By Teela Yoshi
Chapter Three: Hearing Darkness
“STOP IT!” Karma yelled. This couldn’t be real! Reality didn’t work this way… Doors and windows didn’t vanish out of walls without an architect or a construction worker … SOMETHING taking them out. With tools. With physical force.
But Teela and Ludwig… What if this wasn’t a dream? Teela had tried to tell her something, but Karma had never been very good at riddles. Belief? What did any of this have to do with belief? Belief that she was losing her mind, perhaps, yeah!
She wanted to do something, but couldn’t figure out what was right. Her options were limited, and until she could get out of this room, nothing could be done. Was everything pointless?
_
Nightmare crossed his arms and let out a baleful laugh as Teela struggled against the substance that had enclosed her head. She thrashed about more the less air there was, and only when she finally fell over, passed out, did Nightmare place his hand on her large nose and take the substance off of her. It flew back into the wounds she had caused. He ran his fingers along her cheeks.
His scrapes vanished instantly.
Nightmare looked thoughtfully up to the ceiling, and drummed his fingers on his arm, humming a tune gleefully. Casually, as if he didn’t even notice, his fingers stretched into claws, and whistling, as though he were doing a simple job, those claws dug into his thigh.
A rainbow substance poured from him, falling to the ground in thick clots. His claws widened and ripped a hole through his pants as the strange liquid fell to the ground, vibrating slightly, shimmering as it hit the floor. It seemed to spread with purpose, with motive, towards Teela and Ludwig…
_
He hung from the ceiling, staring curiously. What was this place? He could sense something evil in the air, something sinister, and all the things unseen. He smelled something wrong brewing…
Smoothing back his black hair, he glanced behind him, pulling his cloak over himself. He wasn’t afraid, but curious… Could he… land on the floor? He had never been able to move on his own like this before… nor had he minded, either.
Oh yes, he had been here before, once or twice, but usually he was (imagined) in a dark city, on a stormy night, in his office…
He had a purpose though! His counterpart needed help, oh yes… He had summoned him here, that much the cloaked figure knew. He didn’t know how, but he knew why, and he supposed that was good enough. He continued crawling on the ceiling, down the corridor, around the corner, and into the depths of the darkness emanating from the stairs.
_
It scurried up the stairs, not noticing the black-haired figure crawling above it. It had half a head of blue hair; the other half of its head was inhabited by gray brain matter and cracked fragments of bone. Its face looked like something that had been smashed with a frying pan and then reassembled with a wire hanger. It had a pie tin half-buried in its eyes, and forks sticking out from its skinless left cheek.
Shadows emanated from it, and the air began to swell. The strange monster didn’t know what was going on, nor did it notice. It didn’t know that the Magical Force (Reality) was being bent, had become tangible to anything that had the ability to give it shape…
… Which The Force sought! Its sole purpose was to find something to give it shape, to form itself around, and it was drawn magnetically to anything wanting life, wanting to exist.
It found such a lust. A single thread of a thought screamed out to the force, and instantly it was plucked, like a ripe fruit.
If a remote existed that would put time in slow motion, an onlooker would have been able to see a strange egg explode through the small vortex that appeared in the floor, an egg that rapidly hatched and grew into child, then a toddler, halting at pre-teen, as though life were really that rapid. That was questionable too.
He fell to the floor with a thud, though didn’t seem to realize it. He knew where he was, and how it had happened, knew everything that was going on and his purpose, but couldn’t stand, couldn’t see, and couldn’t understand why. His first thought that he could call his own emerged from the axon and dendrite in his newly formed brain: Specs! My specs! Where are they?!
He had a large, orange, bulbous nose, and two deep, curious brown eyes that matched the shade of his neck-length, bushy hair. He had a stocky build, muscular thighs, and a long tail. The blue shell on his back glinted in the dark— it was polka-dotted with black and purple spots, and tipped with three pointed white spikes. He was a strange, mottled mix of a creature.
