::Chapter 3::
He was suffocating, drowning, some unknown power was holding him down while his brother was led away to his final fate. And he could do nothing to help, nothing at all…
Just before he gave up, gave way to death and gave up his last breath, he saw his brother standing over him impassively.
And he just stared.
Luigi jolted in his sleep, awaking. He was immersed in total darkness and thought he was still dreaming until he heard a tiny sigh from close by. He felt the mass of old sheets beneath him, felt the cracked, splintered wooden floor.
He was back in the mushroom's shelter. How did they find him? Why would they take him back? It must have been that little girl…he ran a hand over his face, drawing in a nervous breath.
His thoughts were drawn back to his dream, and he had to think for a moment and convince himself that it was a dream; that it never happened. He would have remembered something like that. The last time he saw his brother he was dragged out of his cell, being taken to goodness knows where else. For six years they had languished in prison together, and then all of a sudden, they weren't together anymore, they weren't brothers anymore. They were nothing. Now it was just Luigi…unless Mario wasn't dead.
He resented the thought again. The nightmare itself reported that he was dead, waiting three years to break the news, tossing a small piece of jewelry at him, along with a blood stained shirt. Luigi fingered his pocket, clenching something tightly, shutting his eyes.
His brother was dead. There was no way he could be alive.
Their crimson and emerald hats had been burned on the day of their capture, a morbid symbol of what had taken place, and what was to come. Their hats, recognized by everyone, defined them; it was like a trademark.
Yet there was something the masses did not know about the Marios. Their mother had given them matching necklaces when Luigi was born; a long, silver chain with a small, golden charm in the shape of a star. Mama said she wished on those stars every night for children, and in them her prayers were answered. As they grew older, the necklaces became more special and they started to wear them, the childish chagrin against boys donning jewelry a thing of the past.
These were the necklaces he clenched in his hand. He opened his eyes, gazing at the ceiling until he gave up his denial and gave up his hurt and his hopelessness. Yes, he had a brother. He needed to find him. Deep down in his soul, something was hinting that he wasn't dead, nudging him like a pet that won't be ignored. He placed his necklace over his head and closed his eyes…not as a nameless man on the run, but as Luigi.
And he had a plan.
Morning finally came…the little mushroom had trouble sleeping that night. Doubt had begun to fill her. Perhaps he wasn't Luigi. His features were different, his demeanor, everything about him had changed. She couldn't blame him, though. Languishing in prison and enslavement for thirteen years would have changed her, too.
After she battled with herself about the man's identity, she tried to focus on what the old Luigi was like. She was just a child when her father told her the stories. The beginning of the nightmare. Of how the dreaded King Bowser Koopa had invaded the land with full force, captured the Princess and the Mario Brothers, and completely laid waste to the Mushroom Kingdom and all its resources. He even went to the other six lands and murdered each king, each heir to the throne. It was a fearsome thing to behold, she heard, not even fit to be called a battle. The mushroom folk were clearly outnumbered. Her father told her how her mother had died when she was born, but it was for the better, because life in the new Mushroom Kingdom was too horrid for anyone to live with. The little girl wouldn't have known this; this life was all she knew.
She found the stories to be fascinating somehow, through all the pain and sadness her people had to endure. She had never let her father know; it would have broken his heart to hear how his daughter thought their situation was a game, a fairy tale. Then she would feel guilty at her thoughts, and ask him for a better story.
He would hold her in his lap, and she'd watch him smile ruefully as his memories surfaced. Two plumbers from a dimension they called Brooklyn got zapped into the Mushroom Kingdom, and one way or another they succeeded in rescuing Princess Peach Toadstool from King Koopa. They always succeeded, eventually making themselves known as the "super" Mario Brothers.
