Chapter Three: Hellfire

Despite his best efforts to not think of Peach over the weeks following the disaster, the agony of her rejecting form still haunted Bowser's dreams. It seemed that life really was pointless now, and the urge to die was growing stronger than ever before.

Ruling his kingdom no longer interested him, and in all honesty, it was hardly even his kingdom anymore. It had come to his realization some months after the signing of the peace treaty that several toad lords and Mario himself had worked to sneak in several rulings within the treaty- rulings that would grant the Mushroom Kingdom significant means of power over the Koopa Kingdom. They had predicted that Bowser would be too stupid to read the treaty closely, and clearly, they had been correct.

So, when the Mushroom Kingdom's political forums began to make overt moves to obtain the Koopa Kingdom as an annexed state, Bowser did nothing. He even specifically ordered Kamek, back in Koopa Castle, to do nothing, and he ordered the Koopalings to do nothing as well.

And just like his depression, his home country crumbled in wave after wave of reactionless action. Bowser was too tired to fight back, and worse yet, simply did not care.

"You're being selfish, you know." Kamek had chattered at him. They had been in a cafe, sitting in a secluded corner where as few toad eyes as possible could stare at them.

Bowser swallowed another cup of coffee. "Waitress." He said weakly. "Three more, please." The drinks gave him a small boost of energy that just barely made him feel like he was alive.

"Are you listening?" Kamek asked in an irritated tone of voice. "It's time to get over Peach. Please, your majesty. We can still recover the castle."

"I don't care." Bowser grumbled.

"We've lost the land of our people!" Kamek scowled. "Soon there'll be toads and all manners of who-knows-what living in our lands, taking Koopa Castle…"

"It's just like how our citizens moved to the Mushroom Kingdom." Bowser shrugged. "It all just… everyone's just trying to survive. You know what I'm saying? What's the point of being...of hating people…? Hating anyone at all?"

Kamek blinked at Bowser, not understanding in the slightest.

"Oh God, what am I doing?" Bowser groaned, slamming his face firmly down onto the top of the coffee table. The coffee cups clattered and spun, but miraculously, not one fell or spilled.

"Your majesty…" Kamek began.

"Don't call me that. I'm nothing anymore."

"Your liege," Kamek insisted, "I think the answer here is obvious. You need to start dating."

"What." Bowser moaned.

"You heard me!" Kamek crowed. "Try speed dating or something! I don't know! It's clear that Peach is out of the question now. You must move on. Really, you should try to settle down with a nice lady."

"Armmgfhphl." Bowser replied.

And so he did try. It was as awkward, terrible, and futile as the idea had sounded. Bowser had no interest in anyone who wasn't Peach, and almost no one had interest in him because he was a giant ugly koopa. Actually trying and failing made Bowser feel even more alone, and he began to lock himself in his rented Toad Town apartment room for days at a time, spending most of the seclusion watching the TV for news of Princess Peach.

That was when Kamek suddenly passed away from a heart attack. The old magikoopa had almost walked into the street as cars were driving by when a sudden honk from an oncoming truck stopped him. The koopa stepped back onto the sidewalk in time, but then immediately fell to his knees as his heart became unbearably tight. Transported at a leisurely speed by disinterested emergency toads, he was dead before he reached the local hospital.

"How could this have happened?!" Bowser roared, slamming his fist down on the hospital's front desk. For the first time in a year he felt anger coursing through him with incredible strength. "How…?" Outright, powerful grief, with no other way to present itself, was coming forth as furious rage.

There was a bureaucratic shift and Bowser gained a new chief advisor, an old crone that the king had worked with in the past: Kammy Koopa. Despite her age the weak-backed magikoopa was excited by all the new political changes taking place and didn't seem to mind the Koopa Kingdom's near-complete loss of power. She was a friendlier and mellower personality to talk with than Kamek, but she was also much less helpful and didn't actually seem to be able to advise Bowser on anything political. Bowser mostly kept her around so that he could speak to someone every once and awhile from the darkness of his apartment room, but largely let the magikoopa do what she wanted. He was quite aware that she was managing his kingdom behind his back. He thought of punishing her to cheer himself up, like he used to do to helpless subordinates in the past, but the thought no longer brought him pleasure, and worse yet, the idea that he had ever enjoyed punishing people twisted his stomach.

The days were growing darker. Fall was moving well through, and it would start snowing soon. Bowser wanted nothing to do with it. Just before he locked himself away for his own personalized hibernation, Kammy insisted that Bowser come along to a church in Toad Town.

Bowser's history with religion was complicated. He had never been particularly interested in it, and his memories of being forced to go as a child to various Koopa Kingdom services were memories of dreadful boredom, standing tiredly in the dim light of the early morning as a large crowd around him felt some kind of mystic energy that he didn't. After he finally convinced Kamek to stop making him go, he was struck by a certain guiltiness. Certain Koopa Kingdom religious leaders had demanded to know why the future king had stopped attending religious services, and the answer that he simply wasn't interested had not pleased them. The word began to be spread around that acting as he was, young prince Bowser was destined for Hell: eternal suffering in the realm of Eldstar's punishment for the evil and damned.

This was Bowser's first real indication that he was a bad person. It scarred him terribly, but he came to accept the role, for he just couldn't get himself to attend the church. The people there all hated him… and it all bored him to death… so why would he? And prayer did nothing for him. He prayed for years at night (even after he stopped attending church) to God, to Eldstar, who granted the wishes of the people of the world. But it seemed that Eldstar cared nothing for him. Bowser prayed to get friends, for prosperity for his nation, and simply to be happier. Nothing happened, and the pale silence he received in reply convinced him that he was already too evil for Eldstar's consideration. He had accidently become an enemy of god, and was already cursed to hellfire. It was enough to make him cry for several days.

All that before he was even thirteen. Kamek had always told him that he thought too much and felt what he thought too deeply. It seemed the wheels in his head were constantly spinning with dark conclusions, spurred by the search for the "answer"— a way to be happy. This eventually arrived in the form of Princess Peach, who Bowser was able to pursue for years, and thereby block out most of his dark thoughts.

Then, by the time the peace treaty was signed many years later, Bowser didn't care anymore about Eldstar. Whether the god existed or not, it had no place in Bowser's thoughts anymore. Spiritual despair was no longer the cause of his suffering.

Ultimately, the conclusions he walked away with after the Town Town church visit were not nearly as bad as when he was a child, but they stung in a new way: the sure conclusion that there was definitely no Eldstar. Again, Bowser had felt nothing sitting among the pews. Again, Bowser had watched as all the people around him had joined together in some celebration beyond his grasp. Thinking back on all Bowser had read, it seemed to clear to him that there was no Eldstar, and these people were participating in a mass delusion to escape the misery of their everyday lives. It was fortunate for them that they could stop themselves from thinking too hard about that which they had such faith for… No matter how much faith Bowser could try to grab, the crushing logic of the situation would simply pull his soul out of the house of god and leave him stranded in a dark sea of nihilism.

Oh, but it was certainly a more welcoming environment than before. But Bowser hadn't felt anything in common with those people. He felt like an extra puzzle piece in the world. He felt like neither toad, nor koopa, nor shy guy. He was nothing.

Three days after attending the church, Bowser locked himself in his apartment room. He left a note asking Kammy to bring him meals if she could, but he was not particularly concerned if she found the note. Laying on his bed, he tried to sleep and read the days away.