By Teela Yoshi
Warning: Don’t read in the dark, please.
That’s not a challenge. Don’t.
- Teela
“I watch you fast asleep; all I fear
means nothing…
And you and I,
There’s a new land
(Angels end fights)
My sanctuary,
Where fears and lies
Melt away.
Music will die…”
Preface-
Without warning, Karma found the area around her going black. She continued to attempt screaming, and though there came no sound, her throat felt numb.
A voice rang through her head; a deep, snarling sound:
There is nothing to hear when there isn’t a sound.
The words echoed around her, painfully seeming to rip through her thoughts, pulling focus away from all else, like headphones had been placed on her head and the volume turned up to where the sound was no longer music but a painful screaming blur.
What’s going on? Karma managed to think as the voice faded. She felt the darkness begin to settle in on her, though it soon began to recede too.
The hybrid opened her eyes to a burning
flame, and began to scream. This time the noise did emerge, but in the
same way, it hurt her head to hear her own voice so loud…
Chapter One: Vertigo of Sound
Karma sat on the front stoop of Castle Koopa, glancing to the sky and the garden around her. In her claws she held a black book. Her pencil was rolling its way down the steps. She bent to pick it up. The sun was falling behind an army of trees, causing the dark sky to light up in mixed clashes of red and black.
Things were too silent; even the birds made not a single chirp. It was as though someone or something had a chokehold on them… It was late in the afternoon, but they never stopped singing until the sun went down.
Things felt wrong.
The pencil slid down the rocky stoop again once Karma had set it down; she almost didn’t notice. It didn’t make a sound. The thing should have plopped. The hybrid stared, and then picked up her book, bringing it down with what should have resulted in a “FWAP!” It didn’t.
She opened her mouth, trying to speak. Nothing came. She tried to scream, but all things noisy had been ripped from her.
The Yoshi/Koopa ran into castle, trying to scream at the top of her lungs, but still nothing came. She ran down the corridors, banging on walls, kicking suits of armor, trying to yell out. Silence answered her.
Am I deaf? she wondered.
She tore open Ludwig’s door, but the Koopaling was not there. She bolted to the lab, where she found the prince staring out the window, away from her. Karma tried to shout at him, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
The girl stomped over to him, and smacked him in the back of the head. Like a statue, he fell over on his side, staring deadpan toward the ceiling, seemingly petrified.
FLASH! A bright light made Karma jump back. A vivid image ripped through her mind:
Ludwig. He sits on his computer, but without sound, it is obvious he is screaming. The vision does not reveal why he is screaming, only that he is. His computer chair falls over, and he lands on the ground with a thud.
The hybrid was forced back into reality, breathing deeply as she turned away from Ludwig.
The door to the room was gone, she found. She also realized, suddenly, that she was falling… falling through the ceiling, and into the bleak, night sky that she could now see. The world was spinning around her, and she was screaming, but there wasn’t a sound.
_
Into the darkness, Karma sat up, casting her blankets about and screaming. She was relieved to hear her voice, but the vertigo of falling still had its affect on her. Karma was awake now, but took several moments to believe so.
Something flickered outside her window. She instinctively turned toward it and found that she was staring at a large, black bird with two orbs for eyes. The orbs were filled with masses of colors that she had never seen before, all turning into each other and struggling to be seen. Two pools of insanity, is all that Karma would later be able to describe them as.
In the moment, however, her heart skipped a beat. She drew in a breath slowly, and the bird seemed to grin. Its beak parted, revealing several sets of jagged fangs. Then, as swiftly as it appeared, it was gone, and Karma was left only with the moonlight it had previously blocked.
She realized that she had jumped up at some point, and sat, taking long, deep breaths and trying to regain her bearings. What was the dream, and what was reality?
She breathed deeply, just to hear herself. She knocked faintly at the window, shaking. There was sound, and the bird was gone… but she had seen the bird after she had awakened, right?
Karma reached over to her small desk lamp, turning it on and sitting. Immediately, the paper greeted her with its bright, wet, blood-like ink: I’ve got Teela and Ludwig.
She stared, the words at first meaning so much that they meant nothing. Her heart sped up, and she sat down hard in her chair.
