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Fragments, Chapter 26

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So you're watching me again, Mario? Do you like the entertainment? You think you're safe from me, looking through that window in the door. It's only glass, you know. You want a show, then? Watch me rip out this I.V. and pick up the bed and throw it against your fat face. I'm stronger than you think.

Ha! Did that make you jump? Does the bed spoil your view? A pity, you'll miss watching me take these walls out. The pain doesn't bother me. It's exhilarating. Soon these walls will tumble and then I'll be free to kill you, Mario.

Once I've ripped this I.V. out again. And blocked your view again with the bed. Let's see your face when the bed-leg smashes that glass into your eyes, Mario! Ah, the delightful shatter, the shouts for help! Let me move the bed away from the door. I have to see this! Oh, you're not there anymore, Mario. Are you scared, now there's no glass between us? No matter. I can reach through it now. Feel for a key. Agh, no luck. So, I'm still locked in. What? What are you walls laughing at? You're not going to hold up to me much longer. I'm better. I'm stronger! Look how you bleed when I throw myself into you. Look how your blood drips down your shiny white paint! I'll decorate you pure red, walls, then you'll look like Mario and I'll kill you too.

When I've pulled out that I.V. again. When I can free my arms from my sides. What's this? They've... they've been bound up across my chest, somehow. When did that happen? Oh, you're back watching me, Mario. How did the glass get fixed? You think this is going to stop me? You think this is going to...

"Stop! It's just a memory, Mr. L!"

The blood-streaked white walls melted into the dark stone ones of my room. The locked door with the window disappeared, leaving the open doorway ahead of me. I found myself sat bolt upright, my arms wrapped around me, sweating and shivering.

"Just a memory," Nastasia whispered. "Sounds like it was of the time you spent in the hospital." She picked up the pen and paper that had fallen from my hands onto the floor. "It crept up on you, huh? It must have been the sight of your broken foot that triggered it."

A memory? It felt like a nightmare. "It was the same thing, over and over again," I said. "How many times did I pull out that I.V.? It kept coming back. And the walls were bleeding... And Mario watching through the window in the door..."

"That was your blood, from where you kept throwing yourself into the walls," she said. "The I.V. was all that was keeping you alive. Every time you knocked yourself out, the Toads fixed the room, patched you up and put the IV back in. Luigi would wake up and within minutes you'd take over, and the whole destructive process would start all over again. Dimentio's commands to kill Mario override your survival instinct." A sorrowful expression clouded her eyes. "That's why you both can't live, the way you are. It's another reason why I have to paralyse you."

I drew a deep breath and looked down at the pen and paper in my hands. The images had been so vivid, I'd forgotten what I'd been doing.

"You were about to write a note to Luigi," she said.

I turned the paper over, and read his note again.

Mario is your brother.

Luigi

I still didn't trust it. Leaning on the table at my side, I penned my reply.

Prove to me you wrote this.

Enjoy the broken ankle.

L

I thrust it at Nastasia. Although she raised an eyebrow when she read it, she didn't comment. I guess she expected nothing different.

"Watch your clock, 'k?" she said.

I complied, and watched the time jump forward three hours. A notepad now lay next to the clock with a couple of paragraphs written on it. Nastasia didn't appear to have moved; she still sat in her usual place at my other side.

Giving her a wary look, I reached for the notepad, picked it up and began to read.

Sig. L, it began. I guess that meant me. Beyond that, I couldn't read a word; the next paragraph, though written in my handwriting, was in a completely different language. His language.

I scanned through the foreign words to the next paragraph. The rest of it, I could read.

Here is proof.

Luigi

P.S. I heal faster than you think.

This led me to look at my feet. The splints encasing the fractured ankle had gone, replaced now with a tightly wound bandage. The bruising and swelling had almost disappeared. In three hours? That part could have been Nastasia's doing, of course. How did I know it hadn't been thirty days and three hours since I'd written to him? But the foreign language, I couldn't square up. If I had no knowledge of it, I doubt that even Nastasia could have had me write that under hypnosis.

I compared the English words with the foreign. He'd given nothing away. Judging by the difference in length between the two sections, there was no way this could be a translation, either. He'd written something to me that he didn't want me to decipher or understand. He'd probably been laughing while he wrote it. I thumped my fist on the mattress. I wasn't going to let this weak-willed idiot get the better of me.

"What's the matter, Mr. L?" said Nastasia. "You still don't believe it?"

"Oh, I believe it..."

She pointed to the photograph. "Keep focused, 'k?. What were you really going to write?"

That was a good question. What could I write to him? He was inferior to me, yet he had the greater control over my consciousness. He was weaker than me, but I couldn't survive without him. I was the jewel of strength hidden inside him, yet he wanted to be rid of me. If I was going to break down this barrier and take his memory and identity for my own, I'd need to be clever about it. I doubted he'd be difficult to outwit.

I cracked my knuckles, and picked up the pen.

And so Luigi and Mr. L are now communicating with one another... by writing notes...

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TheChocolateArmor's avatar
Luigi's reply was the most epic burn I've ever witnessed. XD

This is perfect.