I'm officially the worst fanfic writer ever. I apologize for taking so long to update, but I have been quite busy. I promised myself that I would finish this story no matter what, and I will. Thank you very much for those still reading this!

Chapter 6: In a Sea of Nightmares

"Luigi, lunch is ready," said Goombella quietly as she approached the tall plumber who was standing at the very end of the deck, staring at the sea several feet below him.

"I'm not hungry," mumbled Luigi without looking at her as she reached him.

"Luigi, listen," she said, taking a deep breath. "I'm very sad about what happened to Flavio too."

Luigi nodded but didn't say anything. He gave the Goomba a quick glance before returning his attention back to the liquid mass stretching before him.

"But we need to move on," continued Goombella, shaking his arm a little bit. "Flavio would have wanted that too."

"I suppose," said Luigi weakly after a short pause.

He didn't know why he felt so affected by Flavio's dead when he had only known him for four months. He thought it had something to do with his brother's death, and how easy it was to take someone's life in a second. Did killers have a heart at all? Did they know that these people had families and friends?

"C'mon, Luigi," insisted Goombella as she tried to take him away from the deck. "This sailors' seafood is actually pretty good and it's a nice change from the processed crap we were eating."

Luigi finally agreed to follow her downstairs to what seemed to be a cafeteria where the sailors used to eat. There were a few rows of large tables on the spacious room. The rest of the group was crowded around one of the tables. Luigi could see some fumes coming from whatever was in the middle of the table.

"I'm glad you decided to come, Luigi," said Torque with a smile.

Luigi returned the smile weakly, but didn't say anything in response as he sat down beside him. Despite his current sad mood, he felt a soothing sensation as he smell the food he had in front of him. The plate in the middle of the table had what seemed to be grilled Blooper along with a variety of vegetables and some croutons.

"I'm quite surprised Jolene," said Rawk Hawk after gulping down some Blooper. "This tastes incredibly awesome!"

Rawk Hawk giving compliments to Jolene was something that they didn't hear a lot, leaving everyone surprised. The pink Toad stared at him confusedly, as if she hadn't heard well what he just said.

"I'm being honest," uttered Rawk Hawk truthfully.

Jolene smiled at him, but she was still so surprised that she couldn't formulate any words.

After several minutes of silence, for the exception of munching and gulping, Luigi noticed that he felt way better. The delicious food seemed to have lifted everyone's spirits. Rawk Hawk even volunteered to wash the dishes once everyone had finished. Torque returned to the cabin to steer the ship, and Jolene went to her room to take a nap after spending hours in the galley.

"If my calculations are correct," said Goombella analyzing the map she had found in the cabin the night before. "We should be reaching Dinosaur Land or, more specifically, Yoshi's Island in two days."

The Goomba, Luigi and Koops were sitting in one of the tables of the cafeteria planning their future plans.

"That's not much," muttered Koops quite relieved.

"Two days is plenty of time," Luigi pointed out, worried. "It's enough time for Bowser to take action."

"Mmm… but do you think they can find us?" asked Koops to the plumber.

"My guess is that this ship might have some tracking device somewhere," answered Goombella before Luigi could open his mouth to respond. "Bowser is monitoring practically everything."

"Then we should be looking for this device right now!" urged Koops standing from his seat.

"I already looked in the cabin," stated Goombella. "If Bowser wanted to monitor this ship I'm sure he was clever enough to put the tracking device somewhere no one could find it."

"But… but we should at least try!" exclaimed Koops looking at her in disbelief.

"It's pointless, Koops," uttered Goombella shaking her head as she stood up too. "It could be the size of a tooth; we're never going to find it if there's one."

"Goombella is right, Koops," said Luigi, finally defeated. "I'm going to get some sleep."

Luigi was chasing after Daisy around the tennis court in the Mushroom Castle's gardens. She had snatched his green cap after she and Peach had lost to the Mario brothers in a tennis match.

"What's wrong, plumber, can't you catch me?" said Daisy mockingly waving the cap in front of him as Luigi struggled to free his tangled foot from the net.

