Nightmare Fuel / Life SMP

aka: Last Life SMP

As this is a Moments page, only spoilers involving the series' backstory in Martyn's "Eyes and Ears" continuity will be marked. You Have Been Warned.

The series' very premise is a Deadly Game with only one survivor... at most. Is it surprising that there are plenty of terrifying moments throughout it all?

General

• The concept of the Red Lives is unnerving by itself. At any time, anyone can drop to their final life, and go from a peaceful player to a cold-blooded killer whose only goal is to murder everyone on the entire server. Hope you were on good terms with them before they turned...
  • Last Life turns this up to eleven. If you're a Red Life, all prior alliances and agreements are void, any friendships you may have had are dissolved, and your only goal is murder, by any means possible.
• Last Life also introduces the concept of the Boogeyman. At the start of every session, a number of players (usually one but it can be multiple) are selected to become the Boogeyman, and their one goal for that session is to kill someone. If they don't kill someone before the session is over, at the start of the next session they will instantly turn Red (in Last Life) or lose up to eight hours of their lives (in Limited Life). Oh, and the same rules that apply for Red Lives also apply to the Boogeyman, meaning they can kill anyone, regardless of affiliation. And it could be anyone.
• The Watchers in general. Their appearance is often accompanied by the screen suddenly glitching or strange sound effects reminiscent of Whispering Ghosts, and they speak in an inhumanly deep voice, often trying to get Martyn to kill people. And that's before we find out that they are behind the existence of the Life games in the first place, view all the chaos, bloodshed, and betrayal as entertainment, and created the Boogeyman curse to feed on the fear and panic created from it, alongside other instances of kidnapping players from other worlds and deliberately making them suffer because it tastes good.

Season 1: 3rd Life

• The Desert (Grian and Scar) are a terrifying duo when they want to be. Especially after Scar turns Red, Grian takes it as an opportunity to go ham on everyone else, and with permission from Scar, lays a TNT trap that winds up killing three people. Not only that, after seeing that two more people have turned Red, Grian proposes inviting them to the faction, renaming it "the Red Desert", and changing its goal to taking out the entire server. And all this was before Grian even loses his first life (which took until Day 7), meaning the single deadliest event on the server was caused not by a Red player as everyone feared, but a then-unassuming Green player. Grian just goes to show that you don't need to be a Red Name to be a threat.
• The Battle of the Red Desert in the first part of Day 7 is surprisingly disturbing to watch.
  • Just before the battle, Dogwarts discuss who they want to target in the fight. What makes this disturbing is how casually they talk about this, like they're discussing weekend plans over lunch.^note Their target was Scott, by the way. Him being the first to go down was not unintentional.
  • The bulk of the battle begins with the two sides firing on each other. While the Red Desert and the Flower Forest originally intend to lure Dogwarts forces into multiple traps, they wind up activating the traps too late, resulting in a Curb-Stomp Battle in Dogwarts' favour where 3/4 of the two factions' alliance dead in the battle, one of them taken out of the fight permanently.
    • Jimmy's perspective is... harsh to watch in-character. Being on the Red Life half of the dual factions and stuck in the bunker, the poor man watches his husband get shot to death in front of him, hears his other ally die, it's him and Scar left to defend everything as everything goes haywire, then he gets shot and dies trying to get down the escape ladder. And this time, unlike the other times, he can't even come back anymore.
  • After Scar escapes the bunker as the Sole Survivor, the Crastle forces arrive... then Dogwarts proceeds to curb-stomp them too, even though two among them (Martyn and Skizz) weren't even fighting, instead chasing down Scar for the Red banner he stole episodes ago.
• After winning the Battle of the Red Desert, Dogwarts still barely gets a moment to breathe. After Martyn dies trying to retrieve the Red banner they've been after this entire time, everyone manages to regroup, Martyn and Impulse manage to get rid of a TNT minecart trap and patch up the Dogwarts base a little... then the Red Desert, now with a vengeful Scott in tow, drops in from the ceiling and murders Impulse right then and there.

