This chapter felt a bit short, but I want to conclude the arc that they are currently in within 8000-10000 words so as I am getting closer to that goal, I am kinda rushing, it will slow down in the next chapter however. Please comment, review and share the story, I want many people to read this and give positive feedback on it. :)

Mario gave up after several tries to open the door. It wouldn't budge for anything. Afterwards he backed away from the door, footsteps echoing back towards this very room. He had little time to act, but with his ability to quickly assess his surroundings he discovered a sliver of light coming from behind one particularly large stack of crates.

With a grunt he jumped into action, moving the boxes that hindered his progression out of the way. The pressure started to rise once he heard the sounds of the doorknob turning. He had a feeling that thing was back and all because he had to mess with the door. There was no time to regret his actions now though as he continued to move boxes until all of them had been pushed aside. Discovering a tunnel, he crawled into it, and moved a box right in front of it just as the creature came smashing into the door.

"Mama-mia that-a was a close one!" He said in a low tone as not to give out his whereabouts.

Behind him the tunnel continued towards a new room. It was dusty and smelled a bit like dried blood and rotting flesh within the confines of that space but Mario was used to having the aroma of things far worse than this enter his nostrils. He began to move towards the source of light and before entering the room, he gave it a quick peek to make sure the coast was clear.

Oh the sights that he saw. It was thrilling in the least bit, in fact, Mario felt horrified, trying to wrap his mind around where he was, and what in the heck happened here. What he found in that room was blood painted across the walls that had long since dried just like the patches found in the crawlspace. He also witnessed the decaying corpses of people who likewise had been there for a while.

"Where the-a hell am I?!" He gasped a bit, shocked to find himself in the middle of this kind of a mess.

Mario noticed two more things that were particularly interesting to take note of. One was another desk with a lamp on it located near the door of this room, and the various weapons that seemed to be protruding from the corpses. Having no clue what kind of weapons they were he directed his attention to the small desk. Walking over to it he found a opened book of some sort, a ink bottle and quill residing near its side. A hastily scribbled out note was inscribed on the parchment of the tome.

June, 13th 1688

They are coming, They are coming, They are coming, They want… to kill us all, and we can't even see them, but we know…. They are there…. And what they wield…. Weapons…. Multiple weapons…. So exotic that I cannot name a single one… the other two with us didn't make it…. It is only my good friend and I left…. Hopefully no one else becomes another victim of this cruel place….

After reading the note Mario glanced back at the bodies, noticing the very weapons that were mentioned. A quick thought entered into his mind, coming to the conclusion that the ones who wrote the note were the corpses that lay on the floor decaying. The fact that they were still in the process of decaying indicated that they had not died that long ago, but it also meant that whatever killed them was more than likely still here. Mario decided it was time to stop hiding in rooms and find his friends and a way out of this place before anything horrid happens to any of them.

"Let's-a find a way out of-a this room!" Mario said moving over to the door.

This time the door was unlocked and he was able to open it, but before he could even begin to do that the sound of metal being removed from flesh caught his attention. Turning around Mario found that the blades and weaponry used to slay the nearby corpses were moving on their own, as if a strange power was compelling them to do so.

They were swift, and outnumbered Mario one to nine. Wasting no time, he opened the door and fled from that room, this of course was not enough to stop the swift and startling pursuit of the weapons. One type of weapon swung itself into the door, and with meager effort, managed to smash it into pieces. Mario soon found himself darting aimlessly down the hall and at one point, a jutting out piece of flooring caught on to his foot. With a tumble he fell to the ground, allowing the weapons to catch up to him and nearly surround him.

They swung at him, but Mario was too fast for most of them. Performing his signature jumping maneuvers he dodged all but one of them, which slashed into the fabric of his shirt on his right shoulder. This also grazed his skin just a bit, slowly crimson fluid oozed from the wound. Mario took to running again, as he saw no strategy for fighting against these weapons, and even more worrying was that his ring was not responding.

"Oh no! Why-a won't it-a work?!" He said wondering what he could possibly do to vanquish his foes.

As he ran down the hall, something soon caught his eye in the distance, an escape route. It was a small hole, but he could fit into it. Mario jumped towards it, and barely dodged being sliced once more by the ravenous pack of blades. This hole was different than the other one, not in aroma, but more in lighting. It was pitch black and there didn't seem to be any other side from what Mario could see. At the very least he was glad that the blades couldn't get into the hole for some reason, In fact it was very strange, but the moment he entered the hole, the weapons lost interest instantly.

"That can't-a be good!" Mario said to himself. "I wonder where they-a could be going to-a now?"

