Belief in Oneself

About This Story
Hello, internet!

I feel like this is the best place to tell a story to all of you today.

It's been four years since I was detained for being "mentally unstable" by the government. A false accusation at best, but they have their reasons.

Ever since I was a child, I was...different. Not physically, but mentally. I was diagnosed with OCD at an early age, and I hallucinated things often, not unlike your average drunk. The difference is, after 20 years of having to put up with my visions, people have gotten used to it.

No one seems to trust me or what I say, because, after all, I could just be seeing things. Maybe I'm envisioning me typing this post right now.

But enough about me, let's get to the story.

My Story
It all started 5 years ago. I was 16, and my older brother had left for college. While I was interested in card games, poker, war, even things like Magic the Gathering, my brother was a huge video game buff. He absolutely loved all video games-Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Capcom, Konami, you name it. He owned nearly every main console, from the NES to the Game Boy Micro. It was what he referred to as his "collection". However, his favorite system, without a doubt, was the Nintendo GameCube. He had nearly every game worth your while for the GC and he played it by far the most out of all the consoles (he'd often brag about having 10,000 hours in Melee).

Him and me were very distant. We didn't really like each other, because he couldn't put up with me being so "wrong" all the time due to my chronic hallucinations. I tried so hard to make him love me, because he was the only person even close to my age that I knew--my parents were my only friends.

However, when he left for college that day (when I was at school), he left me a box. Just your average box, probably filled with stuff from the attic or something.

When I opened it, though, to my surprise, was his cherished GameCube! I couldn't believe my eyes, and I probably shouldn't have in retrospect. Inside that box was an absolutely obscene amount of games as well--everything from Wave Race to Paper Mario 2. On top of these games was a single letter, entitled "To: Mark".

I sat down at the table and ripped the envelope open.

Dear Mark,

''I'm sorry for treating you like I have for these 16 long years. I now realize that I should have spent my time trying to teach you, not put you down, and I want to atone for what I have done. Enclosed is my GameCube along with all 150 games in my collection. Play them for me, will you? Gain some satisfaction from what I've done all my life. I guarantee it'll do you some good. Now, take care of it!''

Your brother,

Chase

It was something I've always watched him do--play video games. It seemed like such a fun and interactive world, and I longed to get involved--but he would never let me. He always said that I wasn't "mentally capable" of playing them. Despite this, I wanted to please him, so I played. And played and played and played. Through all 150 of his games. I got 100% completion on every single one of them. It took me a whole year, but once I finished, I called him up and told him about my accomplishment!

''All 150, eh? You're really getting used to them. I'd like to thank you for experiencing what I've experienced...but you aren't quite done yet. My most cherished game is still in that box. Go find the 151st game, and feel for once in your life the satisfaction of completing something.''

He hung up.

151? I thought. Perhaps I had missed something after all. I went back to my game shelf, and lo and behold, after scanning the shelf, I did see a game I hadn't played yet--Super Smash Bros. Melee! How did I forget that one? It was his favorite, after all. I asked my dad to play a few rounds with me, and he obliged.

I popped the small disc into the GameCube and loaded it up. I couldn't believe what I had missed out on! This game was so fun! He had unlocked all the characters and all the stages--a true completionist. After playing three rounds, my dad went back to making dinner, so I tried playing a Classic Mode run by myself. I selected Classic from the menu and began playing. Being the new player I was, I selected five lives and Very Easy mode.

I progressed through the levels, but at the 5th one, I died. Expecting to respawn at the top of the screen, instead I got sent to the Continue? screen. I did a double-take and reevaluated my thoughts. I knew I had five lives! After getting mad at the game for a bit, I wanted to Continue, but no option was there. In fact, there were no options--just a black screen with the word Continue? on it. My player character, usually trophyfied, was not in the background. A bit freaked out,  I turned off the GameCube and did some card tricks to relax myself. A bit later, after I had calmed down, I went and phoned my brother and explained what had happened.

''You're just hallucinating again, bro. Calm down and try again.''

He hung up.

Maybe he was right, that I was just hallucinating. After all, it's pretty much all I do in life. I sat down and played again. Selected Classic mode, played through it, etc, etc. I died on the 7th level this time and, again, I got booted to the Continue? screen. This time, however, instead of Continue?, it said "Nobody".

Needless to say, I freaked out. There was no way that a game could just do that. These weren't my normal hallucinations, either-I had never hallucinated while playing video games before. I took another break and asked my dad to come upstairs to play a round of Classic himself. He did, and when he died five times, he got booted to the Continue? screen with the normal text and the option to continue.

"Is that all?" he said.

Jittering, I said "Y..yeah, dad.  Thanks."

I needed time to digest what I'd seen. I laid in my bed and twiddled my thumbs for a while. After coming to the conclusion that it was, in fact, just a hallucination, I went to bed.

The next day, I felt refreshed. Instead of playing Melee again, I went and loaded up Pokemon Colosseum--one of my favorites. When I loaded up my save file, I spawned in Phenac City. It was weird--I distinctly remembered saving at Outpost Stand. I ran downstairs and got my dad, again, to play. He ran around Phenac for a while, talking to people, entering buildings, the usual. He handed me back the controller and asked me:

"Is that it?"

I gave a sigh of relief and said,

"Yes, dad, that's it.  Thanks."

He went back downstairs and I picked up the controller and went to enter the Phenac Colosseum. To my surprise, however, I couldn't enter. I tried other buildings like the Poke Center and the Mart, and I couldn't enter those either. All the NPCs wouldn't say anything. I decided to leave Phenac City, but when I got to the Overworld and tried to select a destination, every single location was named "believes" with a blank description.

