The phantom confidently claimed that Peach would only take a day to recover, but to her surprise, it had taken her nearly three days to fully contain the tremors that traveled through her in waves. Her body ached and pounded as she laid in bed, making her bedroom feel more like a prison cell for a crime she didn't commit.
But, even though it had been three miserable days, she had not seen or felt him once.
For most of the days she was locked away in the hopes of recovery, she had nothing to entertain herself except her wandering mind. For most hours of the day, she stared up at the cracked stone ceiling, hummed to herself, or even tried to sleep the hours away, which wasn't hard, considering how exhaustion seemed to be her default state.
Even so, the constant silence drove her mad with boredom. It didn't take long for her to grow beyond frustrated with her body, and it was easy for her to begin understanding the king's disliking of human mortality as it was restricting.
Seeing the phantom recover so easily from a deep gash in his arm was already impressive in itself, but it amazed her even further, realizing how little seemed to burden him. When he wanted, it was so easy for him to physically restrain her body for a few days, all because he was that...powerful.
It was frustrating...but she couldn't deny that she was intrigued with what he was capable of.
Thankfully, as Peach sat up on her bed, on the morning of her third imobile day, she was able to finally feel her limbs again and carefully move them. She was only able to notice after she accidentally lifted her arms to stretch them above her head, gasping as she saw that she had actually moved.
Her body was so accustomed to the bed-ridden lifestyle that she was weak and walking was a bit more straining than it had been before, but she sucked up any symptoms of weakness that she could control, refusing to be tied down to her bed any longer.
Though moving was draining and made her head dizzy, she was able to stand and walk around her room with little inconvenience besides an occasional pounding headache and trembling limbs. Her arms and legs were as heavy as sheets of lead and her head pounded with each step, but it was better than being isolated for any longer.
After realizing she could walk, the first thing she did was hop off her bed and drop to her knees, grabbing the letter the king had forgotten to take with him. He had attempted to dispose of the letter with such bitter intentions, yet he had left it in her room by mistake.
He was sloppy, thankfully. His petty attempt at destroying the note was not enough to stop her, as she was far too stubborn to let go of the one answer she had managed to get her hands on.
After grabbing the note, Peach hastily glared at the door, terrified of the idea of the king dropping by to see what he had forgotten to get rid of. She knew that if he saw her with the note, he would make sure she never saw it again.
Peach frowned at her sudden fear, pushing it to the back of her head. He had not once stopped by to see her, so his presence was unlikely.
After a few moments of intense silence, her eyes trailed back towards the ball of paper in her hands. Her palms trembled as she gently held the all-knowing letter, wondering if she could even salvage it.
Peach's heart pounded as she analyzed its rough state. It was crumbled into a tight, compact ball.
Her gut told her that he had intended on leaving it for her, even though it was a stupid idea. The king was not the type of koopa to outwardly show concern or sympathy, so perhaps his attempt at leaving the letter was an indirect act of kindness?
Or, was he truly just that sloppy? Peach furrowed her brow in thoughtful amusement as both answers seemed to entertain her. Though, she couldn't help but hope her first theory held some truth, even if it were hard to believe.
Peach gently sat on the edge of her bed with the crushed note neatly uncrumbled flatly onto her lap. She tried her best to restore it to its previously perfect state, but failed as the note was wrinkly and coated with small indentations and tears. While it looked like she had dug it out of the trash, it was at least mostly legible besides for a few words that had been torn.
She sighed after rereading the note for the hundredth time, hoping to find anything written on the back or hidden between the lines. She flipped it upside down and even held it towards her room's candle light, hoping to see any symbol or hint to direct her.
The more she looked, the more she found herself confused about the entire situation, as it was just a plain letter, besides the fact that she wrote it to…'Bowser.'
It was her handwriting, her signature, and it was signed to his first name; the name he lost his cool at the second he heard her say it outloud. Yet, there was no other information besides that she had written it to the king. When or why she had done such a thing was out of the equation.
Why did everything have to be so secretive?
Peach sighed and leaned over, opening her nightstan's drawer. She gently placed the fragile, nearly-torn letter towards the back of the opening. She laid it to rest gently, worried that even the most subtle contact would tear it. She squinted as she noticed it rested amongst the keys she had stolen, as well as the ring her admirer had given her.
Peach nervously slammed the drawer shut with an overwhelmed frown at the sight of the ring. The items within the nightstand rattled and bounced around from the sudden force but she didn't seem bothered. Or, rather, she was too distracted to care.
Peach shook her head from left to right with her eyes forced shut, trying to force the pounding questions out of her head; she refused to dive into another line of thought that would only result in a headache.
Peach opened her eyes and frantically looked towards her closed door. She groaned, wanting nothing more than to escape her prison cell and avoid the drawer containing clues that only raised more frustrating questions.
