Save Me from My Dark Side

Chapter Nineteen

He wasn't in bed anymore; he didn't remember crawling out of it and he certainly didn't remember coming here. Heavy fog clouded his already limited vision due to the dark environment, the only light source being a pale decaying crescent moon. When he looked up at it, he saw that pieces of the moon were crumbling off at the tips, shooting down into the sky like shooting stars. Swirls of mist circled around his feet like ghostly snakes and, for a moment, he imagined them being real snakes.

Had he been sleepwalking? Turbo had never known himself to do it before but it was the only explanation he had for being here. He wracked his brain to think of what game he could have wandered into. House of the Dead was the only one that he could think of right away with a spooky setting, and the memory of zombie hunters Rogan and Agent G bullying him in BurgerTime came to him. If that was the case, he certainly didn't want to be here any longer than he needed to be. The idea of getting accidentally mistaken for a zombie and getting shot at was not his idea of fun. Actually, who said it had to be an accident? They could easily shoot him on purpose.

Not to mention, he wasn't overly fond of the vision he had of getting eaten alive by zombies either. At least getting shot would be a faster, less painful way to go.

Turbo stumbled around in the dark, being careful not to trip on anything. He stubbed his toe against a hard surface, and as he grabbed his foot to ease the pain, the fog rolled back just enough for him to see what the object was.

A tombstone.

How turbo-freakin-tastic, he was in a cemetery. What better place for him to get killed in? Why in the world of all the games in the arcade did he have to sleepwalk to one that had a cemetery in it? Was his subconscious trying to tell him that he was better off dead? Or was this some cruel reminder to himself that everyone else wanted him to be that way? Or perhaps it was because he had come so close to death many times in his life?

Chills went down his spine and Turbo decided he didn't want to stick around here anymore. Unfortunately, he didn't know what direction the exit was.

The fog rolled back further and the pale moonlight illuminated more tombstones ahead of him. It was an eerie sight and Turbo wasn't very comfortable trekking over dead bodies but he didn't have much choice. He weaved around the stones, being careful where he stepped.

KAW!

A raven flew out of nowhere right in front of him, making him jump back several paces, and the black ominous bird disappeared into the outer realms of the graveyard. His heart racing and his nerves on edge even more than they were already, Turbo decided not to waste anymore time being here and quickened his pace, hoping he was going in the right direction.

After about a minute, something in the distance made him stop dead (wrong choice of word there, perhaps) in his tracks. It looked to be a figure dressed in black, looming silently as if keeping watch over the poor souls that were no longer among the living. Turbo could not see his face as it was covered with a hood and he imagined the face being that of a skeleton.

Please don't see me, please don't see me...

In the time it takes to blink an eye, the mysterious figure was suddenly right in front of him, an inky black hole where a face should have been. Turbo naturally would have wanted to run away but he found his feet unable to move, as if they had stepped into cement that had quickly dried. The supernatural figure breathed quietly, staring down at him (if it had eyes to stare with, that is) menacingly. The racer stared back, his glowing eyes shining bright with fear yet he wasn't sure exactly what there was to be afraid of.

The hooded being did not speak, yet slowly raised an arm up and pointed to the side of them. Turbo followed the movement and saw a large pit in the ground. As if in a trance, he found himself unable to resist investigating.

It was an empty grave.

He lifted his head back towards the figure and it pointed its gloved hand again towards the patch of fog that covered the grave marker. As if by magic, the mist swirled away and the words on the tombstone became visible to him. In the two seconds in took for him to read it, all his insides clenched up in sheer horror and he forced himself to keep from fainting.

Here Lies The Greatest Criminal Of Our Time

TURBO

1977-2013

May He Rest In Eternal Turmoil

Before he could turn and run for his life, he felt someone slap him hard on the back and he found himself tumbling forward into the deep grave. All his senses kicking in, he dug his fingers into the cold earth in an attempt to keep from falling all the way and a long root that had extended from a nearby tree was available for him to hang onto.

His heart was beating in his throat and sweat was dripping off of him. He tried to brace his feet against the dirt wall to try and climb back up but he kept losing traction and slipping. He looked up and saw to his terror the hooded figure now standing high above him. Then, slowly, it reached a hand up and pulled back his hood, revealing his face. Turbo's eyes widened in fear when he saw who it was.

