Chapter 18 Gone

Peach scurried after Peasley, her anxiety ramping up like mad. What was going on? Why was Peasley so scared? Was everyone okay? Seriously, what was happening; the fact that Peach had no idea what was making Peasley act like this made her worry beyond all human or beanish comprehension. She hoped that she would see what the problem was.

At least, she thought that way before she and her brother got outside. When she saw what was happening, she instantly regretted ever having that sort of curiosity. Looking over the entirety of the village was a dark, smoggy black cloud. It snuffed out everything, with the stars and the moon absolutely nowhere to be seen. Looking at this horrific sight in the sky made Peach's stomach churn. She began to sweat, and she tried her best to not divulge into a shaking, screaming, crying fit.

"Peasley… what is this?"

Peasley stopped for a brief moment, looking as though he was in indescribable pain. "The darkness… that we saw earlier… it's here."

The churning of Peach's stomach became even more unbearable. She looked up at the dark cloud, covering the entirety of the village and mountain. It had the distinct vibe that one mostly associated with death, suffering, and pain. Peach felt so small while looking at it. It felt as though it was sucking out every positive emotion and memory and twisting all those things into something ugly, something awful, something wrong. She sweated some more, feeling one desire and one desire alone.

"Peasley, we need to get out of here."

Peasley nodded, not saying a word. The two of them started to run. As Peach followed her brother, she noticed a lot of bugs flittering around him. Butterflies, gnats, flies; they all swarmed him, and he had the hardest time ever trying to keep them away. Peach was confused about this until she remembered what the Witch Doctor had said, how bugs would be attracted to Peasley for a little bit because of the ingredients he used to patch him up.

And with that thought, Peach remembered the sweet Hoohooligans who had saved her and Peasley. She shouldn't leave them here! She shouldn't abandon them, not in this darkness that was strong enough to make a person fall into despair! She needed to help them escape! She needed to be there for them; she was their queen!

"Peasley, wait!" Peasley came to a halt, looking at Peach like he thought she was crazy. His disbelief and panic only grew stronger when he saw his sister running back the way they had come.

"Peach, what are you doing?"

Peach didn't stop, rushing through the quiet and still village. Her breathing rate was becoming a little unmanageable, as was her energy level. But she didn't care; people like Hoolina and Hoobert meant way more than Peach's comfort ever did. She barreled through Hoohoo Village. She heard Peasley calling after her, following behind her by just a few feet. Still, she kept running. She didn't stop…

Until she saw Hoolina. She was running in the direction that Peach and Peasley had just run in, and her eyes were wide with pure, unadulterated terror. Her heart filling with hope despite everything, she ran up to the Hoohooligan who had saved the royal siblings. She put her hands on her shoulders.

"Hoolina. It's okay; it's all going to be okay." Hoolina couldn't speak, in fact, looking like she was about to cry. Peach patted her on the back. "We'll get you out of here."

Hoolina lifted her head. With tears appearing in her black eyes, she tried to speak. "Ho…Hoobert…. Hoobert was…"

Peach's heart skipped a beat. "What? What's wrong? What happened to Hoobert?"

Hoolina hyperventilated. "Hoobert… has been…" she looked up, letting out a gasp that was legitimately painful to listen to. "LOOK OUT!" She pushed Peach out of the way. As she stumbled back, the queen tried her best to figure out what was going on. She lifted her head back up…

And saw what looked like a shadowy, smoky arm reaching down from the darkness above. Having a considerable amount of trouble trying to wrap her head around this event, she gawked as the hand pointed toward Hoolina. It shot down toward her, and the hand disappeared into her head. The Hoohooligan gasped, but the more darkness entered her body, the less and less she stopped reacting to it. Peach, to her horror, noticed that her eyes were glowing white. Her jaw went slack, and all the life drained out of her body before she looked like some sort of darkness-possessed zombie.

Peach swallowed a lump, walking up to her subject. "H…Hoolina?"

It turned out, that the "darkness-possessed zombie" thing seemed to be truer than Peach had originally thought. Hoolina extended her arms and reached for Peach, groaning as she did. Peach couldn't even react to this. If it wasn't Peasley pulling her out of the way, she probably would've been grabbed by Hoolina.

"Hoo… Hoolina!" Slowly but surely, what happened to Hoolina was becoming clearer and clearer to Peach. She began to cry, unable to take her eyes off the empty husk that had been a fully functioning person less than a few seconds prior.

"Peach, we need to go!"

As if those words were magic, Peach all of a sudden realized there were more zombie-fied hoohooligans surrounding them. They all moaned and groaned as they slowly trudged toward the queen. As mindless as they looked, there were enough of them to really cause a problem for the royal siblings. Not taking another second to think about their course of action, Peasley and Peach broke out into a run.

They ran and ran. The longer they ran, the more of the zombie hoohooligans the queen saw. It… it made her cry all over again. That white shine looked unnatural in every way. The way they refused to close their mouths, instead groaning like the person trapped inside the body was going through the worst kind of physical and emotional torture. Peach's heart screamed in multiple ways while looking at this sight. All her emotions, combined with the despair that the dark cloud had already called her, created a feeling that Peach wouldn't wish on her worst enemy.

Regardless, there was no way she could help these people. Stopping would guarantee death for her and Peasley, which meant that she had no choice but to leave these people in the dust. It was an awful thing to watch; it made her shake and whimper. The fact that she knew it was her fault wasn't helping matters.