She gasped as her gaze fell down to her legs, realizing she could feel them, and instantly forced every drop of energy out of her as she turned towards the door.
She needed space to breathe and she was going to leave, no matter what it took.
It didn't take long for Peach's composure to break and her stubbornness could only turn a blind eye to her cracking facade for so long. She had tried to convince herself that she was back to normal, but only a few minutes of walking had forced her to come to a halt, her palm against the wall to her right, and the other gripping her chest in fatigue.
Peach's legs began wobbling as she suddenly began losing feeling in her legs, forcing her to almost drop down onto her knees. Thankfully, she caught herself by leaning her shoulder against the wall, barely avoiding a brutal fall.
Peach groaned as her eyes fell down to her legs and returned to the path before her, terrified to realize how she had isolated herself away from her room. Her confidence continued cracking as fear welled up in its place.
She looked behind her, terrified to see that the path she had just walked was pitch black and empty of anything she could see. Besides the small lantern in her left hand, lighting up a few inches in radius around her, she couldn't see anything. Looking in front of her, she was met with the same eerie darkness.
Peach swore under her breath. She had made a rash decision to wander off without fully recovering.
However, there was one source of light in the distance that quickly caught her attention. The light was faint and seemed to fade in and out of view, almost as if something, or someone, was occasionally blocking it.
It leaked under something, gently lighting up the area around whatever seemed to be producing the source of light. It wasn't a powerful glow, but it was enough for it to catch her eyes and pull her towards it.
With a small limp, and her body's weight leaning on her arm pressed against the wall, she slowly made her way towards the light. She didn't know why she felt the need to investigate, but considering how understimulated her mind had been after days of silent rest, she didn't give it a second thought.
After a few seconds of inching towards the light, she quickly noticed that it was peeking under a door; it came from the outside world.
Peach gasped, realizing she was so close to an exit. She forced her pace to increase, eager to investigate the first thing connected to the outside she had seen in days.
She was excited, not because of the idea of escaping, as she knew how that would end. Rather, she was overwhelmed to see sunlight from the world above.
Peach barely reached the door before her legs wobbled and gave out, forcing her to land on her knees with a loud, echoed 'plop.' She yelped, though her cry was muffled from exhaustion, and came out like a weak grunt.
Dust poofed around her from the impact, surely from both her clothes and the filthy stone beneath her. She groaned, somewhat thankful that she couldn't feel her legs, as she had no doubt they'd be aching from the harsh fall against the rough stone.
Looking down, Peach's right hand had landed in the small patch of light that pushed its way under the door. Her hand ached from the rough landing but Peach fixated on another sensation that creeped up her arm: warmth.
She flipped her hand over, allowing the glow to trickle across her palm, happy to find that it was faintly warm; more than enough to make her miss the feeling of sunshine against her.
She leaned forward, allowing her body to slowly be covered in the faint light. It climbed up her wrist, arm, and nearly reached her shoulder as she continued leaning into it.
Peach gasped and her hand flinched away from the door as the light quickly faded, replacing the familiar warmth with chilling darkness. She held her breath, terrified to see that whatever had stepped in front of the door had returned, repeatedly flashing her vision away from her.
Peach held her hands to her chest and leaned away from the door, half expecting someone to rush in and scold her for leaving her room. She knew it was a ridiculous thought, but considering her living conditions, she wasn't in a position where she was eager to be caught.
As she pulled away, her body shuddered in disgust as a thick, overwhelming wave of cigarette smoke seeped through the door and coated her body in its stench. The air felt toxic to breathe and coated her mouth with a sour, dry sensation.
Peach brought her hands up to her mouth, hoping to filter out a bit of the foul smell, but held her breath as she heard a voice that hardly made its way into the corridor.
"I know, I know," the faint voice muttered through the door.
Peach's eyes widened for a moment as she was able to decipher the hushed words of whoever stood outside the door. With a silenced gasp, Peach leaned forward on her palms as she attempted to make out any other words among the muffled and distorted mutters.
Whoever was speaking, their tone was frustrated and fed up with whoever they were talking to. There seemed to be multiple people, but she couldn't tell how many, as she was only able to hear whoever stood in front of the door. Whoever they were, they were not someone she wanted to be found by, and that was evident by the way they spoke.
His voice was raspy, dark, and deep, undoubtedly coming from a large koopa. It was easy to assume such a thing, considering a koopa's voice tended to match its appearance.
"Just do what the lady says. A paycheck is a paycheck, isn't it?" The same voice continued with a mocking laugh, but whoever he was talking to did not seem entertained, as the laughter quickly fell flat.
Whoever he was talking to seemed unamused as there was no reply.