“What?” she asked the paper as its drying green ink (surely blood) sat, still awaiting as she blinked and rubbed her eyes. “Ludwig… Teela…”
It had been a long time since Karma had a nightmare. It made sense to her; she hadn’t just been dreaming. The bird had something to do with it. Everything had something to do with it, the nightmare, the bird, and the note, just to remind her of it all. It all had to do with the reminder that none of it was coincidental. Truth.
The wooden, colorful flute! Karma pulled it out of her desk drawer, wherein she found another note attached to it. This one read, in even thicker, more fresh “ink”: Try it. Won’t work. Blow once for proof, second to meet me.
“Huh?” The hybrid now touched the “ink”. It smeared. It must have been freshly written, but who could have put it there without her knowing? She wondered.
Karma blew into the flute, which would have normally called Teela, one of her closest friends. She waited five minutes, and nothing happened. She waited ten minutes, and nothing still. The girl plopped down on the bed, looking at her clock. It was a minute before midnight. She stared at it for what should have been several minutes, but the clock was frozen.
Already she knew that she had awoken into a living nightmare, a story that was being written and that she was not in control of.
“Well I refuse to be a part of it. I’m not blowing into that flute again ‘til this is over.” She crossed her arms and lay in bed.
A half an hour passed before she looked to the clock again. Its face was permanently frozen at a minute until midnight. She unplugged it, and then plugged it in again. When it normally should have greeted her with a blinking permanent twelve ‘o clock, it greeted her with a constant 11:59 PM.
Karma went into the corridor. She decided to get a snack… just to calm her nerves.
There were no guards in the corridor, which was uncommon. The shadows danced from inanimate objects, causing her to glance left and right. She found herself glancing over her shoulder.
She couldn’t explain why she felt drawn to Larry’s door. Everything in her rational mind told her to just go back to bed, and yet she felt pulled irresistibly to his door.
She placed her hand on the doorknob, knowing before she opened it that all inside would be dark. All of the scary movies she had ever seen came into mind, though somehow that didn’t make her feel any better, because generally the person going into the room never returned.
The room did greet her with darkness. There were grumbling noises, which Karma recognized to be Larry’s Piranha Plants. Even knowing what it was didn’t make her feel any less uneasy.
There was a constant ticking noise, keeping steady tempo like a metronome. It must have been an eternity that she stood in the doorway, because she was able to realize that somewhere else within the castle, a clock chimed every minute: She wasn’t fooled, however, and knew it was still “11:59”.
Karma stared into the darkness, watched as shadows danced within shadows, and listened to the music that was nothingness. It was a symphony now, roaring in her ears, creating no sounds at all. The hybrid absentmindedly began to drum on the frame of the door.
Eventually she took a step forward, and stood submerged in the darkness. The lights did not flick on, as she had predicted. Another step. Another. Nothing got in her way. She began to suspect she was no longer inside a room to begin with, but only an eternal abyss of darkness. Karma turned back towards the door, suspecting it would soon slam shut, and stared at the light that now seemed more distant than it should have been. She looked out into the sea of darkness… She could go back.
“No I can’t,” she voiced. Immediately the darkness shimmered, and she felt the “ground” beneath her give way.
Falling never seemed less real to Karma. She fell until she became unaware she was falling. There was nothing to prove she was falling, anyhow: no ground to stare at, no ceiling to prove it, only the absolute feeling of nothing.
Immediately her feet were on the ground. She was not falling, and she did not land terribly nor softly. She was just… back in the hallway. The hybrid glanced around. Her heart jackhammered in her throat, and her pupils dilated. She clenched her fists and walked into the room again.
There was something odd about it, something so intimidating that it could not be understood. There was something unnatural here, that she already picked up… But what? It entranced her.
Karma took the same two steps, but this time took a step to the left. A mirror shot up from the darkness, soundlessly, causing her to reel backwards. She stared in wonder, and stepped forward to it.
She reached her hand out, and found her same hand came out of the mirror. She stared at her reflection, its hand violating all laws of physics. She could feel the same cold, clammy hands of her reflection. Immediately the claw grasped her own, and she looked into the eyes of what should have been her own. They weren’t. They were a pair of glaring, multicolored swirls, colors crashing and fire seeming to dance within them. Fangs erupted from her reflection’s lips, and leapt towards her, pushing her into the darkness…
Karma reeled, but felt no beast of a copy topple upon her. She was thrown backwards, and against a wall. It happened so quickly that she didn’t realize she was in the hallway again until she blinked. The door slammed shut now, and Karma huddled against the wall in a scared ball. She had begun to shake violently, though didn’t realize it.