Unfortunately for the royal siblings, they would soon come to a dead end. Peach's eyes grew wide as she looked at the wall that stood before them, tall, dark, and foreboding. She looked at Peasley, who looked just as worried as she currently felt.

"We can't scale this," he said. "There's not a chance."

Peach frowned. She looked back where they had come, seeing the zombies closing in on them. She sighed, her despair rising. "I… I guess this is it."

"Yeah." Peasley's eyes shined with sadness as he looked at the hoohooligans. At least, this was the case until he batted more bugs away. "Darn it, these bugs are really starting to get on my nerves."

Peach chuckled, the sound hollow. "I guess they want to make our death even worse." She looked at the bugs, still flying around her brother, when she thought of something. "Wait. I have an idea." She took hold of Peasley's hand. "It might sound a little crazy, but I think it'll work."

"What is it?"

Peach grasped his hand even tighter. "Let the bugs come. Maybe, if enough crowd around you, they can fly us up the mountain."

Peasley raised an eyebrow. "That does sound pretty crazy." The groan of a zombie could be heard closing in, causing Peasley to whimper. "But… I guess it's worth a try."

So, the two allowed the bug swarm to grow bigger and bigger. Within about thirty seconds, they had Peasley completely covered. Not a single inch of his green skin was visible, and the sound of their wings flapping and buzzing genuinely hurt the ears. Nevertheless, Peach was still hopeful. She gripped Peasley's hand extra hard, praying to Grambi above that this would work.

Please please please, she thought on repeat. I know this'll work. I just know it will work.

Sure enough, just around the time when the hoohooligans were closing in around them, the bugs started to lift Peasley into the air. Peach smiled, her heart rate picking up. Before long, the two of them were in the air, with no way for the zombies to catch up with them. Feeling hope take the place of her ever-mounting despair, Peach smiled as she and Peasley zipped upwards.

Up up and up they went. Peach felt the air grow a little thin the closer to the top of Hoohoo Mountain they got, but she didn't care. She still smiled the farther up the mountain they got. Before long, they had risen above the darkness entirely. They soon landed on a ledge, right above the dark cloud. With their feet safely planted on the ground, Peasley batted all of the bugs away. Once they were gone, he let out a breath. He looked over at his sister, laughing in relief as the two stood, safe and sound without any need to worry about the darkness any longer.

"Well," Peasley wiped some sweat off his brow. "We did it. We actually got out of there!"

"Yeah, we did!" Peach laughed, smiling in a way to would've been foreign to her not too long ago. "Well, I guess all we need to do is continue our way up the mountain and…"

Before she could say anything more, Peasley's eyes grew wide. He gasped, staring behind Peach in absolute terror. Before she knew what the cause of all this was, Peasley shouted "PEACH, LOOK OUT!" and pushed her out of the way. She landed on the ground, confused and hurt. She looked back at her brother…

"Peasley!"

She bolted to her feet, unwilling to believe what she was seeing. Another one of the arms of darkness had reached up above out of the cloud. It was now wrapping around Peasley's body, all while the former prince gasped and struggled. Before Peach even had a chance to get up to him, the arm pulled Peasley down into the cloud.

"PEASLEY!"

Peach ran over to the side of the cliff, her jaw dropping as she saw her brother fall. Before long, he was completely out of sight, lost beneath the surface of the dismal darkness. The queen stood in place, not thinking, not feeling; not even fully comprehending what she had just witnessed. Slowly, she began to shake. It felt like her legs were going to give out, like she was going to throw up, cry, and scream, all at once.

"No…" she fell to her knees. She stared at the darkness as it all sunk in. Peasley was gone. He had been pulled downwards, away from his sister and down toward his doom. Peach shook even more, shaking her head as she tried to piece together all that was happening. She held back her tears, wishing that what she had just seen was some sort of dream. That it was a hallucination, that it was her imagination; she wanted it to be anything but real.

But it was.

"No… no!" The tears came in full force. Now more than ever before, it felt like her world was crumbling. Not even the sight of Cackletta, standing in front of her own throne and declaring that the Beanbean Kingdom was hers, could compare to this level of pain.

"NO!" She banged her fist in the dirt, her cries becoming stronger. "NO! NO!" She banged her fist a second time, cursing the gods who would put her through something like this. She banged her fist a third time. This couldn't be reality; it just couldn't be! It… it had to change! Reality couldn't leave her like this! It just couldn't; it had to right itself, form a new one where Peasely was still here!

Reality didn't budge or bend.

"No…" Peach cried like she had never had before. She was thirteen all over again, watching her beloved older brother leave the royal castle forever. She was a little girl, watching Peasley's retreating back as he left her with all the responsibilities that he believed she was cut out for. Trying not to scream, she placed her hand on the sapphire broach, the same sapphire broach that had been a warm beacon and comforter for her for years and years. It didn't feel warm now. It didn't feel like anything save for a sparkly rock with no real purpose.

She cried some more. She wanted to shout, she wanted to do something. She wanted to get Peasley back, she wanted to do anything that would solve this problem. She prayed to Grambi once again, asking him to turn back time. Rewind the tape, make it so that Peasley was still standing here and still right by her side. She prayed harder than she ever had before, and yet…

Nothing happened.