AN: This is a sneak peek for my Halloween special! Enjoy! :D
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I felt drugged as I slowly began to wake up, my vision unclear and definitely out of focus, and my limbs heavy. Voices cut in and out every so often, I could feel something attached to my scalp under my cap, and I didn't know where I was. I tried opening my heavy eyelids and found my eyesight fuzzy, the edges of what appeared to just be black nothingness cutting in and out like static on a TV.
Suddenly, I felt a violent tug at my wrists and was jerked forward.
"WAH!" I cried out, almost falling face-first into the ground.
With a grunt, I dug the heels of my boots into the seemingly invisible floor below, forcing whatever was tugging me to come to a halt. As my eyes finally decided to try and work, I could see what looked like a thin string doused in black dripping ink. The string was wrapped around my wrist, which was why I felt like I was being pulled around.
In fact, now that I looked myself over, I had more of these strings tied to myself all over. There was one around my other wrist, strings around my ankles, and a string wrapped around my neck that felt a little too tight for comfort. The lines grew tight and threatened to drag me down, making me yelp in surprise as I flinched, desperately tugging back as I did.
I went wide-eyed as something surfaced with a gasp, the other ends of the strings attached to them too in the same places. My body froze as I watched them sputter and cough out what looked like black ink from where they were just submerged. I didn't know why he was here, I didn't want to be here again, why was this happening to me again!?
I watched as the jester in front of me took ragged breaths, a wide grin plastered on his dirty mask. He pulled at the strings attached to his wrists and I felt my feet pulled out from underneath me. He started to laugh, although his attention was hardly on me, more so on the beast we were inside of. Flashes of the world outside came to my mind occasionally, collapsing worlds and the ruined Inner Sanctum being the most vivid.
Oh my Grambi, what was Mario doing?! Was he trying to fight this thing?! And with Bowser and Peach too!?
I looked around fearfully from the ground that I seemed to be sinking into like quicksand, fear creeping up on me. More laughter rang in my ears as I watched the jester in front of me lift his foot, and the string attached to his ankle with it. He was going to squash my brother and friends if I didn't do something!
"Leave them alone!" I yelled.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled my foot out of the floor, tugging the string and forcing his foot into the ground instead. He looked up at me in fear as I started pulling myself up one by one. I couldn't help but feel triumphant as I slowly freed myself, pulling him down instead.
"Haha! Take that!" I exclaimed.
"No! No! NO! I can't lose! I WON'T lose!!!" He shouted.
That wasn't what had happened... I-I didn't remember this part.
I watched as he slowly started to pull himself out of the ground as well, clawing and grasping at the floor as he did. The strings were too tight on him, they were keeping him down! One by one, I watched as they started to snap.
*Snap*
*Snap*
First, the string on his right hand snapped, pulling his right hand down to the floor with it, going limp as it did, shortly followed by his left hand.
*Snap*
*Snap*
Then came the strings around his ankles, and when those snapped so did the bones in his legs. Finally, he pulled at the string wrapped around his neck, even though he had to have known that it was just going to hurt him. If that string came off, so would his head!
"Dimentio, DON'T!" I yelled, reaching out my tethered hand.
*SNAP*