"The aim of the game is simple. If you survive, you live. With the entire world turned against you, though, do you have what it takes to survive?"

"Tag. You're it."


He groaned, trying to find the strength to move. Every bone in his body ached for no reason. He couldn't remember what had caused it. A putrid stench thickened the air around him, making it hard to breathe. He then opened his eyes for the first time since regaining consciousness and couldn't help but scream in terror at what he saw: he'd been lying on top of a corpse. The body was that of a man, most likely in his twenties. The man's body was covered in open wounds, probably made by the jagged-edged knife that was now planted in the man's skull. The reeking odor that filled the air was that of the man's blood, which was splattered even as far as a few feet out from the body.

"Lemmy! Lemmy!"

He shot up at the sound of his name being called. The voice was familiar.

"I'm here!" he called back. He knew Ludwig's voice anywhere. Of course, any familiar face was more than welcome now.

Ludwig then rounded the corner then reeled back on the sight of his brother standing over a corpse. Lemmy knew this immediately and quickly stepped backward to signal to Ludwig that he wasn't involved in whatever had happened there.

"What happened here?!" Ludwig said.

"I don't know!" Lemmy cried, "I didn't do this! Honest!"

Ludwig fell silent, staring at Lemmy. His expression had changed. He didn't look horrified, but, rather, it was almost a look of curiosity, as if he was contemplating something. For a second, Lemmy thought he saw Ludwig twitch, but, other than that, he didn't move at all. It was an almost terrifying change in Ludwig's mood.

"Lud?" Lemmy finally spoke, breaking the silence. Ludwig jumped a bit, seeming startled.

"I-it's nothing! Honest!" Ludwig stuttered. Now he looked like he was nervous, but about what?

"Is everything okay?" Lemmy asked.

"Everything is fine," Ludwig replied, though he didn't sound too sure of himself. There was another moment of silence between the two before Ludwig decided to speak again.

"I could take you to where the rest of us are," Ludwig offered, "As of now, Iggy's the only one still missing."

Lemmy nodded vigorously. This place was beginning to make him feel uneasy. Come to think of it...

"Um," Lemmy said quietly, "Do you know where we are?"

"No," Ludwig answered, "But I'd wager to guess Iggy's experiment had something to do with it."

Lemmy knew as well as Ludwig did that this was probably true. Iggy had conducted an experiment a while back that had some nasty side-effects in the Koopa household. Something that Iggy had referred to as "dimensional warping" was beginning to occur and this always resulted in the Koopalings being taken to the strangest of places, like this one.

Ludwig turned and began to walk away. Lemmy followed close behind. He was still a little sore, but, for the most part, the aching had died down. As he looked around, he saw multiple tall buildings: a tell-tale sign of a metropolitan area. Something was wrong, though. A deathly silence filled the air and there was no one around. Everything was in a state of disrepair, as if no one had taken proper care of anything in years. What was made of metal was rusted, what was made of brick was crumbling, and what was made of concrete was cracked. Broken glass and peeling paint defined every building in sight. Even the sky was ominous, bearing dark, low-hanging clouds with a rust-colored tinge to them. Nothing was bright. Nothing was colorful.

"What kind of place is this?" Lemmy muttered to himself. He then looked over at Ludwig. The nineteen-year-old Koopaling seemed distressed over something. His dull, gray eyes stared aimlessly off into the distance and, every so often, his upper lip would twitch a little. Sometimes, he'd involuntarily shudder, causing him to lose his balance for a moment. Something was definitely wrong. Ludwig was stubborn, though. Even if there was something wrong, there didn't seem to be any indication that he was willing to share it with Lemmy. Did it have anything to do with the corpse from earlier, or was it entirely unrelated?

Soon, Lemmy got the chance to finally see his reflection, albeit in a broken window. There was blood smeared across his face and his clothes, likely from the corpse from earlier. He wished he had something to clean it off with. He tried wiping it off with his hand, but that didn't seem to do much good. The blood was beginning to dry and there was little he could do about it without a wet cloth of some sort.

