Steve's Last Months

I think I will start where Steve  first stated writing about what caused him to do what he did and why he did it. Just to be clear these are my Steve’s words below and not my own.

October 28, 2014:  I had just finished got home from talking to my old friend from school and current roommate in college John. (Since the old friend referred is me and I don’t want to use my real name I will refer to myself as John)  He and I got to talking about our favorite video games from our lives. We both loved Nintendo, and eventually upgraded to PS3s. I was into shooters like Call of Duty, and Battlefield, while John preferred free-roam/sandbox games, and RPGs like Mass Effect. Back to our discussion John asked if I still had that old NES from when we were little. I told him I did but it was at my parent’s house and that even it was hear I would not even be able to hook it to a modern TV. He then told me his had broken during the summer and he still had the adapter he used for his TV (that was the one we were using in our dorm was his flat screen from his parents’ house.  We then decided to go get the NES from my parents’ house that Friday.

October 31, 2014:  We just got back from my parents’ house and jerry-rigged the NES to John’s Sony Bravia TV. We also picked up some games from John’s house (he had a lot, 2 boxes full, some were licensed, some were un-licensed)

November 1, 2014:  The first game we played was Super Mario Bros 3. We proceeded to play until 11:00 pm last night. I noticed something strange while playing but John just said it was just a glitch from an old game, a common sight but it made me feel uneasy. We then switched to Castlevania for about 3 hours until John went to sleep on the couch (eagerly awaiting his turn) when all of a sudden the same glitch appeared on the screen and I was certain It was something else.

November 2, 2014:  Today I have the dorm all to myself, John has to work. I then started playing NES alone I played Zelda 2 because John could not find the original Zelda in the box so he bought it on ebay yesterday. I then saw the glitch again and noticed some text in the background. I hit the still button on the TV remote and played with the tints until the text was legible. The text said “11/28/14 John stab” I got concerned by the text and took a picture on my phone. When John got home I showed him the picture, he told me it was just a random bunch of numbers and letters that were just placed in that order coincidental. I hope he’s right.

November 29, 2014:  So John just got out of the hospital. He was working Black Friday at BestBuy last night when a crazed shopper stabbed him in the shoulder. I then remembered the picture and confronted John about it and he said it was just a coincident. He then went on to tell me that people will do anything on Black Friday to get whatever it is they want.

December 5, 2014:  So today was not only the last day of the semester but also John’s last day as my roommate. He had transferred to a four year college to get his degree in writing. John always wanted to write the story for video games. He left me his old TV because his manager had given him a new TV so he wouldn’t sue the company. I have continued playing the NES and there have been more and more glitches in the games. All the text in the glitches foreshadows different events, like John getting cheated on by his girlfriend, my grandfather’s death, and even my PS3 YLODing (I had the newest model). The weirdest thing was the last glitch I saw foretold that I would fail out of college on January 12, 2015

January 15, 2015:  John took me in after I failed college. He got an apartment next to his place of work and let me move in with him. I then got this game for my NES from my younger brother. It didn’t have a label but when I played the game I found it was the original Super Mario Bros. There was something off with the game though there were strange color patterns, multiple flashing lights, and there were tons of glitches. I feel like I’m going crazy just playing the game.

January 31, 2015:  It has been 16 day since I got the game. I can’t sleep and the visions are getting worse. In my visions I keep getting attacked by both Mario, and Bowser and his minions. I just keep losing focus and can’t help but scare John with my current state of mind.

February 3, 2015:  Mario and Bowser have finally stopped attacking but have started whispering in my ears. They tell me to do things like kill John or to cut parts of my body up. I keep finding John’s black pocket knife at random places like Mario and Bowser are leaving it lying around for me to use it. I feel like I’m losing all control. I’m scared of what might happen.

That is where Steve’s journal ends. Two days after his last entry I woke up and found him laying on my bedroom floor with his wrists slit. It has been six months since he died. I just opened this today August 23, 2015, to go through his laptop to try to find a reason why he might have done this.

So yesterday (November 3, 2015) I found a folder on his laptop containing footage captured from a capture card he must have bought for his NES. I found some of the glitches he wrote about in his journal. I only watched 5 minutes of the shit he had been playing through and just got some reoccurring nightmares for about a week after. I would not dream of posting the footage due to his experiences from playing this game, but posting his story might help anyone who might be going through the same things Steve went through.