Silent Night

Deep in thought, Mario sat under the millions of bright, alluring stars. Scanning each one, he reminisced on his past adventure through the galaxies; the memories before the horrible black hole disaster in the end anyway.

The sudden sound of crunching snow made him jump and turn around. "Oh, princess." He sighed, then chuckled. "I hope I didn't wake you up. I just wanted to sit outside to clear my head."

Peach merely stood, the chilling wind dancing through her hair. Her hands were folded together as she maintained eye contact. Then, she smiled, which never failed make Mario's heart skip a beat. She made her way to his little tree stump, making him blink as she took a hold of his hand and looked out into the dark sky.

His cheeks slightly rosy, he softly smiled and shrunk a bit more under his large, green scarf, watching his visible, icy breath drift into the wind. "You know, I always find it hard to believe that the kingdom is at peace now. It's even more unbelievable that we're together," he chuckled. "I haven't spent this much time with you in... a long time. It's exhilarating."

Mario felt his heart beat a little faster as he felt the princess squeeze his hand. He raised his head towards the stars with a bright smile. "I've been thinking... after we travel to all these different worlds and return home, I decided that I wouldn't mind ruling the kingdom by your side. It'll take some getting used to, but if that's what it takes, then I'm game."

He turned his head towards her to see that she was facing down at him, with that same beautiful smile he had come to know and love all these years.

Her smile immediately struck him as soon as he turned. The poor little guy felt his cheeks grow warmer and swiftly turned back towards the night sky.

Mario rambled on about whatever was on his mind for a while. Peach sat by silently, smiling and listening intently. She looked at him with those sweet, soft eyes, giving his chest a warm, fuzzy feeling every time he looked into them. He absolutely loved every minute spent there.

After a while, Mario ran out of words, and they sat together silently under the stars.

Suddenly, he heard his Mailbox SP ring in his pocket. Not wanting to ruin the moment, he almost ignored it, but once he recognized it was the same ringtone he gave to Luigi, as well as Peach, he dug the device out.

"That must be Luigi again," he mumbled. His brother always liked to text him at ungodly hours of the night to just talk about whatever is on his mind. Mario never minded; he knew it made Luigi feel better.

Flipping it open, he saw that he had received an email from... Peach? He stopped as he read the subject line: "Are you OK?"

Raising an eyebrow, he turned towards the princess, still smiling at him. He looked back down at his device to see his signal was a bit busted.

"Ah, you must have sent this email to me a while ago. I got it just now," he chuckled. He opened it up to give it a read through.

Mario,
Where are you? I had just woken up and didn't find you in the tent with me. I've been looking around outside for the past twenty minutes, but I have not seen you anywhere. I'm starting to get worried. Please let me know when you get this ASAP.
– Peach –

He blinked. It had only been about five minutes since he left when Peach came up to him.

The hand he had been holding suddenly felt colder, tighter. He slowly turned towards the thing that had been staring at him silently with an unaltered smile for what seemed like hours.

It was at that moment that he noticed it had been deathly still all this time. This thing had not blinked once since it arrived. The eyes were completely devoid of any life; they did not look human. As the realization came crashing down on him all at once, Mario got a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He also noticed he couldn't see its icy breath at all. Its chest was moving as if it was breathing, and it was in the same exact rhythm as Mario's.

Whatever had been holding his hand for hours now had an iron grip, and it didn't look like it was letting him go anytime soon.