She used the wall to pull herself up, and shakily she headed back towards her room. She thought she would find comfort in something she called her own, but only felt worse as she shut her door behind her. Her own room didn’t feel the same…
A note fluttered down from the ceiling, perhaps falling from the ceiling or even out of thin air. Again, it was written in what looked to be blood: Darkness has a voice too. It also only has one path, which it redecorates many times.
She looked to the wooden flute. It sat there, waiting. Karma looked to her alarm clock, and shuddered. She looked to her window, and was surprised to find that the moon had long ago fled, as well as the stars. The sky was as black as acrylic paint. Devoid…
Somewhere the clock persistently chimed, though time had stopped. Karma picked up the flute… and blew, for the second time that night.
For a moment, nothing happened, and then the clock ticked backwards. It now stated that it was 11:58. She watched, waiting to see if it changed anymore, but it was yet again frozen. The window opened slowly, a light breeze being emitted.
It appeared, hovering over her bed and next to the window. Karma stared at its gargantuan, Yoshi-like body, and its black, bat-like wings. It wore black-chained pants and— amazingly enough— smiled serenely when she had expected it to snarl.
“Hello there, Karma.”
“Where are they?” she grouched, her fists clenching. She forgot the fear that had frozen her body and now stood in the warmth of her anger.
“Oh, they’re… here.” The creature’s voice was silky, and had a cold, jagged edge to it. Immediately Karma sensed a negative aura around it; she took a step forward, taking a battle stance.
“You’d better tell me where.”
“Or what? You’ll attack me? Go ahead and try it, Karma, just go ahead and try.” The thing tittered; it had an evil, composed laughter that was almost mocking her.
Karma attempted; she ran and leapt for it but went right through the bat-winged Yoshi and bonked her nose against the wall. The creature floated away from her and stood hovering above her desk; its wings didn’t even beat, as though it didn’t even need them.
She finally made contact with its eyes and wished she hadn’t. They were two horrendous pools of color, all burning insanely and flickering out into one another, like a terrible chemical reaction that refused to stop spiraling about. There were reds that sparked greens, which exploded into black and then rained dark floods of blue and purple; cracks of orange and grays flooded all about. Karma couldn’t necessarily call them eyes even, but abysses of insanity. Whatever they were, it didn’t make her any more fond of the creature…
“You need to learn a lesson, that I see. I think life for you will be better off, once you spend… some time with me.” The creature laughed at its own riddle. Karma sat, nose bleeding, in a mottled, mixed up position as she turned to face the bat-winged Yoshi.
“Lesson? What are you going to do to me?” For the first time since she’d met the freak, fear sparked in her eyes. She couldn’t touch it, but she had a strange feeling it could do more than just hover above her...
“Oh, just wait, baby, wait and see.” It began to float towards her… She screamed as it came down upon her, and ran under it before it could get its grasp on her. She ran to the door, and into the hallway. The hallway, however, was no longer the hallway but a long, distorted canopy of twisted colors and semi-familiar shapes.
Karma could make out some doors, and
certain vases looked alike, but otherwise the view was so warped that it
wasn’t what she could call completely familiar. She ran in her own blind
manner, felt the air around her trying to hold her back, falling on her
like syrup. She heard vases crash and fall but didn’t feel them… And always,
she heard her own, constant screaming.
Chapter Two: Silence is a Ravenous Beast
Laughter caressed her, and faded into an eerie silence. The hybrid ran but she could get nowhere. The rug reared up before her just as everything swam into sensible colors and patterns. By now, her heartbeat had sped up so quickly that her eyes pulsed, causing black dots to dance in her view.
“Karma, it does you no use to run,” the thing’s voice said in a tittering tone.
“SHUT UP… LEAVE ME ALONE!” she screamed. Her vocal chords hurt from all her yelling, and she could only struggle as the rug wrapped itself around her.
“Leave you alone… Is that what you want? Are you sure about that?”
“YES, YES! JUST GO AWAY!”
“Okay, okay, Karma, but remember, you asked for this.”
Karma felt herself rising now, and yelped as she was hurled towards the ceiling by an invisible force. She was spiraling upwards, and she winced as she hit— and passed through— the ceiling and into a world of darkness.
