persevero

My birthday was a few weeks ago and I have to say it was a great one. I got a ridiculous amount of presents from my family and my friends didn't skimp on the gifts either. I wound up netting around $400 total in cash and a good $150 in gift cards. I found this especially nice as I'm not one to have a lot of excess money, but when I do have it I'm usually at a loss for how to spend it. After consulting with my friends as to what would be the best course of action, I decided to purchase a Nintendo Wii. I've never really been terribly interested in video games, but after playing a few rounds of Wii Sports at my friend's house I was hooked. I spent a good four hours scouring the internet for the best deal (not that I didn't have money to spare at that point) when I found an eBay listing for a lightly used Nintendo Wii for only $100. The seller didn't list too many details as to the condition of the console, but he uploaded pictures and they looked well enough. I was slightly hesitant to buy the Wii, as the seller was a new user and I didn't have any feedback to go off of as far as his reliability, but I figured I'd give it as hot anyway. When the Wii arrived, I noticed something peculiar about the box. It seemed to have mold growing from the corners of it, causing it to wreak to no end. I disregarded this, as I was excited to play my new console, so I hurriedly opened the box and hooked up the Wii. At first, I was unsure of what to do; when I turned on the Wii, there was a whole bunch of stuff left behind from the previous owner.

Boy, was I lucky. It turns out he had purchased a ton of games from the virtual marketplace. At my disposal was Yoshi's Story, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario World, and a bunch of other classics. I was in heaven. I played the games for a good six hours straight (I know, no life) until I eventually got tired and went to bed. When I awoke the next morning, I decided I would look trough all of the channels on the Wii to see what kind of fun I could have. Most of the channels were Virtual Console games up until the last page where there was just one icon. It looked as if there was some sort of problem with the image for the channel, as it was just a static-like box. Not to miss out on a potentially fun experience, I decided I would check it out to see what game it was. When I clicked the icon, I was brought to a gray screen with the phrase "persevero" (which I later learned meant 'continue' in Latin) in red text. Not knowing what it meant, I decided I would select it anyway. Upon selecting it, I was taken to a menu with four symbols on it. Each symbol had a sort of menacing look to it; I don't really know why, but they were just...unsettling. Once again, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to click on some of them. The first symbol I clicked was a vertical line with a circle running through it underneath an X. When I clicked the symbol I was taken to a virtual world very similar to my own. It was as if the general layout of the city was a carbon copy of mine, but I digress. The game was unlike any I had seen before; it was a first person game, but there was really no objective. You started out in a house (one bearing a remarkable resemblance to my own) and you were free to roam about. I spent a good three hours walking around the virtual world when I decided I would see exactly how close this game world paralleled mine. It was truly remarkable. Everything seemed exactly the same.

After another two hours of wandering around, I was booted back to the menu with the symbols, though there were only three. I checked my clock and saw it was getting late, so I decided I would call it a night and head off to bed. The next morning, I was eager to play out the next three symbols of the mysterious game I had found, so I quickly turned on my Wii and launched the channel. I was once again brought to the menu with three symbols. The second symbol was an upside-down cross with a triangle going from the arms to the bottom of it. I selected this symbol. The game I was taken to was essentially the same as yesterday's, though there were now people around. They didn't really have any discernible features, so it looked like there were a bunch of mannequins walking around the town. I explored some more before being booted again to the symbol menu. I continued, clicking the next symbol, which was a square inside of a circle. The game I was taken to this time was slightly off-putting. The world I was in seemed to be drearier and the characters moved more sluggishly. Upon further exploration of the town, I noticed there were random objects lying around that you could interact with - most of which seemed to be knives. I decided I would interact with one of the knives to see what I could do, and, of course, one of the options was to kill a few mannequinesque citizens of what seemed to be my town. As sadistic as it sounds, it was actually pretty entertaining. When you killed a person, they would drop to the ground and writhe in pain until they finally vanished.

It was strangely...satisfying. After around 20 minutes of killing random civilians I was booted back to the symbol menu again. By this time it was getting late and I decided to get some sleep. I'd get around to the last symbol in the morning. The night went by relatively quickly and I awoke to a strange odor in my house. I assumed I had forgotten to take out to take out the trash and continued on with my morning. I turned on my Wii and I once again loaded the channel; when I did, I was brought again to the symbol menu. The last remaining symbol was a simple X. I clicked it. I was taken back to the same game world I was in before, only now everything was tinted a dark red, and I started with the knife in my hand. I assumed I knew what had to be done. I ran around stabbing  countless citizens of this virtual town for what seemed for a good five hours when I was booted to the menu. It was blank I was relatively disappointed at such a dull ending to what seemed to be such an interesting game. I decided I would head off to bed for a nap, though, as five hours straight of gameplay was rather tiring after having to flail my arms as if stabbing for so long. While asleep, I had a very weird dream. I was alone in a black room, holding nothing but a knife, and another man came in. he had a distinct gunshot wound on his forehead and he reached his hand out to me. I stood, staring back at him and not knowing what was happening. In a very distorted - almost demon like - voice, he said, "Congratulations, you are done now," for the remainder of the dream. Upon waking, I noticed the stench from earlier in the morning had gotten much stronger so I decided to spray some Febreeze and get some lunch. While eating, I checked my email, and noticed a message from the eBay seller who had sold me the Wii.

It read, "Congratulations, you are done now. Sincerely, Arnold Vonmarshall." This creeped me out a huge amount, as those were the exact words said to me in my dream. I shook it off as a coincidence and continued with my day. The stench I had smelled earlier was now overbearing, so I decided I would take a look around to see what was causing it. I looked just about all over  my house before I realized it was coming from the basement. I opened the door and walked down the stairs to find a pile. It was a pile of dead bodies. I was horrified. I looked in absolute terror before running upstairs and trying to make sense of everything. After a good hour or two of staring, terrified, at the wall, I decided to go back down and try to see things through. I slowly opened the door and walked down towards the pile when I noticed something pinned to the stairs. It was a printout of a shipping label for some address in Houston. The return address was to an Arnold Vonmarshall. I immediately ran upstairs and searched his name on Google. It turned out that Arnold Vonmarshall had killed 23 people in a small German town before killing himself. His obituary said he died four months ago. Just after having read this, I heard a bang at the door. It was the police.