I: THE BOOK

"What are we celebrating, again?"

A new day dawned in the Mushroom Kingdom, the peaceful place ruled by princess Peach, who lived in her castle in the capital of the kingdom, Toad Town. On that day, she decided to throw, in her castle, a party open to the public. She had not thrown any party for a while now, but this time, it was a special day.

"I think it's Toadsworth's 612th birthday."

So far, Peach was unwilling to throw parties, even though she always enjoyed them. The reason was that her kingdom was often attacked, and she was often kidnapped. Most of the time, it was Bowser, a giant turtle who is thirsty for power, in love with the princess, and king of his own army, who used to invade the Mushroom Kingdom. Peach was aware that one of his attacks could happen at any time, and she kept in mind that one of her previous parties finished in space, when Bowser had placed his own castle below Peach's, before kidnapping her inside her own bedroom.

But something had changed since the last attack. Bowser used to attack frequently; but now, it had been eight months since the last one. Eight months in which she cancelled a lot of parties before even planning them, due to paranoia. She eventually stopped the streak, thanks to the Mario brothers.

"Daisy, come on, it's his 61st…" Peach said in an exasperated tone.

The Mario Brothers were two, Mario and Luigi. They were close friends with Peach, especially the first one, and famous throughout the kingdom, as use they were the one defending the kingdom and Peach from Bowser or whoever trying to attack them. Mario was the most famous, but so was his brother.

Princess Daisy also helped organising the party. While Peach is shy and reserved, Daisy has a strong personality and is energetic, to the point of being called tomboy by her friends. She rules the kingdom of Sarasaland, a land close to the Mushroom Kingdom, and unlike Peach, she is spared by attacks – giving her no reason to stop having fun, and she harassed her friend for weeks to throw one.

"Where is Yoshi?" Mario whispered to his brother.

The four of them were at the party, inside Peach's room to be precise, to discuss and avoid getting bothered y the noisiness: because of music, chit-chat and children running around, it was very hard to have a conversation outside of Peach's room without screaming and gossips listening to their lives.

The beginning of the conversation was full of anecdotes about their recent lives, but the boys were getting bored. Daisy, because of her political obligations, could not see her friends as often as she would like to – if she was not a princess, she would be with them all the time. When she is there, conversations are quite lively, as she is talkative, especially with Peach.

"I think he's dancing."

But now, the conservation included only the princesses. Several minutes passed since they were excluded, because Peach and Daisy kept talking about their kingdoms, dresses, or jewellery. They were staying there out of respect for their friends.

"Oh, sorry, I think we went a bit on a princess talk." Peach told when she realised that the brothers were excluded.

"No worries, we were about to go see Yoshi." Mario quickly answered.

"Uh…" Luigi hesitated, but Mario gave him a nudge. "Oh, uh, yeah, we have something to tell him!"

Daisy raised an eyebrow. "Uh, well, okay, no problem, see you later." She figured out that they were looking for a way to leave, but she did not hold them back.

Mario stood up quickly and left the room, leaving his brother who was a bit slower. The soundproofing of Peach's room made them forget about the hubbub in the castle.

"That was pretty annoying!" Mario shouted to cover the noise.

"That was sudden, but you did well!"

Slaloming betwwen the children, who seemed to mistake the hall for a playground, they noticed a dancefloor with many Toads dancing. The most noticeable person was the one Mario and Luigi were looking for.

"…EVERYBODY WALK THE DINOSAUR!"

Yoshi, a green dinosaur, was Mario and Luigi's best friend, and also close friends with the princesses, was bragging on the dancefloor, singing out loud. Like his friends, he was also well-known in the kingdom, but he preferred discretion – except at parties and events – and lives on an island with other Yoshis, so his notoriety was lower even though he helped the brothers on many occasions on their adventures.

The brothers made their way to the dancefloor, dodging some Toads, Koopas or Goombas – nice ones – in order to get to the dinosaur, who was too focused on his choreography to notice them, until Luigi pulled his arm.

"Not now!" Yoshi shouted, before continuing his dance.

