We stepped inside. It looked the same as the other castles. Hard grey brick walls everywhere, darkness except for a few torches on the wall, and that bone chilling feeling that only Bowser can send down your spine.

We walked forward. We walked for 5 minutes with no obsticles at all.

"What's going on here," I said. "This is beginning to seem like just a normal castle."

"I doubt that," said Luigi.

But as soon as I had spoken, there was a flight of stairs infront of me. We climbed up to the top, only to see it had ended like when we climbed the mountain. There was a pool of lava beneath us, with sparks coming out like wild.

We jumped the gap in the floor and kept walking. But we couldn't get to walk as much as we did the last time, because there was another lava pool infront of us. We jumped on a row of bricks floating above it.

There was a golden block. Luigi punched it and out came a mushroom. He ate and and grow.

"Just the thing I needed," said Luigi.

We jumped to the ground at the end of the lava pool. There was another staircase, this time heading down. We got down, and walked down another long hallway.

"Man, walking is all we do," said Luigi. Since we first came to the Mushroom Kingdom we must of walked atleast a zillion miles. Why does there have to be so much walking."

"I don't mind. I must of lost 100 pounds after all this walking."

Ahead of us was something I had never seen before. It was a glowing ball, rotating in a circle around a red block in the ceiling. It came down to the ground, and up to roof, again, and again, and again. Later I would find it from Toad it was called a Rotodisc, but I didn't know what to think now.

"Whst is that," I said.

"I dunno, I'll go check it out."

Luigi walked up, he watched the thing from what he thought was a safe distance, but unfortantley he was right in it's rotation.

"LUIGI LOOK OUT!" But I was too late. The thing hit Luigi in the stomach, he screamed and he flew back infornt of me, and was no longer super.

"AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"Luigi, what did it do?"

"Oh, it hurt so much. Aw, it felt like my whole body has been shocked."

We observed its movement carefully, and were able to get past it without being hurt. We kept walking and climbed yet another flight of stairs. Another Rotodisc was infront us, this time it was coming from the floor. We were more careful about it, and got past safely.

There was a pool of lava ahead of us. I jumped to the blocks ahead of us, getting hit by a lava bubble in the process. I shrunk down to normal.

There was more lava infront of us, and the block ahead had a rotodisc on it. We stood still for a moment, but knew we had to get past it quickly. I jumped on and to the ground ahead quickly, but Luigi lost his balance and fell in the lava. I watched him scream, and saw how it was boiling him, taking off his skin, killing him inch by inch, I watched until he was completely covered.

I knew he'd come back to life, but I really wanted him here with me to fight the first koopa. I kept walking and saw a gold block. Boy, I must punched thousands of these by now, and I hit it once again. A mushroom came out, and I ate it. Mushrooms never really did taste that good, infant if I was in Brooklyn I would never eat one, but it was the only thing I had to keep me going.

I saw something that looked like a bird skeleton walk toward me. Toad had told me about it when I first trained to save Peach, but had never encountered it. They were called Dry Bones. It slowly (and I mean slowly even compared to a goomba) walked toward me. I punched it and its bones went flying over the ground.

I kept walking, but then the bones started rearranging themselves and came back to life. Then I remember Toad telling me these things couldn't be killed.

I ran away from it, but it still managed to peck me, sending me back to my little self. I came to the end of the hallway, and there was a door.

I walked into the next room and couldn't believe it. It was a straight hallway, and I could even see the door on the other side. No pits, no monsters, nothing. Or so it seemed.

I looked up and the entire roof was covered in spikes. Then, the roof started falling. It was dropping fast, and I thought for sure they'd kill me. But, I notice a spot ahead where there were no spikes on the roof. I rolled over to it, and avoided being hit by the spikes by half a foot.

The roof had come almost all the way to the floor. I couldn't stand up, and the spikes prevented me from even moving.

I thought I'd be trapped there forever. After about a minute, the roof started rising again, I stood up, and ran to the other side of the room as fast as I could. I ran to the door, but then the roof was starting to come down again.

That's when I saw the walls went down under the floor when the roof came down. I had nowhere to run this time. The door was gone, and the spikes were coming down. I curled in a ball and waited to die, but I didn't.

The roof was an inch from getting me, when it stopped and started going back up again. The door came back up, and ran in.

It was dark. Darker than normal. I couldn't see a thing. All I could make out was something shining infront of me. It was a torch hanging on the wall, and I could see where I was. It no longer looked like an old stone castle, but rather, a cave. The ground was dirt and the wall was rock.

There was something infront of me. I didn't know what it was, it just looked like a ball of spikes. I walked closer towards it. I almost touched it when...

It jumped out and tried to scratch my face out! It was a sleeping Koopa and I had awakened it. I jumped back and almost screamed. But I didn't. I didn't want it to know I was afraid.

"RRRRRR!" it growled at me.

"Hello Mr Koopa. I was expecting you."

"Grrr, aahhh!"

"What's the matter, can't talk? Well, maybe that's a good thing. I'm not in the chatting mood."

It came running towards me. I jumped, and doing what Toad said, kicked him in the head. He was alot madder now, and jumped over ahead my head. I ducked while it tried to jump on me.

I did a backflip like I would never of been able to do in our world, and jumped on his head. He went down. He couldn't move anymore. I went up to him to deliver the 3rd and final blow. I stamped down on his head, and his body start disappearing.

A light came from where he was, spreading all over the room. It was breaking down the walls and ceilings. And then, as if by magic, I appeared outside next to the ruins where the castle once stood. Luigi came running toward me.

"MARIO! What happened in there!"

I told him the story while he listened awe-struck(ok, maybe not...)

"And that's how I got rid of Boom-Boom"

"Boom-Boom?"

"That's my nickname for the koopa I fought"

"Boom-Boom! What kind of cheasy name is that!"

"Oh, there's no time for that. Look, the moon's already come out. We need to rest for tommorow."

"I can't believe we've only been here 2 days. It feels like we been here for eternity."

We got our sleeping bags ready, but not before discussing our plans for tommorow. We'd head south to Danger Zone 5, then head east to Zone 6, and then All we'd have to do was cross a bridge for the Oxi River and we'd be at the palace.

Neither of us could sleep. We laid up starring at the stars. I saw the airship again.

"Is that the airship Toad was telling us about?"

"Yeah. I saw it this morning."

"Mario, why do they let us sleep. Why don't they come down here and kill us at night?"

"I don't know Luigi. I just don't know..."