It was Rocky, the playable driver from RoadBlasters.

He was a mess due to having been run over multiple times by Turbo when he had crashed the game back in 1987, his face covered in dirt and blood and maybe even the faint mark of a tire track. Otherwise, his rugged handsome looks were intact and he smiled evilly down at the one who had been responsible for his game getting unplugged.

"We meet again, it seems," he purred darkly.

"How...how are you here?" asked the racer, still gripping to the root for dear life. "You're dead!"

"No thanks to you," Rocky replied snidely, running a hand through his hair in a prissy manner like he used to do when he was alive. "You injured me so much that I was unable to leave RoadBlasters before it's unplugging."

This isn't happening! This has to be a dream! Wake up, wake up!

"One of the last things you said to me was that you were going to ride on my ashes," Rocky continued and the memory of RoadBlasters last minutes of existence entered Turbo's mind. The dead driver smirked down at him.

"Well...can't have ashes without fire."

A bright red-orange glow of light instantly filled the tomb and Turbo fearfully looked down further into the grave. A coffin that had been lying at the bottom had burst open and flames leaped out of it, dancing their way upwards towards the terrified racer.

FIRE. PAIN. DEATH.

He willed his legs and arms to move, trying desperately to crawl out of the deathtrap before he got burned alive (again), but no matter what he did he kept slipping down slowly into the grave. A spark of flame got his leg and he winced, forcing himself to try harder to escape.

"Tuuuurrrrrboooo...cooooome jooooiiinnn ussss..."

Turbo jerked his head back down and nearly had a heart attack when he saw the black charred bodies of Ted and Teddy both crawling out of the firey coffin, slowly spider-walking their way up towards him. One grabbed his leg and tried to pull him down and Turbo kicked wildly at him.

"Jooiinnn ussss.."

Turbo kicked the groping hands away from his legs and the sound of Rocky's roaring laugh from above him wormed into his ears. This was madness, insanity!

"I'm sorry!" Turbo cried out, twisting his head back and forth between his three ghosts. "I'm sorry I killed you guys! I shouldn't have blamed you all for my selfish pride, or for ruining my life when it was my choice."

He felt his grip loosening and the hands below him were steadily tugging him down further.

"I'm sorry! I really am, please don't kill me!"

He felt the root he was hanging onto start to crack under his weight. If it wasn't the twins trying to pull him down that would do him in, it would be the cursed root. Turbo squinted his eyes shut, not wanting to visually witness his own demise.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

"Turbo! Get down from there!"

He refused to open his eyes and tightened his grip when he felt a hand pull at his pajama pants. "Go away, leave me alone!"

"TURBO!"

The voice sounded familiar but it was one that shouldn't have been in the grave with him. He popped his eyes open and saw that he was no longer hanging on to the root, but instead brown taffy curtains. Orange walls surrounded him and he realized that he was back in Gloyd's guest room. Somehow he had gotten out of bed and had crawled up the curtains and was presently hanging on to those.

The shock and relief at being suddenly in a safe zone made his fingers slip and he fell to the floor, the thick carpet cushioning his landing. Gloyd and Vanellope were in front of him, both of them wearing similar looks of concern.

"Did you have a nightmare?" the glitchy president asked of him as he rubbed his backside where he had landed. She had come to visit to ask Gloyd how things were going with his houseguest when they'd heard Turbo having a freak-out in his room.

"No, I just decided to take up curtain-climbing to get an aeriel view of the room," Turbo snipped back, only it came it out not as snippy as he intended it too and instead just tired sounding.

"I wish I performed stunts when I dreamed," commented Gloyd, earning a punch and a glare from Vanellope to wordlessly tell him to shut up.

"At least you didn't eat the curtains like Stinkbrain did one time," Vanellope joked lightly, shaking her head at the memory of catching him in the act. "What a moron."

Stinkbrain, who was...oh yeah, that was her usual nickname for Wreck-It Ralph. Speaking of him, Turbo wondered how the large-fisted wrecker felt about him being in Sugar Rush again. Seeing as how the halitosis victim hadn't come by to threaten him, he assumed that perhaps Vanellope had already told him something.

(In reality, not that he knew any of this, Ralph had thought it hilarious that all the Sugar Rush-ians were driving Turbo bananas and worked to death, as related to him by Vanellope when they had hung out earlier. And if you asked Ralph, he would admit that he was enjoying his break from having to play "big brother" with all the kids.)

