Lend a Hand

Since the story is nearly over, I thought, 'Hey, why not post the last chapter along with chapter 4? It's pretty short, so what the hey?" So please enjoy chapter 5!

Rosalina's eyes fluttered open slowly. She felt light headed and groggy, and her vision was blurry at first. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of this feeling. Rosalina tried to rub her eyes, but found that her hands were bound to the chair she was sitting in.
Fear seeped into her heart and she looked around hastily, trying to determine where she was.
She was tied sitting on a wooden chair in a closet just wide enough for her to fit in, her arms tied to the chair behind her back.
She flinched when she felt something fall onto her shoulder. She slowly looked up. Rosalina's heart skipped a beat at the gory sight.

[WARNING: The following scene is extremely graphic and disturbing, so if you don't think you can read it without throwing up and/or getting mental trauma (then why the hell are you reading this fic? jk) please skip ahead to the next set of bold text.]

Hanging above her were hands, most still bloody, the crimson liquid illuminated by the moonlight that flooded in through the closet door. They hung by the ceiling of the closet by their fingers, small strings tied around each each finger. The flesh near the wrist was a horrific sight. Multiple cuts could be seen around it and sharp pieces of sliced bone could be seen jutting out of the skin. Some of the hands had veins hanging out like thin tentacles, blood still dripping from them like water droplets from a leaky faucet. The wrists must have been detached in a very crude fashion since some of the skin hung down past the bones in various places.
The worst part was that Rosalina recognized the hands. She saw Bowser's, Yoshi's, and even one of Mario's hands.
She watched as a droplet of blood ran down a broken piece of bone in Wario's hand and fell onto her cheek. Rosalina felt as if she was about to faint and she bent over, vomit coming out of her mouth.

[Okay, kids, you can look now. Actually, it's probably better that you didn't read that last part. Just by writing it my wrists felt weak and I felt like throwing up, two things that usually happen to me whenever I see or imagine something REALLY gory. If you did read it, tell me what you thought about it. Too descriptive? Not gory enough? Did you cringe or something? Anyways, read on.]

