Opening the Locked Iron Doors
First Chapter
"Where am I?" I thought as the digital landscape formed around me. After a few minutes, I recognized that I was in a castle room, surrounded by tall and thick stone walls with dim lanterns. I squirmed and opened my (e/c) eyes, and realized that I was dangling from the ceiling, around twenty feet up, with thick knotted rope binding my arms to my back. I looked down and saw that my usual military uniform was now replaced with a frilly pink princess dress, with white gloves to go along! Something was also on my head, too…. A crown, maybe? This had to be a really bad dream! I flailed around, and my legs and hit the wall. Ouch. This couldn't be a dream; you don't feel pain in dreams!
Wait….. A princess dress…. It looks awfully familiar…. Could this be that game Japan made, Super Mario? I've heard him talk about it on a few occasions….Is this some sort of plot made by the Japanese government?! Did Japan become the ally of that monster?!
"First things first, I've got to figure out how to get out of here!" I thought "There's no way of telling if any of the others are here with me in this castle. I don't even know where it is! I could be trapped here forever! Ok, _ calm down! I can figure this out, right? I'm not a stupid young province anymore! I've been through the wars and battles, I know how escape! First, I need to concentrate and calm down…," I took a deep breath and stopped flailing around.
"Now I should tense up to loosen the ropes…" I tensed up all my muscles for a good few minutes and gradually, the rope loosened. "Now find the slack in the rope, there's always slack…" My hands moved the knots of the rope around, and I found the slack after a few seconds. I struggled, and the rope fell off of me, towards the ground. Unfortunately for me, the laws of physics decreed that since I was no longer being held up in the air, I had to go down. So down I went.
Russia's POV
I woke up slowly from my dreamless state, and saw that I was somewhere I had never seen before. "Where am I?" I wondered as I looked around a strange landscape. In the sky, there was a blue sky with puffy white clouds, but they seemed strangely pixilated. The area around me had brick blocks that seemed to levitate in the air, in placements of three, two, or one. The ground was a giant brick platform that seemed to have a gap a few yards away. "So weird…." I mused, rubbing my head in thought. However, when I tried to touch my hair, I realized that I was wearing a hat of some sort! I plucked it off and observed it. It vaguely resembled the shape of the Soviet hat that I once wore during World War Two, but it was completely red and had a small white circle in the middle with the letter "I" in it.
When I looked down, I realized that my usual grey military coat had turned completely red! Even my precious scarf that my sister gave me had turned a bright red!
"If this is a joke, I'll find whoever did this and send them to Siberia without a coat...…" I muttered darkly, the air around me turning slightly purple. I gave a small sigh and put my new hat back on, and opened my coat to see if my trusty lead pipe was still there. It was still nestled in its usual place, despite the odds. "I have to get out of here! Clearly, I'm not at Japan's house anymore…. I just realized! If I miss the rest of the negotiations…. Oh crap…." I thought, slightly panicking now, "I have to get back there or the boss will have my head! I've got to get out of here as soon as possible!"
Out of the blue, a wall of white text appeared before me in the air:
WELCOME TO LEVEL ONE, LEVEL MARIO, PLAYER.
IF YOU ARE NEW TO MARIO, CLICK THE TUTORIAL OPTION. Below it was a giant black rectangle with the word "tutorial" in it.
At first I eyed the box mistrustfully; it seemed suspiciously like a trap. However, I had no idea what was going on here…... I gave in. I shrugged my shoulders and pushed my fingers on the rectangle, some help wouldn't hurt. What's the worst that could happen?
Reader's POV
"OOF!" I grunted, landing painfully on my knees. I dusted myself up and ignored the pain in my arms and legs as I briskly searched the room for anything of importance. I found a door marked "Kitchen" I wondered how long it was since my last meal, and my stomach replied for me with a loud gurgle. I decided to answer the call of nature, and placed my hand on the doorknob. Before entering the second room, I swept my eyes across the room I was currently in, searching for anything that I might've missed the first time around. Nothing. "Well, here goes nothing…" I thought, pushing the old wooden door, revealing a giant dragon turtle, its look of shock comical on its face.
Russia's POV
Right after I removed my fingers from the tutorial button, a small mushroom-like figure came speeding in my direction. Above it were the words "Jump/Stomp on" At the very last second, I simply lifted my foot and pressed it on its head. The creature vanished into pixels, and the tutorial informed me that my score went up. The word "Smash" appeared under the floating blocks, "Jump over" over a chasm, and "Jump/Stomp" above a turtle-like creature on the other side of the chasm. I heaved a sigh. This was going to take forever to escape back to Earth….
Reader's POV
Taking advantage of the dragon turtle's surprise, I snatched a cleaver from a nearby table and jabbed the cutting end repeatedly into its soft exposed belly, then pulled it out, inspecting the now bloodied blade. I decided that it was best to take it with me. Who knows what other trouble I could run into? Turning around to pick up some foodstuffs from the table, I heard a loud crash as the dragon turtle fell lifeless to the ground. Ignoring the lifeless body on the ground, I munched on the food, and plotted my escape, leaving the room.
Russia's POV
Sitting on the brick pathway, I glanced up at the digital sky, sitting cross legged on the ground. Apparently I was halfway through the level, according to the tutorial. It seemed like an eternity had passed, though. "Focus, Ivan! This is no time to be slacking off! "I scolded myself. I shook my head and doing my best to make sense of this situation, I tried to recall what happened before my arrival. "The last thing I remember before blacking out was a woman's scream, I believe…. Was it one of China's provinces?" I thought. "Is this an elaborate plot made by Japan? What motives would he have to trap me here? "
My train of thought was interrupted when I heard the sound of a drawbridge being lowered. A young woman with a bloodstained pink dress, crown and bloody cleaver walked on the drawbridge, heading away from the castle and towards me. When she was one foot away from me, she halted suddenly. Gee, maybe it had something to do with the text box in the sky that said: "LEVEL COMPLETED"? The land around the two of us began changing rapidly, until we seemed to be in the middle of forest of large pine trees.