Sarasa Nightmare

Chapter 1-1

"Have you seen the bulletin board in town!" the kid from next door – more than a league away from where he lived – shouted as he came running up the drive.

Luigi sighed under his breath before turning to the kid, Goomborio. If he had one regret about the location he'd settled in to plot out his small farm, it was the fact that he hadn't taken the time to meet all his would-be neighbors before he'd started building his home.

By the time he'd found out the child of his closest neighbor had the same hero-worship as half the people from the Mushroom Kingdom, he'd already fully built his home and started his first crops.

Goomborio was a young Goombo, about half the size of the Goombas from the Mushroom Kingdom, and wore a red cap on top of his brown dome as well as red shorts.

"Hey, Goomborio, what are you talking about now?"

"There's some sort of great fanged monster terrorizing the castle! Daisy is petitioning the people for a hero to come in and defeat it. I'm hoping Mario will come. If he shows up, I'm totally going to volunteer to help. Maybe he'll see how valuable I am and offer to take me with him once we've slain the beast! I hope it's a dragon. It's got to be a dragon, right? What else could possibly have great fangs?" Goomborio finally paused to take a breath.

"Have you ever even met my –" Luigi stopped mid-question, redirecting "– Mario? How do you know he's even worth such high praise and devotion?"

Goomborio frowned, his face screwing up as he did so. "Well, no, but of course he deserves it... I mean, even you dress like him. It's true, you must be color blind or something because he wears red and not green, but the same hat, same overalls. You even have the mustache. I swear, once I'm old enough, I'm going to grow a mustache too!"

A few years prior and Luigi would have thought the kid's overenthusiastic behavior to be cute – he might have even encouraged it – but anymore, it just served as a reminder of the long shadow that he would always live under.

Goomborio didn't notice his scowl, though; instead, the kid continued to talk. "I've got to tell the news to old man Ishnail down the way! I just thought I should tell you as I passed." He turned and raced down the drive. "I can't wait to tell Ishnail how I'm going to slay the great horned dragon with Mario! I'll be a hero, and Princess Daisy will want to marry me and everything!"

Luigi snarled, unable to forget the kid's words to him, and yanked his hat off, strangling the green cap with his hands before dropping the offending article to the ground.

After a moment, he turned back to his field, preparing to go back to hoeing so he could get ready to plant wheat to grow.