She couldn’t see her nose in front of her… everything was dark again. She couldn’t hear anything, and as she walked, she felt nothing. She was trying to get somewhere, and even as she told her muscles to run, there was no ground beneath her to get away on.
Her heartbeat slowed down as she finally just stopped. She sat on the nothingness, and felt nothing different from her sitting and standing position.
“What do you want?” she finally asked. “It’s obvious that I can’t get away… I don’t want to scream anymore. I get your point. There’s no point.”
“I’m glad you see it my way, little, precious Karma. I really am.”
Karma lunged backwards as a large, fanged smile appeared in front of her. The bat-winged Yoshi materialized from the grin, beaming, his fiery eyes glinting.
She looked around, and gathered that now they were in the basement of Kastle Koopa. Old piles of newspapers, books, and portraits lay strewn in a makeshift organization that suggested whomever had piled all this stuff had done so hastily. Boxes stood, looming beasts in the darker corners of the room, towering over all else, their contents unknown and probably best left as so. There had always been an otherworldly feel down here, not just because it was a world of cobwebs and dripping pipes, but also because whatever came down here usually never returned- including several guards and servants.
Karma stared at the bat-winged Yoshi and then to the figures that were restrained behind him in the corner. Next to an old, large portrait and a barrel of unknown origin sat an unmoving Ludwig Koopa and a wide, teary-eyed Teela. The fanged Yoshi struggled as she saw Karma, but it was futile. Glowing metal bands restricted her power… there was no way she could escape. Ludwig wore a muzzle, too, which under any other circumstances would have made Karma laugh, but now it just caused her to tense and raise her fists.
“KARMA…” Teela struggled against the lung-tightening bands. “RUN, JUST RUN…”
“She tried that already, Teela dearest, and as you can see…” He gestured toward the dark, red rug burns on Karma.
“Teela…? How did he… Who are you?” Karma began to think clearly. She wondered if this was real, but wouldn’t risk Teela and Ludwig being harmed on this being a dream.
“I was wondering when you were going to kindly ask me that.” The bat-winged Yoshi giggled. “I am Nightmare Dieheart, captor of your dear friends here, and tormentor of your dreams.”
“I don’t care who you are, now let them go!” Karma growled. Nightmare laughed again, and gestured to Teela.
“Teela, tell her what happens when you order Nightmare around.”
Teela’s eyes welled up with tears again as she struggled to speak.
“HE’S A SHAPESHIFTER, KARMA… BELIEF IS HIS ONLY-“
Nightmare appeared beside her and covered her mouth.
“Silly, silly girl… You’ve opened your mouth one too many times. Now it shall be gone.”
Teela shook her head and opened her mouth, biting Nightmare’s hand. When she drew his blood, however, she deeply regretted it, because it took on a life-like manner and wrapped itself around her head. Karma stared in shock as Teela began to suffocate.
“Teela’s a lot of fun to play with, Karma. I see why you’re her best friend; must be nice to have friends with brilliant ideas like hers. I was simply going to make her mouth vanish, but she’s gone and made the game a lot more interesting… I wonder how long she can hold her breath!”
Karma took the moment to run at him, but when she thought she’d touched him, everything around her zoomed out, like a movie, and the “screen” cracked and rippled like glass. She grew furious and tried to run towards it, but found she was falling again… And everything faded once more into black and nothingness.
_
Somewhere outside, in the bordering forest of Kastle Koopa, Lemmy and Iggy groped through the darkness.
“Is this Kamek’s idea of a joke?!” Iggy grouched as he blindly limped from tree to tree. Lemmy was close behind him, walking with his bouncy ball in hand, groaning as he tripped over another stump.
“I don’t know, but I’m getting sick of this. One moment it’s daylight, and now it’s just… ugh.” Lemmy didn’t bother getting up this time. He lay his head in the dirt and growled. They had been doing this for hours, and it seemed the moon had just suddenly decided to quit working for the sun.
There was little light, cast by the forest itself. The trees were, strangely enough, slightly illuminated, but the stars were gone overhead too, as though they’d been deported from the sky. Lemmy wasn’t a scientific genius, but he knew well enough something wasn’t right. There was no such thing as a “star eclipse”, so the moon had a possible excuse… but he doubted that was the cause.
