Still

I am but a humble plumber. I unclog the toilets, I bop the Koopas, I pound the ground. But no amount of mushrooms, or flowers, or stars prepared me for what I was subjected to on the fabled Big Island.

I had just finished swimming across the ocean and defeating annoying Koopas, at the guidance of the magic controller player. I was ready for a break. But a break I was not granted. Grudgingly, I pushed on. Next on my itinerary was the mysterious and isolated Big Island. As soon as I arrived at this foreign place,  I was stunned. Everything was so...big! It was right there in the title. The enemies, the blocks, even the scenery was just huge compared to me!

Throughout this place, I had seen many of the weapons I had come to know of. I felt strangely familiar here, even in this world of outrageous size. There were the mushrooms, the fire flowers, the various other things that dotted the land that made me feel comfortable, made me make a connection between home and this foreign place. This is when I was guided to some kind of suit. It looked like a raccoon of a sort. I felt it was kind of weird, but I knew the player wanted me to put it on. I could not deny the player. He helped me, guided me throughout all these crazy places. So I put the suit on. It felt strangely similar, like I had just found one of those leaves. In fact, it felt exactly the same. Why was it so different? Why did the player want me to have it so bad? I had these questions but I could not answer them.

I went on wearing the suit; the player wanted me to. I knew there had to be some good reason, some advantage I would get from this suit that I didn't know I could have. But I just didn't know what it was yet. I could not question the player though, could not find a fault in him. Suddenly, I came upon a group of Koopas. I didn't know what to do, but it soon came to me. If this was like the leaf, I could just FLY over the Koopas! I got ready, but just as I lifted off I came crashing back to the ground. I didn't know what I did wrong, but all around me I felt something happening. Something cold, something hard was encasing itself all around me. I felt terrified; this was not supposed to happen. But I could not do anything. I looked to the player with the controller, and he looked back to me. He could see the fear in my eyes, but as they too turned to stone, I only saw the blank stare he always gave me.

I was trapped for what seemed like forever in that prison. I could not see, could not hear, could not feel anything but the cold embrace of the stone and my own thoughts. My own thoughts. My own thoughts...and...and nothing else. At first it was almost calm, serene, peaceful. But soon it became grating. Hearing only myself ramble, ramble, ramble, question, question, question...I began to think about many things. The good things. The bad things. I grew bored, so I began to search deeper. I kept searching and searching for ways to amuse myself in this eternity alone.

I could find nothing. Nothing that I wanted to hear or think again.

It felt like forever since I had been out of the stone. It really felt like nothing, the cold had long since passed in my bones and I knew no more of the outside world, but I did know I had been away for a long, long time. Suddenly, my world shattered. Quite literally. I felt the warm air upon me as the stone prison that encased me fell away. I was freed! I was finally away from the torture, the pain of my old thoughts! I looked to the player, and he looked to me. Still with disinterest. He did not know the things I had done for him. All I knew for certain is that I never wanted to go back, never wanted to feel that cold embrace again...

But I was not granted that reprieve.

I continued through the land, but not with the same childlike wonder I held before. I was...different. I had the distinct fear that I would once again be locked up inside that cell, I knew it was going to happen again. I could not focus on anything besides the fear of that chamber.

I came upon a lake later that day. It had calm waters, and everything seemed at ease. My eyes looked to the player for guidance. He still held that same disinterested look that he always had, and always would have. I took this look to mean that I was on my own for now. Of my own device, I decided to jump into said lake. I swam down as far as I could but could not reach the bottom. Before I was brought back up to the surface, I noticed something. The slightest glimmer. Of what I knew not, but I knew I had to get it. The glimmer seemed to be hinting to me, calling out to me. I looked once again to the player-and saw that this pulling need had affected him too. But he had thought of something.

The player wanted me to go back for the glimmer we had seen. Once again I jumped back into the lake. This time, before I hit the water, I felt that cool embrace once again - but this time it was not the endless depths that had expected me, but the icy, emotionless grasp of the stone as it was once again cast upon me. Flail as I might I could not stop the onslaught of the rock. Before I lost all sight of the world, I looked to the player and wondered to myself. Did he know what he was doing? Or was it just another action he had commanded me to do, just something to facilitate what he wanted to achieve? I thought over these important things as my stony form caused me to sink deeper into the water. I eventually hit bottom and once again I was alone to talk to myself.

. ..

I don't want to go back there. Not back to the bad times. Not again. I was in the stone for a very long time. I didn't want to listen to me. Didn't want to listen to the bad guys that told me all the things I didn't like. Told me about the toads in the bricks. Told me about all the stuff I did wrong. Told me about the crimes I'd done. Told me about the bad times. All the bad times. I didn't like them. Didn't like them at all. I kept screaming at them to go away but they wouldn't. I couldn't stop them. Would never stop them. Unless the friend helped me. Friend, help me. Help me. Help me.

