Author's Note: Apologies for not updating this small fanfiction of mine. Real Life has kept me pretty busy. Also, fixed the first chapter to include the copyright information.
Chapter 3: Nightmare A La Luigi
It was night...well, as close to night as one could get upon Smash Sentry.
Luigi was worn down from the day after helping build up the new Smash Manor. He didn't mind working on the new sewer and plumbing system as it kept him occupied and doing something that he and his brother, Mario, would do whenever there isn't a Koopa invasion or trouble with a neighboring kingdom of beans. Still, he hoped that these plumbing pipes would guarantee that Pirahna Plants wouldn't spout out and start attempting to devour the next resident who goes to the restroom or the kitchens and such.
'Sigh', though Luigi as he started washing up from the day of hard work. 'Though I wish Mario would have helped me weld the pipes instead of having to go help the Princess...sigh' thought Luigi, somewhat depressed, 'It can't be helped, I guess' he mused silently in his quarters, as he put on his green and white pajamas, placing a pajama night cap in the spot where his green hat would have been. 'The Princess does have a special place in his heart...but I wish I had some sort of help...sigh...'
Luigi grimaced as he held his troubled stomach. 'Urgh...I guess I shouldn't have had that dinner...I do love spaghetti with mushrooms like the next plumber and all...but those mushrooms tasted...strange...'
Feeling somewhat odd and slightly dejected at having had worked on the piping alone for a while, Luigi dimmed the lights and climbed into his bed, slowly reflecting on what has happened that day as he fell softly into sleep.
Tap tap...tap tap...was the sound Luigi heard coming from the door just as he was about to fall into sleep. He peeked open his eyes, wondering what it was that was making the sound. After a silent moment, he decided it was nothing and closed his eyes.
Tap tap...tap tap...came the sound again. Slightly irritated, Luigi opened his eyes again and looked at the door. 'Who wants me in this time of the hour', thought Luigi in an irritated manner. He looked at the door, wondering if there was a way to look out of the door to see who it was that was disturbing his slumber. Thinking of what to say to the person who was tapping at his door, he got out of his bed, wore his Sarasa Land slippers and started trudging to the door to see who it was that was tapping on the door.
Then, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck creep up. He shivered and felt queasy, wondering if it was the mushrooms that were doing the job. But then he realized that there was something about the door or what lay beyond it...a feeling of malice seemed to emanate from the door, as if it wanted to drag the plumber deep into it for the sole purpose of twisting him and watching him scream in agony. Luigi stood his ground, quivering in fear at what lay beyond the door. Then he felt it. It was like an imperceptible feeling of someone grabbing hold onto his very being and dragging him closer and closer to the door despite all the resistance he mustered.
Knock knock...knock knock...the sound came louder from the door, less insistent on whether there was a residence, desiring that the person come to the door. A cold sweat broke out on Luigi, his breath coming shorter and faster than before. Never in his life has he felt like this even before facing ghosts, armed with only the Poltergust 3000. Noting that his throat was dry, Luigi swallowed, and in a quiet voice asked, "Wh-who's there?"
A small squelching and scratching was the response before...
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! The sound grew into an unholy terror, showing its rage at the occupant of the room, insistent that it will come into the room and rip the occupant to shreds...the force of the sound was such that the door gave way, each sound producing a terrifying dent into the door. Not being able to bear watching or listening to the freak spectacle, Luigi shut his eyes tight and clapped his hands over his ears, only to be greeted with the rapid thumping of his heart and a stifled scream that grew within the very core of his being as the terror started to bore down into his mind. He then felt a rushing wind blow past him and into the door, growing ever stronger until he felt himself lifted up and thrown head-long, into the doorway.
"WwwwwaaaAAAAaaaaaAAAaaaaHHHHhhhhHHH!" Luigi screamed, eyes closed shut.
As Luigi soared past the door, he heard the door seemingly slam shut behind him as abruptly as it had been bashed open before. A moment later, Luigi felt himself hit the floor of the Smash Sentry with a squelch. Rising up, in terror of what it could be that he landed, he opened his eyes to see that the floor looked like any other floor on the Smash Sentry. But upon observing closer, he saw that the floor pulsated and quivered, a regular tempo roiling through the floor as if an invisible heart pulsated through the entire station. A miniature squeeling noise seemed to come in intervals, as if the floor was excreting something. A wet damp humid oder seemed to swarm all over Luigi, making him feel sick in the stomach. Luigi tried to steady himself by leaning on the walls, only to feel the same sickening squelching feeling of the ground. Repulsed, Luigi quickly pushed himself off of the wall, making sure to make the least amount of contact with the freakish environment that he was in.