Even though the nightmare was slowly fading from his mind, he was still shaken up over it. And yet, somehow...he strangely felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest. Maybe since he had apologized to the ghosts, they would stay away from him. Maybe he'd made peace and he could finally bury his own hatchet.

"You want some warm milk or somethin'?" Gloyd asked him, snapping his from his thoughts.

It only partially aggravated him to hear the request, thinking that the boy was only asking because he either felt sorry for him for having a nightmare or was just being a smart aleck about it. However, judging by his unusually solemn look, Turbo decided he was only asking to be nice.

So he took the milk.

"Niiiice, Skittles. Niiiiice, pony."

Turbo was naturally on his guard when the uni-candy-corn had showed up to survey what everyone was doing in his field. The racer had a few sugar cubes in his open palm, which was embarrassingly trembling out of fear that the creature was going to chomp his hand off. Felix was there to supervise, not being able to disregard his friend's pleading when the handyman had come to visit.

"Okay, Fix-It, the second my hand gets bitten off, you do your stuff," the racer instructed him firmly. "And don't gag or get queasy at the bloodshed."

"He's not going to bite you, worrywart," Felix assured him with an amused smile.

"Easy for you to say; he likes you just fine."

Skittles sniffed the welcoming hand bearing treats, his large nostrils flaring with interest. Turbo was ready to jump back at any second just in case this didn't work and the beast decided to become suddenly aggressive. Felix was trying not to laugh so he ended up displaying a rather goofy grin as he watched this.

Then, much to Turbo's surprise, a large hot pink tongue shot out and slurped the sugar treats right out of his hand and they disappeared into Skittles' mouth, his jaws moving in a chewing motion to crunch the cubes into smaller crystals.

And that's how Skittles became a Turbo fan.

The demeanor in the horse's behavior changed almost immediately, and he started nickering softly while pressing his velvety nose against Turbo's empty hand as if wanting some more goodies from him. The racer found himself...well...smiling at the sudden display of puppy-like affection.

"Huh, you're not so mean and scary after all," he said to Skittles, who had proceeded to lick any traces of sugar off his hand and the racer reached his free hand up to rub him between the ears.

"See, I told you he was sweet," Felix told him as he gave the now friendly equine a few pats.

"Yeah, after you buy his love."

Skittles lifted his head up to Turbo's level and slurped his face from the chin up, effectively covering him in wet sticky drool. He also got a good whiff of the pony's fruity breath, which wasn't bad but it was just so sickeningly sweet and hot that it was gag-inducing.

"Ugh, horse slobber!" Turbo whined in disgust, spitting to the side of him.

Felix started cracking up, holding his sides from laughing. "You got kissed by a uni-candy-corn!"

"It's the worst kiss I've ever had, that's for sure."

When Skittles licked him again, Turbo backed up and put his hands up in front of him defensively. "Okay, okay, we're friends now. Just stop licking me!"

The pink cuddle monster turned and trotted off in search of someone that would give him more sugar cubes, while Turbo motioned for Felix to follow him back to Gloyd's so he could rinse the spit off his face.

"If anyone had ever told me I'd be getting slobbered on by a pink horse with a stupid piece of candy corn on its head for a horn, I would've said they'd been smokin' too many mushrooms at Mario's."

Felix snickered behind a gloved hand. "Why do they call him Skittles anyway?"

"That's what his breath smells like," Turbo answered, shuddering a bit when he suddenly remembered the scent clogging up his nostrils. "Hey, you haven't seen Rosie today by any chance, have you?"

The handyman scratched his head, his hat starting to slide off the side of his head as he did so, and his face screwed up in concentration. "Oh, where did I see her at? She was going somewhere..."

He snapped his fingers when he remembered and grinned. "Oh! She went to see a Street Fighter match with those other two girls, the ones that she used to cheer with?"

Turbo stared hard at him with narrowed eyes. "Summer and Raven?" he growled. "She actually went somewhere with those two?"

He couldn't help feeling insanely jealous. What the hell, they barely got along with Rosie back in the day, never including her in any of their outings and poking fun at her at times. And now she's off spending time with them when she could be-

"Oh they've been getting along much better since you knew them," Felix told him as they walked into Gloyd's pumpkin house. "They had started being nicer and hanging out with her. In fact, if not for them, she would've resorted to just living in the Station after their game got unplugged, since she was...well...still out of sorts about you being gone."

