(A/N: Hey, guys! This is just a little side project I decided to pick up for lyokolife6's Horror Story Contest! An opportunity to flex my horror-writing muscles, hopefully. n_n
Onward!)
In the Smash Mansion, center of Master Hand's ingenious Multiverse, home and headquarters for the most powerful living beings in all of space and time,- when they weren't busy defending their homes from evil, of course - shining beacon and symbol of strength and justice...there was a chore for just about everyone. Such an establishment wasn't perfectly kempt all day every day. You thought the Smashers just either fought each other or sat around all hours? Ha! Every day, there's always at least a few people keeping the Mansion in peak condition, each with their own assigned duty.
Who other than Princess Peach of the Mushroom Kingdom could organize such a timely, convenient, and near-perfectly acceptable system of work? The blue-eyed blonde monarch loved the respect she was shown by even those who came from entirely different worlds, where her power was meaningless to them. In truth, most of the Smashers were downright afraid of the Princess. Why she allowed herself to be captured constantly in her world when she was perfectly capable of thoroughly curb-stomping the vast majority of Bowser's Koopa Troop was a mystery, but the fact remains that Peach was very unpleasant when angered. Of course, she was completely unaware of the power that she had over the others. Yes, completely unaware. Hm.
That said, Peach had pretty much all of the Smashers under her thumb when it came down to housework, and her work schedule was spotless except for one chore: dusting the basement. No one liked dusting the basement. Ironically, Peach herself, the humble matron saint of cleanliness, detested the idea of going into the bowels of the Mansion more than any other Smasher, primarily because it was the only place in the Mansion that they feared more than her. Of course, she was unaware that she even instilled fear into the hearts of her peers to begin with. Completely unaware... Digressions aside, the reason many Smashers feared the basement was because Crazy Hand liked to collect the creepiest old junk imaginable from the heros' universes. Most of what he collected happened to bring back really bad memories for the Smashers. One enemy they all knew they could never defeat was their own mind. There were just certain things that make a person freeze solid, defenseless in his moment of terror. And it pissed Peach off.
To remedy this, Peach devised a method that was rather crude and uncompromisal for the regal blonde: drawing straws every week. She did have a condition. If the loser was willing to fight against Peach in a one-to-one Brawl and defeat her, Peach would take over their basement duty. Because Peach was completely unaware that everyone was afraid of her, she was surprised that every week, the loser would deny her challenge and reluctantly go down to the basement. However, this week was different. Samus Aran drew the shortest straw and accepted Peach's challenge. Needless to say, everyone wanted to watch two of the most beautiful women in the Mansion fight. And fight they did. And Samus won.
Peach's defeat sent shockwaves through the Smasher population. No one could believe it, not even Samus, even though she didn't show her surprise, and only nodded respectfully to the beaten Princess. Which brings us to the present evening. A scowled mars the normally bright and beautiful face of the Mushroom Princess as she pushes open the basement door and lets the heavy creaking sound scratch her ears. The smell and taste of mildewed air already molests her senses, and she can only see the first few steps down. The rest of the basement is utter darkness. Armed only with a feather-duster and a box of moist rags, Peach is content for some moments to just stare at the gaping maw of the inanimate beast that was unanimously despised by all Smashers before taking the first step down, the dark wooden stairs creaking ominously underneath her weight.
Before she even enters the basement, Peach finds first-hand reasons to utterly despise this chore. She had to change out of her gown so it wouldn't get super-dirty and give Luigi, the appointed laundryman, more work than he needs. Peach was instead wearing a casual pair of long pink pants and a pink-and-white striped sweatshirt (in the summer, mind you), along with a pair of less-than-pristine pink tennis shoes whose soles were scuffed from use. Her hair was pulled up into a very high ponytail, and under her roommate Zelda's insistence, she left her crown on her nightstand so she wouldn't risk losing it in the dark disgustingness of the basement. Peach disliked pants and tennis shoes outside of sporting endeavors. She wasn't particularly fond of long sleeves, either. However, the Mushroom Princess felt naked without her crown. She could be naked, still have her crown on, and feel perfectly decent and casual, but give her a full set of clothes that covered every bit of skin, then take away her crown, and she will be uncomfortable all day. So one can imagine how she must feel now, naked and alone in a dark pit of ew. She hasn't even seen the basement fully yet.