After taking in a few shaky breaths, Luigi looked around the hallway of the Smash Sentry and found, to his dismay, that the pulsating walls and floors had a sick faint greenish glow about them, an unearthly pale sort of green that Luigi found in the moldy containers of week old spaghetti left in the dark corner of a refrigerator. As Luigi fearfully wondered what to do next, he felt th backs of his hair stand almost involuntarily. He had a feeling that if he were to turn around, he would see someone or something staring at him, almost as if the eyes were boring into his very being. As he stood very still, uncertain of what to do next, he heard, as if in the distance, a labored breathing, wet, forced. To his horror, the breathing seemed to be coming closer, almost creeping behind him. Without even wondering what is at his back, Luigi, in terror, burst into a run.
Though Luigi ran as fast as he could, he felt as if he was making no progress at all. It was like in one of those dreams where one ends up running as fast as they could only to find out to their horror that they haven't moved at all. Worse still was the feeling that Luigi had as if he was going through molasses, struggling fiercely, futilely, against the force that held him back. Frightened, angered, Luigi looked down upon his legs to see what was going on when he realized to his horror that a pitch darkness seemed to slowly open up beneath him, creeping up to his waist. Just as Luigi was about to scream, he felt wet, slimy, tendrils whip quickly over his mouth and around his body, just as pitch black as the darkness itself. Not being able to take much more, Luigi fainted.
Slowly, Luigi felt himself conscious and awake, but with his eyes blindfolded by a tendril of darkness. He tried to get up, only to realize that he is tied down upon a stone table of some sort. Struggling against his bindings made Luigi realize that it was futile to force himself out. Not knowing what else to do, he listened.
Luigi didn't need to strain his ears to hear that there was a low murmur, a chanting in a guttural tongue that he didn't recognize, save for the fact that it repeated a phrase that he couldn't exactly make out. The sound was such that the place Luigi was in seemed to reverberate with force from the chanting even though the voices themselves were soft. The voices seemed to reach out around him, wrapping him with the words, as if they were embalming him for a ceremony. Luigi shuddered, wondering what they were chanting about. As he lay down on the place he was tied, Luigi wondered, amid the chanting, whether or not his friends would rescue him if they find out that he is gone. He wondered if Mario would help him out and rescue him from this place. Then, almost as if out of his control, a feeling of anger and frustration seemed to erupt silently from Luigi as he thought about his brother, of how his brother tends to get so much of the credit, of how his brother is so much more popular than he was, of how he, the younger, had to live in the short shadow of the older, of how he hasn't helped him or is not likely to help him in his trouble. How Luigi wanted to teach his brother a....
'What am I thinking!?' Luigi thought in surprise, 'How could I have been so resentful of him after all these years?' But these thoughts of clarity became obscured as the incense of revenge clouded Luigi's mind.
As Luigi was fuming over his brother, Luigi felt a change in the air. He heard the chanting grow softer and softer until it seemed to peter out and presently, he felt, to his dismay, that they have something in store for him.
The blindfold came off in a wet, rolling fashion that made Luigi shudder in disgust. His disgust was replaced with surprise, and then a quaking horror as he saw singular eyes in the darkness staring down at him, red with malice and anger. Averting his eyes away from the eyes that watched him in the dark, he looked in front only to be confronted with something else. In front of him was the faint glow of what seemed to be a massive large white object, with a dull red eye. Two large white wings and a dim halo seemed to surround the massive white object. The object, hung by tendrils of darkness, seemed to be inert, almost dead, as if it suffered a fatal blow from a bygone battle. Though it seemed to be dead, Luigi nearly screamed when he thought that the dull red eye of the white object seemed to shift to stare at him, a feeble malice borne from an ancient hatred that still seemed to burn in the white object.
Luigi started to struggle even harder at the tendrils that bound him, but to no avail. Looking around, he espied what seemed to be rocks with inscriptions on them, placed around the stone table. Without asking any other questions, Luigi reached for one that seemed to be carelessly placed close to his hand, and with a bit of effort, Luigi was able to grab it. Noting that it had a sharp edge to it, he tried to cut the bindings, but to no avail. As he continued his struggle, he felt a voice boom and echo into his mind. The force of the voice was enough that it stopped Luigi, startling him and diverting his attention away from his struggle.
"CEASE YOUR STRUGGLES, GREEN ONE!" boomed the mental voice in Luigi's mind.
Luigi then realized that something was descending above him. A soft moan of fright escaped his mouth when he realized it was some sort of darkness incarnate, with reddish petals surrounding its back and an angry red eye in the center. Before Luigi, the thing started to morph into a cloaked being with ancient symbols inscribed at the hems of the clothing. A scabbard stuck out from under the cloak, with the hilt protruding out of the cloak in front. The head of the being also formed, looking ancient, wrinkled, but the thing that terrified Luigi was that in place of eyes was a dark emptiness within the eye sockets, staring out at Luigi.
"M-m-mmmama mia!" muttered Luigi. Mustering up what little courage he had, Luigi asked, "W-who are y-you and what do you want?"
The cloaked figure replied with a mental sneer, "Who we are is of no concern to you, pathetic fool, for we shall reveal ourselves in due time. We, however, know who you are, One who is called Luigi. We know of your fears and of your desires. We know of the pains and pleasures that you have had. We see you when you are awake. We watch you in your sleep. We have been waiting for you..." the figure seemed to trail.