Panicing, I turned off the system. This was getting way too freaky for a hallucination of mine. This simply had to be real.

I took some deep breaths and decided to play one more time.

For one last go to ease my conscience, I booted up Super Mario Sunshine and selected my save file. I loaded up in Delfino Plaza. Everything seemed fine. The NPCs said normal things, I could leave the area and all that. Then, I turned my head up to the sky to see that the skybox, usually filled with bright and puffy clouds, instead only had three. Three gigantic clouds that each spelled out the letters y, o, and u.

It was at that moment that I realized it.

The game was telling me what I had already known: nobody believes me. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it earlier.

I walked around the plaza for a while, talking to the Piantas. While most just repeated "nobody believes you", others said more...interesting things.

"How can you live?"

"Where will you go?"

"Who will you turn to?"

"What will you do?"

"Why do you live?"

"How can you be?"

I thought about these questions. The games, they were right--I was eventually going to grow older and go out on my own. I couldn't stay with my parents my whole life! How would I get a job to pay for a house? How would I be able to function in society if no one could trust me?

As I walked around, I noticed a curious Pianta. He was dark gray, a color I'd never seen from any other Pianta. As I went to different areas of the plaza he would always appear, saying something different.

"No one ever believed in him."

"He had no one to turn to."

"He lived a short life, filled with deceit and mistrust."

"He had nothing.  He knew nothing.  He was nothing."

"So he had to end it all."

"Who is this man?"

"You should know."

After I had pieced together the message, I was completely mortified. There is no way possible that a game could be doing this to me. It just had to be some sort of hallucination. I shut down the game once more and bolted downstairs to tell my parents. I blubbered to them about "this scary game" and "talking about me" and "nobody believes me". They came upstairs and played the game.

I should have seen it coming.

The game was completely, absolutely normal. Everything functioned properly, the Piantas said their normal lines..it was all fine.

I was simply astounded.

"You're just hallucinating, honey!" My mom said in her usual cheerful voice.

I yanked the controller out of my dad's hands and started playing the game myself. Everything was still normal. It was almost like the game was taunting me.

I yelled at the top of my lungs! I was so frustrated with this teasing by the game. My parents tried to calm me down but I couldn't take it anymore.

"Every single one of these games is different for me!  It can't be a hallucination!  It has to be real!"

I ranted and raved, but they didn't believe me. Eventually my parents got fed up with me. They sent me to bed for the rest of the night.

While I laid in my bed, I thought about the game. Was that really what I was seeing? It simply had to be real--none of my hallucinations had been so persistent before. But then again, who's to say it wasn't a hallucination? How can you be certain that anything is real?

I decided to consult the Internet for help.

First thing in the morning, I got my old camcorder out and took a video of me playing Melee again. I booted up the game and everything seemed normal. I entered Classic Mode again with five lives and Very Easy mode. I got all the way to the 7th level, same as before. When I died, sure enough, the Continue? screen said "you" in the same font (a dark, translucent red) as the Continue would have read, just as I expected. I shut the GameCube off and reviewed my footage.

The game played completely normal. Everything was fine. Once I died the screen cut to black and the video ended. Enraged, I threw down my camcorder and dialed up my brother.

The following is a transcript of our conversation.

Me: Hello?

Chase: Oh, hey, Mark. What's up?

Me: Is this some kind of sick joke?

A bit of a pause.

Chase: What are you talking about?

Me: These games! They keep sending me these messages through them. But only I can see them! Everyone else who plays it gets the entire game as normal...what did you do to them?

Chase: I didn't do anything to them! You're just hallucinating.

Me: These aren't hallucinations! They're too real! Every game I play keeps telling me that "nobody believes me". Why aren't you listening to me!?

Chase: Then the game is right. You're just hallucinating. Goodbye.

He hung up.

I took a minute to collect myself. Once again the debate raged in my mind: is this real?

I still didn't have an answer.

I decided to review the camera footage again. Same thing. I sighed to myself and prepared to put the camcorder away when something started playing on the camera. It was footage of the 8th level, the level I left off on. However, instead of it saying Stage 8 across the top of the screen, it said "Nobody believes you".

This was my definitive proof that this was real. There was no way that what was caught on camera wouldn't be what everyone would see. As I watched more, the level names changed yet again. Stage 9, Race to the Finish, was "Can't you see?". Stage 10, the Metal Bros. stage, was "How will you live?". And Stage 11, the final stage, was "Just end it."

The video cut out then, for good.

To my bed once more I went. I laid down and thought about what it was telling me.

It was right. I was a waste and unless I lived with my parents for the rest of my life I'd be unable to do anything useful. I was so impaired in my perception of the world that it was like I was in a completely different reality. I had no future at all! As I thought about it more, I saw that the only way to get out of this life was to end it before it got even worse.

Instead of rushing to my parents, I rushed outside to the car. My ditzy mom left the key in the ignition, so I turned it on and attached my mouth to the exhaust pipe.

As I sat there, I thought about the game.

It was real.

No, of course I'm not dead! You're reading this, aren't you?

I somehow survived. My parents were so worried that they sent me to a "mental rehabilitation center" to get better care.

It was a bit dilapidated, but I made do. There were about 50 other residents, with various mental illnesses ranging from Autism to Tourette's. At that center, I was the craziest person. Not even the other patients believed my stories. They all thought I hallucinated it too.

In the end, that game was right.

Because it was real.

It was real to me.