3

After enjoying the fire they had created themselves, Mario and Luigi fell asleep on the hard ground as the fire embers became dimmer and the moon rose higher in the night sky. The faint light started to create scary-looking shadows around them and there was no other noise but the faint breeze. Mario started to have a dream as he rolled over his side…


"Mario." said a sweet-sounding voice. It was Princess Peach.

Mario heard the voice, but was unable to see anything around him. All he could see was complete and utter darkness.

"Peach." he called out. "Where are you?"

"Mario." she said again. "Mario…"

Peach's voice suddenly faded into thin air, and the darkness was then broken by a sinister-looking red light.

"Peach?"

Mario followed the red light and found himself in a strange and desolate landscape. The ground was made of black basalt and rivers of lava flowed everywhere around him. The sky, which gave out an evil reddish hue, echoed with the sounds of Peach's desperate cries. The sun looked very much like a cresent moon as the moon itself started to pass in front of it.

What is this place? Mario thought to himself as he became suspicious and afraid. The dream was becoming a nightmare.

"Mario!" said Peach's voice again.

"Peach! Where are you?" Mario cried.

"Mario…" said her voice again, though it sounded different. Deeper.

"Peach?"

At this moment, Mario was starting to run across the desolate landscape, not knowing which way he was supposed to go. He was too frightened to think of anything else. Then, he heard a sinister and evil laughter echoing around him.

"Mario." said the now changed voice. Peach's sweet tone had disappeared and was replaced by a dark and masculine tone.

"Who are you?" Mario called out.

"I'm Peach, of course!" said the dark voice.

"No, you're not!" Mario said in a horrified voice.

The evil laughter returned as the landscape started to glow under the new night. The moon was now completely covering the sun and two glowing, evil red eyes suddenly opened and stared down at the scared Mario.

"Time's ticking, Mario." said the deep voice from above in a taunting tone. The giant face now sported an evil, white grin with horrible-looking teeth. It was Bowser.

"Don't hurt Peach!" Mario cried. "Whatever you do, don't hurt her!"

"There's nothing you can do!" Bowser said, as his face disappeared. Mario watched in horror as the ground below him suddenly disappeared into a deep, dark abyss. He was now falling to his death; all he could do now was scream and hope that he would somehow live.


As Mario continued tossing and turning in his sleep, so did Luigi; he was also starting to have what he thought would be normal dream…


Luigi found himself inside an old, haunted mansion; it was the same one that he had once explored as a younger teenager and came close to losing his very life in.

"Here we go again." Luigi thought to himself, knowing that he had dreams like this often. He turned around and walked towards the foyer of the old house and made his way to the dark stairway for the hundredth time. Luigi did not know exactly how many times this happened, for he had since stopped counting. At the top of the stairs, he saw an old mirror which he never saw before.

"What's this doing here?" Luigi asked himself. He looked in the mirror and saw Daisy in the mirror next to him.

"Daisy?" said Luigi. He looked next to him, but no one was there.

"Luigi!" she cried. "Help me get out of this mirror!"

"How did you get in?" said Luigi.

"You're wasting time!" Daisy said. "I can't explain! Just get me out of here!"

Luigi ran towards the mirror and fell through, landing himself into a mysterious black room. Daisy was nowhere to be seen and the portal to the foyer had disappeared, leaving Luigi trapped inside the pitch-black area. He started to shake with fear, more than he had ever done in his entire life.

"Luigi…" Daisy's voice said. "Luigi…"

Luigi quickly turned around to see where her voice was coming from. He then saw a very dark tunnel that did not exist before. Suddenly, Luigi was swarmed by a group of Boo ghosts that tortured him with their sinister laughter. He screamed and started running down the dark tunnel.

"Leave me alone!" Luigi cried as he struggled to run away. He looked back and saw that he had not moved an inch since entering the tunnel. The ghosts were quick to get him.

What the hell is wrong with this tunnel? Luigi thought as he tried to go farther. Although it seemed like he was getting closer to the end, he was not. Suddenly, a different kind of laughter was echoing through the tunnel and Luigi was startled to see two glowing red eyes at the end of the tunnel that were slowly getting closer. Even the ghosts were scared and flew away for cover.

"Time's ticking, Luigi." said a dark voice from the end of the tunnel, following by evil laughter. Luigi stared at the evil eyes and saw a white, evil-looking smile appear underneath. He screamed and tried running back the same he came from, but was unable to. The evil face started coming at Luigi faster and felt his chest moving out of control.

"There's nothing you can do!" said the evil voice again as the face came right up to Luigi. He was now too scared to scream as he watched the mouth open up wide, as if to eat him alive. The last thing he saw was Bowser's face as he was indeed eaten alive and finally surrounded by utter blackness.


Both brothers immediately awoke and sat up at the same time, breathing heavily with panicked looks on their faces. The moon was still halfway across the nighttime sky, signaling to the brothers that they had only fallen asleep for a few hours. They looked at each other.

"I just had the worst nightmare." Mario said.

"So did I." Luigi said, still shivering with terror.

Both brothers explained their dreams to each other and found that they both had terrible encounters with Bowser, which both surprised them as well as not surprise them. Nonetheless, they were still scared out of their skin.

"That's weird." Mario said, yawning.

"Yeah," Luigi said, "now I can't sleep at all."

"I feel the same way." Mario replied.

Suddenly, the two brothers heard rustling sounds in the bushes a little ways away. They also heard voices coming from the distance; Mario guessed there were about three different people that seemed to be headed in their general direction. The brothers were beginning to get scared all over again.

"D…did you hear that?" Luigi stuttered.

"Yes." Mario said. "I don't like the sound of it either!"

"We need to get away from here!" Luigi said. "It's not safe here!"

"We should try finding that old pipe," Mario said, "that way we can reach the first Crystal Star! Come on, Luigi. I think I know where to go."

The two brothers got up, took the extra fire flowers they harvested and put them inside the rucksack. Luigi carried the book and they both started running as fast as they could to get away from coming voices. They somehow knew that Lord Crump was out there, watching them and waiting to find the perfect opportunity to hunt them down and leave them for dead. But the brothers were more than determined to not let that happen…they were certain that if they kept moving, they would stay alive and avoid detection.