Season 2: Last Life

• The Boogeyman. Every session, one or more players are secretly selected as the Boogeyman, with their only goal being to kill another player. The concept alone is enough to make every player on the server mistrustful of even their closest allies, and the ways the various Boogeymen have operated are equally horrific.
  • On Day 1, Bdubs and Etho spent an hour together, both having many chances to kill one another, so both were convinced the other wasn't the Boogeyman. They then met up with Grian, and the three of them started enchanting together... And then, mid-enchanting session, Bdubs suddenly attacked and killed Grian. This was terrifying from both Grian and Etho's point of view, from Grian's because getting jumped was so sudden he barely had time to react, and from Etho's because he suddenly realized he'd been hanging out with the Boogeyman all session.
  • On Day 2, Joel offered to let the Southlands use the stolen enchantment table, for a small price. The cave Joel led them down was trapped, which Grian immediately spotted. Joel then started furiously attacking the Southlands (including Mumbo, who'd died in lava earlier and had no armor), forcing them to flee the cave in a mad panic. Mumbo managed to kill Joel before he got any kills in... but then immediately got murdered from behind by Scar, that day's second Boogeyman.
  • On Day 3, Lizzie offered Scott and Pearl an alliance; if they helped her dig out a slime chunk, all three of them could make unlimited use of the slime farm. Scott and Pearl agreed, and they followed her down a ladder... only for Lizzie to suddenly step off the ladder into a small side-hallway, and take away the water at the bottom, revealing a pitfall trap. Pearl spotted the trap and followed her into the side-hallway, but before she could process what that meant, Lizzie was already attacking her. Pearl was murdered in a cramped little hallway, with no way out, while Scott watched from half-way up the ladder, unable to help in any way.
• The way the Reds behave is... unnerving, to say the least.
  • Grian's response to turning Red doubles as Tear Jerker. After getting knocked off the Ghast farm, he climbs back up to talk to Mumbo. Mumbo expresses guilt over not being able to save him, and sadness that they can't be friends anymore. Grian, however, notes there's still a way they can be friends... and starts knocking out bits of the floor under Mumbo's feet. Mumbo keeps backing away, clearly scared, while Grian keeps screaming that they can still be friends as he rips out more and more of the floor. Mumbo only very narrowly survives.
  • On Day 5, ZombieCleo's rampage is likened by some YouTube commenters to Sephiroth. She appears all around the server, threatening everyone and setting fire to her surroundings, and manages to torch the Fairy Fort to the ground, while continuing to threaten Big B for having killed her as the previous session's Boogeyman, without so much as asking permission.
    YouTube Commenter: No one give Cleo black robes or an odachi.
  • Scar, after turning Red, goes over to Team BEST's base. When they ask him what he's doing, he puts an echo filter over his voice, says "I'm going to murder you", and starts lining the snow castle's walls with TNT and attacking anyone who gets too close, all while singing cheerfully about how they're all going to die. It's striking that the only way Team BEST can get him to back off is to get Tango to give him a life, putting him on Yellow.
• The mysterious voice accosting Martyn throughout the series has always been unnerving, but his perspective of Day 8 really cranks the terrifyingness up a notch. Martyn initially hallucinates the other Southlands members being with him to make fun of Mumbo's intro, but after he snaps out of it and realizes he's completely alone, the voice returns... and it's not happy. What follows is a tense scene of Martyn running away in a blind panic while the voice screams at him in his head, blaming him for the deaths of the other Southlanders.
  The Watcher: They're all gone!
  Martyn: (running, hyperventilating) No, NO, NO!
  The Watcher: It's your fault!
  Martyn: You said only [Grian] had to die!
  The Watcher: And you FAILED!

Season 3: Double Life

• The Can't Live Without You nature of soulmates has a fairly disturbing implication that when someone dies without knowing who their soulmate is (or even just while the two are far enough apart), their soulmate would have no idea what is happening. Just ask Jimmy in the first episode, after he suddenly loses two hearts in one go:
  Jimmy: Oh my gosh, who is my soulmate and why are they dyi–
  Tango was blown up by Creeper
  SolidarityGaming died
• The culmination of Pearl's Sanity Slippage in the finale, in which she repeatedly chants "Something wicked this way comes" while Laughing Mad and surrounded by a large pack of wolves, before slaughtering four people and feeling no remorse after.

