I got a used copy of Super Smash Bros Brawl for my birthday last year. I loved it so, I used to play it nonstop. I've completed the story mode at least a dozen times and gotten most of the achievements.

But recently, I've been hesitant to touch the thing.

A few months ago, upon turning on my game, I received a notification that read:

"You've played 1,000,000 matches! Surely no one will ever get this far!"

I sat back a moment to admire my work. Most people would've immediately switched off the game and thought about making better life decisions, but not me! I was incredibly proud.

I pressed the 2 button and continued to the title screen. The music seemed a little bit louder, but nothing strange beyond that.

Normally I'd head straight for the online play, but I figured I deserved a bit more of a challenge, so I proceeded to group play and selected a random level 9 computer to play against. I chose Olimar as my player and moved to change the game from "timed" to "stock", but accidentally switched the counter to the left instead of the right. I expected to see the "coin" battle option, but there was no text. Confused, I flicked through the options for a while. It was almost like there was a fourth selection for brawls that had no name. Being the in the high-and-mighty mood I was in, I concluded I had unlocked something special for completing a million brawls, and thought it only right to try it out. I was actually excited to see what I'd find once I started playing.

When I exited the menu there was no sound from the announcer like there normally would have been.

I moved on to the stage selection screen. There was only one stage I could choose with no preview image, titled Sample.4. It was under the custom stages category, which I thought was strange, seeing that the game only came with 3 sample stages, and I know I hadn't created one. I selected the stage and began to play.

My character performed his entering sequence, and immediately I noticed that there was no stage at all–the entire thing was blank. There was no music, and my opponent did not appear. I sat for a second and waited, and during that time I saw that Olimar's idle animation loop was different. Instead of swinging his arms or touching his helmet he'd look over his shoulder or freeze completely rigid a moment. The Pikmin suddenly blinked white a few times and died, leaving six ghosts hanging in the air behind me. My character did not react.

This was strange..had I been idle too long? I pressed 1 to pluck more Pikmin, but every time I tried Olimar would shake his head like when a character shook off their dizziness. I didn't bother too much with it.

To my surprise, the announcer cut in and said "Begin". Instead of the normal voice, it sounded like Meta Knight's deep growl.

At this point, I wasn't sure what it was the game wanted me to do. Begin what? There was nobody to fight!

I jumped around a bit and ran in circles waiting for my opponent, until I noticed the screen was following me, much like in the Subspace Emissary story mode.

Curious, I ran right. I continued for what seemed like forever, hoping to find some answer to my questions, until my character tripped. The game froze.

I groaned and got up to unplug the system, knowing the power button would do me no good, and a box appeared on the screen.

"Would you like to know the truth?

YES or NO"

I scrambled back to the couch and pressed YES. There was no end to my curiosity.

The screen went black for a moment and then faded into a cut scene. The first thing I saw was Tabuu, shaking and pulsing before letting out a wave of energy that threw all of the brawlers up into the air and turned them into statues. I've seen this cutscene numerous times, and I waited for it to end, but it didn't. Instead the camera passed over the lifeless faces of each and every character, including Kirby, Luigi, and Ness, who were supposed to be waking up right about then. It also spared a glimpse at master hand, and then finally, it rested on the only remaining character in the game–Sonic. The cut scene ended.

I was now playing as Sonic. I started in the same place you would've started as Kirby in Subspace. As I played, I noticed that the character trophies were missing. Of course this struck me as odd...were the others dead? The thought was very unsettling.

I approached the door to Tabuu's lair and found that all the trophies had miraculously disappeared, as if it were the game's intention that I entered without completing the rest of my quest. Confusion gave way to fear as I turned and sped across the open blackness and towards the entrance on the far side. I had an eerie feeling about where this was going.

As I appeared on-stage it was apparent I would have no opponent once again. Another box popped up, again asking if I wanted to know "the truth". I selected YES, and the screen faded into another cutscene.

It showed Sonic, on-stage, looking around idly. Suddenly Tabuu appeared. He walked straight over to Tabuu and looked up, apparently waiting for something.

For the first time ever in story mode, someone spoke. It sounded more like a thousand voices jumbled together.

"Young warrior," Tabuu began "the journey you've begun was for naught. Your friends are all dead."

"What, how?" Sonic screeched, his eyes wide with panic.

"Let me show you," Tabuu replied. There was a hint of...pity? That couldn't be right, he was the bad guy!

Tabuu bowed his head and pressed three fingertips against Sonic's forehead. His pupils went white, and the screen flashed.

Next I saw Kirby, waking up in the same manner he should have earlier. He spit out the golden piece and stared at it a second. Then there was screaming. He jumped up and raced towards the sound. What I saw next almost made me puke.

There was blood everywhere. Yoshi sat in the middle, grabbing fistfuls of his own intestine and pulling it out in a frenzy, his eyes wild with fear. He was mumbling incoherently to himself and looking around, as though the environment he'd been plunged into was driving him insane. He strung out his guts all over the floor, sobbing and whimpering. There was a small icon of Yoshi at the bottom, and the more of his flesh he ripped out, the higher his damage counter climbed. I watched in horror as the normally bright-eyed, jolly creature finally ran out of things to pull out of himself, and began eating his own innards. The screen panned to Kirby, whose face was frozen in horror, and the game was once again in my control.

