The Luigi Story

Chapter 6: The guard tower

Sunlight shone in my eyes and disturbed my sleep. I turned around and pulled the blanket further up over my face and tried to sleep again. I was tired of what happened. The attack on the city, the running in the sewers, the sleepless night in the store and then the robot attack on our group. I was so tired of it all that I could sleep for days. When I laid there with the blanket over my head, I started puzzling together all the events that had led me to this bed. However, all my memories stopped at the red smoke with the robots. The last thing I remember is that I was holding Toad in my hands and then something hit my back, knocking me unconscious.

I twisted and turned in my bed trying to figure it out until I could sleep no more. I pulled down the blanket and opened my eyes, with the light hitting my face again. The light was bright and came from a window across from the foot-end of my bed. I rubbed the sleep away from my eyes until I could tolerate the light. I looked at the window again and I could see that the clouds had gone away and left a blue sky. I looked at it for a moment until I broke free of my stare and started looking around me. I saw that I was in an old-looking, round building with a high ceiling. The walls were big blocks of stones and inside were thick wooden beams strengthening the building. The room consisted only of two massive stone staircases leading up and down, a couple of tables and chairs and three beds. Nobody else was in the room, but I could hear voices from below and the sound of footsteps from above going from left to right, as if someone was pacing.

I pulled away the blanket and set-up right. As soon as I did that, I was hit with a shock of pain in my lower back and I screamed. I could feel a big bruise all across my back.

'This must be where I got hit', I said to myself.

I tried again to rise to my feet and, despite the pain, I managed to stand up albeit very painfully.

I walked slowly towards the window, but when I passed the table I could see a plate of food and a bowl of soup left standing. I felt my stomach grumble at the sight of this and pulled the chair back. The chair was heavier than I thought and it made a loud scraping sound all over the room.

'They must know that I am awake now', I thought. Nonetheless, the hunger in my stomach wanted me to eat and I started digging in. The food must have been some of the most horrible things I have ever tasted and the soup was stone cold, but it did fill me up good.

I was almost done eating when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I stood up fast, causing pain in my back again and I took the knife from my plate and stood ready. I heard the person running up the stairs screaming something. When he reached the top of the stairs, I wanted to attack, but a memory kicked in.

'I remember that face', I thought. It was Johnny. I lowered the knife and let it fall on the ground and then Johnny gave me a big hug, which caused me to scream in pain.

He let go immediately and in his face I could see tears of joy.

'It is good to have you back, Luigi!', Johnny said.

'It is good to see you again too, Johnny', I replied. 'But where am I?'

'You are in one of the guard towers of the old town, Luigi', a purple Paratroopa said. 'We brought the two of you here after the showdown with the robots.'

'Where is Captain Toad?', I asked worryingly.

'Don't worry, Luigi', Johnny said. 'He is downstairs with the others. He was fine when we rescued you. '

'You rescued me?', I asked, confused.

'Yes, you were running away from the robots when we first saw you', the Paratroopa replied. 'We noticed that you were running towards the smoke of the fire, but you weren't going to make it in time. Therefore, we brought the smoke to you. We used some of our smoke bombs to block the sight of those robots. Unfortunately, we didn't know that you would think that the smoke was the mist. We had to wait until the smoke was high enough to rescue you and to make sure the robots didn't see our path of retreat. By the time we got to you, you had already been smacked to the ground by one of those things and passed out.'