Season 4: Limited Life

• In the previous three seasons, only Red Lives can kill, though this rule is loosely enforced at best. In this season, however, while Red Lives can obviously still kill Yellows and Greens, Yellow Lives are legally allowed to kill Green Lives, which adds another layer of paranoia to the players.
• The Bread Bridge trap on Day 2. While it appears to be just another one of the Bad Boys' silly antics (with their history), and their encroachment on Entertainment Mountain territory is simply an annoyance, it becomes much more terrifying when it's revealed to be a calculated Boogeyman kill courtesy of Joel, with his non-Boogey allies in on the scheme.
  • Scar doesn't even see it coming, being located right under the bridge when it happens. Even though he predicted it to be a trap the moment he saw it, not even this knowledge could save him from having two hours of his life-time deducted.
  • While it can be seen out of a corner of Cleo's eye, by the time she's realized, it's already too late for her to move out of the way.
• By the start of Day 4, the number of players who haven't dropped to Yellow can be counted on one hand, with a few phasing between colours due to various kills. Since non-Boogeyman players can only gain life-time by punching up the colour levels, it's safe to say that the last Green Names did not enjoy being hunted for their life-time during the first hour of Day 4. The Yellow Names also start displaying... unnervingly bloodthirsty behaviour that one would normally expect from in Red Names.
  • The T.I.E.S. Skynet is quickly infiltrated by the Bad Boys to drop TNT minecarts down on its original builders.
  • After Joel returns to Green after killing Tango, he's greeted with the normally easy-going Martyn commenting on his health and colour level, then knocking him off the Bread Bridge twice, almost killing Joel. While it is originally just Martyn "trying to make him swear", he later goes back for a round two to chase Joel down like a "psycho"... through the dark oak forest... at night. Why a round two? For his life-time back. Eventually, even the Clockers and the T.I.E.S. join in on the hunt, who don't even have much beef with Joel that hasn't been resolved.
    Martyn: Not even home is safe. (ominous laughter)
  • Since Scott is one of the last Green Names left, having gained an extra hour from a Boogeyman kill on Day 1 and not died since, the Coral Isles are quickly laid under siege from above. This soon results in a lot of property damage and the formation of a "temporary Yellow alliance" consisting of almost everyone on the server to hunt him down.^note The only exceptions are Martyn (allied), Cleo (who already killed Scott once that day and is just watching as a token gesture), Pearl (who's busy mining), and Tango (the sole other Green Name left). The chase goes on around just about every settlement, and by the time it finally ends, half the server is vying to deliver the killing stab or shot to gain that precious life-time.
  • When Scott goes down on his own terms, the Yellow alliance immediately turn their attention to Tango and start digging around the T.I.E.S. base like a labour of moles. The only reason this farce ends the way it does is that Impulse and Etho are feeding them false information on Tango's location while Tango also arranges to go out on his own terms.
• At the very end of the series, Martyn's betrayal can be quite horrifying to watch, especially from Impulse's perspective. Here they are, having agreed to have a fair, honourable, three-way Duel to the Death, having even died to make sure everyone's on a similar life-time... then Martyn pulls out a sword, hacks his Day 1 ally to death on the spot, and the only thing he can do is run and unsuccessfully put a lava bucket down before being cut down himself mere seconds later.

Season 5: Secret Life

• On Day 6, Grian and Etho have a joint hard task: to bring the Wither and the Warden together on the surface to fight. The result is in-universe Nightmare Fuel for the other players, who universally react with terror. The two mobs permakill Jimmy and Mumbo, utterly destroy the map around the Secret Keeper, and even break Grian's game.
• Gem's task on Day 7 turns the session into a full blown Survival Horror, making her the Patient Zero of a Boogeyman curse that spreads to others as she and the infected kill people. After realizing what is happening, those unaffected are forced to cross alliance lines and band together, as the infected slowly pick them off one by one. By the end of the session, only Scott, Cleo, and Grian (and Martyn, who is immune due to being already on Red) remain unaffected. Though Gem fails her task due to not infecting all non-Reds, the end result leaves many on their final lives.
  • It's made worse by the fact that, unless you had been keeping track of who killed who, you'd have no idea who was infected and who wasn't. This tension is made very evident when Tango is held at bow-point by a group of Survivors who know he's been killed by a wolf, but not whose wolf (it was Big B's), and loudly and repeatedly demand to know who killed him: a scene that feels straight out of a zombie horror movie.
  • At one point, Grian and Skizz are sneaking around spying on the Boogey-zombie players, only to watch them run right past them, just a few blocks away, chasing Joel down. It's funny in that, as Grian says, it feels like a scene straight out of a cartoon, but the slightest look to the right would have caused the two to be targeted like their team-mate.
  • The Boogey-zombie players are also extremely unnerving, crooning to the Survivors about how their victory is inevitable and it's preferable to surrender to the "freeing" bloodlust of joining them, and in some cases, being willing to backstab (in one case literally) their own former allies before this even began.
• Combined with tear jerker territory, in Martyn's "Eyes and Ears" continuity, Scar is kept alive by the Watchers so that they can feast on his emotions as a result of him going mad from his lack of friends and alliances after he won the season, unable to receive any more secret tasks other than to "win Secret Life" over and over again, and if he were to commit suicide, he's respawned with half a heart of his health until the Watchers are done with him and send him off to the Plane to preserve him in preparation for the sixth Season..

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