walk. I had nowhere to go, so I decided to take my metal detector out and look for stuff at the beach.

After a half hour, I didn’t find anything. I was about to give up when I heard a beep from the device. Excited, I got my shovel out and started digging. I found a small metal box with a combination lock on it. After taking it home, I started compiling a list of possible combinations. After a few hours, I finally got the combination right and opened the crate. There was a CD case inside. I opened the case and there was a blank disk. No writing, just a blank white disk.

I put the disk into the computer and checked what was inside of it. There was a .txt file and a .exe file called “SMA.exe”. I opened the text file, but it took a while to open. When it opened, all that was there was text encrypted in binary code. I opened the .exe file. It was a Mario game. Not just any Mario game, though. It was Super Mario World. I loved that game as a kid.

Everything was normal at first. In fact, the entire game was normal. I spent the rest of the day playing through the game, and I was having the time of my life. I felt like the luckiest person in the world. The trip down memory lane was like exploring another planet. It was amazing because I haven’t played this game in years, but still somehow remembered where everything was. I didn’t even stop to think about why the hell was this game hidden in a locked metal box underneath sand at the beach of all places? I was too caught up in nostalgia to even think about anything else. The world could have been ending directly outside my window and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

That was, until I reached the end of the game. The game immediately closed on its own after the credits rolled. I went back to the folder and saw that, for some reason, another .exe file was there under the same same name, only with a “(1)” at the end of it. I opened it up again. This time, things were completely different. It was the same game, but with completely different content. The menu was awfully simplistic, even for a standard game for the era. The background was black, with a menu with three options: new game, load game, and quit. The options, for whatever reason, weren’t visible unless you had them selected however.

Above the menu where the title should have been was a square made out of a glitchy jumble of colors. I selected a new game, not knowing what I was in for.

“Let’sa Go” Mario cheered as the screen transitioned from the title screen to a cloudy background with a text box reading “Hllo e       y!”. Not knowing what to make of that, I pressed the enter button and another text box appeared. This time, it said “Thn Hello!”. I pressed enter again,... and another one appeared saying “T th! |        y e.”. Pressing enter again gave me even more gibberish, which said “ss ! |        y.”. The last box said “I h! |         y joy it!”

I didn’t spawn in an overworld, but I was rather thrown right into the first level, and already noticed something odd. The level didn’t resemble the first normal level at all. It was still built like a Mario level, but completely differently. The sky was pitch black, it was night, and there was a weird vignette effect on the screen. There was no music either. When I jumped on the goombas, they didn’t die, at least not like they normally did. Instead, when you jumped on them once, they would become zombified and they would move slower, and they finally died once you jumped on them a second time. The koopas had no shells, which I admittedly did find really unsettling. I mean, who wouldn’t?

As I was about half-way into the level, a picture flashed on the screen for about a second. It wasn’t anything too terrifying, just a picture of a creepy smile. No screamer sound either, just a picture. After I jumped on the flag (which was invisible for some reason) another picture flashed on the screen, this time it was of a person in an animal costume clutching two crying children in his hands.

There was no overworld as I said before, so it just threw me into the next level after the previous one ended. The next level was also dark, with that vignette effect. It was a seemingly endless grassland level. After about a minute, I came across a pool of lava, which was a weird thing to find in a grassland. There was Yoshi, impaled on a pike in front of it. I knew what this was… It as a fucking ROM hack. Hovering over the lava were numerous small blocks. As I jumped over the gaps, the same picture of the creepy smile I mentioned before flashed numerous times, making it hard to make it across. I somehow made it on the first try.

I continued to walk as the weird koopas continuously spawned. I finally made it to the flag. I didn’t really know what to make of this. Playing it was a bit of a pain, but it wasn’t unbearable. The next level was just a pipe floating in space. I went down the pipe and spawned in a crimson-red room. I moved a few steps and a picture flashed, a morbid picture of a mutilated little girl lying in what looked like a flower bed in a large meadow. A foot away from the body stood a tall silhouette of a man. His features were concealed by the bright sunlight, and he had what looked like a sledge-hammer in his left hand.