When she had recovered, she looked straight ahead out the door, wanting to look anywhere but up. Ahead of her was a familiar person sitting on a bed, light from the window behind him streaming in and causing his face to be veiled in shadow.
"Do you like my collection?" he asked calmly. "You don't know how much trouble I had to go through to get those. But I feel like it was worth it."
Rosalina stared at him with a mixture of mortal terror and hatred. She knew that he was the only one who could have been responsible for this. She knew he had killed her friends.
"Why?" she croaked, her voice weak after throwing up. "Why did they kill them? What did they do to you?"
Konnor sighed and sat back, admiring his collection. "They weren't good people. They would only hurt you and others. It's best that they're gone."
"And who are you to judge? You can't possibly expect me to believe that you think you can justify a reason for killing my friends!"
Konnor looked offended, then angry. "I'm only trying to help you! Do you realize what others would do to you? All they want to do is hurt you, throw you under the bus so they can benefit! I wouldn't do that to you. Your'e safe here with me."
Rosalina was officially creeped out. "Why me? What did I do that makes me different than them?"
"You're kind, understanding, and compassionate. When I spoke to you, you were sympathetic and helped me. You didn't shun me like everyone else. Now, I only want to repay that kindness by eliminating all who would hurt you."
What had been a simple good deed to Rosalina had turned into an unhealthy obsession to Konnor.
"Look, I know that you must feel alone and scared, but what you're doing is wrong! By killing my friends, your hurting me!"
Konnor jumped to his feet and screamed, knocking over his bedside table. Rosalina gasped in shock as he advanced towards her.
"Your'e wrong! I know what's right, and you'll thank me for this later!" He curled his hand into a fist, but screamed in pain as it began to go haywire, the fingers moving by their own accord. He smashed his head into the wall until blood began to flow down his face. Finally his hand stopped twitching and he panted, completely exhausted.
He looked at Rosalina again. "I won't hurt you." he whispered. "I'll protect you."
Suddenly there was a banging on the door and a voice could be heard shouting on the other side.
"Daisy! Daisy, I'm here! Hold on!"
Rosalina gasped, recognizing the voice. "Luigi!? Luigi, help! I'm stuck in here!"
"Rosalina? Are you okay? Is Daisy with you?"
"No, I don't know where she is." Rosalina briefly glanced upwards once more. "But I don't think he's killed her."
"Really?" his voice rose in hope. "Okay. Hold on, I'll help you!"
Konnor smirked and grabbed his knife from the bed, heading out of Rosalina's line of sight and towards the door.
"It looks like your right on time, but I'm afraid your princess is in another castle. But your welcome to come in and die."
A crash was heard as Luigi broke through the door. He ducked as Konnor thrust at his head with the knife. Luigi kicked him in the stomach, sending him into the back wall of the room.
"You are not killing any more of my friends!" Luigi yelled, acting braver then he felt.
Konnor lunged at him again and Luigi dodged. He had been sliced in the leg, but had barely felt it through his adrenaline rush. He swung his fist at Konnor's face three times. The first two attacks missed, but Luigi had hit him with the last one.
Konnor stumbled backwards, but was hardly finished. He uppercut Luigi with the hilt of the knife and went in for more stabs, barely missing him.
Rosalina struggled at her bonds, trying to break free. She had to help Luigi, but they were just too tight. She glanced behind her and noticed a chip in the wall. A piece of the wall jutted out a bit like a spike, sharp enough to cut something. She scooted back as far as she could and began to slide the rope against it, trying not to puke again as one of Konnor's...artworks touched her head.
Luigi dodged another slice and threw a lamp at Konnor. It struck his face and he fell down, his knife sliding away from him. Luigi wasted no time in pouncing on him. He threw a few good punches in before Konnor roared in fury and kicked him off. He stood up and grabbed an empty syringe from the counter next to him.
He pinned Luigi onto the floor with his foot and kneeled down, jamming the needle into his right eye.
Luigi screamed in agony, wrestling with Konnor's eye, desperately trying to remove the syringe from his eye. He felt blood run out of it and onto his face. Konnor pulled back and Luigi saw him smile evilly with his left eye, his image now blurry and indistinguishable from anything else around him from his right eye.
"Any last words?" he asked.
Suddenly, his face morphed into an expression of pain. He fell off of Luigi and and onto his back. Rosalina stood above him, Konnor's bloody knife in her hands, tears streaming down her face.
She kneeled in front of him and sunk the knife into his stomach four more times, creating bloody holes all over his chest.
Afterwards, she dropped the knife and backed away from the Koopa, her hands grabbing her face, her fear filled eyes visible between her fingers.
Luigi did his best to rise into a sitting position, supporting himself with one hand, the other clamped over his bloody eye. He looked at Konnor. He had rolled over onto his stomach and was staring at Rosalina, gasping for air.
"It felt good...didn't it?" he asked in a raspy voice. "Killing the...person who wronged you...there's no greater...feeling in life..."
Rosalina began to whimper, not believing what she had just done, unable to look away from Konnor.
He smiles faintly and chuckles to himself, coughing up blood in the process. "Hold on to...that feeling...and use it...again."
He gave one last breath and stopped moving, his eyes rolling back into his head.
Konnor was finally dead.
Luigi got up and walked towards Rosalina. He reached out to her, but she collapsed to the floor in tears. He bent down and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Hey," he said softly. "It's okay. We're fine. We don't need to worry anymore."
She looked up at his face and she burst into tears again. "Oh God, Luigi! Look at yourself! It's all my fault! If I had only been quicker..."
"I would have died if you hadn't jumped in when you did." he said. "So what if I lost my eye? At least I'm alive."
He tried to sound positive, but he felt terrible. It was all he could do to stay strong and keep from bursting into tears himself.
"Luigi, it was horrible." Rosalina sobbed. "He...he killed..."
Luigi whisked her and held her close in a hug. She cried into his shoulder, clinging to him as if he was a lifeline.
"Don't worry. We're fine now." he whispered, staring out the window behind her. "We're safe."