"Oh, come on, Yoshi! It's been a long time, come hang out with us!" Mario told to him.

The dinosaur finally stopped, staring at them in a provocative way. "What? You want me to stop because you're too jealous of my awesome moves?"

"No, we're just bored and the girls…" Luigi started, but he got interrupted by Yoshi.

"OKAY! DANCE BATTLE!" he yelled out.

People around them focused their attention on them, with the closest ones shouting and cheering. But Mario and Luigi did not want to dance in front of everyone, even with their best friend – especially the first one who was a bad dancer.

"Yoshi, I really don't want to…" He began.

"OKAY! LET'S DO THIS!" Yoshi ignored them.

Mario was looking at Yoshi anxiously, but the dinosaur had already resumed his frenetic choreography, who looked rather like moving everywhere like an idiot, but there was some sort of harmony in his moves which made the whole thing nice-looking. After doing some insane hip-hop moves, Yoshi stopped his dance while people shouted the dinosaur's name. He gave to them another provocative look. Mario looked Luigi, who stared at Yoshi.

Luigi decided to do it. He was actually a great dancer – he often used to dance after a fight, either as a taunt or to celebrate his victory. His dance was easily on Yoshi's level. He finished with a spinning jump and almost lost his balance, but he stood on his feet and faced his opponent, staring at him the same way Yoshi did.

Then, people shouted his name, and Yoshi started to smile, and he hugged his friend. "That's what I wanna see!" He shouted.

Mario and Luigi were the only ones to hear him. They pulled him, each one grabbing one of his arms; he resisted a few moments so he could greet those he considered his fans.

"So, what do you want? What's so important? Peach got kidnapped again?" He finally said once they were far from the dancefloor.

"Uh…" Luigi stammered, disturbed by what Yoshi just said.

"What the hell are you talking about? We were with her and Daisy just two minutes ago!" Mario answered.

"I don't know, you yelled at me like there was something serious."

"It is serious, we're bored!"

"Come dance with me, instead of interrupting me!"

"No." The brothers answered at the same time.

"You guys are no fun…"

"Hey! Luigi, is that really you?" A young Toad approached them. His eyes were shining. He could not believe what he was seeing.

"Uh, yes!"

"I always dreamed of meeting you and playing with you!"

"That's what videogames are for." Mario said.

"No, but, like, in real life!"

Luigi was surprised. Usually, it was his brother who gets recognized by civilians, not him. He was flattered by the admiration this Toad had for him. "I can't refuse a kid that. What do you want to do?"

"Uh…" The Toad hesitated, filled with emotion that his idol accepted. "Let's play hide and seek! I want some hide and seek so badly, but the only partner I've found so far is a Boo, but he just gets invisible! That's cheating!"

"Okay, I accept."

"Do you want to play too?!" The Toad exclaimed at Mario and Yoshi.

Luigi looked at his brother and his friend. They were reluctant. "Oh, come on, he's a kid, it will make him happy. Plus, you have nothing to do right now."

They hesitated a few seconds, but finally agreed.

"Yeah! Go hide, I'm counting! But please, go to the first floor, I'm tired of losing, I want to win!"

He then went in front of a wall to count. Out of context, some people might think that he was acting stupid.

"Well… Let's go, I guess." Yoshi concluded.

The three of them headed for the door leading to the upper floor. They agreed to split up: Mario went to the dining room, Luigi in a bedroom in which some people were talking, and Yoshi to the library, which was completely deserted. The first two quickly found a hiding place, respectively under a table and inside a wardrobe; both places were not too hard for a child to find, but not so easy.

However, the dinosaur had more trouble. Finding a hiding place in a library was quite complicated. Other than behind a bookshelf – which was not a good one to him – he had no idea. Eventually, he found some large books on a shelf. He tried to stack them around him before hiding behind them, in a corner. It was probably the worst hiding place ever, but there was nothing better. He went to a corner before putting the books on the floor. As he built his hideout, he realised that his idea was totally absurd, but he had too much ego to lose without trying, even if it was just a simple game of hide and seek with a kid.

