Drak and Luigi Write: The Story of how Luigi Became a Dragon (Part 2)

An Ancient Secret

            “I wonder how far back it goes…” Mario mused. “Hm. Well, only one way to find out, huh Luigi?”

            “M-maybe we should have brought more than one flashlight.” Luigi was even less sure he wanted to go inside the cave now that they stood at its mouth.

            “That would have meant going all the way back home to get one though, and we might not have found this spot again when we came back. It’ll be okay, Weegie, we’ll just stick together.”

            Luigi sighed and nodded, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. “Okay.”

            Mario clicked on the flashlight and played it across the immediate interior of the cave. It seemed to be a tunnel stretching almost perfectly straight back into the hill.

            Despite his nerves, Luigi felt himself growing curious about how far back the cave went. He hoped it didn’t have many branching tunnels to get lost in; the flashlight batteries wouldn’t last forever.

            They had only taken a few steps inside the cave, however, when Luigi suddenly felt overwhelmed with a feeling that took him a moment to identify. It wasn’t fear, at least not the kind he was used to feeling. It was a strange feeling and he didn’t like it. A feeling that something that would have a tremendous impact on the rest of his life was waiting somewhere inside. A feeling like… destiny awaited?

            “Bro? You okay?”

            Luigi realized he had stopped walking. Mario was a few steps further into the cave and had turned back when he realized Luigi was no longer following him.

            “Uuuuhh, I think so.” Luigi found himself wringing his hands nervously and quickly put them behind his back. “I just suddenly got a funny feeling is all.”

            Mario walked back to him, wearing an expression of concern. “Funny feeling? Like what? You aren’t dehydrated after racing all day in the sun, are you?”

            Luigi immediately shook his head. “No, no, not that kind of feeling.”

            “What kind then?”

            “I… uuuhhh, I don’t really know how to describe it. Like… maybe… something is waiting for us inside?”

            “Something, or someone?”

            Luigi shrugged helplessly. The feeling was ebbing now. Maybe I’m just nervous after all.

            “Do you want to keep going? Do you… feel we should keep going?” Though Luigi had never had premonitions like this before, Mario knew better than to dismiss it when others had such feelings.

            “Uh… I… think so?” Luigi hated being put on the spot. Usually, it was Mario making these kinds of decisions, and so far he had never steered them wrong.

            Mario gave him a dubious look, to which Luigi shrugged again. Shrugging his own shoulders, the older brother took the lead again into the cave.

            Pushing down his remaining unease, Luigi followed him.

            The cave continued to run almost straight back into the hill. As they proceeded, Luigi began to half-expect to see a light from the other side of the cave, as though it were a tunnel cutting straight through.

            Then, unexpectedly, and to Luigi’s disappointment and resumed anxiety, the tunnel forked.

            Mario stopped and shone the flashlight first down one tunnel, then the other. Then, increasing Luigi’s anxiety, he turned around with a questioning expression on his face. “Which way, bro?”

            “I-I don’t know.” Luigi wrung his hands again, then caught himself and stopped. “I’m… I’m not getting any more feelings. Sorry.”

            Mario just shrugged. “It’s okay. Just thought I’d ask.”

            “W-Which way do you think?”

            “They both look kind of the same to me.” Mario said, shrugging once more. “I guess the left one looks like it curves more than the right one? So maybe we should take the right one?”

            “Whatever you think is best.” Luigi was more than happy to let Mario take the lead again.

            “Okay, let’s try the right one then. If it turns out to be a dead end, we can always come back.” Mario said. Luigi’s heart sank. We can always come back. He had hoped this would be a quick little adventure before going home for dinner. And what if there were more branches in the tunnels?

            He realized Mario was already walking down the right branch of the tunnel and scurried to catch up. As usual, Mario was much more interested in what is rather than what might be.

            It’s why he’s so much better at making decisions. Luigi thought, peering around at the unremarkable tunnel walls, illuminated by the flashlight’s beam as Mario played it across their surroundings.

            They walked in silence for a time. Luigi began to notice it growing cooler the deeper into the cave they went. Mario probably had noticed, too, but neither of them bothered to comment on it. They had both spent enough time belowground to understand it was a normal phenomenon. One of the few things that didn’t contribute to Luigi’s unease.

