∞-∞-∞ Road: 1 race. Time: [ERROR: TIME NOT LINEAR]
He didn't respawn.
The music was slowed down by 700%. It sounded like a lullaby being eaten by a whale. The character select screen showed everyone —not just Mario, Peach, Bowser. It showed obscure NPCs from Super Mario Sunshine. It showed Waluigi’s third cousin, "Walugio." It showed a blank silhouette labeled "The 1993 Live-Action Movie Mario." Mario Kart 8 Deluxe -0100152000022800--v1245184...
But Kevin noticed one thing. In his stats menu, under "Total Races Completed," there was a new entry: ∞-∞-∞ Road: 1 race
The average Mario Kart 8 Deluxe player had version 3.0.1. Maybe 3.1 if they were daring. But this? This was a ghost. A development fossil. A version so deep in the update history that even the eShop servers had marked it as "do not send, do not remember." It sounded like a lullaby being eaten by a whale