I've Got the Strangest Feeling This Isn't Our First Time Around

20

As their newest sample is loaded into the glass box, Snoozemore updates the team.

"Linda, half of the famous Floating Whirlindas. They just made it to Boo Woods for their next dance competition. Whirl, her partner, left her alone for a moment, and when he came back, she was petrified."

"Why was she alone?" Luigi asks.

"According to Whirl, he said he was planning on proposing that night. She was knocked unconscious, and her costume was torn along with her dance shoes stolen."

"Doesn't sound too unusual." Pauline notes.

"Unless that's what they want you to think." Luigi points out. "Many times, a woman is attacked by someone they know. Not counting the ones that died. Which doesn't answer why we're dreamwalking through it."

"She wasn't the only one attacked like this." Snoozemore replies. "But she was the only one petrified. It's possible it's all a coincidence, but this is our only chance to find out if they're all connected or not."

"Did anyone talk to Whirl?" Pauline asks.

"Of course, but he was so wracked with guilt, no one could get a word out of him. He was given something to calm down and is now sleeping it off."

"Right before he was about to propose?" Spike says, saddened. "Talk about rotten luck."

"Who cares?" Luigi snaps. "Does it make her any less petrified if she was found somewhere else?", then goes over to the Ultibed.

"Someday I'll remember he has a medical condition and can't help it." Spike notes bitterly. "But today is not that day."

Mario says nothing to that, just nods at Pauline and goes over to his station by the Ultibed as well.

"Dim the lights. Monitors?"

"Check."

"Biofeedback?"

"Check."

"Sleep Quality?"

"Check."

"Healing Pods?"

"Check."

"Communications?"

"Check." Pauline replies.

"Starlow?"

"Check."

"Luigi?"

"Loud and clear."

"Okay, so there's a chance her dreams aren't going to be entirely lucid because she was attacked from behind, so navigating them isn't going to be easy." Mario tells Luigi. "No way around it: it's going to be rough."

Luigi nods and closes his eyes.

"Inducing REM sleep in 3...2...1...GO!"

He's placed in a spooky forest with dead trees.

"Let's go back to the bed and breakfast!" he hears, making him turn to see Whirl and Linda walking down the path.

"Ugh, your shoe's untied again." Linda says as she kneels down to tie it for Whirl.

Luigi finds himself smiling as he watches them, Whirl telling her,

"Uh oh, I think I forgot my phone. Don't move." Whirl instructs. "I'll be right back."

Luigi turns right as Mario enters the dream and tells him, "We're in Boo Woods, I think. Whirl just made an excuse to grab his phone and told her to stay put."

Then he gasps as he watches Whirl pull it out.

"And it was a lie. He's calling someone now, but I don't know what he's saying."

A jolt makes him turn back to Linda, who's just been attacked.

"Someone got to Linda!"

"And we can't see who it is!" Mario adds, then suddenly, Luigi gets more flashes.

Linda's shoes.

A suitcase.

And then suddenly the dream changes altogether.

"Where did we go? I need to go back to the woods!" Luigi protests.

"We can't. We saw everything we could for her most recent trauma. Tell me what you see."

"You know what drives me up a wall about you, after all these years?" Whirl says as he grabs Linda and pulls her in so she's face to face.

A flash of them kissing.

Someone watching them from a distance.

"I-I can't! The dreams are flashing too fast!" Luigi says.

"Great, that's what I was worried about." Mario says frustratedly. "Pauline?"

"Sample's vitals are indefinitely impaired."

"Looks like Linda's blunt force trauma is making it impossible for us to slow them down."

Luigi watches Linda pull something out of the closet.

"What the hell?"

Linda whips her head around at being caught.

"You know what drives me up a wall about you, after all these years?"

The same kiss again.

"Show me what you're hiding." Whirl demands.

Linda reveals the garment bag. "Who's this for?"

"Wake me up." Luigi orders, and Mario wastes no time doing that.

Whirl grabbing Linda and pulling her forcefully close.

Both of them walking down the path.

"Bring the lights back to normal!" Mario orders as Luigi sits up.

"Well?" Snoozemore asks.

"Whirl had a garment bag in their closet that she'd never seen before. Something for someone definitely fancy enough to be having an affair with and kill the girlfriend over."

"Unbelievable." Spike says angrily.

"But that's just what I saw." Luigi says apologetically to Mario. "I wanted to keep you up to speed, but they were going too fast."

Then he says in confusion, "And oddly enough, my gut's telling me I'm wrong."

The team all share looks, but say nothing.