            The tunnel abruptly opened up before them and Mario stopped. The beam of the flashlight disappeared into the darkness ahead. He played it around their immediate surroundings, examining what little they could see carefully.

            Luigi realized he had started wringing his hands again and stopped. “Think we should keep going?” He asked tentatively, hoping Mario would agree to return to the surface but inwardly knowing that wouldn’t be the case.

            “Sure. We haven’t seen any signs of anything else living in here yet after all.” Mario said. “And the batteries in the flashlight should be good for hours yet.”

            Luigi groaned internally. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy to get Mario back out of this cave. There was too much intrigue for the braver brother to give up exploring yet.

            Still, Mario did slow the pace, and kept to the leftmost wall of the wider cavern they had entered. He periodically played the flashlight across the looming black space to their right and said nothing about how Luigi was hugging close to the wall. This deep underground, all there was to be seen beyond the beam of their flashlight was inky blackness, and Luigi couldn’t shake the fear that there was something lurking in that complete darkness.

            After nearly an hour of carefully probing along the wall of the cavern, they came to another tunnel. Or… was it the one they had entered through?            Mario groaned and facepalmed. “We should have marked the tunnel we came through before we came in here.”

            Luigi fought back against a stab of anxiety. Thoughts of being lost underground, the flashlight running out of battery, trapped in the suffocating blackness with no way to know which was the right way to go, began to barrage his mind.

            “Wait, wait.” Mario stooped and looked at something on the ground. “There’s something here… is that a footprint?”

            Luigi pushed away his anxiety and stooped beside his brother. On the floor of the tunnel mouth was what appeared to be some fine grains of sand. It did appear to have been disturbed, like someone – he refused to let himself think about if it was something – had walked across it. “Do you think that’s one of our footprints, or… uh…” He trailed off.

            “I think so. It’s about the right size for one of us.” Mario sounded confident, and Luigi made himself believe him over his anxieties. “So that means we walked the whole perimeter of this cavern and wound up back where we started.”

            Luigi nodded, feeling better for a moment until he remembered all the unexplored blackness behind them in the depths of the cavern.

            Mario must have heard his breath catch because he looked up at him. “Hey, don’t worry. We’ve been in here this long; I doubt there’s anything else in here with us. If there was, well… I think it would have made itself known by now.”

            Luigi nodded, relieved. Mario was right, as usual. “It is kinda strange, a cave this big with nothing living in it, though.”

            “Maybe nothing else knows it’s here, just like we only just discovered it.” Mario suggested, shrugging. “Let’s go look around some more, now that we know how big it is.”

            Luigi suppressed a groan. Of course Mario would want to keep exploring.

            Taking careful steps into the blackness that was the center of the great cavern, Mario led the way into the darkness.

            Luigi kept close to his brother. With no cave wall beside them at all, the space around them felt much too large and, ironically, made him feel claustrophobic with the darkness pressing in around them on all sides. Except in front, where the beam from the flashlight played across the stone floor of the cave before disappearing into the darkness further ahead.

            That is, until a great toothy maw appeared out of the darkness, making both brothers jump. Mario started to back up, throwing his free hand out as though he could somehow protect his brother from the owner of those immense, sharp teeth.

            It took several tense, heart-racing seconds for them to realize that the vicious-looking head before them was skeletal and unmoving.

            Nevertheless, they both had more than enough encounters with the undead variant of Bowser’s Koopa soldiers to assume this… thing wasn’t a threat.

            Mario cautiously stepped closer. Luigi, despite his raw nerves, was unwilling to let his brother approach the thing alone and kept close behind.

            “Hey! Wake up!” Mario shouted as they neared the skeletal beast’s snout. When nothing happened, he cautiously reached out and poked it. Then rapped on it. The sound echoed dully off the distant cavern walls.

            “Do… do you think it’s… actually dead?”

            “Well… either that or… it’s really good at pretending.” Mario said, still staring warily at the immense skull.

            “What… is it?” Luigi’s fears were ebbing, just enough for curiosity to have some room in his brain.

            “It doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before.” Mario mused. He slowly, not taking his eyes off the skeleton’s eye sockets like he expected them to start glowing any second, began to side-step around the massive skull and follow the articulate vertebrae along, slowly sweeping the flashlight across the massive skeleton.

