Luigi's Beta Mansion

Chapter 5 - Of the Doubts and the Dead

A giant grey and blue pit bull, enormous snout bared angrily at his trespasser. A spiky collar and chain kept him pinned; but he was still well within striking range.

Luigi wasted no time. He had liked dogs; he did. But this one had no intentions of being friendly.

At another warning bark that almost made Luigi want to scream, he turned and ran for the far wall. It was near Luigi's head, but that didn't matter: fueled by adrenaline, he put his hands on it and rocketed over in one bound.

Tumbling head over heels, Luigi landed on the ground beyond the wall. Crashing to a hard stop when his Poltergust bumped into a large stone, Luigi moaned and slowly rose to his feet.

Brushing off his already dirty clothes, he took one glance around and his heart stopped in his chest. This place... A cold wind swirled through the yard and surrounded him, chilling him to the bone and deeper.

This was a graveyard.

Unmarked but scarred ancient stones lay crooked and scattered throughout the enclosed place, as if to show the hurry with which they'd been placed; and on the far side of the yard, a larger one rose above them all. Squinting, Luigi slowly and painfully started closer.

He didn't know why his feet moved or why he did what he did. He only knew that something was here; and as he crossed some sort of invisible threshold in the dirt, it rose before him.

Small at first, as if it had been packed tightly within a small underground space, the ghastly shape rose from the earth before him. Unfolding slowly into a tall, hulking creature well over Luigi's head, it grew to its full form; and at the sight of the horrifying being Luigi shrieked.

And shrieked. His lungs had plenty more to give; and so he shrieked some more. And kept on shrieking.

The creature at first only stood there idly as if in standby, staring at him completely expressionless - if it was capable of showing any. For indeed that was the main reason why Luigi screamed: this creature had no face. It was only a slight lump for a head, and no recognizable features aside from stocky legs and overly-long arms that stretched like stalactites almost to the ground. His in-between body was not solid, but composed of four separate branching parts that twisted and intertwined around before joining his upper section. The entire thing was greyish-white, and appeared to be cast in shadows; its silence and its stance spoke more to Luigi than its actual appearance ever could.

For twenty seconds or maybe more the thing let Luigi scream. Then, when it seemed to have grown tired of listening to his panicky fit, there was a brief, single flash of light; and then in an instant the graveyard was gone.

Luigi was caught so unawares that his breath failed and he stopped screaming. Staring in shock at the world all around him, he found himself in an entirely different place; gone was the mansion and the yard surrounding them. Now they stood, face to faceless, on a small stone platform surrounded by sharp metal pikes; and in all directions the forest extended forever. They were nowhere.

Trembling just the slightest, Luigi finally brought his gaze back up to the creature before him. He understood, but he didn't want to do this at all.

Elh wanted to fight.

Luigi wasted no time. Taking the nozzle of the Poltergust in hand, he took a deep, albeit shaky breath. So it was his task.