7Z7Z7Z7

"In other news, the funeral service for the victims of the St. Pat T.'s murder incident was held at Mushroom City cemetery today. The survivors of the incident, Luigi Mario, younger brother of the beloved hero Mario Mario, Rosalina Stardust, Toad Spore, Toadette Fungi, and Bowser Jr., youngest son of the infamous Bowser Koopa, reported just one week ago that, during an after party at the St. Pat T.'s fundraiser, they were locked within the hospital and hunted down by a murderer, a patient named Konnor Shell, who also was found dead. Many of their friends were killed that evening, and family and friends gathered at the funeral service to lay their respects. More on this story coming up after the break." a female Toad news reporter said.
Rosalina turned off the TV as a commercial for skin cream came on.
It had been a week since that night, and she still hadn't felt any different. She felt isolated and lonely. Luigi had tried to help her, but she pushed him away, not wanting to be near anybody.
She had locked herself in her apartment room for the past few days, not answering any Phoenix calls or messages from her friends. After the incident, she hadn't felt comfortable staying in Peach's castle, so she had rented an apartment room, hoping to close herself off from everything else.
The jumped when the phone suddenly rang. She looked at the caller ID and wasn't surprised to see that it was Luigi. She sat on the couch and hugged her legs to her chest, not wanting to speak to him.
After a few more rings, the answering machine told him to leave a message. A beep sounded and Rosalina heard Luigi's voice.
"Hey Rose. It's Luigi. I know you may not be ready to move on yet, but we're all worried about you. Please, if you're hearing this, please pick up."
He was silent for a moment, hoping to hear her voice. When he didn't hear a response, he sighed and continued.
"All right, then, but at least listen to what's been happening while you've been gone."
"We all went to the funeral today. Daisy took it pretty hard, but she tried her best to stay strong. I'll admit that I even shed a tear or two. Jr. didn't look to good. He was with his brothers and sister, and they tried to comfort him, but I don't think they helped too much. It's still undecided about what will happen to them, but it's most likely that they'll be put under their mother's custody."
"Toad is still in the hospital, so he obviously couldn't make it. Toadette was with him too. The doctors say that he's healing quickly and should be discharged from the hospital in another week or so. It's a miracle, really, considering the damage he had taken."
"They took my eye out. The doctors said that there was a chance that it could infect my good eye at some point in my life, and I couldn't see out of it anyway, so it was better for them to remove it. They put in a fake eye and it's a little hard adjusting to being half blind, but I'll be all right."
"With my brother gone...I just don't know what to do. I never really realized how much I depended on him until he was gone. I still can't really believe that he's dead. But I have to move on."
"When Toad gets out of the hospital, we're all going to visit Rougueport. Daisy and I decided that it would be a good idea to get away from this place for a while, and Toad and Toadette agreed. We really think you should come. It'll help you forget about things. We'll be leaving at 7:00 AM next Tuesday, so please consider coming with us."
Rosalina smashed the receiver until the buttons flew out and it broke. Help her forget!? He had no idea how she felt! There was no way she could forget what happened.
She stared at her right hand, the hand that she had held a knife in a week ago, the hand that she had used to murder Konnor. Ever since she had killed him, it had never felt the same. It felt more like dead weight, a parasite that clung to her and drained her of her life and happiness.
She strode to the kitchen and flung open a drawer. Rosalina grabbed a knife and cringed at the sight. It looked exactly like the one Konnor had used.
She shook her head. She couldn't go back now. She couldn't live with it anymore.
She placed her right hand on the table and gripped the knife firmly in her left. She raised it, but hesitated.
'Do it.' It said.
She nodded grimly and tightened her hold on the weapon. Then she brought the knife down onto her wrist, Konnor's last words echoing in her mind.
'Hold on to that feeling, and use it again.'

And that's a wrap! I finally finished this fic! It's my first horror story, so please review and tell me what you thought of it! And also stay tuned for the sequel of this fic. It probably won't come out for a while, but I'm really excited for it. It will have a different element to it since there will be a bunch of monsters killing people instead of an insane guy. Also, it will feature the Paper Mario partners. I'm planning on making it longer and better than this fic, so if that sounds like your sort of thing, please check it out when I release it!

Anyways, I'd like to thank you for reading my fic. Sometimes I had to sort of force my self to keep writing, but it was a fun experience. I apologize if you got confused by the way I kept jumping around time-wise in chapter 4, but I needed to tell what happened to the characters, and I didn't really have any other idea for doing that.

So...yeah! That's it. Once again, thanks for reading and please tell me what you thought about the story. Later!

- booMshrooM