Chapter Four
Just as soon as Mario realized that he fell asleep, he awoke again. There were no memories of the past 30 hours of slumber. Dreamless. Nothingness. All during this time, his wounds were healed, but most of the pain remained. As he sat up, he looked to the crusty, cracked walls of the shelter, then to the floor, which had been only hardened soil with strands of dead crabgrass packed to the surface. It was then he noticed a wooden tray that lay next to the bench that he rested upon that had an intricate vase of water and a loaf of bread that rested on top of it. As soon as Mario saw this, his body remembered how fatigued it was from the journey and the exceedingly long period of slumber that Mario had endured.
After Mario finished his first meal in days, the familiar being appeared from around the corner once again.
"You ready to talk?" Demanded Mario, who was angry with the glorious lack of information about everything that had happened. "And do you have a name?"
"You may call me Grey." Spoke the foul-odored mushroom. "The reason I know about you is quite simple. Ages ago, my ancestors did not possess the gift of mobility like unto me this present day. They were very primitive, but led very happy lives. They lived in their thoughts, which they could share with each other telepathically. But times changed, and soon the land began to become dry and desolate. Many of them died off, but some shed their roots and grew limbs to walk upon the soil with. Many of these did not survive the process, while others had carried the lands' ailments with them and became a horrible twisted form of painful corruption. There were a very small number of them who survived the transition to this bipedal state. As time went on, we were forced to search and forage for food rather than gather nutrients from the ground. Though the land was very arid, we were able to have much success in finding and producing food for ourselves because of our telepathic ability that we had retained."
"...A telepath?"
"That is correct. When you were hit by that metal debris, you were thrown violently into a state of helplessness, a rare state that most humans don't survive. This state is the window of oppurtunity for me to extract memories and manipulate their state of existance from their world into ours."
"So, what happens to me in MY world? Am I dead?"
"You no longer exist in that world."
"...you mean, I'm just... gone?" Mario asked, with great and heavy sorrow. "All of my memories are a lie? Like I never lived my life?"
"Your life up to the moment I brought you here has been real. Even that certian final memory of your brother."
"...My brother..." replied Mario, wallowing deeply in his memories. "He died in a plane crash sixteen years ago, just outside the San Francisco Bay area. Him and the two pilots weren't even found."
Mario, thinking to himself, couldn't bear that this memory still exists inside him, and that it had still happened. He would have given everything to prevent this from occuring. Even his own life. But notwithstanding his heavy mournings, his face still looked the same. Always projecting a blunt expression, no matter who was around.
"So... you feel it too?" asked Mario, who looked up at Grey, looking for someone to understand him.
Grey repositioned his stance, and soon replied. "I cannot feel others' emotions. My telepathy is restricted to thoughts only. Though we can feel emotional for others' thoughts, those emotions are our own and not emotions projected telepathically." Grey then look down to the ground, his feelings somewhat troubled him. He knew something that Mario doesn't.
"Mario, your brother... he lives."
Join the official Obscure Kingdom IRC channel, #OK on esper(dot)net!