Sensing his discomfort, what stray energy that was left in the cloud of Reality clung to his thoughts, and immediately a black pair of glasses fell out of thin air and into his lap. He picked them up and placed them on his nose, looking around.
Next thought: Karma!
But Reality could not help him with this. The stray energy was depleted. The boy knew this, and picked himself up, looking in the direction the monster had gone… He looked in the opposite direction. Yes, there was a more immanent threat, a more important thing that needed to be saved. He ran in the opposite direction, toward the main hall.
_
Everything wasn’t pointless, and Karma knew this… but the darkness around her was hard to argue with. A face flickered in her mind: a large orange nose, a glimmering, distracting smile that had always cheered her up.
iJason. Her other light in the dark. iJason, questionably her first true friend, whom Teela reminded her of constantly. She had recently drawn a picture of them together, and sometimes she wondered if whatever Higher Power listened to her had taken her ideas to form Teela.
Of course that was a ridiculous notion. Life couldn’t be imagined. Teela wasn’t imaginary, not like iJason. She was just blessed, she reminded herself… another reason to find a way out of the darkness. To save Teela… and she supposed Ludwig, but what kind of motivation was that?
Karma began walking through the darkness again. Somewhere in the distance, a light flickered. She supposed that was a place to start, ugh, again. She still didn’t feel like she was making any progress… Her goals weren’t pointless, but her attempts seemed to be.
_
He knew what was going on, and the entire layout of the castle, because that’s how he had been Created. He always knew more than he let on… but blasted, he couldn’t remember his own name! What had it been? i… i…. Ivor? Ivan? Ivory? NO… no… no…
The creature started over again. He was a Yoshi/Koopa hybrid. He was more perceptive than most adults. He didn’t age. He knew why, but couldn’t tell. He knew most of the secrets of Existence and the Universal Forces, including why he was here now, and how he had gotten here. He wasn’t allowed to tell, because that would upset the balance of Existence. He wasn’t God… He was… he was…
Footfalls! He looked around… He also knew he wasn’t very stealthy… Where could he hide? The Yoshi/Koopa boy dove under the stairwell and watched, still clawing through his mind for one of the most important facts about himself.
He wasn’t afraid, because only losing his loved ones scared him. He was incredibly intelligent… he liked to learn… he learned things quickly… he ran quickly… he was never quick to judge… he didn’t like those who judged too quickly… those who judged quickly didn’t likely listen to the entire story… he liked to know all sides of the story… he almost always knew intuitively what was wrong… because he was? He was what?! He put his head in his hands. He couldn’t remember, and a pain formed at the front of his brain.
That was new… He knew what headaches were, but had never been allowed to have headaches. Then again, he had never had trouble remembering things either.
A figure emerged in the large entrance hall of Kastle Koopa. It was Nightmare. The Yoshi/Koopa instinctively… what was it called? “Shut off his existence?” Yes. That was his power. No one could sense his presence unless he wanted to be sensed. He had forgotten about that.
He had forgotten more about himself than he realized. He hadn’t been deeply thought of in a long time, however, that he knew too. She had only recently even recalled him, but dared not acknowledge him…
Nightmare didn’t notice him. The cocky shapeshifter, the hybrid knew, thought his abilities were all knowing, all seeing…
And he was right, in all cases but this one. The shapeshifter …
“Am… I… a shapeshifter?” he whispered, his vocal chords cracking in his throat. That was strange! His entire body lit up inside, pain exploding through every crevice, muscles and tendons realizing they were alive, running on blood, on oxygen! Not… what? What had he run off of before?
No. He was not a shapeshifter. But he knew about them, of how they worked. And he didn’t know what he had— yes, he did. That’s right. He was…
Imaginary. I… I… iJelly? iJacob? No, no, no! iVan? No, iJacob… sounded… closer. Yes, that was closer. iJessie? Wrong. iJames? No… iJase? Closer! Yes… almost! i… i… iJason!
