Luigi's Mansion Massacre

Hello....My name is Mike. This, this is a story about well....a realization. A realization that occured while I was playing a video game. No, this isn't some cliche, bullshit story about some dumb, haunted video game from a garage sale I got for free or anything like that. The was fine...But what's scary is the truth of this game.

You see, when I was younger, I had played Luigi's Mansion for the Nintendo Gamecube. It was a game that, well, for kids, is mildly scary. For me, it was the stuff of nightmares. I always went to bed thinking that Lydia, Neville or Chauncy was under my bed, or in the closet. Hell, one night I even swore I heard some Bat's fly out of my room that weren't really there.

Anyways, out of a case of Nostalgia, I dug up my copy of the game and hooked up the old Gamecube, then turned it on. I entered the mansion, triggered the Gold Ghost floating in the air who had the key to the Parlor and met E. Gadd, then got through the tutorial and all that jazz. Blah blah.

Well, after going through the Parlor again, then the Anteroom, and the Wardrobe Room, then going to face Neville in the study...I got this weird, yet familiar feeling. It was the same feeling I had when I was a kid--- the feeling of them watching me. That dread feeling.

Well, I shook it off, thinking it was just me recalling the old fears I had of the game as a child, and then beat Neville, gaining the key to Lydia in the Master Bedroom. I quickly beat her, sucking her up in one go as I used to even when I was younger. Then, in her final moments, that fear hit me again. It was as if my heart sunk. I almost regretted sucking her up....

Thinking I just needed to clear my head, I paused the game, got something to eat, a drink of water, then picked the game back up later. I proceeded to grab the key to the Nursery and go face Chauncey. But when I left the Master Bedroom and Chauncey's ghastly and creepy cry triggered, that feeling came back a third time. This time, it felt like I was suffering from PTSD or like someone I knew had just died....

Hesitantly, I went into the Nursery, and faced Chauncey. At times during the battle, I missed the cue to vacuum up the balls and shoot them at Chauncey. That same dread, morbid feeling was present inside of me throughout that whole battle.

After two deaths, and an hour of trying (Which isn't usual for me), I finally beat Chancey. Professor E. Gadd called me, and the scene where you see the ghosts turned into portraits triggered. Then, that feeling hit me again, as I sat there and watched the ghosts slowly get turned into portraits. It hit me stronger than ever before....Even stronger than when I was a kid.

Then, as the last ghost was turned into a portrait, it hit me...The reason behind the morbid feeling I got every single night as a child after playing Luigi's Mansion. It wasn't because I was scared of the ghosts. It wasn't because I thought they were there, hiding under my bed...I mean sure, I was afraid of ghosts as a kid, but Luigi's Mansion is a Mario game, it isn't near scary enough to give me nightmares, not the ones that terrified me in my sleep every night.

Rather, that feeling came from something that was in the back of my mind every single time I played. Something I never really consciously considered as a child., which would have explained my dreams. What that feeling came from was a freakishly morbid realization--- The realization that I just tore a family from their peaceful afterlife.

I, the player, just vacuumed up a husband, a wife, and their child, and trapped their ghosts in a painting for all eternity. Never able to deal with their regrets, never able to make peace with those they may have wronged, and never able to ascend or move on...All because Luigi wanted his brother back...