Yoshi lay down and died as my character approached. I ran past him.

There were no enemies or platforms along the way, and it wasn't the usual terrain, I noticed. I came upon a door and, after much hesitation, went inside.

Another cutscene.

Here I saw Ike and Marth, miraculously recovering from their statuesque forms. Ike turned his head and looked around, panicking much like Yoshi had, and began slamming his face against the floor. Marth screamed and ripped his hair out in chunks, and when he ran out of hair he took his sword and began digging out his teeth. Ike's face was smashed into a plup, blood flying up into the air every time he jerked his head back for another blow. I could hear bone crunching and a low gurgling, and his motions did not slow down. Marth's teeth were all gone, and blood poured steadily from his sliced gums. He grabbed Ike's shoulders and watched him mutilate himself, and laughed.

A text box appeared.

"They could not handle the darkness. It drove them mad."

The screen panned to Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Fox.

As soon as they awoke, Peach began to cry. Mario froze, his eyes wide, and lifted his hand to his face. A faint red glow rose from his hand. He was burning himself.

Luigi started breaking his own legs. All I heard was the dull popping noises of him snapping his bones, from the ankles up. He screamed and cried. Fox was the last to realize what was happening. He ripped off his ears and sunk his teeth into his arm, biting harder and harder until he hit an artery. Then he sat back and watched in wonder as blood gushed from his wound and trickled down his head from where he'd torn off his ears. Peach slowly pulled out her pink umbrella and pushed the handle into her eye socket. He lips curved in an 'O' shape, but she made no sound. With a hard jerk of her arm, she forced the handle all the way in and then pulled it back out. Chunks of pink and red oozed out of the fresh wound, and I realized that she had ripped out her brains.

A terrifying laugh sounded in the background-like Ganondorf's, but higher in pitch. The normally-black Subspace around them pulsed red a moment.

Another text box.

"Warriors will die, always with pride, thinking themselves martyrs.

I made them kill themselves. I made them save themselves."

In the minute following this chilling message I saw short clips of various others dying horribly. Bowser clawed his own face off and rubbed the fleshy meat that was once his muzzle on his spiked bracelets, further disfiguring himself. Donkey Kong pulled on his tie until his face turned purple and his eyeballs bulged from his head. Mr. Game & Watch dragged himself across the floor on his face, wearing away black pixels and littering the ground with them. R.O.B. tore out his wiring. Olimar smashed his own helmet in and took a deep breath of oxygen-his head exploded. Meta Knight sliced off his arm, shoved it down his throat, and choked on it. Falco ripped out his own feathers and pecked furiously at his belly as if it were food until he tore open a hole, and then began to feed on the stringy muscle and sinew underneath. Pikachu scratched at his underside with his back legs until the soft fur gave way and all of his organs came spilling out. He then proceeded to roll in it, crushing the vulnerable organs and wrapping himself in his intestines.

As I watched my favorite characters die with increasing disgust, I couldn't help but cry.

Finally, the camera zoomed in on Mario. He'd eventually burnt his face to a crisp and fell over with a sickening thump. His blackened skin began to flake away, eventually revealing the bleeding muscle underneath.

My attention was returned to Kirby, who was becoming more hysterical by the second. He started to vomit. In between his puking I heard him gasp for breath, his lungs straining between screams and sobs as he retched. A minute later he laid down, heaving and choking, and died too.

The screen faded to white.

Slowly, an image of Sonic came on the screen. His face was frozen in terror, his pupils mere dots in his eyes. Tabuu floated a couple feet away, looking pleased.

"Wouldn't it be easier to end your own misery now?" He asked smugly.

A single tear slid down Sonic's cheek, and his mouth slowly opened, revealing his teeth. I flinched back and dropped my controller. In horrifying detail I saw that Sonic's teeth were worn down to mere nubs. Blood bubbled up from the open cavities within his enamel, and the roots protruded out of those holes. The sight of the sensitive nerves touching each other made me cringe.

He started screaming. One long scream after another, never getting any quieter, hardly stopping for breath. I muted my television and sobbed loudly, hoping my parents would hear and come downstairs to force me to stop watching this nightmare.

Sonic reached up..

"Please, god, NO!" I screeched.

..he began ripping out his roots. I bit hard on my tongue and accidentally bumped the remote, un-muting the tv, and though I didn't watch, I heard snapping noises and his screams became wails of agony, so high-pitched and grating I curled in on myself and bawled like a baby.

The sound cut off, but I didn't dare open my eyes.

Finally, my stepdad came barreling down the stairs, demanding that I shut up, and noticed my crying. He shook me.

"What's wrong?! Why are you crying?!"

I steeled myself and slowly calmed down, then leaped forward to hug him, sobbing like a 5-year-old.

"Jesus, what's gotten into you?" He asked.

Even though I'm 17, he picked me up and began carrying me to my room. I looked over his shoulder at the screen, where there was one last text box that read:

"The truth hurts."

My first creepypasta.

Constructive criticism is appreciated.