He shuddered— his body had never been capable of that! How wonderful! He was cold! Never had such a strange sensation swept over him, but he had KNOWN of it, yes, and shook as he recollected. He reasoned again.
“Yes, I am iJason, and I was imaginary, but now I’m real. I am cold, too, and this is the first time I’ve ever been cold, because I used to be imaginary. I knew everything, but never felt anything. Except for devotion for her… because she’s my friend, and now I must save her friends. That’s why I’m here.”
He nodded and rocketed off into the corridor Nightmare had come from. Time was very, very short— he knew that too, and was overjoyed at being able to finally feel for himself how it was to be under pressure, under stress! Such a marvelous, heavy feeling! It settled in his stomach! Amazing… He felt terrible, but it was wonderful!
The cloaked, black-haired “he” that had been crawling on the ceiling was also new to moving around freely. He too had been imaginary before this moment, and just like iJason, he too had a mission, albeit a different one, but a mission nonetheless.
As “Black-hair” landed on the ground, he quickly pulled his cloak over his head, causing him to vanish from sight. He heard footfalls approaching— but unlike iJason, he could not shield his mind.
Nightmare Dieheart emerged in the entrance of the corridor, stopping suddenly. His smile vanished as he stared at the black-haired Koopa under the cloak.
“It’s no use hiding. I knew I sensed another lifeform. Come now, are you another one of the Koopalings? I thought there were only seven of you… You look a lot like the younger one— Ahh… I see it now.” Nightmare nodded to himself. He had been puzzled for a moment; he thought he had got rid of Larry and this particular Koopa looked similar to him, save for the Mohawk being black. “That darling little Koopa boy was able to bring you forth… Oh ho, it’s good I found you… Larry Da Spy, before you found me.”
Da Spy looked up into the lunacy of Nightmare’s eyes and stared intently. How could he be seen? His cloak protected him from normal eyes! He recognized he was face to face with danger, but at the same time, knew that this was nothing like the Bandits in the dark alleyways or the hoards of criminal Shy Guys he had gone after…
He was Larry’s imaginary friend; called forth to save Larry, and he had to do something other than gawk... He pulled out his plant gun as Nightmare inched closer, but immediately the demonic Yoshi grabbed it, his hands glowing with fire, and it shattered into glowing red bits.
Da Spy backed up, right into the figure that he had passed over earlier. That same half-eaten, blue-haired Koopa zombie, who Da Spy did not know, would have been recognized by Larry in a heartbeat as his eldest brother, Ludwig. It wrapped its arms around him and he screamed.
That was the first scream he had ever let out, not just realistically, but in his entire existence, his imaginary life and memories included.
“Give him here,” Nightmare growled as Da Spy struggled. The nightmarish Ludwig shoved Da Spy into Nightmare’s cold embrace while “Ludwig” opened its insect-infested maw and shears, which looked capable of cutting through concrete, came out and began to slice down the middle of Da Spy’s Mohawk; Da Spy knew it was starting down the middle for a reason, and he tried to thrash about, but there was something about Nightmare’s cold embrace. A feeling passed through his body, one that slipped through his muscles, soft as silk, a frozen tundra preventing any movement— it were as though he were suddenly standing in Ice Land, inside the water. His body began to shake, until he could no longer feel it, and he couldn’t scream anymore… He could do nothing but relax. He could feel the shears getting closer.
Da Spy fainted. His first “real” feelings. His last?
_
iJason didn’t have time to decide— both threats were imminent, but when he heard the scream, that made his decision. He bolted back through the entrance hall of Kastle Koopa and into the corridor where Nightmare was tormenting Larry Da Spy.
Nightmare hadn’t sensed iJason, and even Nightmare Ludwig couldn’t see him, despite facing him. He had “shut off his existence”, which made him invisible to all forms of mental or visual sensing.
