CHAPTER
FOURTEEN: REPETITION
The
following morning was a gloomy one. The loss of Princess Peach and
the ominous knowledge of their inevitable demise at the hands of
starvation were dark clouds that loomed over the remaining guests at
all times. Yoshi, seeking privacy, went down some creaking stairs and
sat on a crate, head in his hands. Suddenly, Peach's calming voice
echoed in his head.
"Chin
up, Yoshi," Peach seemed to say. "Don't give up hope just
because things look bleak. The future is bright!"
Reminded
that one of his closest companions was now gone, Yoshi became even
sadder, but decided to follow her advice. He sat up straight and
started to stand up when he felt something jutting out of the wall
behind him jab his back. He looked; it was a doorknob. The crate he
sat on was in front of a chipped wooden door. Heaving the crate
aside, he turned the knob and opened the door to reveal a pitch black
room. It might have been a solid wall painted black and he wouldn't
have been able to tell, but he disregarded the danger and remembered
to be optimistic. Keeping the door open for what little light it
poured into the dark room, he immediately tripped and tumbled down a
few extra stairs. He lifted himself off the cold stone floor, but
paused for a moment – he felt something unusual on the floor. He
felt around. There it was: something fleshy – he moved his hand
forward – a hard surface, like some sort of shell.
Yoshi screamed.
An
obscured silhouette stood in the door frame. Yoshi strained his eyes
to see who it was; then he came to his senses. The killer.
He
made a run for the door, but it was too late – the silhouette
slammed it shut and slid the heavy crate back into place. Yoshi was
trapped to suffer the same fate as Bowser Junior. More depressed than
ever, he flopped onto the floor next to Junior.
"OUCH!"
He had landed on something sharp – he picked it up to find that it
was a pointed rock. Maybe
I could use this for something, he
thought. Then it hit him. He groped around the entire floor,
searching for a flat rock. Nothing. He searched Junior's form, and
there it was, resting in his hand. Junior had already started:
HEL
He quickly began to carve the last letter onto the rock. Once he formed the word 'help', he would slide the rock under the door and pray for someone to find it and rescue him. There was only one flaw: if the killer found the note first, he would surely get rid of it so nobody would know of Yoshi's location. Maybe I'll get lucky, he thought. He carved furiously. The sooner, the better.
Yoshi didn't know how much time had past, but he guessed that it had been several hours since he had gotten trapped in the cellar as he admired his completed carving. He could not see it, but by feeling the engraving, he could tell that he had made a fairly distinguishable 'P'. He blindly made his way to the door and slid the rock under. Peering through the crack to see if it was in plain sight, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
An eye was staring right back at him.
A chuckle from the other side of the door, followed by the person grabbing the rock and concealing it inside their fist, sealed Yoshi's fate. He was doomed. Junior had died in this cellar, and so would he. Junior had failed to find an escape, and so would he.