"Did you wake up there?" Ludwig asked suddenly.

"Actually, yes," Lemmy said with a nod, "I woke up and the first thing I saw was...that..."

Ludwig didn't reply. Lemmy had to wonder what Ludwig was thinking about.

"What about you?" Lemmy asked, "What happened when you-"

"Nothing," Ludwig responded quickly, "Nothing happened at all. There was no one there."

Lemmy knew it had to be a lie. There were splotches of blood standing out clearly against the stark white of the dress shirt Ludwig was wearing.

"Don't lie to me," Lemmy said, "Where did that blood come from?"

"B-blood?" Ludwig stuttered, looking himself over and immediately spotting the mentioned substance staining his shirt. He then looked away from Lemmy, gritting his teeth. He almost seemed to be trembling.

"You guys!"

The new voice pierced through the awkward silence. Lemmy looked ahead to see that it was Wendy calling out to them from a building up ahead. Ludwig immediately hurried ahead, Lemmy deciding to follow close behind. Once inside, Lemmy found that Roy and Morton were there also. That was when Lemmy noticed something strange. Every eye in the room seemed fixated on him with an unwavering gaze. In an instant, though, the rest of his siblings turned away from him and stared at each other.

"Well," Ludwig interjected, "I think I'll show Lemmy to his room. He must be tired."

"What makes you think he's tired?" Morton retorted, "What if he's hungry? I can show him where the food is!"

"If anyone's going to be showing him anywhere, it's me," Wendy butted in. She, Ludwig, and Morton then began to argue. Roy, though, stayed silent.

"It's okay! It's okay!" Lemmy cried to try to calm his siblings down, "I think I just want to talk to you guys right here! You guys don't need to show me around!"

"I can at least show you your room," Ludwig said, grabbing Lemmy's arm and forcefully dragging him away from the others. Before they could get too far, though, Morton lashed out and grabbed Lemmy's other arm.

"Let go, Morton," Ludwig hissed.

"No way!" Morton said, "I'm the one who's going to be showing him to his room! Roy's on my side too, right Roy?"

"Depends on what your side means," Roy said skeptically, "If being on your side means what I think it means..."

"Come on, Roy!" Morton called, "We talked about this earlier! You and me!"

"That's what I was afraid of," Roy grumbled. He then made his way toward Morton, taking Lemmy's arm in one hand and shoving Morton away with the other one. He gripped Lemmy's arm so tightly that it was beginning to hurt.

"What are you doing?" Ludwig asked nervously.

"I wanna know that too!" Lemmy said.

"You and Wendy too?" Roy asked.

"You can't really mean to tell me that you..." Ludwig trailed off, glaring at Roy, "You of all people..."

"There's a sort of self-control one has to have in situations like these. I thought you would know that too, but I guess I was wrong," Roy replied.

"Since when have you been the poster-boy for self-control?!" Ludwig shouted.

"Well, seeing as I'm the only one in this situation that still seems to be in his right mind-"

"Right mind?! You've gotta be kidding me!"

Roy then grabbed Lemmy around the waist, wrenching him from Ludwig's grasp. Ludwig reeled back before Roy delivered a solid left hook to his jaw, sending him sprawling onto the floor. Roy then turned to glare at Wendy, who seemed genuinely afraid.

"Roy! Stop it!" Lemmy said, fighting against Roy's grasp.

"Lemmy's right, Roy," another voice interjected. Roy immediately whirled around and Lemmy was able to see that the voice belonged to Larry. There was something wrong, though. Larry seemed to be extremely off balance and he was shaking like a leaf, his eyes wide.

"Larry. Stop," Roy said, "You know that I don't want to hurt you. I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Liar, liar, liar," Larry snarled, "Nothing's gonna get done around here with that kind of attitude. Just put Lemmy down and we'll talk. Okay?"