The twins could sense that something wasn’t right, but there was also little they could do about it.
“Lemmy! Look! Look!” Iggy whispered, his words coming out in a long hiss of a sentence.
“What?” Lemmy’s voice was uninterested and muffled by the dirt. He didn’t want to get up because his head was buzzing from his headache, his body was heavy, and he was tired.
“Get up, Lem!” Iggy was beside him now, pulling him up. Lemmy froze when he saw a ball of light coming towards them.
“Iggy, come on.” Lemmy grabbed his arm and, safely concealed behind some trees, pulled him to the ground. “I have a bad feeling about this…”
Iggy nodded. At first he had thought it might be something good, but now that he thought about the circumstances; it could just as easily be something bad… a creature he might even have to go look up in “Things that Aren’t Well Known” when he got back to the library.
“Hellllooo?” a voice bellowed in a shrill, girly tone the twins recognized.
“Wendy?” Lemmy was the first to lurch up. Iggy pushed himself up off the ground and both came out to greet their sister.
“Lemmy, Iggy? That you guys?”
They froze when they saw her now. The thing had Wendy’s voice, but looked nothing like her. Instead of their bald, fussy, pale-skinned sister, they were looking at what looked to be a half-eaten, decayed, bug-infested monster. Her eyes were hollow sockets, one with a spoon sticking out of it, and one arm seemed to expose bone.
Iggy stood fixated, staring at her abdomen. Part of it was ripped out, the other half filled with thread, needles sashaying as she waved happily to them.
“Boys, it’s not polite to stare!” the monster whined.
“Iggy, come on!” Lemmy urged, yanking his brother’s arm. Iggy nodded, and both began to bolt through the forest.
“I want light,” Iggy heard himself murmuring. He repeated it over and over as they ran deeper into the ink-eaten forest. Things grew darker. They had no rational thought, but running, at the time, seemed like a good idea.
They heard no footsteps signaling that “Wendy” had followed. Had the boys had their rational thought, they’d also have noticed they didn’t hear their own either.
_
When no one could find Yoshi, they assumed he had gone outside the castle for awhile for his own reasons. He didn’t have to answer to anyone, after all. When no one could find Yoshi for two days, they wondered if perhaps he had gotten lost.
When no one could find Yoshi after looking for a week, Mario and Luigi became concerned.
“Yoshi doesn’t just go missing… He can talk, after all. Maybe not very coherently at times, but yeah… Why would he just… run off? He’s definitely missing...” Luigi rationalized.
He, Mario, and Princess Peach stood in the meeting hall, a large room meant for hoards of diplomats and other important people, but serving their small trio now. They wouldn’t be disturbed here; the room was hardly used, but it had its status of importance nonetheless.
“Exactly, he wouldn’t just run off for too long. Someone powerful or cunning had to take him. Yoshi is pretty smart. He doesn’t get lost… I don’t think I ever recall him not knowing the land better than even you two.” Peach said.
“True. He’s like a walking map. I hate to say it… but I think he was Yoshi-napped.” Mario reasoned while drumming his fingers on the table, the expression he created, perching his chin in his hand, amplifying his dejected air.
“Then it’s settled. We stop searching the land… But who would kidnap Yoshi?”
“The only jerk who would?” Luigi suggested, glaring at the table.
"There's no need for name calling,” Mario admonished.
“Well... It's just...” Luigi hung his shoulders and sighed.
"I know you’re angry because Yoshi is gone, but that doesn’t mean you can get emotional and start saying whatever you please.”
“Sorry,” Luigi murmured, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.
It could be truthfully said that Luigi liked Yoshi more than anyone else did, because often enough, Yoshi came to visit Luigi at his house. Luigi even had a room that was set aside for Yoshi when he got homesick, walls full of the bushy apple trees, tall, sun-framing hills, and beaming clouds recreated from paint. He almost always had a bowl full of Yoshi’s Island apples, and sure enough, Yoshi had a fireplace not unlike his old one. Luigi had almost gone full out and installed a holographic seasonal Yoshi’s Island environment creator, but Yoshi had explained he was trying to “love his past but move on to the future”. And that was just one example…
Luigi could talk and laugh with Yoshi. They were best friends, and he hated not knowing where the dino was. He couldn’t stand not knowing if his fellow green-lover was okay… How could he remain calm?
