Chapter 1: The Eyes
Wendy awake reluctantly. She looked at the clock Bowser forced Ledwig to make for her. The long hand was pointing at the six, and the short pointing at the three.
"3:30?" Wendy thought. She always slept right through the night, unless one of her brothers was fooling around. She listened very carefully for some kind of noise made from her brothers.
Complete silence.
"Ludwig must have built the clock wrong," Wendy thought. "The darkness must be coming from a storm."
Wendy got up and out of her room. She wondered down the hall, looking for any of her siblings. She made it all the way to the foyer without any sign of life, until...
A hand grasped Wendy's shoulder.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Wendy shrieked.
"Wendy," Someone whispered. "You'll wake the others!"
Wendy turned to see her brother, Iggy.
"What are you doing up? It's four in the morning!"
Wendy looked embarrassed. "So the clock was right?"
"What?"
"Nothing," Wendy replied. "What are you doing up?"
"I heard you looking around. I thought something was wrong, so I came down."
"Well nothing's wrong," Wendy snapped.
"Calm down!" Iggy said. "Go up to bed and get some sleep."
"Okay." Wendy trudged up to her room. She lay in her bed for a while, wondering why she had woken up, why she was worried she woke up, and many other things. She glanced at the clock; 4:20.
"I've been up for an hour," she thought. She got up and walked towards her brothers' room.
"Iggy?"
"Wendy?" Iggy woke up. "I thought I told you to go to sleep?"
"I wanna sleep in here."
"Why?" Iggy looked confused.
"I just do." Wendy didn't say this in her usual bratty voice, but a rather sincere, worried voice.
"There's nowhere for you to sleep," Lemmy said from the top bunk.
Wendy grabbed Iggy and threw him to the floor. She climbed into his bed. "Good night, Lemmy. Good night, Iggy."
"Good night, Wendy. Good night, Iggy."
"Good night, my ever so loving siblings," Iggy said in a sarcastic voice, as he was preparing to sleep on the floor.
* * *
That night Wendy had a very strange dream. She was standing in the middle of nowhere. Literally nowhere, she was just standing in darkness.
A gunshot was heard and a Super Scope shot flew right past her head. Then from the direction the blast came from, glowed two evil eyes. A giant, dark hand then stretched out towards her. The palm wrapped around her body and dragged her towards the eyes.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Wendy woke with a start.
"What's wrong?!" Iggy jolted up.
"Is someone there?" Lemmy jumped from the top bunk.
"I... had a dream..." She explained every detail of the nightmare.
"Pfft," Lemmy smiled. "Sounds like the Legend of Zelda."
"Well," Iggy walked to the door, "whatever it was, it's over now."
"It's six," Lemmy said. "I guess we could go to the lounge and watch TV."
The three turtles tiptoed to the TV.
"What's on?" Wendy sat on the couch.
Lemmy clicked the remote and watched the static. "Nothing."
"Maybe we can just talk?" Iggy suggested.
Wendy groaned. "Do we have to?" Lemmy asked.
Iggy glared at them. "Unless you have a better idea!"
* * *
Wendy was going up to her room after the hours of Iggy telling stories. The family had eaten breakfast and fixed the TV. It was noon.
"Why do you think it happened?" Wendy heard her mother speak from her parents’ room.
"I think it was the dream," replied her father's voice.
"But Iggy said she woke up before."
"Iggy!" she said to herself. Iggy had told Bowser and Clawdia! Now they thought she was crazy!
"Well, I've heard of these eyes before. In fact, I've seen them."
"That's good," Wendy thought. "Bowser's had them too. But Iggy..."
She thundered down the stairs, in unspeakable rage. She came up to Iggy and Lemmy sitting on the couch.
"Hi, Wendy," Iggy greeted.
"Shut your mouth!"
"What did I do?"
Wendy grasped his arm and threw him to the ground. "I think you know!"
"It was for your own good," he said. "Something could be wrong with you!"
"Something's about to be wrong with your face!" Wendy trembled with anger.
"If something was wrong-" Iggy was cut off by Wendy's fist.
That's where Lemmy got up off the couch. "Wendy, this isn't like you! Punching Iggy... Well that's kind of... Well what I'm saying is that you don't get angry this easily."
"Yes I do!"
"Wendy, Iggy was trying to help, and you shouldn't get angry about that." He sat back down.
Wendy thought for a minute. "Ludwig!" she called. "Can you make me something?"
* * *
"Thanks."
Ludwig had made a machine that looked like headphones. They were built to "neutralize her dreams", as Ludwig had stated.
"All right," she heard her dad say, "I want you to guard every inch of the castle, no matter what!" The guard walked away.
"Dad," Wendy asked, "what's going on?"
"Mario!" He answered quickly and nervously. "You should get ready for bed; it's late."
* * *
Wendy put the machine around her head. She flipped the switch and it surprisingly made little noise. She lay in her bed slowly, falling asleep.
An hour later she woke again.
"I'm never going to get any sleep," she thought. "I'm going to have to be nocturnal." She walked out of her room and went to the castle library.
She picked a book from the shelf, entitled "The Sleep Cycle". She read about the stages of sleep and calculated why she wasn't getting any.