Mario was the eldest, she was told, and often wore his red overalls he used to work in back in Brooklyn. Luigi was his younger brother, and also wore his green overalls. Or was it blue overalls and a green shirt? She couldn't remember…but she knew they both had blue eyes, dark brown hair and mustaches, although Mario's was thicker. Mario himself was thicker than Luigi, but not enough to be thought of as fat. Her father told her that, although both of them were quite nice, Mario was a bit more on the serious side; whenever he was angry he would get real quiet. If he ever came face to face with Bowser, he would glare in the most hateful of ways. He also had more tact than his younger brother; when Luigi got mad he would show it through actions and words. Wordy, that was how her father described him. He was still a young man when he came to the Mushroom Kingdom and still had some growing up to do. He was more of a clown than Mario, and his brother constantly reminded him to behave with elbow nudges and such. The Princess usually found that endearing…the Princess. She had heard so much about her…she was so lovely; long golden hair, soft blue eyes, just like Mario's. It was also rumored that the Princess and the older plumber had a short romance, but nobody knew for sure. No one would ever know, now.
Knowing what Luigi was like before it all happened and seeing him now made her sad. She sighed and sat up, pulling aside a rock and letting the dull light of morning flood her corner. She stood and stretched, her neck in a knot from her uncomfortable bed. She was surprised she was not adjusted to it yet since she had lived with it from the day she was born.
She crept around her comrades so as not to wake them and peeked around the corner into the adjacent room where the man she believed to be Luigi slept. Her eyes grew wide at the sight.
He was gone.
Fear immediately clenched her, making her cold. Maybe they found him and dragged him off again…and maybe there were more soldiers, waiting for the perfect time to take her and her friends too. They had been lucky enough to avoid captivity for all those years, but it was only a matter of time before they were found.
She looked around the room in terror, whimpering in spite of herself. When she had searched the area and found no one in sight, she sighed in relief and hopelessness. They were safe…for now. But where was Luigi? He had left without saying a word of thanks to her for saving his life a second time. Angry, hurt and despairing, she lay down on his pitiful bed and silently cried.
There would be no hope, now.
He shivered in the early cool of the morning, the air blue and thick around him. The sun had not yet risen, and he knew he would not be caught at this hour. He rubbed his bare arms and started off in an absent direction, not exactly sure where he was headed, but knowing his goal.
Luigi had left when he knew he would never get back to sleep. After he had toyed with the necklaces for so long he thought they would burn through his hands. Silently he had left, finding the small door that he had to crawl through to get outside. The house was nearly invisible on one side and half buried on the other, and he was surprised the roof had survived the initial attack. The top half of the door was their only exit and entrance, and he wondered how, at the mushroom's height, they carried him inside. Jack was right, though. It would be hard to tell anyone lived there.
He glowered in the darkness, remembering the trembling Jack and his stutter. Thirteen years…thirteen years was too long. Too long he and the mushroom people had been tortured. Too long they had gone without water, without food, starving to the point of walking skeletons. Too long had the Kingdom gone without a Princess, a kind and just ruler who would not suck the surrounding worlds of their resources. Too long this had been ignored. Thirteen years was just too long.
He had to find a warp pipe; he had to find help. He wanted to find Mario, but he didn't know where to start. The idea of setting foot back into the nightmare made his heart skip into his throat. He didn't even know for certain if his brother was alive. All he knew was that somebody had to stop this madness before an entire world was further tormented or annihilated by cruelty and ignorance. Deep down he knew he could not do it alone.