Every loud creak of the stairs as she descends tickles her ears and puts her on edge, because they're the only sounds she hears. Creaky steps in a busy, bustling Mansion are fine. Creaky steps in an otherwise silent pit? Weird. Another reason she hates the basement. Silence is weird. Irrationality tells her that there's a darker reason why it's silent...As if every little sound brings a sleeping beast closer and closer to waking. Or maybe it has already woken up, and is silently approaching. Coming closer and closer to-
Peach shuts her eyes and shakes the stupid thoughts from her head as her feet touch the cold floor of the basement, drowning her in silence once again. Peach already feels the cold invisible hands groping her spine and making her shiver with discomfort as she reaches the foot of the steps. After a few seconds of stillness to let her eyes adjust to the darkness, Peach reaches over and flicks the nearby light switch. Nothing happens for a moment, but then a lone light bulb high up on the ceiling flickers to life and casts a dirty brown light on the silent chamber. Peach regards the room's dusty old contents with a blink. Just from where she stood, Peach can see why people might be repelled by the basement... Right in front of her is the rusty, eyeless, and inert head of Galleom, one of their greatest adversaries during the Subspace Emissary affair. Already, Peach sympathized with the short-stick drawers who had to come down here. Being reminded of their arduous war with Tabuu is discomforting. She'll have to talk to Crazy Hand about moving all this stuff to another dimension like Final Destination... But for now, she cleans.
Peach figures she might as well start with the robot head, dusting it off and wiping it down before moving on. There is no shortage of creepy objects that Peach encounters in her trek through the grime, unfertilized Metroid eggs, their green veins shriveled and rotting, an odd machine with cracked and foggy glass that contained an odd suit of armor, sleek and streamlined, suspiciously matching the shape of a former Smasher, Mewtwo... After a few minutes, Peach discovers that no one has really cleaned the basement fully at all. Everyone who's been down here has quit and fled after only a few minutes of enduring the weirdness of everything that Crazy Hand hoards... The objects toward the back are infinitely dustier than those closer to the stairs.
Peach sighs, feeling compelled to leave herself. But it isn't in her nature to leave a job unfinished, damned perfectionist that she is... Reluctantly, she continues cleaning, letting minutes pass as her very presence in the basement weirded her out more and more. Every little bump elicits a gasp and at least twenty seconds to look around and confirm she was still alone. A couple of times, Peach gets the impression she heard her own name, and turned around, sweating as she calls out, "Who's there?" It was always just her active imagination. After another several minutes of cleaning and walking, Peach finally comes upon something she finds interesting: masks.
Her eyes light up in wonder as she examines the row of masks hanging from the back wall. Most of them look perfectly preserved, and while some are a bit scarier-looking, particularly the heart-shaped mask with glowing manic orange eyes, they all fascinate her. The masks remind her of happy times in her castle, during one of her many masquerade balls, particularly her most recent, when she invited all the other Smashers to her castle! The thought brings a smile to her painted lips. So distracted was the Princess by the memory of slow-dancing with her mustachioed knight in shining overalls that she does not notice the large spider crawl from the eye hole of one mask until it leaps onto her face.
Peach's screams shatter the silence of the basement as she swipes at her face. Jerking back quickly, Peach's back slams into a pile of random junk, causing stuff to fall and break. The spider falls from Peach's face and is subsequently crushed underneath a large tome that falls from the pile she struck. Peach steps away from the pile of collapsed junk and baubles, waving her hands and coughing at the dust in the air as it clings to her clothes and hair. She was going to have to take a long shower after this... The Princess opens her stinging eyes and looks the book on the floor. When she realizes what it is, she gasps, filling her throat with dust and having to squeeze her eyes shut and cough again. When she opens her eyes, it's still there. The Dark Prognosticus.