            Luigi was hardly an expert on anatomy, but even he could tell this thing had had a long neck and large, barrel chest. Huge, clawed hand bones lay on the floor, still attached to the arm bones that connected to shoulder joints in the rib cage. “…Hey, what’s that?” He pointed, and Mario swept the flashlight back up to the giant rib cage. Another set of bones were attached above the arms, closer to the spine, looking almost like… more arms. Luigi wondered what purpose they served in life for… whatever this skeleton had been.

            Mario stared for a few seconds, then suddenly jerked the light back to the skull. Luigi jumped, alarmed, thinking perhaps Mario had noticed movement.

            Mario shook his head and sighed. “Sorry. Just thought it might wake up while we were distracted.”

            They continued to carefully examine the bones, occasionally stopping to make sure the skeleton wasn’t “waking up” like certain undead Koopas had been known to do.

            Next they found the creature’s large hip bones and connected legs. Protruding from behind them were more vertebrae, likely a tail – a long, coiled tail. It was unlike anything the brothers were familiar with.

            Luigi noticed something gleam unexpectedly in the light of the flashlight. “What was that?” He had just started to relax, beginning to think that this thing, whatever it had been, was truly dead. Whatever was shining in the dark put him back on edge.

            Mario panned the flashlight back until he too saw the gleam of something shiny. “I don’t know.” He quietly walked over to where a small shiny stone gleamed in the light. It appeared to have been wrapped in the dead creature’s coiling tail, back when there had still been flesh on these bones.

            Luigi shuddered, realizing that this… thing, whatever it was, had been alive at one time… and had died here. Alone in the dark.

            Mario stooped and took a closer look at the shiny stone. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I wonder why…”

            Luigi, eager to stay near the only source of light in the cavern, joined Mario. “I-it must have been important to… this… uuuhhh… whatever it is.” He gestured vaguely to the giant skeleton beside them.

            Mario abruptly pointed the flashlight back at the creature’s skull, still not entirely willing to believe it was dead.

            Because he was looking elsewhere, Mario didn’t see what Luigi did: the stone continued to glow for a fraction of a second longer than it should have after the light was pointed away from it.

            Mario whirled at the sound of Luigi’s gasp. “What is it??”

            Luigi blinked and threw his hands up, the light of the flashlight blinding him. “Aaaaaahhh!”

            Mario quickly pointed the light at the ground. “Sorry. But what is it? What happened?”

            “I… I think the rock was glowing.” Luigi said, still seeing flashing spots of color in the darkness. He rubbed his eyes, and behind his lids it seemed as though the flashing looked like the stone rather than the light from a flashlight. He opened his eyes again and shook his head.

            “Are you sure it wasn’t just reflecting the light?” Mario asked, peering at the stone curiously as it gleamed in the flashlight’s beam.

            Luigi nodded. “I’m sure. It kept glowing for just a bit after you moved the light.”

            “Huh.” Was all Mario said in response.

            Luigi frowned. That tone meant Mario was thinking deeply about the stone. Too deeply. Deeply enough he probably wanted to bring it back home. And for some reason that even Luigi, who was the self-proclaimed King of Anxiety, didn’t understand, the stone was terrifying. He suddenly realized he didn’t want Mario to touch it. To be anywhere near it. It wasn’t just a sense of danger, it was a sense of… of…

            …Possessiveness? That was a new one.

            Mario was deep enough in thought he didn’t register Luigi’s prolonged silence. “…Think we should bring it back? Maybe the princess, or Toadsworth, or… dare I say it, Kamek, will know what it is.”

            “I-I don’t think we should mess with it.” Luigi said, reaching out to slap Mario’s hand away before his older brother could touch it. Okay, that was too far. What is wrong with me?

            “…You okay, bro?” Mario pointed the flashlight at the floor so the light reflected up and they could see each other’s faces.

            “U-uh…” Luigi stopped himself wringing his hands again.

            Mario frowned. “What’s wrong?”

            Luigi almost exclaimed “What’s wrong with you?!” but managed to keep that outburst contained. Why wasn’t Mario being affected by the stone? He was still just curious. Luigi was, to his horror, rapidly developing a fixation on it, and it was all he could do at this point to resist grabbing it up himself. Only his inner voice screaming that the stone could be dangerous was keeping the urge in check… for now.

