The Evils Within

Chapter 4

Luigi snapped awake, taking a bit of time to breathe after what had happened in his dream. He sat up and looked around the room, the sun beaming brightly through the curtains. He smiled, that wasn't so bad, he thought.

His eyes shifted over to the clock. 2:37 it read. He groaned. Twelve hours of sleep and he felt awful. He tried to get out of bed, placing a foot on the ground before quickly placing it back on the bed having forgotten how cold the hardwood floors can get. He slid over to the foot of the bed and slid on his pair of green slippers before shuffling around the house to get ready. It was pretty quiet, but it was understandable. Around this time, Mario was up and about at Peach's castle.

Luigi left the house and began towards Toad Town. The sun shone unusually bright but the temperature didn't seem any different than usual. Something was wrong. He felt it. He stopped outside of the town, mouth agape. Something was definitely wrong.

The town lies in ruins. Buildings crumbled and holes in the ground indicated an obvious bob-omb attack.

As he wandered throughout the town, he became more and more confused. No attack on the kingdom has ever been this harsh. He came across a group of toads who were all huddled together, forming some kind of plan. Luigi couldn't hear what they were talking about.

He stepped closer, which alerted one of the toads in the group. "Forget the plan," he shouted, "Run!"

The remainder of the toads looked at him for a second before turning to where he was looking. They all stared at Luigi, who waved nervously to them, before scattering off in different directions.

That was odd. Luigi briefly turned around, but nothing was behind him. Were they running from him? Hopefully not.

Continuing his exploration, he found it weird that the toads around were trying to avoid him, like he was some kind of... threat. Toads were running, hiding, or cowering in fear when he passed them.

What was going on?

Luigi made his way to the castle and it was in worse shape than the rest of the town. Holes and cracks were all over the castle, windows were shattered, an entire spire was knocked over. Who would do such a thing? Not even Bowser has left it in this state. Yet, it seemed like someone was rebuilding it. Sporadically, there were off-colored patches of black or green than the traditional white and pink. Inside was no better. It looked like a warzone. Carpets singed, glass and other debris littered the floor, walls to rooms entirely missing for presumably easy access.

"H-hello? Anyone here?" he asked, hoping someone knew what had been going on. Faint whimpering and shushing could be heard. He had no idea where the sound came from. He began to cautiously explore the castle.

In a small room in the west wing of the castle, Peach, and a few toads all gathered together in the corner. Two of the toads began to cry while the other two tried to shush them.

"He's coming back! He's coming back," one of them cried, tightly hugging Peach's arm.

"Be quiet! He's going to find us with all your crying," another scolded.

Luigi continued his way through the castle. It felt a lot bigger than usual while he was walking around by himself. He approached the center of the castle. To the left and right of him were two hallways and in front of him was the throne room and it was a mess. For starters, the throne was in hundreds, if not, thousands of pieces all over the room. The window was broken in four separate places. There was an awfully large hole blown into the side of the wall that was off-coloredly patched only halfway. It looked awfully familiar, but he couldn't recall where he had seen it.

Looking both left and right to the hallways to the sides of him, he chooses to go left as the hallway isn't very long anyway.

The footsteps drew closer. Toads whimpering only grew in volume as Peach hugged them closely. The door opened, a relieved Luigi was met with a terrified Peach.

His relief turned to shock. Peach looked as if she had been caught in an explosion. Her dress was torn and lightly signed near the rim. Cuts and bruises all over, especially her right arm where her glove was missing. The purple-blue discoloration around her eye drew attention away from the rest of her appearance

"What happened here?" he asked quietly. He was afraid to ask because he knew the answer wouldn't exactly be something to hope for.

Peach seemed offended. Her fear turned to anger at the sound of the question. "What do you mean, 'what happened here?' You know perfectly well what happened! I've given you what you wanted, there's nothing left for you here!"

Luigi was now even more confused. "I-wha-" he wanted to explain himself, but Peach wasn't having it.

"Please... just go. I don't want any trouble," her voice was breaking. He could see in her eyes that she's been through a lot and doesn't wish to worry her anymore.

He walked out of the room as Peach and two toads poked their heads out of the door. Luigi turned to the large hole in the wall in the throne room. Outside, there was nothing but trees for seemingly miles. He thought he'd cause no one any more trouble if no one was around. He steps out through the wall and walks towards the forest.

Luigi was so confused. Surely, this can't be a dream because it felt so real, but this can't be real. Everyone disregards him, no one was actually afraid of him.

He needed time to think.