Peach and Mario were merely laughing at the pair while they sat on the court's bench. After Luigi had escaped from the net, he easily reached the Sarasaland princess and hugged her tightly as she refused to give him his cap.

"Stop it, Luigi, you're hurting me!" she said playfully as she couldn't stop laughing.

Luigi was laughing as well, not even bothering to get back his cap anymore, but merely holding the girl he liked so much in his arms.

He felt like he couldn't be any happier than this. He truly felt like he was the happiest man on the planet. He had amazing friends, an amazing girlfriend who came to visit him regularly, and an amazing brother with whom he had a very close bond that many would die for. He felt that his life was complete and that there were no missing gaps to fill in.

But then the sky started to turn dark. The once clear sky was rapidly being covered by menacing gray clouds. Lightning started to madly appear in the skies, and the thunders hit Luigi's ears like sharp knifes. The earth began shaking uncontrollably; the trees around them were falling down to the ground.

"Luigi!" cried Daisy as her whole body was being pull upward by an invisible force. She was rapidly leaving the ground as fast as a skyrocket. She was soon lost among the gray clouds above them.

"Nooo!" shouted Luigi at the top of his lungs. He stared at the sky, hoping that somehow Daisy would come back.

"Luigi!" exclaimed Mario this time.

Luigi turned his head just to see his beloved brother and princess Peach being swallowed into the sky as well.

"Nooo!" wailed Luigi, starting to shed some tears from his forcedly closed eyes. He dropped on his knees, holding the back of his head with his shaking hands.

"Luigi!"

"Luigi!" he heard once more. But this voice sounded very different, like if it were coming from the skies above.

"Luigi, damn it, wake up!" exclaimed Goombella slapping him in the face.

Luigi woke up from his nightmare, his face covered in sweat. He felt that the floor was shaking again, but this was real life…

"What the hell is happening?!" exclaimed Luigi in horror.

"We're being attacked by a Big Blooper!" cried Goombella with shaky voice. "We need to get out of here now!"

Luigi quickly followed Goombella out of his room. It was very difficult to run down the narrow hallway with all the shaking going on, and Luigi kept hitting his arms and ribs with the wall. When they finally reached the stairs, they found an inert body lying on the floor.

"Jolene!" wailed Goombella in horror as she knelt beside her friend. "It seems that she broke her leg!"

"She must have fell off the stairs," hypothesized Luigi worried as he lifted Jolene's unconscious body from the floor.

Once they reached the end of the staircase, Luigi was able to clearly see the scene developing in front of his eyes. The biggest Blooper he had seen in his life was madly attacking the ship, using its tentacles like powerful whips. He saw that the whole cabin had been torn off the ship, and it was now slowly sinking into the water with broken pieces of metal floating around it.

"We need to jump, Luigi!" urged Goombella running to the edge of the ship.

"Wait!" exclaimed Luigi with shaky voice. He had to go back. He just had to.

"Take Jolene with you!" said Luigi to Goombella's shocked face, putting Jolene's body gently on the floor. "I'll be right back!"

"Luigi, what the hell are you doing?!" cried Goombella as Luigi started climbing down the stairs once more.

Goombella shouted something else, but Luigi couldn't quite hear it with all the noise around him. He ran through the corridor as fast he could, and he kicked the door of his room open. There it was, resting on his night table beside the lamp: the golden coin Mario gave him for his tenth birthday. It wasn't an ordinary coin, as it had Mario's face engraved on one side of the coin and his face in the other. Luigi considered it as his biggest treasure and he was not going to leave it behind.

He swiftly took the golden coin and put it in his pocket. He returned back to the corridor and began racing toward the staircase. However, the corridor suddenly started turning upside down, causing Luigi to lose balance and hit his head with the ceiling that was now the floor. Everything went black and Luigi was able to hear the sound of water rushing down the corridor before his hearing sense faded as well…

Thanks for reading! Feel free to point out grammar/orthography mistakes or just comment on your thoughts about the chapter; they are appreciated! I hope to upload next chapter soon.