A long, red tongue shot out of iJason’s mouth, unsure of really where to go, and wrapped around the decayed mug of Zombie Ludwig… The taste can only be described as unflushed toilet water left to fester with a touch of bed sheets and laundry that hadn’t been washed in years. Nasty wouldn’t begin to describe its horrid taste, but despite that, iJason only winced, thinking how wonderful it was to have the opportunity to taste such vile waste at all, and pulled all his bulk to the right, yanking the shears away from Da Spy, leaving the Koopa with an awkwardly slanted stump of hair and causing nightmare Ludwig to topple to the ground.
Nightmare turned toward iJason, but could see nothing. He let go of Da Spy, who quickly scampered off in the opposite direction, controlled by terror more than rational thought.
iJason knew he couldn’t take Nightmare, despite knowing all the shapeshifter’s weaknesses, because he knew what kind of force it would take to stop him, and knew he didn’t have that kind of power. He thought about his proper mission and ran off in the opposite direction… He couldn’t help Da Spy anymore, because in less than thirty seconds, the only way beings who could stop Nightmare would be “nightmarized…”
The Yoshi/Koopa did more than bolt, he flew back down the corridor, into the main entrance hall, and down the stairs that led into the basement, hopping down the flight of stairs and landing hard on the concrete floor, nearly breaking his ankle.
The impact was hard, and he fell forward onto his knees, his glasses sliding off his nose, but he immediately spotted the rainbow substance that was beginning to climb onto Teela’s shoes, literally climbing, and crawled towards them. He forced himself off the ground— he’d never felt such pain before, and especially not in vast quantities such as this! How … brilliant! He grabbed Teela Yoshi by the arm, dragging her away from the pile that was, questionably, alive. Like a weak snake, the thin strand that had climbed onto her boot tried to fight back, to hold onto its pray, but its resistance wasn’t even noticed by iJason.
He then hoisted Ludwig up and away from the rainbow liquid, which began moving towards them all, slowly, but still with just as much relentless purpose.
iJason stared at it and shook his head…
“Narvack…” the hybrid murmured, and knelt down to get a closer look. He kept a safe distance… He knew what it was capable of, and despised it— which was magnificent! He had never felt hatred before, and was very happy to be able to feel it in great magnitudes. This was a feeling that caused his teeth to clench, his muscles to tense, and it seemed to settle throughout his entire body… in a fiery, defiant way. It caused him to smile.
_
Karma walked towards the light in the distance for a long time, but after awhile, it became clear that the light was just a trick. She was getting nowhere, fast. Finally, she sat down in the inky blackness around her that was nothing. She touched the darkness; it jiggled, like jell-O. Belief…
She decided to stop thinking about it so deeply. She had to figure it out, for Teela and Ludwig’s sake… What was Nightmare doing to them? She clenched her fists. How she just wanted more than to punch his face… She wanted to rip him limb from limb.
What lesson? What did she need to learn? The only thing she was learning from this is how much hatred and anger she really was capable of holding for a single person. She also learned that it was possible for her to hate someone more than Ludwig, and even still, she only hated Ludwig sometimes…
Belief. She thought about the words Teela had said. Belief is his only… What?
She was locked here in a cage of darkness. She HAD to figure it out.
“I believe I won’t figure it out.”
Don’t be so negative… Teela’s voice echoed in her mind. Yes, she had to remain positive. She believed she could figure it out.
But how? How could she figure it out? She believed she could, but…
“Belief is his only… passion? That makes no sense. How could that freak be passionate about anything other than… ugh, I don’t even want to think about what he’s passionate about. Scaring the crud out of me might be his only passion. Being CRAZY is his only passion!!” she grouched, crossing her arms and stared off into the light.
Belief… It had something to do with that light, not just Nightmare; of that she had a gut feeling for. It had something to do with the darkness, and the light around her… Not just Nightmare.
It is… is his only… power? That may or may not be true. Belief may be his only… weakness? That could be true too. She thought about “belief” for a moment.
