Chapter 26 Temporal Chaos
The ground continued to rumble while Morton and Iggy ran out of the lab. It shook so hard that it actually blurred Morton's vision, making it almost impossible for him to see. Whenever the shaking got really bad, he and Iggy would stop and hold onto something for support. The lights flickered up ahead as Morton clung to a side table. His breathing was getting trickier and trickier to maintain. He coughed, his lungs feeling like they would burst.
They ran again after the shaking subsided just enough. Morton followed Iggy as he barreled down the steps and took a right once he exited the hallway. Morton recognized the path that Iggy was taking him. They were headed to the dining hall.
The running did not stop. They passed through multiple doors, which vibrated like tuning forks when the rumbling got especially bad. When they finally got to the dining hall, both Iggy and Morton gawked at the sight. Or rather, lack thereof.
"Where is everybody?" Morton asked, his voice shaking due to the quaking.
Iggy looked between the empty dining table and his brother. His brow was furrowed, and his mouth hung open ever so slightly. "I...I don't know."
Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to Morton. What if everyone was dead? What if the quake had killed them? Oh, how could he be so stupid? He should have figured that using the time machine was a bad idea!
"There you are!"
Morton turned around. He saw Kamek standing in the doorway with a relieved expression on his face. He approached the two Koopalings, looking like he was just minutes away from embracing the two of them in a hug. He didn't, of course, but he looked that way.
"Morton! Iggy! We need to get out of the castle!"
"Okay," said Iggy just as one of the chairs to the dining table toppled over due to the quaking.
Morton exchanged a worried look with his brother before swallowing a lump (or at least attempting to) and turning toward the magikoopa. "Kamek, do you know what's going on?"
Kamek shook his head. "Not the slightest clue but…."
Suddenly, he stopped talking. Morton stared at him in concern for a little bit before Kamek's body started to look a little fuzzy. A pixel-like quality appeared in the air surrounding the magikoopa. The magikoopa himself appeared to be glitching as he stood in a frozen state.
Morton's heart leapt into his throat as he turned toward Iggy. "Iggy, what's happening?"
Suddenly, the glitching stopped. Kamek blinked his eyes out before turning towards Morton and Iggy again. "Morton! Iggy! We need to get out of the castle!"
Morton felt confusion and fear clutch onto him. "Kamek, you just said that."
"Pfft. Don't be silly. Now come with me before…"
Suddenly, the process repeated itself; the fuzzy quality surrounding Kamek's body, the pixel-like quality to the air, and the glitching. Once he was done, he blinked his eyes out again before turning to Morton and Iggy in panic.
"Morton! Iggy! We need to get out of the castle!"
Morton and Iggy exchanged a look. Realizing that they could literally stand here for hours and accomplish absolutely nothing, Morton and Iggy walked out of the room. Despite the oddity of the situation, there was one thing that Kamek had gotten right; they needed to get out of the castle. So, they both ran toward the exit.
One thing that caught Morton's attention immediately while he was in the hallway was that Kamek hadn't been the only one glitching. As they passed by a potted plant, it glitched too. However, there was something odd about its glitching in particular. That being, whenever the glitching stopped, the plant appeared to….shrink? This confused Morton and accentuated his fear. Unfortunately, one more rumble blocked out the confusion. His survival instinct kicked in, and he followed Iggy out of the castle.
When they got out, the rumbling was still present, but thankfully, it was a lot less powerful. Morton could run without having to stop and grab onto something. Keeping the crystal clutched in his hands (he was thankful that he hadn't dropped it at all while they had been in the castle), he and Iggy ran a good distance away from the castle. When they had gotten a good distance away, Morton looked behind him.
And that's when his blood ran cold.
"Iggy!" he shrieked. "Look!"
Iggy stopped and looked behind. His eyes travelled up to the sky above the castle, and he gasped out loud. "HOLY SHROOMS!"
Above the sky of Bowser's Castle was an anomaly that Morton had never seen before. A line in the sky glowed with a white light. It was bright; very bright. It sparkled and shone like the surface of a diamond. The air itself seemed to be aware of the light, as it rushed over toward it. It almost appeared like the light was a vacuum of sorts.
"What is that?" Morton asked.
Iggy gulped. "I believe…" he struggles to get the words out. "When we used the time machine to attempt escaping the loop, we might have accidentally created a rift in the fabric of time."
Morton's eyes grew wide. He stared at the rift, fear overtaking him. How could they possibly fix something like this? What was there to do? Just as he was thinking this, he noticed that there were little specks being dragged toward the rift. When he squinted at them, he noticed that they were Koopa troopas servants.
Morton cast another glance down at the crystal, and a lump the size of an apple formed in his throat.
"This is all my fault."
Iggy didn't respond. He just looked at the rift with wide eyes, either unable or unwilling to look away. His mouth hung open a little bit, unable to close.
"What do we do?" Iggy asked softly.
Morton looked down at the crystal. Then, he looked at Iggy. "You said so yourself earlier; we have to find our siblings. We don't want them getting sucked into the rift."
There was a moment before Iggy nodded. "Good idea."
With that, the two of them began running. Although, Morton didn't know at this point if it was even possible to find his siblings. For all he knew, they already could have been swallowed by the rift.
Morton shook his head. He wasn't going to let his negativity get the better of him; not today. He just needed to keep running. He would find his siblings eventually, and he would save them.
He just needed to figure out how.