“It’s all right Luigi. I’m sure we’ll find Yoshi,” Mario comforted, standing up from the table. “We all know who we think did it… But let’s not jump to conclusions, right? You know how Bowser got the last time we accused him of something and we were wrong.”
“It’s Yoshi, Mario. You know how racist Bowser is.” Peach tilted her head down and gave Mario that “you-know-how-it-is” look. Mario looked to the ground and blew air up towards the bill of his hat, which he took off while he smoothed back his hair; it was as though he was trying to let out the heat his brainstorm was causing.
“Yeah, I know… I suppose we could at least go over there and ask.”
“Then what’re we waiting for?” Luigi asked. He was about to bolt for the door, but Mario grabbed his overall straps.
“Calm down. We’ll send someone else to ask. You know he hates us. Let’s send one of our own Paratroopas, hm?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll go ask one of our military commanders if they’ve any Paratroopa recruits they’d suggest for the job.” Peach stood, nodding to the two of them as she left.
“One step at a time, Luigi. You have to be patient, and think all sides through before you act. I’m sure we’ll find Yoshi… Don’t worry.”
Luigi nodded and turned away from him. “I know,” he said. Mario put a hand on Luigi’s shoulder and smiled as he glanced towards him.
“Let’s go get some ice cream, Lou.” He called his brother by his long-time pet name, which earned him a glare.
“Don’t call me that!”
Mario smiled and laughed; Luigi couldn’t help but do the same. Shutting the door behind them, they left.
_
Belief fades the older a creature gets, so says many wise prophets. Imagination dies if it is unused… But Larry was young, Larry Koopa was vital, and best of all, Larry was a crazy, insightful genius. It was Larry who figured out the game long before everyone else had.
It was too bad Nightmare knew this.
Larry was out of touch with reality, because he was a creative genius. He had Ludwig’s perceptive skills, Lemmy’s creativity, his own brilliant, concentrated insanity; and it was all amplified. He was the most dangerous to Nightmare, and Nightmare knew this too.
Larry had been in his greenhouse, and his mind was too one-way to yet get caught up in the “what-is-this?!” shock. He knew he was scared, and didn’t bother to ask why.
When he stepped outside, which had only a few moments ago been a glistening day for Dark Land, to find the world swallowed up in the darkest of Sharpie markers, he immediately went back in and thought, like so many young kids, “What would Larry Da Spy do?!”
Because Larry was Larry Da Spy! Larry Spy was big and tough like Roy, but gentle and sassy like Wendy. Larry Da Spy was everything Larry Koopa wanted to be— cool, smart, fun, fun-ny, and most importantly, fearless.
Also, Larry Da Spy had all kinds of weapons (which, of course, only benefited the environment and Plit’s wonderful plant life). When Larry Da Spy’s “Plant Gun” materialized out of thin air, Larry was more amused than shocked.
When his own Larry clone broke through the window, half-eaten, decayed, and full of silverware (yes, silverware), Larry Koopa’s mind could only perceive it as a cool game. He was young enough to still view things that way, but old enough to start growing out of the “imaginative” phase and into the “be realistic, now, I can’t do that” phase.
Thankfully enough, his childish mind hadn’t completely abandoned his imagination. Roy may have forced him into the mindset, but often enough Larry Koopa lapsed and made the “mistake” of still playing cops and robbers, still talking to his imaginary friend, or believing he was a spy.
Larry was growing up too quickly, but his mind still did it when no one was around, when no one could put him down for it, habits that would one day lead to nothing but pleasure in his teenage years.
He fought his clone majestically, and even when a Morton Monster clone climbed in through the window and spider-walked onto the ceiling, Larry was doing nothing but shouting out cool battle phrases.
After all, he knew all his siblings’ weaknesses, and could beat all of them in a battle of quips contest. His words were his best weapon, and he was fine, dandy, and soaring through this “game”…
Up until the Piranha Plants rooted up from the pot. Up until his carrots became rotted, fanged monsters… And when the pots became whispering, biting monsters, Larry Koopa’s belief was shattered.
Larry could have beaten Nightmare, but he was partly in that “Oh be realistic” mindset too… He had fears in reality, ones that were easily exploited at a time like this, when belief and mental power were everything, when imagination was the strongest weapon, but a double-sided one…