"Listen to him, Roy," Ludwig interjected. He was back on his feet, now practically glaring daggers at Roy while using one hand to cover up the spot where his jaw was obviously swollen from the damage done by Roy's blow. The door to the room then slammed shut, which was Morton's doing.

"Are any of you going to listen to me," Roy growled, "or are we going to have to do this the hard way?"

"I'd think you'd be better off listening to us than trying to get us to listen to you," Ludwig replied, "After all, Larry was right when he said that nothing is going to get done around here with that kind of attitude."

"D-do I get any kind of say in this?" Lemmy asked, trembling. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but he just wanted the fighting to stop.

"I think it would do us some good to see what Lemmy has to say," Ludwig responded, intentionally using the statement to take a stab at Roy.

"No way," Roy replied, "You know that he's just going to say what you want him to say. He doesn't know any better."

"He knows that his brothers and sister love him and only want the best for him," Ludwig retorted, taking another stab at Roy.

"How can you even say that crap with a straight face?!" Roy shouted.

"Quit it, Roy!" Lemmy screamed, "I can't take it anymore! Just put me down and go away!"

"Listen to him, Roy," Ludwig prodded.

"He doesn't understand what he's saying," Roy snarled.

"Yes I do!" Lemmy cried, struggling harder against Roy, "Quit bullying them! You're going too far!"

"We're leaving, Lemmy," Roy said, hoisting Lemmy up over his shoulder.

"You'd better not," Ludwig growled. Lemmy then was able to kick Roy in the stomach and get his older brother to drop him to the floor. As Roy lay in a coughing fit on the ground, Lemmy ran over to where Ludwig was and wrapped his arms around his brother in a hug, tears streaming from his eyes.

"Don't worry, Lemmy," Ludwig said, comforting his little brother, "You're with me now. Everything's going to be just-"

At that moment, Ludwig was knocked backwards away from Lemmy. Something then cut into Lemmy's cheek as Ludwig fell, leaving a bleeding wound behind. Before Lemmy even had time to wonder, though, there was the sound of an object clattering to the floor, which turned out to be a large kitchen knife, its blade soaked in blood. Lemmy was then whisked up off the floor once again by Roy and held tightly against his brother's chest. Ludwig began to get up, his left hand over his now-bleeding nose and his right hand reaching for the bloodied knife. Lemmy then looked at Larry, Morton, and Wendy, who were now revealing their own knives.

"I didn't want it to come to this," Roy growled, whipping one of the same kind of knives out of his pocket and pointing it toward Ludwig.

"Wh-what's going-"

"You could have told him," Ludwig retorted, interrupting Lemmy, "You could have told him everything. You could have made things so much easier for yourself."

"I didn't want him to think that way about you," Roy responded, "Of course, I guess that, now that that's out there..."

"Go ahead," Ludwig went on, "Tell him everything. Tell him how we all want to kill him. Tell him about how I killed a man this morning because I suddenly have a taste for human flesh. Tell him how much of a saint you are for having 'self-control'. That bullcrap excuse you're giving us to try to explain all of this is really starting to get on my nerves."

"We're leaving," Roy asserted, ignoring Ludwig's remark.

"You're going to have a hard time of that, Roy," Ludwig snarled, "There are four of us and only two of you. How are you going to manage that?"

"Like this!" Roy shouted as he immediately darted left to get around Ludwig. Larry then began his own pursuit, rapidly gaining on Roy as Ludwig snatched up his knife and followed. Wendy then prepared to attack from the front while Morton guarded the door. Roy quickly dodged a swipe from Wendy, shoving her backward to use her to knock Larry to the ground, which also ended up tripping up Ludwig and sending him sprawling to the floor. Morton then tried to slash at Lemmy as he and Roy approached, but Roy caught Morton's hand before he could strike and tossed Morton to the side before flinging the door open and escaping with Lemmy. Lemmy could hear Ludwig cursing from behind them as they left. What happened to his siblings to turn them into the monsters they'd become?