The sky above you is wrong — red and bruised, with no sun, only a black hole that twists like a draining whirlpool. The ground feels soft but sticky under your shoes, like walking on decaying carpet. The air stinks of old, burnt plastic.

You don’t know how you got here. One minute you blinked... and when you opened your eyes, you were standing in a sickly version of the Mushroom Kingdom — only everything was rotting. The bricks bleed a dark, syrupy liquid. The pipes groan like wounded animals.

Then you hear it. Footsteps.

Slow, deliberate, heavy.

You turn. At first, you think it’s Mario — but something’s horribly, horribly wrong.

His eyes are missing — just hollow, gaping holes. His smile is carved too wide, stretching nearly to his ears. His overalls are torn and soaked with something black and thick, sticking to his gloves.

He stops about ten feet in front of you, staring straight through you with that endless, soulless grin. The world around you seems to warp — the ground cracking, the sky darkening even more.

Then he speaks.

His voice sounds like a thousand overlapping whispers, glitched and distorted beyond human:

"Finally..." "You made it here..." "Where you belong."

He tilts his head sharply to the side — SNAP — and his neck stays bent at a sick angle. You hear a horrible squelching sound as he steps closer, boots squashing against the sticky floor.

"There’s no leaving." "You’re part of my game now." "Forever."

He raises one trembling, blood-soaked hand toward you — fingers twitching, clawing at the air — as reality itself around you shudders and begins pulling you closer to him.

You try to run. But the world won’t let you.

You feel the ground crawl up your legs like hands, dragging you down, down — into the waiting grin of MX.