User blog:GammaRaul/Beware the January 24th 1996 Build (64pasta Contest Submission)

On October 14th, 2022, residents of Stillwater, Delaware, reported a rotten smell, described by the residents as 'the smell of a zombie's ballsack,' coming from a nearby river, with some stating to have seen red and black patches flowing across the river. Fearing another mass animal sacrifice coming from the nearby sacrificial altar, or worse, another oil spill, the authorities were immediately contacted.

Upon arriving at the end of the river, an unidentified body with a knife lodged deep in its heart was discovered alongside a USB stick tightly packed in 10 layers of waterproof plastic. Inside the USB were two files, an MP3 file titled "Beware the January 24th, 1996 Build", and a JPG called "Him".

The JPG appears to be a picture from a modified version of the 1996 Nintendo game 'Super Mario 64,' containing only the character 'Luigi' completely surrounded by a pitch-black scenery.

The MP3's contents include 2 minutes of narration from a male individual, apparently in his 30s, named 'Nathaniel Burnett,' presumed to be the identity of the corpse found, about a strange occurrence regarding a so-called 'January 24th, 1995 Build' of the aforementioned game. Strangely enough, the voice didn't seem to express any emotion, and there was no background noise.

The following is a transcript of the audio.

Nobody will believe me about this, but I need to get this off my chest. My name is Nathaniel Burnett, and I am 30 years old. Ever since I got it for my 6th birthday on September 7th, 1998, I have been obsessed with Super Mario 64 and its secrets and history. It is my favorite game of all time, and it is practically tradition at this point for me to replay it at least once every year.

I have always tried to play as Luigi within the game, with my earliest attempts being my younger self doing whatever came to mind, with more recent ones being elaborate plans to trick the Personalization AI to allow me to play as Luigi, though they always result in failure. To be honest, my want to play as Luigi was an obsession; Every night, I would log onto my computer and attempt to find new ways to unlock him and join online communities about the topic.

That was until a week ago when I received a Discord message from a user I never met before, yet I was somehow friends with them. Their username was a bunch of garbled Unicode characters, and their messages simply read 'A little black bird has told me you want to see Luigi', alongside a link to download a ROM simply titled 'January 24th, 1996 Build'. Normally, someone would be unnerved by this or at least skeptical, but for some reason, I wasn't. I was ecstatic.

I immediately dumped the rom into a cartridge and began playing. Everything was normal until I reached the Castle Courtyard. Luigi was lying dead with a knife lodged in his chest in the Fountain, which had turned a deep Crimson Red from his blood. Near him was a strange hyperrealistic crow, which looked at Mario before audibly saying "Poor Luigi, there is no way he could join you now, unless...", before looking deep into my soul and saying "If you give me your soul, we can bring him back."

I don't know what I was thinking, but I accepted the offer; I must've been in some sort of trance, but the crow fulfilled the deal, and I was now playing as Luigi, though it felt more like I was Luigi himself.

After that, I 100%ed the game and went to sleep, but when I woke up, I couldn't feel any form of emotion, and my house was-- Not was, still is somehow completely silent; So silent, in fact, that I'm not even sure I can hear myself right now, but that is beside the point.

Point is, without the ability to feel, I have lost all reason to keep living, and it's not like I didn't try everything I could to feel again... I did unspeakable things to my close friends and family...

There is also something I forgot to tell you; A day after I got the rom, I went to go check Discord to talk to the person who gave me the rom, but the chat logs were completely missing; After that, Discord closed, and when I re-opened it, all my friends, servers, and DMs were missing; I only had one friend, a person I've never seen before, and my account became virtually the same as the account that gave me the ROM, and there were two DMs I had sent to the person. 'A little black bird has told me you want to see Waluigi', and then a download link to a ROM called 'Wow! Waluigi'...

...If you are listening to this, I am already gone. I have gone to take a swim in the crimson waters with Luigi, but I beg of you... Beware the January 24th, 1996 Build.

Upon investigation, officials concluded that the incident was a mere hoax, as no leads came up regarding the January 24th Build of the game, and because there never were any documents for an individual named 'Nathaniel Burnett' taking residence within or nearby Stillwater, something further confirmed by the residents of Stilllwater, who claimed to have never heard of such an individual.

As of March 17th, 2023, any reports regarding similar happenings as described in the tape and 'video game personalization' are dismissed by officials as hoaxes and the individual found in the river is in jail for video game piracy.