"What? Guarding doors too borin' for ya?" he continued with a groan. "You do know we're here because of a supposed monster, right? That's the definition of excitin' if ya ask me!"
Peach flinched at the amount of excitement that poured out of the koopa's words, specifically at the word 'monster.' Dark passion seemed to seep from his tone, making her skin crawl.
It didn't take more than a few seconds for Peach to know who they were talking about. The party that stood outside the door were surely knights or guards of some sort, sent to monitor the phantom, though they seemed anything but chivalrous.
The voice paused as his company replied. Peach groaned as she was unable to hear the other koopa's response, but leaned closer on her palms, making out the main koopa's response.
"No idea. Just snatch whatever wanders outta one of the exits. Accordin' to the notes, that you clearly didn't read," he added with a bit of salt, "some human girl got herself caught by whatever freak's livin' down there."
Peach's face paled at the mention of her, unhappy with the mocking, disrespectful tone that he coated his words with.
Her face contorted into confusion as she was unable to make out the next few lines of dialogue, as their laughter made it too hard to understand.
After a few moments of uncomfortable snickering, Peach was finally able to understand what one of the koopas said.
"Boy, what I'd do to have a lil human like that stuck in my basement," he sighed in dark jealousy. "Monster, whatever it is, is livin' the dream...havin' its own plaything. I swear, once this war is over, I'm snatchin' up my own personal human before the species is extinct. I hear they're obedient little things."
Peach quickly backed away as her body trembled from overwhelming disgust. Her skin ran ice cold and her stomach fell at the dirty, animalistic words that flowed out of the koopa and the company that laughed in agreement. She was terrified to find that the koopas only egged the culprit on further and further with distant agreement.
The koopa paused as his company replied.
"Guess that's true," the koopa smirked. "If we see the runt leave the tunnels, queen said to grab 'er. She didn't say we couldn't have our fun, first. Doubt she'd care. Not like humans are endangered yet."
Peach's eyes widened.
It made her skin crawl with discomfort and a sickened sense of dread. Were humans in the Darklands destined to either be victims of crime or...creepy fantasies? Peach shuddered, realizing the real monster might not be the phantom, but the sick koopas that held such twisted cravings within them.
Peach sat still in pure disgust as her chest rapidly pounded. She refused to move a muscle, terrified that they would hear her trembled breathing and snatch her.
But, thankfully, after a few moments of haziness, she could hear the group walk away as their laughter boomed until it faded into a thick, powerful silence.
Peach remained pulled away from the door, frozen in shock from what she had listened into. A part of her knew it was her fault for listening into a private conversation that they didn't think anyone would ever hear, but the other half of her knew that they shouldn't have thought such things in the first place. She wondered if they had meant what they said or if it were simply for show. Either way, it made her body burn with anger and terror.
Peach felt her eyes well with tears as she continued analyzing what the disturbed koopas had spat about her and other potential victims. It made her sick with dread, realizing the outside world was just as horrific, if not more, as the one she was trapped within.
She felt hopelessly stuck.
If you asked any human, they would tell you that koopas were vile, violent creatures, but she hadn't realized their dark mindsets included such inhumane indecency. She knew countless stories and tales of koopas ripping humans to shreds, but she hadn't considered how corrupt their minds were.
Peach sighed, realizing she was being unfair, as not every koopa was a walking stereotype.
In all of her time locked away, the phantom had not laid a single claw on her with any sickened intentions besides tormenting her, so that cemented the idea that not all koopas were disgustingly corrupt. Or, at the very least, he wasn't showing that side of him.
Peach shuddered as she remembered both times he had toyed with her.
She was well aware she could meet an awful fate at his hands, and even though he could, he didn't allow it. No matter how scared she was of him, he never gave her a reason to expect something awful out of him.
Besides the whole kidnapping incident, of course.
While she wasn't thankful for her extended stay beneath the opera house, she couldn't help but tremble in a silent plea of gratitude that her captor wasn't a complete freak like the koopas she had just indirectly had the pleasure of meeting.
Because of the koopas' smoke, her body reeked of the sickening stench that made her throat burn. Her hair and clothes seemed to be covered in the putrid remnants of the conversation she had just overheard.
The adrenaline that pumped through her because of their words seemed to have temporarily returned her strength, as she was able to return to her feet with a bit of effort.
Peach shuddered at how disgusted she felt, both by the smell and by how their words had burned into her mind. She quickly wrapped her arms around her, desperate to feel any sense of comfort.
She needed to get away. She needed something, anything, to make her feel less...degraded and humiliated. Anxiety and discomfort pumped through her.
With the lantern in hand, her grip shook as she raised it beside her chest, illuminating the stone wall and rugged floor. She sighed as she looked from left to right, unamused by the darkened path that stood before her.
Peach frowned, deciding her first course of action was to get a new change of clothes.