He stacked the first seven books with easy, they were books about some stories and legends that can be found in any fiction. The eighth held his attention, firstly due to its weight that surprised him. What intrigued him the most was its look: larger than the others, brown, no title, no author, no description. There was nothing on the cover. Why was this book even there if it is totally blank?

His curiosity took the best of him, and he started to leaf through it. Even though there were a lot of pages, all of them were blank.

However, when he reached the first half of the book…

A few minutes later, Yoshi was found lying on the ground, convulsing. As soon as someone approached him, he stopped and passed out. Doctors were called, and Yoshi was taken to the nearest hospital.

Visits were forbidden for now, so Mario, Luigi, Peach and Daisy could not stay with him for the night, and they had to go back to the party, unwillingly. They did not want to cancel it for what seemed to be a fainting, especially at a time when Peach needed to live stress-free, without worrying about another kidnapping that would change their life again. But they had to admit that it was not looking good, as Yoshi was perfectly fine before the incident and dancing perfectly well a few minutes before.

The next day, they had been allowed to see him in the afternoon, but it was too late for Daisy who had to go back to Sarasaland because of her princess duties, and she let her friends go see the dinosaur. He looked happy when he saw them arrive.

"Are you okay?" Peach asked.

There were several chairs inside the room; Mario, Luigi and Peach each sat on one.

"My head hurts, but I'm fine. They won't let me go now. They want to keep an eye on me, but I'm feeling pretty well."

"Don't worry. They know what they're doing, just get some rest." Luigi affirmed.

"Yeah, nothing is threatening us at the moment." Mario added. But to Peach, this statement was not convincing. She worried a bit, and Mario noticed her. "What? You think Bowser could make people pass out from such a long distance?"

"If that was just a faint, why has Yoshi been here for twelve hours and has to stay even longer?"

Mario found nothing to reply. Yoshi supported her idea. "Most importantly, I was in good form."

"Can you remember what happened before you passed out?" Luigi asked.

"Yeah, I was in the library, when we were playing hide and seek with that kid. I was trying to hide behind some books, and one of them was quite strange." He then looked at Peach. "Now that I think about it, where do you find all these books?"

"Most of them are common books that you can find in every library, or gifts."

"What about the rest?" Yoshi insisted.

"Some less-known books, bought by me, or Toads and Toadettes from the castle… or gifts, as I said. Why?"

"Because I'd like to know why you thought it was a great idea to buy a book with nothing on it. And if it's not you, who thought about buying and offering it to you."

"What does this have to do with you fainting at a party?" Mario questioned.

"I opened a book that looked like this right before I passed out, and I think that's why."

Peach started to breath noisily but slowly, to calm her stress. She had a feeling that another mishap was coming.

"Mario is right, I don't think Bowser would bother to cast a spell on a book before putting it in your library. There are other ways to make people unconscious." Luigi told, and Peach's breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Okay, I'd like to believe you, but I don't know which book Yoshi is talking about."

"It was a big, brown, heavy book with nothing on it. The cover, the pages, nothing on them." Yoshi described.

Peach thought for a couple of seconds. "Uh… No, sorry, I still don't know which one it is. There are so many books in there!"

Mario stood up. "You know what, I'll go get it. Maybe it will refresh your memories if you have it in front of you."

"Are you sure?" She asked.

"It would be better If he goes for it. That way, we're sure that no one will touch that book and get tricked too." Luigi approved.

Peach looked at Luigi, then at Mario, before finally agreeing with them. Then, Mario left the room.

"Uh… I was about to talk about something else…" Yoshi moaned. Luigi and Peach immediately turned their attention to him. "Wow, you guys are fast."

"What else happened?" Peach was losing patience.

The dinosaur took a deep breath. "Right before I woke up, I had some sort of flashes."

"That's the concept of dreaming." Luigi scoffed at his friend.

"No, that wasn't a dream, it was different. It seemed so real and unclear at the same time. Like, it was realistic, but right now I can't tell what it was about." His friends were looking at him, in a questioning way, so Yoshi continued his explanations. "I think it was some kind of vision."