I jumped up and got out of my chair and moved away from my computer at the sight of the grotesque scene, breathing heavily and almost throwing up. I got back in the chair and continued playing. I walked for about two minutes until I came across a large red pipe. I went down the pipe and this time, I spawned in another red world, but I was playing as Luigi instead of Mario for some reason. The floor was grass, but the dirt was red and the grass was black and red, as if it were burning. The sky was red, which gradually went white and you went lower. “No Remorse” by NECRO started to play in the background as the level began. There were numerous blocks floating in the white abyss. It was hard to platform on this, especially considering the fact that some of the blocks would fall off when I was about to jump.

I kept on jumping until I saw another pipe I went down. Luigi fell through a black abyss until a large blue pipe with the label “Luigi disposal” appeared. I heard the sound of flesh grinding until the screen changed to a greyscale world. I was playing as Mario again, but he had white eyes and no animation at all. Another appalling picture appeared. This time, it was of a man in a white shirt, crucified with his lower body missing and his guts hanging from his body. There was a brown-haired man in a suit standing next to the cross, looking at the man with a smile on his face.

There was no music playing this time, just complete silence aside from the jumping sounds, nor were there any enemies in sight or blocks. Near the end of the level, there was the largest mountain in the background with humanoid figures standing on top of it, holding swords and torches. There was what looked like a giant cyan coin. Right as I saw it, a picture of a blonde man in sunglasses and a bomber-jacket flashed for a second. I jumped into the coin not knowing that to expect next.

Text appeared on the screen. It said “The Time has Come”.

I was in the same red realm I was in before, I was on solid ground this time. A dark-red Luigi sprite that was only a bit taller than normally. It occurred to me  that this was a boss battle. I was fighting Luigi. “No Remorse” started playing again as the battle started. Fighting him was hard, because the minute you clipped into him, even if you had a powerup, you still died immediately. I had one life left, but I managed to kill him. A picture of Genghis Khan flashed on the screen right as I killed him.

I was then teleported to a black world with a white ground. I was playing as Mario still, but he was zombified. As I ran and jumped on morbid goombas, another picture flashed. It was of what looked like the same blonde man as before, but he was wearing no glasses and was dressed in a black and white business suit with a red tie. He looked like a hitman. Two men in similar attire were next to him. They were standing in a hallway and looked like they were walking, although I couldn't see their legs. Behind the three men stood several other people in various attire. Most in suits, some in tactical attire. Another picture popped up a few seconds after that one; an unsettling image of some people in Teletubby costumes with a little boy in the middle, then the screen went to black.

The song continued to play as the screen faded to a bright blue color, so bright that it almost blinded me and my entire room looked like a rave. My eyes began to hurt and throb and my head was pounding. I fell to the ground. I heard a distorted voice come from the computer speakers. It said "What's the matter? It's just doing what it's supposed to do...".

“No Remorse” was still playing loudly in my head as I ran out of the room. I ran out to the balcony of the house. When I walked out, I swear on my life, and I swear to god, honest to god, whom I'm no longer sure exists at this point, I saw a 6, or 7 foot tall black mass sprint behind the tree in the front yard. I don't know why I did what I did. I think I may have blacked out. I don't know.

I ran down the stairs, and to the tree. Everything around me began crumbling. Hanging bodies appeared on the telephone wires and poles. The sky darkened, and the houses were burning. People were on fire, and there were masked men and women with assault rifles running while shooting people who were fleeing. I went back into the house. I saw one of the masked men pointing a grenade launcher at me. I turned around and jumped off of the balcony. I hit the ground and went unconscious. The song was echoing in my head as everything around me faded.

I woke up sometime later in the hospital. My parents and my brother were in the room with me. There were also several police officers in the room, not out of respect, but because they were afraid something would happen. I asked what happened. They told me that a biker saw me lying on the ground shaking violently. He called 911 after that.

I asked them about my computer and they said that it was incredibly hot, much hotter than a computer can sustain, and that a picture of a crucifixion was locked on the screen. I didn't tell anyone about what happened because I knew that would dismiss it. My computer still works, but I had to factory reset it. I still have the disk, and I won't give it to anyone for fear of their own safety despite the fact that nothing has happened after the fact.

Needless to say, I won’t be listening to “No Remorse” by NECRO anytime soon.