Rise of the Nightmares

Chapter 5

It felt like forever, but the next day had finally arrived. Mario and Sonic had no clue what had upset Kate the night before, but they both heard her run back to her room and slam her door shut, and when they would get close enough to her room, they could hear her crying. The two tried a couple of times to reach out to her, knocking on the door and calling out to her, but to no avail. They were worried at first when they wouldn't hear a response, thinking that maybe it could've been a ruse and that she was kidnapped or something. But before they could try to break into the room to see if she was okay, she had angrily yelled at them to leave her alone.

Not wanting to upset Kate further, the guys complied to Kate's request and left her alone. Only for the remainder of the night. They both agreed to check in on her the next day to see if she was still upset for whatever reason.

So the next morning had arrived. The two had gotten up before everyone else, for only a few toads were awake and starting their daily chores around the castle. Though they were a little exhausted, Mario and Sonic fought the drowsy feeling and headed down the hallways to Kate's room.

"Kate?" Sonic called out.

There was no response, but the guys didn't expect something right away. Mario knocked on the door lightly, so that if she was still asleep, that would wake her up.

But after a minute, there still wasn't a response. Mario knocked on the door again, this time a little harder than before.

"Kate, are you awake yet?" he called out.

Again, nothing but silence. Sonic let out a sigh and stepped closer to the door.

"We just wanted to check on you. You were pretty upset last night and we're worried about you," he said.

Once again, only silence was the response that the guys got.

"We gave you some space. Just know that we're here for you. If you need to talk to someone, we're all ears," Sonic called out.

But there still wasn't a response. By now, Mario and Sonic were more worried than before. The two gave each other nervous glances, saying nothing. Finally, Mario gave Sonic a little nod and stepped away from the door.

Sonic curled up in a ball, and with a spin dash attack, he charged for the door. Upon impact, the blue blur knocked the door down, giving him and Mario access to the room. Once the door was down, Sonic stopped his spin dash and stood back on his feet.

"Kate? Kate?!" Mario called out.

He and Sonic looked around the room, but there was no sign of Kate anywhere. They noticed that some of her belongings on the dresser were missing, her backpack was gone, and it didn't look like she had slept in her bed last night. To top off all their anxiety, the window was wide open.

"You don't think?!" said Mario.

"She's gone! She must've ran off!" said Sonic.

"What the heck is going on?" someone called out, sounding annoyed.

From across Kate's room in the hallway, another door opened up, and Sonia was the one who stepped out. She had an eye mask on her forehead and looked extremely tired.

"I'm trying to get my beauty sleep. It's too early to get up..." she muttered.

"You can worry about having a nap later, sis!" said Sonic. He dashed away from his sister and started to go through the hallways calling out, "EMERGENCY MEETING! DINING HALL RIGHT NOW!"

It took everyone about twenty or so minutes to gather up in the dining hall. Most of the group members were exhausted and tired, and they were still dressed in their pajamas, for they had literally just woken up and rolled out of bed.