“I believe… in… myself?” she tried. Of course she had to believe in herself, duh! Who else would? “I don’t believe in… that light?”
She didn’t expect anything to happen, but when she looked up, the light was gone. Vanished.
“No, no! I do believe in the light!” she yelled. The light appeared again. “I believe… I… can walk towards it?”
Hesitantly, not wanting to be fooled again, in case Nightmare had wanted this to happen, she stood and began to walk towards the light. After several steps, it looked closer, and when she realized it was nearer, she smiled.
“I believe… it’s an exit out of here?! Oh wait… I believe it’s an exit that leads back into… the basement of Kastle Koopa!”
Then she realized what was happening. “I believe… there is a double scoop of strawberry ice cream in a cone in my hand?!”
And sure enough, there was. Karma grinned, hesitantly tasting the ice cream. It indeed tasted of the most delicious strawberry ice cream she had ever tasted.
“Finally… I believe… I have a weapon that is capable of defeating Nightmare?”
Nothing seemed to happen. She figured it didn’t have to be visible… but she in truth half-heartedly expecting a nice large ray gun, equipped with some nice harpoon features; but she supposed that might not be his weakness.
Choosing to believe, she believed
that she now was equipped with something that stood a chance against
Nightmare, and she opened the door, which sure enough led back into the
basement.
Chapter Four: Tasting Sound
It had happened like this: Morton had been the first to wake up that morning. He was the first one to see Nightmare, because it had started in Morton’s room. There wasn’t a reason it started in Morton’s room; that was just where, unluckily for Morton, Nightmare happened to turn up first.
Happily, Morton began testing his vocals, singing a few notes, readying himself for a day of speeches, and sat up. He had pulled back the curtains to a sun-shiny day, the kind where, in Dark Land, the sun almost seemed to break through the veil of darkness completely, smiling on the land pleasantly.
He stood staring out the window in his boxers, and moved to go to his closet to pick out one of his lighter shells for the day.
Nobody sane expects a demonic, vampiric, shapeshifting freak to be hiding in their closet, and thus Morton ripped the door of his closet open, immediately inviting the wrath The Shapeshifter left for him.
It could only be described as a giant plush bed bug… the one Moryon remembered Larry describing as the “freak who sent me that living mattress”, and even the face looked familiar… He could have sworn he saw it in the newspaper, under that article with the bold title: A Bed to Die For!
He took a hesitant step backwards and tried to approach the situation in the only manner he knew how.
“Well, er… Hello there. It is not nice to be hiding, concealing yourself, going unnoticed in a person’s closet, in which he keeps all of his personal clothing articles and other valuable valuables, treasured items within! But… if you care to step out for a moment, I’m sure I can get my shell on and then… you know, perhaps we can take this to my father, whom you probably know is king of all Koopas, and such a good king is he, and then work this out! You might not be in the dungeon for too long… I’m sure you’ll get out alive, despite your rather startling appearance, Sir… Mr…?”
“You may, may not, know, remember me, as Mr. Words.” The bed bug’s voice came out in a low, deep tone that caused Morton to take another step back. “And I’m afraid… your time for remembering, recalling memories is through, about to meet its end.”
Morton had tried to run, but it was too late. “Mr. Words” had ripped in half, and a spray of rainbow liquid exploded into the air, every drop seeming to be magnetically drawn towards Morton. He screamed, the substance slipping through any open crevice it could find in his body, painfully forcing itself down his throat, waddling through his nose, and what couldn’t get in through normal means forced in through the pores in his scaly skin…
Moments later, Morton had become a straggled mess of a corpse. It seemed as though he had been flattened with a dump truck, left in a pit of flesh-eating Piranha Plants, and then reassembled by a cat with a ball of yarn who happened to be good at sticking people with silverware. He had one eye, and half the scales on his left arm were missing…
“Mr. Words” had slipped out the door long before Morton was done “transforming”.
That had been the beginning of Nightmare’s torments.