"W-wwhat for?" Luigi asked, terrified.
The cloaked figure said nothing for a moment, then slowly floated towards Luigi, its eye sockets seeming to give a sick twisted savage grin at the terrified plumber.
"This." and with a swift motion, the cloaked figure pulled out a knife with a black blade and stabbed Luigi into his heart. Luigi gasped as he felt something plunge into his heart, fearing, knowing, that he is going to be dead soon, wondering why they wanted to kill him in the first place. The pain and the agony was enough for Luigi to grip to scream, his cries echoing in the room that he was trapped in.
The cloaked figure twisted the blade and pulled it out savagely, as if with pleasure of having stabbed a living thing it detested. The black blade seemed to have a fragment, the tip of it, missing from it for a moment, before the blade regenerated again to form an unbroken knife. Without bothering to wipe the knife, the cloaked figure tucked it back into the fold of his cloak, whilst watching Luigi.
Luigi didn't know whether or not to look down, fearing that he would see himself bleed. He found out, to his surprise that there was no visible stab or a wound at all. Yet while he was wondering about this, he felt something worm around in his heart, almost with imperceptible motion, as if to settle itself into the core of his being.
"Wh-what have you done?" Luigi asked with breaths of surprise of being still alive.
Luigi saw the cloaked figure pull out an ornate mirror with symbols and pictures of hideous chimeras surrounding the mirror. The cloaked figure took a moment to polish the darkness off of the mirror before he pulled the mirror up to Luigi's level. What greeted Luigi's eyes was almost too much to bear. It was a face like his face, but it seemed to lack a mouth. Its eyes seemed to be lidless as it was staring away to the right of the mirror, with soulless eyes that seemed to peer deep into a person's very core of being. His skin was a pale white, like that of a sickly underbelly of a toad. His hat had a flipped "L" that faced to the left instead of the right. Then he saw that the reflection shifted its eyes towards him, as if to cut into the center of his being. Not being able to break away from the merciless gaze of the hideous being, Luigi screamed out loud, "Who is this! This is not me!?"
The cloaked figure chuckled, not letting the mirror go escape Luigi's face. "He is you. The One That Stares." With that, the cloaked figure laughed maniacally, fiercely.
Slowly, Luigi's heart started to pound, even harder and harder. The sound of the pounding seemed to wash up over Luigi's ears and engulfed him as he screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and...
Luigi woke up, yelling, rising out of his bed, his bed drenched in cold sweat. Looking around, he realized that he was on the Sentry. The darkness of his quarters was only muted by the dim glow of the lights from the hallway underneath the intact door. The clock next to his bed stated that it was still night and that Luigi has slept for only four hours. Noting that there was nothing amiss, Luigi sighed. "It was all just a nightmare..." Luigi relaxed, then grimaced at the memory of his meal before. "I'm never going to have those mushrooms again...ugh..."
Shaking, but still relieved, Luigi went to the restroom and turned on the light. He looked into the mirror only to be greeted by his own goofy face, with frazzled bed hair missing a night cap. He sighed a sigh of relief. He took time to wash his face when he heard a small thump near his bed. Instinctively, Luigi turned around, thinking that he might be attacked, only to see that there was nothing behind him. Curious, but cautious, Luigi walked slowly towards the foot of his bed to see what it was that fell down. Not being able to see what it was, he crouched down to pick it up.
He found that the thing he picked up was a rock with a symbol and a sharp edge to it.
Luigi then felt someone or something stare at his back as the hairs of his back crept up. He turned around to see that it was a distorted replica of him, of the one who stared back in the mirror. While staring in horror at The One Who Stares, Luigi heard a distant voice cry out something that sounded like "wigi, wigi, wigi"
With that, Luigi screamed and screamed and...
"Luigi!"
Luigi woke up to see his brother, Mario, at the door.
"Come on, brother!" said Mario cheerfully, "We have a new day of work to do at the new Smash Manor!" and with that Mario closed the door to Luigi's quarter.
Luigi dressed up shakily, wondering if the whole thing was a dream or if the whole thing was real, whether that thing...The One Who Stares or something, was now with him forever...as he joined his brother at the Transporter Room, Luigi breathed a sigh of relief.
"Whatsamatter?" inquired Mario.
"Oh, it-ta wasa nothing..." replied Luigi.
"Well, I hope that you're hungry after today's work." smiled Mario as they got onto the teleportation pads.
"Why's that?" inquired Luigi as he positioned himself on the teleportation pad.
"Because it's your favorite! Spaghetti with Mushrooms!" said Mario, happily.
The only thing that Mario received upon sharing the news was a look of horror upon Luigi's face before the bright flash of light took them away to the surface of Terra.
Back in Luigi's room, upon the foot of the bed, there lay a rock with a symbol and a sharp edge...