Turbo let that sink in as he cleaned himself of uni-candy-corn drool. Okay, he supposed it was possible that they had changed, but it was still hard to think of them as anything but idiotic bimbos. Then he thought to himself that he was pretty much doing what everybody else was doing to him. Remembering him for all the shit he had done and not even giving him a chance to prove himself otherwise.

It still made him sad that Rosie had went off to do something fun without him, even though it wasn't like he was allowed to go into that particular game anyway. He might as well be happy that one of them could go off and enjoy themselves. He realized he was thinking like one of those annoying clingy guys that he had been trying to avoid becoming but right now he really didn't care admitting that he missed his own wife.

Ahhhh, he was such a sap sometimes.

"OW!"

"Too hard?"

"You're hurting me!"

"Sorry...," was the sheepish answer. "Here, let's try it this way."

"Owwww owwww...right there, right there, right there." A pause as the feeling kicked in full force. "...owwww, GOD!"

"Does it feel any better yet?"

"Not really but keep going, shit shit damn owww..." The pain was finally taken over by some extreme pleasure. "ahhhhh...okay that's better..."

"I swear, you are the biggest baby when it comes to back rubs, champ."

Turbo was sitting backwards away from Rosie on his borrowed bed while she tried to knead the knots out of his back, and he was (as usual) acting as if she was killing him. Of course he always felt turbo-tastic by the time she was done, all the cramps and tense muscles worked out of him so he could relax.

"I never knew juveniles could be such slave drivers," Turbo commented as she put pressure in her spaced out fingers and walked them from between his shoulder blades and on down his back, making him arch up a little and grimace slightly at the pain-pleasure. "No offense, but I'm glad we can't procreate."

Rosie rolled her eyes and smiled lazily. "Yeah, I think we would've had our own herd by now if that could happen."

He cringed at the thought. "Don't even joke."

"But babies are sooooo cuuuute," she said in a cooing voice, just teasing him of course.

"Yeah until they need their diapers changed or they throw up on you or they wake you up every two hours."

"You know, I seem to recall you used to like them."

Turbo couldn't imagine why he would ever think such a preposterous thing. "You sure that wasn't Fix-It? I can imagine him going ga-ga over a baby."

"You certainly never complained about them back then like you're doing now," she pointed out, rubbing circles into his mid back area on either side of his spine. "The only time I ever did hear you gripe about them was when a really young or inexperienced player got a hold of your controls."

"Because they couldn't keep me on the road. It's not fun to crash every ten seconds, even though it didn't hurt. You're lucky you were an NPC and didn't have to worry about all that."

Rosie hit another knot and he started whining again until she got it worked out. She moved back up to his neck and shoulders to give his back a rest from all the work she was giving it.

"I heard you hung out with Summer and Raven," he mentioned casually, his shoulders relaxed as she kneaded them. "I didn't think you liked them."

She shrugged. "They're not that bad anymore. They said they'd talk to Ken and Ryu about letting you come visit so we can the matches like we used to do."

"They said that?" he asked with a lilt of surprise in his voice.

"Mmm-hmmm."

Huh. He guessed they really had changed from when he first met them.

"So what did you today besides cramp your back up?"

Turbo winced when she squeezed a little too hard in one spot between his shoulder and neck, so she moved her hands up to give his head and temples a quick rub before moving back down to his back.

"I...uh...had another dream about the twins," he told her quietly.

Rosie had heard from Vanellope about how he'd had a vivid nightmare but she didn't know what it was about until now. She didn't tell Turbo she knew about it because she figured he'd get mad at the little president for spreading his business.

"Oh?" she asked in a way to coax him into telling her about it.

"That Rocky guy was there this time," Turbo continued as bits and pieces of the dream came back to him. "What's funny is I'm not really all that bothered about it anymore. I kind of apologized in it for...well, you know."

That was probably the closest thing to closure he was ever going to get. Rosie wrapped her arms around him in a backwards hug, her head resting on his shoulder so her face would be next to his and gave him a squeeze. He lightly rubbed her arms with a hand and laid back against her to rest.

"Love ya," she told him before giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

"Love ya too," he smiled, snuggling his head against hers.

They didn't have to bring up the murders anymore after that.