I stopped struggling against the shackles and chains that held me upright; my feet hardly even touched the ground. My hands were tingling from falling asleep, and I waited nervously for something to happen, waiting for someone to kill me. I was surprised no one had done this already since we were captured a week ago. I jumped and looked up after a bloodcurdling scream and my eyes grew wide. "Daisy!" "Luigi!" She broke free from the Troopas holding her and ran to me, throwing her arms around my neck, and I leaned my head against her face, unable to embrace her but wishing I could. "Luigi…" "It's going to be okay, Daisy." She was hysterical. "No, no, Luigi they took everything, they killed everyone! Sarasaland is a ruin! He's gone crazy, what's going on?" "I don't know," I said hurriedly, trying to sound reassuring. "But it's going to be okay." I couldn't stand looking at her terrified, tear stained face any longer, so innocent, all she wanted was the truth, I couldn't bear it. Bowser must have read my mind because that wretched Koopa King himself appeared and grabbed Daisy's wrists, dragging her away from me. "No!" she screamed, reaching out for me desperately. "Let her go, Koopa! What did she do to you?" I was shouting, struggling again, dancing on my tiptoes to try and vainly move forward. "She lived." His succinct answer brought a shiver to my spine. "Luigi!" I watched in horror, like this was all a movie, not real, it couldn't be real, as Daisy's hands were chained above her head too, across from me, and she wouldn't stop screaming for me, and I wanted her to stop, because there was nothing I could do, nothing I could do. I started yelling at Bowser again, more panicked this time, calling him names, no stop don't do this let her go, and the whole chamber was a cacophony of shouts and pleas. It all happened so fast, I wasn't even sure if I had actually seen Bowser holding Daisy's head back by her hair and draw the knife across her throat. My next shout was stifled and choked somewhere in my throat, meeting my heart halfway, and I watched, painfully, as Daisy tilted her head forward slowly, the red running swiftly down her neck and chest and staining her yellow dress, some red came out of her mouth too, a small gasp jerked her body and then she stopped moving. I cried out "No!" long and loud, then struggled some more, because there was nothing I could do, nothing I could do. A growl of anger and fear escaped me and suddenly I sounded just like Bowser, and I felt sick to my stomach. With one last try I gave up, my head falling forward too, just like Daisy's. Just like Daisy I was dead, and everything was hopeless. I wept bitterly, narrowing my eyes at Bowser's approaching footsteps. I started pulling the chains again, ignoring the bruises forming on my wrists.
"You bastard!" I shouted through sobs. "You bastard!" Then a hand clamped down on my chin, pressing skin into teeth. Bowser only held my face and stared at me impassively, his expression containing so many messages that I didn't bother trying to decipher them all. "Why would she love you?" he finally sneered. He reached up with his free hand and something opened with a click, and my chains fell to the ground. I freed my shackles from the chain and my hands still dragged low because of the heavy metal. And I ran to Daisy. I kept calling her name, loudly then softly as I unhooked her from her chains and lowered her slowly to the floor. Carelessly I tore off one sleeve of my shirt and gently placed it on the ugly bleeding cut across her once perfect neck. Her blank brown eyes stared at the ceiling with great interest, unblinking. I told her what I said before, that it was going to be okay, and I loved her so much, and it was going to be all right. It sounded lame then and it sounded lame now; she was dead, she couldn't hear me anymore, it would never be all right. My voice rose in spite of myself from quiet to loud again, still calling her name. No, no, Daisy…why did she have to die? Mario heard his brother's agonized scream floors away in his prison cell, and a silent tear rolled down his face.
Luigi stared into the endless pit of the pipe. He had believed at one point that this path led to Brooklyn, back to the sewers and streets of his home that seemed so distant now. Now he felt unsure of himself, uneasy and sick to his stomach. This pipe didn't look familiar, but it had been years since he walked these lands, this now dry ground. What if it led back to the nightmare? He didn't have time to fight with himself; the ugly yellow morning was drawing closer.
His hands trembled around the cold steel, and he forced himself to stop staring into the black hole before him. His eyes looked at the sand, and saw a tiny dead snake peeking out of the ground. Curious, he knelt down and tugged on it, and found it was not a snake, but a string. The string caught something, and he pulled harder. It snapped in half and he stared at it. He would probably snap too, if he weren't careful. Still wondering, he stuck his hands in the sand, digging, scooping away the dirt urgently, his heart beating faster for a reason he didn't know of.
His hands touched something hard yet supple, and a dark oval edge greeted him. He cleared away the sand around it until the edge met with a soft surface, and the object began to take shape.
Just an old shoe.
He picked it up and turned it upside down, dumping out the sand, and a wind picked it up and stung his eyes. He blinked it away and examined the shoe. It was leather, worn down to the texture of cotton, and the rubber sole flapped if he shook it. It was most curious to him, because the mushroom people did not wear shoes this size. Turning it around, his heart suddenly stopped and he froze, staring at the sole, worn away to practically nothing.
Four lines were scratched into the rubber, taking the shape of a letter in the alphabet. He had to stare at the symbol in order to remember it stood for M. M stood for Mario.
He dropped the shoe, hands shaking, and he stood up and stared back into the pipe. Proof his brother had used this pipe was proof enough it led to New York, and proof enough that his brother was alive. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he closed his eyes and plunged into the darkness below.