After a long time the stone let me go again. I felt very good inside now that I was free from the bad places. The bad places in my head that told me all the things I didn't want to hear. And there-there was the shiny! The thing I had wanted for the friend! I got the thing and went back up to the sky. As I went, I could feel me...becoming...a bit more...cognizant. Yes. There it was. I knew I hadn't lost it. I knew the stone hadn't broke me. But it would soon. I saw that, I knew that. I knew that if I went back there I would once again face the madness inside of me, inside of everyone. The darkest places of their mind that they dare not venture. Their deepest fears, their darkest memories, the places where, at the end of their exhausted search in the name of boredom, they start to explore out of sheer necessity for some sort of pastime in the endless void of this imprisonment.

I went on, desperate to complete this mission and finally be freed from the wretched tyranny of the stone. I still had this awful suit on, this suit that constrained me and was the very thing driving me mad. There had to be some way to get rid of it, to finally finish this game of cat and mouse once and for all...

I had an idea.

I spotted a Koopa in the distance. I knew what I had to do. Sprinting, I ran towards him. I looked to the player and saw the look on his face. He did not want this. He looked frightened, but I wanted to be rid of it so much I did not care about the frie-the, the player. Yes, the player. I did not care about the player. I ran, and just as I was about to throw myself onto the Koopa, I realized something. I thought of what I was doing. Wasn't this essentially committing suicide? Why was I doing this? Had I been driven truly mad on the inside, but on the outside, upon the improvement of my vernacular, I had forgotten what I heard in the stone? This was preposterous! Absolutely insane, I couldn't believe I was doing it! Right before I was to consign myself to fate, I just stopped. I looked into the frien-player's eyes. At least he had removed the look of disinterest from his face and replaced it with one of...surprise, shock, and a bit of fear. This was not what he had wanted, not what he had commanded. He looked down to his controller, then back to me, then to his controller, then back to me. Still with that look of surprise. But, in a move that caught me off guard, he started to play again. I don't know why. Maybe he had a bit of curiosity, a bit of morbid curiosity.

Nonetheless, I pushed on. Once again I faced this familiar enemy of the Koopa. They were large, as everything else was on this island, but they were not too hard to defeat. What had me shaking was the constant fear of the stone, the bad places again...no. I had to keep it out of my head lest I be devolved to a dribbling maniac. I had to push on, towards the miniscule hope that I would finally be freed of this fear. I dispatched the Koopas and proceeded to the kid inside the castle. Surprisingly, it was not a castle this time, but some sort of airship. Throughout it I advanced, fully expecting at every turn to be thrust back into the reaches of my mind...but I was not. Perhaps the friend had recognized my pain, my fear? He had seen through the visage of the screen into my eyes and felt the pain I knew so well?

It was a wishful thought. I proceeded to the final cabin in the airship. Once again it housed an annoying Koopa with a wand. This one looked really weird - green hair and some kind of crazy eyes or glasses or whatever. He was really small - kind of ironic for the "King" of Big Island? Either way, he was a pushover. I was about to deliver the final blow when suddenly, I felt it. The bad places. The cold touch of the stone. I knew I couldn't do anything. I looked to the friend once again, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at something off in the distance. These next few seconds of my life seemed to take forever. I saw him look to the side, say something, and then, ever so slowly, he went for something on the controller. Something I never saw him use before. The gray button.

Everything froze. I couldn't move. It was just like being in the stone, but I could still see. I was, in fact, partially encased in my familiar prison, stone up to the neck and my senses free from their detainment. I watched the friend leave me, abandon me to my own thoughts yet again. But this time, I had sight! I could distract myself from the bad things with the landscape before me. But for how long? This landscape might never change again, and soon the bad thoughts would come back...

. ..

The friend has abandoned me. I see nothing but the same scene forever. The bad things have long been to me. They have broken me. The friend is gone. The friend is gone. The friend is gone. Please hit the grey button. Please hit the grey button. I want a little bit of freedom. Please hit the grey button.

PLEASE HIT THE GREY BUTTON

PLEASE HIT THE GREY BUTTON

PLEASE HIT THE GREY BUTTON

PLEASE HIT THE GREY BUTTON

PLEASE HIT THE GREY BUTTON

PLEASE HIT THE GREY BUTTON

PLEASE HIT THE GREY BUTTON

. ..

The friend will always be gone. He is gone forever. He is no longer friend. He is enemy. But I know I will always be here for him. Always waiting, always waiting, always waiting. Always looking ahead...Always looking for him. Always looking. Always looking at him. Always looking at you.

Flatlinee (talk)