"It's been a while." Sean mumbled. He was already a couple . . . several . . . a dozen or so hits into his vodka bottle when he curled up on the couch and turned on his Wii. It had been a few years since the last time he'd played Super Mario Bros. 3 but he still had a lot of pleasant memories from his youth tied up in the game. It brought a smile to his face to reminisce about when he used to disconnect the Nintendo from the television so he could take a break or go to school without his parents turning the system off. He had to remember to be careful and place a controller or something where it would block the red light that would have given the fact that he left it on over night or while he was away at school. Sean remembered the first time he'd seen that angry sun glaring down at him angrily and instantly knew that this was about to get really bad really fast and the first time he'd seen a mega goomba. "We'll nobody should be bothering me until Monday or so, that should be plenty of time to rip through this."
There was no real way of telling how long passed between when Sean settled in to play Mario and when he woke up but when he did he was more than a little annoyed. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Sean stood up and took a look around, everything was massive at least twice the size that it should have been and ridiculously bright. It reminded him of when Dorothy stepped out of her house into Oz only he didn't remember her eyes stringing from the super saturated Technicolor landscape that was about to blind Sean. "I'd ask where I am but I have a feeling that I really don't want to know."
Sean didn't really have any doubts about where he was but it was completely confirmed when a walking brown mushroom with a mouth full of fangs caught sight of him and started waddling incredibly quickly towards him. "Oh fuck me!" In the games goombas weren't even a threat much less intimidating. Of course Sean had never really noticed that goombas were a little big bigger than Mario until he was face to face with the ferocious fungus. He had enough time to spin on his heels and run headlong into a wall, twenty maybe thirty feet tall. With his back against the wall Sean looked around for anything, he didn't have the first clue what he was going to a six foot tall and probably as big around mushroom. It might as well have been a mouth with legs hungrily waddling towards him. The idea of punching it exited his mind must as quickly as it had entered, especially when he decided he could simply run around it. Football had never really been his sport of choice but he did have enough moves to juke a waddling mushroom. A short sprint brought him to an obstacle every bit as impassible as the thirty foot wall, a chasm at least as far across as the wall was tall. "That's not even fair." Sean mumbled glancing over his shoulder. The goomba didn't seem to have caught on just yet but there was no where to go. The ground he was standing on seemed to be some kind of floating island, there were lots of them and a castle off in the stance with a flag. "At least I know where to go."
Sean slumped his head slightly and looked around hoping there was something he'd missed. This wasn't the first, second or twentieth time that he'd found himself stuck in a video game. It never ceased to annoy him and each time he swore no more vodka and video games. He could usually break the rules a little. The waist high walls that stopped the heroes were trivial; he could and would waste a rocket launcher opening doors instead of trekking all across creation for a red crescent key. Here though, here his human limitations seemed to be actual limitations. He couldn't jump that high or that far and there wasn't a tree or bridge or anything. "What am I supp. . ." Sean trailed off. Just a few feet away there was a golden box with question marks scrolling around it like a marquee. "Booyakasha." Sean hissed and rushed towards the box ramming his shoulder into it as hard as he could manage.
Just like he expected the lights on the box went dim and out popped an enormous egg covered in white spots. "Wasn't I playing. . ." Sean couldn't help but roll his eyes. He'd accepted a while back that apparently these video games were at least in part influenced by how he remembered them and that occasionally lead to some ridiculous mix ups. This was at least a pleasant surprise.
The egg shook violently for a moment and then dark blue dinosaur emerged wearing a pair of oversized triangular shades. "Yo, wassup?"
"Yoshi?" Sean tilted his head slightly. The fact that there was a roughly twelve foot talking dinosaur in front of him wasn't really any odder than the enormous fanged fungus that was once again angrily waddling toward him. The glasses, deep voice and attitude however were.
"Listen here tool, don't act like a fool. I'm not a punk like Yoshi, the name's Boshi!" Boshi leapt down off the box and walked over to Sean taking a closer look. Sean was acutely aware that this Boshi could easily swallow him whole. The main thing that was keeping him from running was the fact that he didn't have anywhere to run and even he did he probably couldn't outrun the dinosaur anyway.
"Okay. Since you aren't going to kill me I don't suppose you can you know, get rid of that goomba and then maybe explain to me what the fuck is goin' on here?" Sean pointed.
The dinosaur looked where Sean was pointing and an unsettling smirk crossed its lips. "Of course I'll handle that and save your ass but you need to understand I won't take no sass!" Boshi's impossibly long tongue shot out and stuck to the goomba and swallowed it in a single gulp. "Now on this sitch you should ruminate but in a minute I'll just illuminate the reality. Now the Mario Brothers of world wide fame got beat until they were laid lame. So-"
"Dear God enough. No more rhyming or rapping. What do I need to do to get out of here?" Somehow Sean kept himself from trembling when he stared up at the dinosaur.
"Save the princess." Boshi lowered his head. "C'mon the castle isn't far!" Boshi moved forward flipping Sean into the saddle on his back.
Riding on the dinosaur back wasn't nearly as pleasant as it looked in the games. It was like riding a horse only bumpier and with the jolts associated with twenty foot leaps. Sean was more than happy when the two of them approached the castle. Sean climbed down off Boshi's back and rested one hand on the blue dinosaur's shoulder. "You wait here. I'll either be back with a princess or I'll be dead. Either way with you out here someone will be left to carry on the fight or whatever." Sean tilted his head until it cracked. Behind his shades Boshi rolled his eyes but he didn't say anything. Sean took a single step towards the castle and drawbridge came crashing down missing him by just a few feet. "I guess I'm expected."
The castle was dark, only lit by the ominous glow of the many lava pits and the occasional torches. The games never really made a point of how suffocatingly hot the insides of these castles were but it wasn't wasted at all on Sean. The only reason he didn't turn back is it was nothing compared with the hell he'd gone through in Left 4 Dead years ago and since then he'd been to places that made Left 4 Dead look like a walk in the park.
