‘Split Fiction’ secretly has one of the most terrifying levels in gaming this year

Note: Spoilers for a late Split Fiction Side Story follow.

Horror has never been my favorite genre, but there are certain scary stories I gravitate towards. I enjoy a good horror story set in space, like Dead Space, and will sometimes go for a horror movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, like the recent Heart Eyes. Nothing I’ve played, watched, or read, however, has terrified me quite like one of Split Fiction’s Side Stories.

Already one of the year’s best games, Split Fiction follows writers Mio and Zoe as they try to stop a tech-giant-like “publisher” from stealing their stories – finished work and simmering ideas alike. Of course, because Split Fiction is a video game, this journey takes the form of a simulation where Mio and Zoe inhabit the sci-fi and fantasy worlds of their stories. Throughout several levels, the duo will come across Side Stories – short stories they wrote as children or ideas they’re still working through. In the last Side Story, what appears to be a child’s wonderland quickly turns into a nightmarish, PTSD-inducing horrorfest for any adult who’s gone to the dentist.

“Pretend we’re fluffy marshmallows,” I said to my partner. We had just entered one of Mio’s Side Stories, this one a stark departure from the hectic, adrenaline-pumping levels her writing had produced so far. This Side Story was from her childhood, written after her fifth birthday. The world was full of bright colors and giant, tasty desserts larger than we were. And we were not, of course, fluffy marshmallows. We were teeth.

Just like in one of the first Side Stories when we played Mio and Zoe as pigs, in this Side Story our writers were transformed into a pair of teeth, clad with googly eyes and brightly colored toothpaste in place of hair. It was jarring and unpleasant at first, but bouncing around a house-sized chocolate cake was silly – exactly the type of fun we needed after being chased by a giant evil dragon throughout the chapter.

Now, I try not to think about teeth too much. I’ve spent both too many hours in and too much money at dentists’ offices over the years getting work done. Let’s say it’s not a place I think of fondly. Maybe you’ve been blessed with perfect pearly whites since your baby chompers fell out and don’t know the horrors the dentist’s office can inflict. I’m equal parts happy for and jealous of you. But trust me when I tell you the dentist is the scariest horror villain this side of Michael Myers.

So when we were bouncing around desserts as (gulp) teeth, I was trying to ignore the gooseflesh shivering up my back and to convince myself that this would remain a child’s daydream of candy and birthday cake.

It did not remain a child’s daydream of candy and birthday cake.

After reaching what we thought would be the end of the Side Story, we were transported to the realm of nightmares, where cavities are filled, teeth get pulled, and crowns are set. We found ourselves in a metallic, dimly lit horror movie-version of a dentist’s office with a mechanical dentist trying to kill us.

Both my partner and I struggled in the boss fight, oscillating between a desire to kick his ass and look away in dental trauma-induced pain. The drilling sound effects were enough to transport me back to my last appointment. The Freddy Krueger of my nightmares to come would split our teeth Mio and Zoe in half, and we’d have to hop around unpleasantly to rejoin ourselves. The dentist would drill through our toothpaste toupees, keeping us in place and in pain, while we relied on the other to be brave and launch themself at the drill to free the trapped tooth.

After great struggle – mostly in keeping our eyes focused on the traumatic images flashing across our TV – we successfully downed the dentist and escaped its realm of horrors. We needed a moment to catch our breath. I think we both missed the pigs.

Needless to say, whenever we replay Split Fiction next, I think we’ll skip the “Birthday Cake” Side Story.