Mario spent the next five minutes catching his breath, he nearly ran half a mile before even coming across this hole, and he was exhausted from the run. Curiosity was starting to manifest within him as he felt a draft of wind blowing from deep within this pathway. Walking a bit further, he found that he could eventually stand. He couldn't see anything around him so the only sense he had to go off of was touch. Mario's hands slid alongside the nearest wall that he could find.

Eventually he discovered some weird object embedded into the wall, when he was feeling it's shape he found it to be in the shape of a circular button. Pressing it activated tunnel lights and he once again was within a area covered in blood, but this was slightly different. A message was distributed across the walls.

'GO AWAY', 'DIE', 'LEAVE THIS PLACE', 'I WILL KILL YOU' and various other disturbing lines were scattered about. At the end of the path Mario could see a door that was cracked open. Heading towards this and ignoring all of the threatening messages he soon found himself entering the next room.

"Hello? Is-a anyone here?" He called out to the seemingly empty room. No one answered him back.

This room was a bit eerie, it was a square shaped area, and alongside both the left and right walls were tables that held what appeared to be humanoid shaped relics. On the wall directly in front of Mario there was a mirror that for some reason was not reflecting the room. Upon closer inspection he found that there was a different reflection in the mirror, of a different place, but what was most unsettling about this discovery was not that it wasn't the same as this room. This disturbing image displayed on the mirror had a little girl in a room full of those abominations that Mario encountered earlier when he woke up.

He watched intently wondering when the creatures were to strike. It seemed like ages had past that he had his eyes fixated on the small girl just standing there in the reflection. She barely moved, and appeared almost limp like. Her arms hung by her sides, and her hair covered her face which was also tilted downwards a bit. A shine rolled over the surface of the mirror and afterwards the reflection changed. Mario could now see all four creatures that surrounded her slain and on the ground, their blood smeared everywhere.

In her hands she held a scalpel, and this tool along with her arm was drenched in blood, indicating it was her that killed the beasts. Even her dress had been stained. The creepiest part of it all, however, was the smile on her face. It was if she drew pure delight and pleasure from killing them, and for a mere second Mario could have sworn he heard her laughter echoing through the halls.

Following this spooky laughter, the lights seemed to go out again. This left poor Mario to fend once again in the darkness, unable to see anything.

"This is-a not good…" Mario shuddered a bit, being shocked at what he just witnessed. It really was the eerie giggling he heard that made the whole event feel surreal and produce an aura of uneasiness all around him.

He struggled to make his way back from where he came, and once he crawled out from the hole, he found that he was nowhere near where he originally came from. The hallway was a different color than he remembered and there were now small little torches attached to the wall and spaced out evenly between each individual one.

"Where am I-a now?" He questioned, puzzled at the complexity of the area he was in.

Leaving himself no time to think he departed once again into the depths of the unknown.

-Luigi-

Luigi's eyes soon opened up to a set of stairs, his body was lying on them. When he started to stand up he felt a small sore spot on his back. Being passed out on the stairs did a number on his back after all. Picking up his cap that was lying next to him he put it on and began to look around. His situation was about the same as Mario's, no one to be seen and darkness enveloping all but a single area that was lit with a candle.

"Mario? Are you-a here?" He called out to his brother, but he was disappointed to receive no response. "Oh Mario… Where are you?..."

The area that he was currently in was abnormally cold. He was shivering right down to his core and he didn't know why. To the right of the staircase there was a hallway that extended all the way down into a dark abyss, no end was in sight. Along all sides of the hallway, there were many doors. When Luigi tried to open each door he found that they wouldn't. Each door he came across was locked.

"Mama-mia… What do I-a do now?" he said in frustration.

It was then that he started to hear strange noises echoing down the hallways, they sounded like whispers, calling out to him. Stirring inside of him was the strange motive to go further down the hallway; it was as if the voice was compelling him to traverse this path. When he had traveled far enough down the hall, he noticed a door that was open and a flickering candle light within the room.

"Huh? Is someone-a there?" Luigi asked.

Entering the room he saw a desk with the candle he saw on it, and along the back was an open toy box. Above it was a message written on the wall in blood that read "Wanna play?" Looking inside the box he discovered a ragged doll that seemed to have been used a fair amount of usage. Luigi was quite puzzled by this, but he was suddenly distracted by a sudden shift in the room's temperature.

He was now face to face with a new dilemma; four vases on four pedestals forming a squared shape surrounded him. Out of their inner workings stretched four arms. All of these limbs attempting to grab at his frame. With a horrified scream Luigi was soon captured by the shadowy limbs and as he began to be consumed by them, the last thing he had heard was an echoing giggle.