"So I'm not getting sleep because my sleep cycle is speeding up," she guessed. "I'll go to a doctor tomorrow."
She went up to
her room and tried to sleep. She didn't bother using the machine, if she
had a dream she would face it. Wendy, face it? What was happening to her?
She was soon about to find out.
Chapter 2: The Danger Begins
"Two o'clock. So far, so good."
"Don't jinx us!" the other Koopa joked.
"We've got men surrounding the entire castle," said the first Koopa. "What's gonna happen?"
"A lot," said a cold voice.
"Joe? Did you hear that?" said the first Koopa.
"Here what?" Joe asked.
"Someone spoke."
"You’re losing your mind, Frank."
"That's what you think," said the mysterious voice.
"Frank?"
"Joe?"
"Horror," said the cold voice.
"Run!" Joe screamed to Frank. They took off toward the exit of the castle grounds. They heard a shot and Frank was hit with a Super Scope shot.
"Ah!" Frank fell.
"Frank!" Joe stopped, "Are you okay?!"
"R-run," Frank said.
Joe ran as fast as his feet could take him. "Help!" he yelled. "Help, reinforcements!"
He was shot by the stranger. The rest of the Koop Troop came to that side of the castle, Wendy's side.
"That's him!" yelled a Koopa.
"Fire!" yelled a Goomba.
A Koopatrol shot a spear gun at a shadow. It hit the shadow, but nothing else happened. It wasn't their target.
"Where is he?" asked the Goomba.
"Right here!" the cold voice said. The Koop Troop turned. "And my friend's here, too," said the shadow as he set something on the ground and it slowly walked towards Bowser's soldiers.
"Tick, tick, tick, tick," it said as it came closer.
"A Bob-omb," said the Goomba, terrified.
The cold voice laughed an evil laugh.
"Why are you laughing?" asked the Koopatrol. "The explosion will wake King Bowser, then he'll put you in your place!"
"Yes," the shadow said. "If there is an explosion."
"What are you talking about?!" said a Koopa.
"Why can't you put two and two together? It's a gas Bob-omb." He began his evil laugh again.
* * *
Wendy awoke from her dream. It had been a horrible dream in which the entire Koop Troop was knocked out by a mysterious stranger and a gas Bob-omb. The thought of it made her shiver.
"It can't be my sleep cycle," she thought. "I must be eating something I shouldn't."
"Don't worry."
Wendy was shocked. "Who's there?!" she shouted. "Iggy, Lemmy, is that you?"
"No," said the voice, a cold voice. "It's someone you met... in your dreams."
Wendy gasped. "It was you! You're the one!"
"Yes."
Wendy turned to face the glowing eyes, the same ones from her dream. "What do you want with me?"
He stepped out of the shadows to reveal he was a black-shelled Koopa with a burglar mask wrapped around his glowing eyes. "I want revenge on your father."
"By killing the Koop Troop?!"
"They are not dead," the Koopa said, "they are merely stunned."
"What?"
"The gas was sleep gas," he explained, "and Super Scope shots stun, not kill."
"So they'll be okay?" Wendy smiled.
"They will regain consciousness in twenty-four hours," he said. "But I can't say the same for you." He held up a Super Scope.
Wendy gasped and ran. The mysterious Koopa followed, shooting at Wendy with his Super Scope. Wendy ran down the hall, then lifted a painting and pressed a hidden switch under it. A wall fell in front of the mysterious Koopa.
The Koopa banged on the other side. "You can run but you can't hide!"
"I can try." Wendy ran to her brother's room. "Iggy, Lemmy, wake up!"
Iggy rolled in the bottom bunk. "Having more nightmares, Miss Punch-Punch?"
"What?!" Wendy locked the door.
Lemmy spoke, "He's still angry about you punching him in the face."
"Well," Wendy said impatiently, "there's a madman in the castle!"
"Very funny!" Iggy snarled.
"I'm not kidding," Wendy said seriously. "He's the one from my dream!"
Lemmy jumped from the top bunk. "I think she's serious!"
Iggy got up. "I'll believe it when I see it!"
They heard a banging noise from behind them. The door was bulging.
"Who is it?" Iggy said sarcastically.
Another bang.
"Wendy, very fun-" But he was cut off by a punch through the door. The hand then grabbed the lock and ripped it out. It then proceeded to open the door.
"Hello," the maniac said, "are these your brothers?"
"Yes, but leave them out of this!"
"I never wanted them in," the Koopa said. "I merely wanted you."
Iggy stepped in front of Wendy. "Well you can't have her!"
He laughed. "And how will you stop me?"
"Like this!" Lemmy said as he threw his ball at the Koopa's face. He fell down and Lemmy got on the ball, grabbed his two siblings’ hands, and took off.
* * *
"Why won't you start?!" Iggy pounded the doomship.
"I think I know why," Wendy explained. "Remember the TV not working? He probably cut it because the dreams started the night the TV wouldn't work, so that leaves me to believe he cut the power and the engines. You with me?"
"No," Lemmy said, "but you sound like Morton."
"So, you’re saying we have to walk?!" Iggy said.
"Unless you have a better idea!" Wendy said.
The three Koopas thought for a moment, then ran as fast as they could, over the rocks of Dark Land, away from the castle. Away from safety.