We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
-Shakespeare

Luigi always had the ambition of being a heavy sleeper. Circumstances, such as being a hero, and general adult life, got in the way of that time and time again. Now proved to be no different.

He woke up far earlier than he would have liked, but there was no stopping the march of time now.

The sky was black when there should've been no reason for it to be any colour other than blue. Mountains of impossible size framed the landscape, but he didn't have to crane his neck to take in his environment, kept gated by trees on all sides.

Luigi hadn't woken up. He had been here before. Once. Way back when the Mario Brothers had had to specify their names.

Subcon.

Cracks traced the surface of the sky. Luigi moved, but no matter what direction he went in, the cracks seemed to move with him, convulsing to an invisible heartbeat.

There was no life to be found. Only trees, and even those were wilting, leaves falling out like clumps of hair.

Luigi decided to head off in the mountain's direction. He recalled a memory, of a waterfall hidden in the forest, though it was vague and in pastel colours. The rush of the rapids confirmed its existence to him and he followed the sound by ear, venturing further and further away from what now passed for safety.

The waterfall, unlike almost everything else, had not been tainted. Its water was just as, if not more pristine as he remembered. The stream fell down in a constant crash. Once the water from the very top of the cliff had plummeted, it became part of the river, a snakelike, natural structure.

"Hello?" Luigi shouted, his voice competing for attention with the roar of the falls. No one answered his call. His expression shifted from confusion to very real, and very much justified, nervousness. If not a human, then he at least expected a Sniffit. A Shy Guy. Anyone. The residents of Subcon either knew better than to wander outside. That or they anticipated his arrival(?).

Luigi intended, against the warnings of the voice in his head, to stay asleep and ventured on. The where to didn't matter as much as what he would find.

Some more idle steps brought him to the mouth of a cave, and then into the structure itself.

Luigi never had been the biggest fan of caves. He considered them too big for their own good, too open with their dead ends and traps. Of the few things he missed about Subcon, he could not count the caves as one of them.

The moment Luigi walked in, his mind already drawing comparisons with the mansion in Boo Woods, all light disappeared and the cave went invisible. Luigi lost the ability to see the Fire Flower in his pocket and the ground beneath his feet. The rest of the cave suffered a similar fate and became a mass of shifting shadows, a tunnel that stretched on and on with the end impossible to make out.

Luigi had no sight. His ears became his eyes as they examined the terrain around him in tones, looking out for falling dirt – that meant a trap – and water. That meant a reprieve from a dry throat. Otherwise, the cave had him at its mercy. If a Tryclyde were to pop out of a vase he would not have had the strength necessary to wrangle it, nor the foresight.

One step at a time. Careful, trembling steps.

Luigi would've liked to say that he was better than this. That, after years of exposure therapy to the very worst monsters koopakind had to offer. There had been some improvement…was what he would've liked to say, but he trusted in his feelings, and those feelings said otherwise.

It was worse than worry. It was a churning, a gut instinct, a storm of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. The storm could not be weathered or rationalised. He had marginally more awareness than a baby in the womb.

Luigi wanted to escape, he would have run for his life, but the thought of throwing himself headlong into the abyss scared him away from taking such drastic measures.

Even if a hundred eyes were behind him, or a beast with three backs had sniffed out his scent.

I won't run, Luigi thought, but it didn't comfort him as much as it would in other situations. It didn't comfort him at all.

An apparition, its face glowing, appeared in front of him. Luigi stifled a yell. He tried moving back, but his legs betrayed him and as a result he then tumbled to his knees. The storm of anxiety thundered now in a pounding rhythm.

He wasn't ready, too young to have lived fully, too old to believe he'd seen most of the world, but he surrendered to whatever fate the apparition had in store for him. He made no effort to fight back, to douse them in flames.

He only wished the apparition enacted its fate, and fast, because one who breathed as erratically as he did was on the verge of their heart exploding.

"Hey. It's okay, calm down." The apparition had a young girl's voice, wisened but not yet a woman, no doubt a trick to make the reaping that much easier.

Luigi felt the touch of a hand that was not his and his soul almost jumped out of his body.

"Get away from me!" He kicked at and screamed into the darkness, but what could not be seen, could not be fought against.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? Calm down!"

He sensed the hands tighten somewhere around his shoulders. No claws had sprung from them, but it would only be a matter of time before those sank into him too.

The kicking and screaming did not abate, not until his legs began to tire and the apparition made it clear that hurting her that way would be a wasted effort.

Knowing that what little strength he had left to give couldn't save him, Luigi gave up. In his final moments, he locked eyes with the apparition, and…

…and the apparition was in fact a girl. Human. Just like him.

"Are you done?" She – and Luigi could say that with complete certainty, not a male ghost masquerading as a female one – tilted her head.

Luigi came to the conclusion that saying nothing at all was better than giving her the satisfaction of answering, and got up by himself.

With the return of his sight, and the fact he had calmed down enough to make sense of what she told him, Luigi glanced at the girl. One hand held a flashlight, which explained why he was able to see in the first place.

"I thought you'd never stop," the girl rolled her eyes playfully. "You were like a baby back there."

"I was not," he said, coming off as more offended than he wanted to sound. "You should be more careful with how you use that thing, young lady. Had me thinkin' you were a ghost."

"Oh? You mean…like this?"

The girl in the sweater shone her flashlight upwards, her face becoming distorted with light and dark shadows. Save for her eyes and mouth, she was invisible.

"That's not funny." Luigi pouted. He gained sudden awareness of the sweat on the back of his neck.

"Anyways." The girl aimed her flashlight away and her face returned to normality, "I'm sorry about the fright. Wasn't expecting to find anyone else in this place."

"Me neither. I'm Luigi. Luigi Mario." He extended his hand, the one not covered in as much sweat as the other one.

"Nancy. Nancy Thompson."

Luigi and Nancy Thompson shook hands. What Luigi found intriguing about Nancy, more than the quirk of her smile and how it tipped slightly to one side, was the streak of silver in her otherwise brown hair. Hair dye? At that age?

"We should get going," Nancy said, straight to the point of the matter. Perhaps she sensed his waning interest.

Luigi blinked at her, unsure if he'd tuned out on part of their conversation. "We? Hold on, where are we going?"

"Don't worry. I'll explain everything when we get there."

"Works for me." Luigi felt out of breath just by talking, as if his words had to hurry too. He had to run a little to keep by her side.

"Your clothes look really dirty, by the way."

"Gee, thanks." Luigi rolled his eyes.

Kids.