8I was inspired to write this story after reading "Little Light" by MetaBlade. This is a spiritual successor of sorts to that story.
I can't breathe. I feel like I'm drowning. It's all too much. Too much. Trapped. Helpless. Defenseless. Hurt. Battered. Bleeding.
Afraid.
And oh God, there's his face, leering at me. Tongue dangling from his mouth, licking at me. Blood-red eyes flashing with satisfaction because he has me right where I want him. I can't even scream.
He cackles. His brethren giggles. My breath quickens because I know there's no way out of this one.
And then all I know is pain pain pain…
Blue eyes snapped open.
He was safe. He was in his room, under the covers of his bed. Heart beating fast, sweat beading his brow. He lay there, steadying his breathing, and then glanced over to his left.
There was his bro, sleeping just as fitfully, brows knitted, body flinching periodically. Mumbling words and phrases. With a sigh, Mario pushed himself out of bed and walked to his bro's bedside, kneeling beside him and stroking his hair.
"Hey," he whispered. "I'm with you, okay?"
Then, he reached over and turned the lamp on to its dimmest brightness setting. The tension left Luigi's body, and his face relaxed into a relieved smile.
Mario rested his head beside his bro's so that their foreheads touched, still stroking that soft, brown hair.
Keep it together, Mario, he chided, because you need to be the big brother right now.
Almost a month had gone by since the night that changed everything. The letter, claiming that Luigi had won a free mansion. Luigi's excited voice, telling him the news. Both of them agreeing to meet up at the property. Mario had arrived first, but he should've sensed that something was up when the map took him deep into Boo Woods.
But he hadn't. And that made all the difference.
When the Boos attacked, he'd tried to fight back. He'd put up a great struggle. He'd even managed to temporarily escape from them. He'd only been given enough time to scrawl a quick letter before they'd pounced on him again. They'd slashed and bit him relentlessly. And then they'd dragged him into the mansion's secret altar, where their King had waited.
And the torture had begun.
Hours and hours of torture. Physical, psychological. Mario had tried to stay strong, but this King had been devious, exploiting all of the vulnerabilities the red-clad hero had locked away inside and turning them into graphic illusions. The King of all Boos had been the first-ever villain to make Mario scream.
And then the King had described, in sickening detail, what he would do to him and to his brother, and how there wouldn't be a thing he could do about it. Mario's mind had whirled, thinking one thing and one thing only: I let my bro down. I got him into this. I got us into this.
Mario's screams had become pained and desperate by the time he'd glimpsed Luigi through the mouth of that lion statue. Their eyes had locked, horror and disbelief on the younger's face as he reached out futilely to his big bro. Mario had seen bruises on Luigi, and even a few bandages, and there had been a weird red thing on his back. What was it? It hadn't mattered at the moment—just the fact that Luigi had found him—and that he was coming for him.
"Get me out of here!" Mario had screamed over and over, and he could see the promise in Luigi's eyes along with the apprehension.
And he'd kept that promise.
It had allowed Mario to hold on for just a moment longer.
Mario would never forget the sight of his lil' bro, standing in the secret altar, holding a—was that a vacuum cleaner?—in his hands. Eyes locked on his sibling as the King spewed vile taunts and threats. The glare he gave when the King licked the canvas of Mario's prison one time too many. And the remorseful glance when the King had denounced them as gullible for falling into his trap.
The ensuing battle had been absolutely brutal. With the King in a suit resembling a familiar enemy and flames burning wildly around the combatants. Inside this mech, the King had spewed fire, swiped and slashed with his claws, lashed out with his tail and threw spiked balls. Mario had quickly figured out that it was a mech, shouting for Luigi to try and launch those spiked balls back at him. He'd done so, found an opening and counterattacked. Mario had watched it all, cheering and yelling for his baby bro, spurring him on as he took a beating for him.
And when Luigi sent the King into that vacuum, Mario couldn't take anymore. Blackness had claimed him.
He'd been awakened by a machine zapping and churning him, and he'd just wanted the pain to be over, and then it was. He was on the floor of a room filled with beeping machinery and computers, a frame around his neck, the world spinning. But soon, the spinning had stopped, the frame had been pulled off of him, and Luigi had thrown himself forward, laughing and crying.
Mario had hugged Luigi back, repeatedly thanking God and whatever other deity listening for giving him such a brother.
And then they'd sobbed uncontrollably in each other's arms.
All of that had gone down nearly a month ago, and yet the memory was clearer than a freshwater pond. The physical wounds had just started to heal, but the mental wounds were a different story altogether.
Almost every night, horrific nightmares would scream Luigi awake. There would be tears running down his face as he told Mario about the memory of the king burning into his brain, about his dreams mercilessly replaying what had happened or showing him what would've happened. The latter was the worst, because in those nightmares, he'd fail.
Mario would hold Luigi in his arms and comfort him, maybe sing him to sleep. And he recently started leaving on a dim light for him. It helped, somewhat, but—
—Luigi wasn't the only one suffering from nightmares.
That's right—Mario had his fair share of them, too, all of them involving twisted alternate conclusions to the ordeal. The King doing something outright horrific to Luigi and making Mario watch. Luigi battling the King, almost winning and failing. Evil laughter. Screams. Blood. Pain. And Mario would jerk awake and try not to cry, telling himself that Luigi didn't need a traumatized wreck as an elder brother. He needed Super Mario, the man who wasn't afraid of anything. So, he pushed back the nightmares and devoted all of his energies to being the big brother, listening to Luigi and assuring him that everything would be all right, even though he doubted it himself.
Carefully, Mario peeled back the covers and slid into bed next to Luigi, wrapping his arms around the younger man and tucking his head into the juncture between his shoulder and the base of his neck.
"Mario…" Luigi murmured, shifting himself into a more comfortable position and embracing Mario in turn. "My bro—my Big Bro—I won't let him hurt you again…"
"I know," whispered Mario, leaving a soft kiss on Luigi's forehead. "I know you won't, Lil' Bro."
He would get Luigi through this. And his nightmares wouldn't stop him.
Please read and review.
