You needed a night shift. You got a nightmare.
Night shift rules: check all six coolers. Identify the host. Burn the correct sigil. I opened Cooler 4. Empty. Cooler 5. A child. Cooler 6. The body I’d already embalmed—Mr. Henderson—was back inside, still wet with my incisions. Except his mouth was open now. Wide. Something dark dripped from his tongue.
I heard a locker slam in the hallway behind me. Not in-game. In my actual hallway. The cat arched. The Switch vibrated once—a low, guttural pulse that didn’t match any controller rumble I’ve felt before. The screen displayed a single line of text: The Mortuary Assistant Switch NSP -eShop-
I thought the Switch version would be tamer. Handheld mode, brightness halfway down, cat on my lap. Comfort horror.
The first body was easy. Mr. Henderson. Cardiac arrest. I drained the blood, filled the cavity, closed the Y-incision. But when I turned to log the formaldehyde level, the tablet flickered. A message I didn’t type: “He has your mother’s cough.” You needed a night shift
“Don’t look under your bed.”
The demon is among the bodies. You must identify it, perform the correct rites, and survive until dawn. Trust no one. Not the security footage. Not the whispered calls from the cooler. Not even yourself. Identify the host
I saved. I quit. I deleted the NSP from my SD card. But the icon stayed on my home menu for three hours. And when I finally went to sleep, I dreamed I was embalming myself.