Peach swallows hard as she remembers her own experiences revolving around that book which heralded the end of her world in the past... When she had been forced to marry Bowser... She shivers, but at the same time, is drawn to the book... Surely, it contained more prophecies than just the end of the world. This book alone brought down countries, apparently. Her raging curiosity leads her to wonder what kind of power could do that? What else could the book say? Besides... What was the worse that could happen to them? All of the Smashers had saved the world at some point. Even if one of the Prognosticus's evil prophecies concerned one or all of them, it was nothing their combined might couldn't fix, right? Right. Reading from the book might be helpful. She could learn of some world's prophesied destruction, tell the others about it, then work to save that world! They'll be heroes! Well...bigger heroes!
Her mind is set. Peach walks up to the Dark Prognosticus and picks it up. But instead of taking it back up to the actual Mansion and reading it in the peace and non-creepiness of her room, Peach is compelled to open the tome right then and there, hungrily eyeing the first page she comes to in the middle and reading.
" 'Pon midnight's stroke and moonless sky...
These words do herald doom...
Dur'n mindless reel and darkness cry...
Your soul he will consume..."
Peach is trained in few languages, only knowing common English and the bit of Japanese Ike taught her so she could communicate with Marth. Whatever strange runic language the Dark Prognosticus was inscribed in, Peach certainly would never have encountered it in her life, yet she reads from it as fluently as if it was her first language.
"His endless hunger will ne'er be sated...
His monstrous thirst will ne'er be slaked...
The mists of his somnolent breath ne'er abated...
To the reader and her companions, t'is already too late..."
Just then, Peach's pupils dilate and contract once in rapid succession. She draws in a deep breath, as if she'd been being choked just a moment ago, and the book falls from her trembling hands. What just happened to her? What has she done? She backs away from the Dark Prognosticus, horrified at what the evil book had done to her.
Pssssst...
At that, she turns and runs, leaving behind her rags and feather duster. Stepping on glass beneath her sneakers, hip-checking random object, and even slashing her bicep against some sharp protrusion, the normally poised Mushroom Princess staggers clumsily through the basement until she gets to the stairs, where she climbs as fast as possible. Something is following her. Chasing her. This is not Peach's imagination. She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's something behind her and that if she looked back, it would get her. It would eat her soul. When Peach finally escapes into the bright light of the hallway, she slams right into Red, sending them both to the floor in a heap.
"Whoa! Peach, what the?!" Red yelps as Peach pushes him away, springs to her feet, and runs down the hall before turning a corner.
"Peach!" Red calls after her as he picks up his hat. He stares at the open basement door and shivered. "Yeesh... Meh, she probably saw a spider or something."
Red walks toward the basement door and reaches in to pull the door closed. As soon as his hand crosses the threshold into the actual room of the basement, something invisible grabs his wrist and yanks him forward. He screams as his feet come out from under him and he falls head over heels down the steps, grunting and wailing in pain all the way down. When he reaches the foot of the steps, he slams into the floor and rolls for a moment before curling up and groaning in agony. Blood trickles from his lip as he whimpers and starts to crawl slowly toward the steps, whispering, "Help..."
He starts to climb, and doesn't make it up four steps before the same force that grabbed his wrist grabs his ankle and yanks him violently again, dragging him quickly into the basement. His screams pierce the silent basement air, and as he is dragged, the basement door closes on its own. With a loud pop, the lone light bulb shatters and the room is drowned in darkness. Finally, Red's bloodcurdling scream is suddenly cut off... All is silent again. Silent and completely dark except for the faint evening light shining in through the window against the back wall, casting a square spotlight on the Dark Prognosticus. Ever so slowly, a gentle mist creeps into the edges of the square of light, its ghastly tendrils touching the dark prophetic tome. A hand whose skin was grey and whose thin black veins showed clearly under the light reaches for the book, but does not pick it up. The hand, attached to a wrist that was wrapped in a black band much like Red's, gently runs its fingers across the surface of the book cover before retreating back into the darkness.
Pssssst...
(A/N: First of only a few chapters; of course I don't plan on making this very long. Review with your thoughts!)