/A/N/: A warning— this chapter is extremely graphic. Please feel free to skip to the next chapter if extreme violence makes you uncomfortable.
Chapter Seven: Twilight
Bowser had a dream.
In the dream, he realized that all his problems had stemmed from thinking. He had been thinking far, far too much. The years before, when he hadn't thought, and he hurt others without any concern for their feelings, he was so much happier. When he was rude, and brutish, and others didn't like him, that had suited him just fine. He had only become depressed in the first place because he had developed some empathy for Princess Peach.
But now, he realized, she didn't deserve that empathy. How could she deny him, after he had loved her so much? Could she not feel his passion bursting forth? The only thing that made his life worth living was the flames of his soul. Had this all been a test? Had she been seeing if the flames were truly deserving, if Bowser could keep his determination to have her even after so many years of denial, and even getting herself married to the man that Bowser hated? Suddenly it all seemed so clear, and where it wasn't quite so clear, Bowser ignored the details. He was done thinking. It had only caused him pain.
Bowser returned to Peach's Castle in the middle of the night. He flew up with his clown copter and broke into Peach's room through the balcony. Right into her room he came, where the royal bed was, and… two lumps laid under the covers.
"Wake up, lovers!" Bowser roared. He grabbed the sheet from the bottom of the bed and ripped it away, revealing Peach and Mario in pajamas, sleeping side-by-side. "Time to switch things up!"
"Bowser?" Mario jumped out of bed, landing wobbily on his feet on the left side. He was clearly out of practice.
"Bowser!" Peach shrieked. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to take you, Peach." Bowser grinned, feeling a grotesque pleasure growing at the sight of the situation. "We're going far away, where no one will ever find us. We're going to live Peach, outside of this horrible little box we've created for ourselves, this societal prison."
Mario pointed a finger. "Bowser, you…"
"Shut up!" Bowser shrieked— not roared, shrieked. A roaring pillar of searing fire burst forth from his mouth, aimed straight at Mario.
"Mama mia!" Mario yelped, leaping out of the way just in time. He landed face-forward some ten feet away, while the left side of the bed where he had been resting was roasted.
Peach screamed and threw herself off to the right side of the room as the fireball exploded and the entire bed was engulfed in flame, catching quickly onto the various wall hangings coming down from the ceiling.
"Bowser…" Mario stood.
"SHUT UP!" Bowser rocketed forward and grabbed Mario by his neck. "You shitty stupid motherfucking plumber! The cause of my every misery. Bwa...hahahaha…"
He tightened his grip, squeezing the breath out of Mario's neck. The plumber gasped once and then helplessly opened and closed his mouth, desperately sucking air in that couldn't make it past his rapidly shrinking throat. Bowser grasped, tighter and tighter, ever so slowly, enjoying the horrific pain he was doling onto his old rival.
"This is how the world should be." Bowser whispered, drooling as he let his mind waver in the distorted pleasure and chaos of the situation. "The victor is the one who feels the most strongly. The one who most deserves their reward...is he who suffers the most. Now, suffer as I have…"
"Bowser!" Peach screamed.
Bowser turned around slowly, continuing to hold Mario by the neck. On the other side of the room, ensconced by flames, Peach stood, shaking in terror and—ever-so-slightly—crying.
"Don't worry, dear." Bowser grinned, his face quivering. "I'll be with you in a moment."
"Just let him go, Bowser." Peach whimpered. "Leave him and take me, take me wherever you want. I don't care what you do to me, just leave Mario alone."
Bowser stared at Peach, trying to comprehend her words for a moment. Then he sneered, shaking his head slowly. "You're so fucking stupid. You stupid fucking bitch. I can't believe I'm cursed to love you. And that you're cursed to be my rock. You stupid idiot. If I leave Mario alone he'll just come after us and defeat me again. And again. And again. And again…"
Bowser paused and looked down at the floor with a blank look on his face. Then he shifted his grasp on Mario so that he was holding the plumber by his legs. "Let me show you an example."
"Bowser, no…!" Peach cried.
"It's like this." Bowser tried to say as calmly as possible.
Holding Mario by the legs, he swung the plumber into the nearby wall, slamming his face into sheer cold stone. "He would come after us again," Smack! "And again," Smack! "And again," Crack.
"Bowser, please…" Peach sobbed.
"Not so fucking much anymore, are you?" Bowser held Mario up by his hair, looking straight into the little man's bleeding and mashed face. "I have a theory. You… Mario… you were sent by God to test me, weren't you? You were my test, to see if I could understand the true nature of the universe. The true nature being that if I am to suffer eternally, this existence is a broken existence and one that must be fixed. ...If you are the cause of my eternal suffering, that makes you evil, doesn't it? I finally understand that now. You're no hero. I was never the bad guy, and you were never the good guy. We were just...guys… And now, you're the dead guy."
"Bowser…!" Peach ran forward.
In two swift motions Bowser positioned Mario's body and then slammed the human's back directly down onto Bowser's rising knee, the collision producing the most wretched cracking sound imaginable.
Peach stopped in her tracks. "No…"
"Yes." Bowser returned, and tossed Mario's carcass onto the flame-consumed bed. With a WHOOSH his form had disappeared into the inferno.
"Let's celebrate, princess." Bowser stepped forward, not even aware of the blood that was now sprayed across his face. "Why don't we make love? Right now, right here."
"You sick fuck!" Peach suddenly shrieked, then covered her mouth. "Get away from me."
"I want you so badly, princess." Bowser said. "You don't know… I have to have you right now."
All around them now the room was on fire. The door behind Peach was completely matted in flames, and the only other way out seemed to be the balcony out into thin air. Peach glanced behind Bowser desperately and back to Bowser's face… back and forth, back and forth, shaking with awful horror. Then her expression straightened and her eyes lost all of their light.
"I'll never let you 'have' me, you monster. Walk alone forever, you beast."
Then before Bowser could do anything, Peach threw herself onto the flaming bed. With a piercing scream and scorching blast of heat, she too was gone. Not a sign remained of the couple that had just been sleeping there moments before.
Bowser stood in wretched shock as the room crumpled all around him.
Then he laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
He walked through the flaming door, through the empty halls, down down down down down to a small room where a small pile of objects were awaiting him.
Bowser continued to laugh as he picked up the hammer and the nails and proceeded to pound nail after nail into different places all over his face. His vision was awash with blood, and then his perspective switched to the third person— watching from above as jammed the nails into his eyeballs.
He was still laughing as he reached up to the top of his hair, found the edge of his scalp, and began to tear downwards. His face and eyeballs ripped away from the nails, leaving small strips of flesh here and there and a gory laughing form, still cackling eternal.
Now he hammered nails into his ears, piercing his eardrums and creating a pouring waterfall of blood out of both orifices, but he could still hear his laughter. So he grabbed his jaw, and with a sharp twist and strong wrenching ripped the bone out, pulling out a chunk of gore and creating an even greater flow of blood to come pouring out of his gaping mouth.
Finally, he felt alright.
