Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a new piece of mine called Homeostasis- probably a quick four parter for the contest I'm in currently, called the Auld Lang Syne contest hosted by the one and only Shana Hager. I have never written a multi-chaptered piece for a contest before, but given that my current one-shot record is not holding up that well in the contests, I've decided to take a gander and see how far I get. I'll probably try to update every two days since this story needs to be finished by the 16th of this month, so yikes. Here we are guys, Chapter 1: Blurred Focus.
The bottle looks strange in his hand. His vision is beyond foggy at this point, so he cannot muster the strength to try and spell out the words plastered on the label. Something about old folk and apple cider. "Pah," he thinks silently, "When the world focuses solely on the stupid labels and not the actual people, we then have a problem."
He takes another swig, knowing it isn't good for his health, but he doesn't give a shit because its his life and no one else's. He isn't hurting anyone else. A low cough disrupts his happy drinking schedule, and now he is humped over the cushioned seat leaning over the balcony, puking all that has been washed down into his system. One hurl after another. He loses count at around thirty, knowing that with the New Year coming up around the corner for him, he'll probably pass out and miss the celebration. He doesn't care. That path vanished a long time ago.
Slumping down to the concrete ground, his eyes clear only a little to make out the bustling and explosive Smash Mansion losing their minds over the new 2016 that'll usher in an explosive era of lord knows what and he's so far gone in a stinking slump of liquor to care. Once revered as one of the strongest Smashers, Luigi Pastour now sits against the wall and wonders where everything went wrong.
His eyes flicker slowly, but surely over the flaxen haired lady, twirling and enjoying the life of party, not giving a worry to anyone else. Luigi's veins burn at the sight of her, watching that sky blue diamond dress spin in a billowing cloud, to fall back down. How he messed up so much, watching that damn skirt dance and snatch his heart up. "She's just full of lies." he contemplates, before turning back over the railing to unsettlingly puke.
This goes on for about a minute, the emerald cloaked plumber losing all that made him human, when even that was barely something to take pride in. There is a presence, but he doesn't care enough to turn around and face whomever wishes to have a consultation with him. That Luigi, the one who'd laugh and banter on died, last year, at the same stupid stupid New Year's Eve celebration of 2015. That was when the diamond dusted girl gave him a taste of the wild side of humanity, only to then drop him into a hole he couldn't climb out of.
Luigi feels empty now, and he can understand the aching in his soul before turning around to see the spawn of the devil staring worriedly at him. He gives a low screech, before chucking the bottle at her. She ducks, the perfectionist look not even taking one nosedive. What is with her and that awful witchcraft? How can she go around the world knowing she ruined someone's life.
"Go away," he hisses. "Don't you see that you're not wanted here?"
"I'm wanted wherever I go." she replies. Rosalina, queen of the star studded galaxies above, gives a light laugh, throwing her hair behind her back.
"You ruined me." Luigi snarls.
"You ruined yourself."
"I highly doubt that."
"You should join the party." Rosalina urges, sitting next to him.
Luigi shudders, scowls, screams, then does a mix of all three before scooting back on all fours away from the galaxy lady and her accursed diamond dresses and pink lipstick smudged hair bows. He cannot be a part of this again. She'd kill him. She'd kill him. Rosalina shakes her head in dismay, seeing this plumber was too far gone for her actual delicate help to be of any use. Perhaps there'd be another soul to help bring Luigi out of the slump, she had no idea.
He watches her go, before patting down his body, knowing that he lost his bottle. He chucked it halfway across the room at her, but having forgotten the fact that they all trained in the art of battle, something as simple as a thrown bottle was not going to be enough to deter a man from pursuing their aspirations. He doesn't know what she wanted out of trying to talk to him. It failed. Simple as that.
Luigi looks up at the pitch black sky and wishes it could consume him.
Perhaps he could be returned to his true state of homeostasis, where his body would become normal again.
There we are you guys, Chapter 1! Yeah, I know. This is SUPER depressing, but it'll get better with each chapter. I have four characters in this story- and we know that two are Luigi and Rosalina, which is actually one of my OTP's in the Mario fandom so... maybe we'll see where this can lead us, hmm? Next small drabble chapter shall be #2: Aura Readings. Don't lie and say you don't know who I'm featuring in the next chapter to maybe help Luigi out of his slump. Least he doesn't have his bottle, right? Thanks for reading guys, and see you soon.
~ Paradigm