            Instead, he said, as calmly as he could muster, “I-I think we should get out of h-here.”

            He must not have sounded very calm. “Okay, okay bro. We can go. It’s okay.” Mario’s voice took on the tone it did whenever Luigi’s anxiety got to be too bad and he needed a moment to depressurize.

            Except that wasn’t going to happen this time. Even as Mario started to turn to lead the way back out, he realized that he didn’t want to leave without the stone. No, he couldn’t leave without the stone. All he wanted to do was follow Mario back out of this terrible place, and yet he couldn’t turn away from the strangely entrancing stone.

            Mario realized quickly that his brother wasn’t following and turned back around to find Luigi rooted in place. He must have looked as conflicted and terrified as he felt. “Luigi, what’s wrong? We can go, it’s okay…”

            Luigi managed to tear his eyes from the stone. He could feel a cold sweat trickle down his back. “H-help… me…” The more the desire for that stone grew, the greater his fear of it became.

            “Is it… is it this thing?” Mario pointed to the stone, which now was gently glowing on its own even without the flashlight pointed at it.

            Luigi nodded mutely, sweat beading on his forehead. He knew any second now he would be unable to resist the draw, and the last thing he wanted was to be anywhere near that thing!

            Mario frowned thoughtfully for a few seconds. Then he took off his hat and scooped the stone up in it, bundling it up in the fabric and hiding the glow.

            That seemed to break whatever spell was at work, and Luigi found himself laughing in relief.

            Mario was kneeling beside him a second later when he collapsed to his knees, shaking and weak. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay now. Do you want me to help you stand?”

            Luigi shook his head. He still felt shaky, but the removal of the stone from his view, and his bout of laughter, had cleared his head. He could feel strength starting to return to his body already. “I-I’ll be okay… just… just give me a sec.”

            “Okay…” Mario still sounded concerned, but evidently believed him.

            Luigi took a few deep breaths, letting his heart rate slow. Once he felt he wouldn’t collapse again, he slowly stood up. “There… I’m… I’m good now. Let’s go.”

            “We’ll take it nice and easy.” Mario promised.

            The walk back out of the cave felt shorter than the walk in had been, which surprised Luigi. They were moving more slowly, Mario insisting on going slow and steady so as not to tire him out too much, and yet he felt far less anxious now than he had on the way in. In fact, oddly, he felt at peace. He never felt at peace, like this, unless he was home and knew he was safe.

            Normally such an unusual feeling would make him anxious again but that, too, didn’t happen.

            Their return trip was uneventful, and both brothers sighed in relief when the cave mouth finally came into view. It was after sunset, and all that remained of daylight now was a gentle yellow-orange glow over the horizon.

            “We better get back soon.” Mario said as they trekked back to where they left their karts. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

            Luigi didn’t respond other than to nod. He was feeling better, and yet… he still felt off somehow. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, and hoped the feeling would wear off after a good sleep.

            The waning light was nearly gone by the time they returned to Toad Town and their cozy, shared home.

            “How you feeling?” Mario asked once they had parked and powered down the karts.

            “Uuuhh…” Luigi thought for a moment, trying to think of a way to phrase his peculiar feelings. Finally, when it became clear his hesitation was making Mario worried, he gave up. “Better.” It was the closest thing he could come up with, and it was at least partially true.

            “Oh, good. I’m sorry I dragged you down there. If I’d known that would happen…”

            “It’s okay!” Luigi insisted, holding his hands up. “Really, I… I’m… kind of glad we went. It’ll… it’ll be a good story to share, huh?”

            “…Really?” Mario gave him a look that suggested he didn’t fully believe what he was hearing. “Um… well, I guess I’m glad, then.”

            Luigi smiled and patted his brother on the shoulder. “Let’s go inside, yeah?”

            “Sure.” Mario smiled back, and the brothers headed through the front door of their home.

As soon as they entered, Luigi realized just how tired he was. Running the gamut of emotions certainly could wear you out. He yawned abruptly.

“Time for bed then.” Mario said with a gentle chuckle.

Luigi chuckled too. “Yeah, I guess so.”