The Toad Town Dossier

OCTOBER, THE 21st

POST-MORTEM DOSSIER NO. I:

TOAD TOWN

O, 'gracious' Star Sprites, why must you be so cruel...

The cheerful hamlet of Toad Town was once a sprawling, cozy, gregarious place. From end to end there was nothing to do but to revel in the joys of friendship, community, and safety. Banter inside the shops, harmless gossip strewn across the neighborhood, the intrigue of Kingdom politics placed at our doorsteps...

Now, there is nothing left but the charred remains of that hopeful reality. Our little town was practically annihilated, a soulless husk left behind.

The wonderful hues of pink and red have been distorted into patternless canvases of purple and magenta, splattered across reminders of a previous time. Most houses are left forcibly barricaded by tall planks of wood, made to keep the physical mementos and artifacts of the past's civility untouched. The few that remain, anyway.

Glass shards line the streets, parks and fountains as no window is left without a gaping hole. Thin openings along the ends of former houses give way to somber glances into their barren innards, too narrow to ever dream of coming in proper. To ever conceive of returning to the past's residential tranquility, with the bustling neighborhood denizens strolling about their merry ways, no care in the world.

Instead, automatons–bearing similar appearances to that of the barbaric, bulb-headed invaders that destroyed our lives in the first place–patrol the lifeless corners and rugged pavements, ensuring nothing is salvaged from this wasted land. As if anyone would want to come to it in its decrepit state; as if there is any worth poring through the memories of a bygone era…

Adding to the enemy garrison are disfigured monsters that are mutated by our conquerors: Pokeys made of the discarded bones of the fallen, winged Goombas hazed with eyes of poisonous yellow; shellless Koopas that wander the plains with a sad gait. They scarf whatever they can scrounge up down their throats of savagery like the vultures of the desert, amplifying the feeling of an exploited territory that Toad Town now embodies. A corpse of a once-great town.

A bright candelabra, choked into darkness.

Who knew how seamlessly flesh and metal could work together when placed with the task of extinguishing a great civilization. The Shroobs are masters of both mechanical and biological destruction.

As for the people of our land? They were spared execution for an even worse fate: transported to the disgusting labyrinth of Toadwood Forest a short distance away, a murky locale whose name is far too literal. A fate worse than death: to be stricken down and strapped to hollow trees and be drained of all life energy–the very vigor and vim of your essence–for use by the enemy war machine. Your own blood and spirit ground up into a fine paste so that the process may repeat itself sadistically anew, with robots fueled by the life of the frightened souls around them so they can bask in the fruits of their artificial lives.

So successful and sweeping was this process that it leaves Toad Town bare of any trace of its original, namesake inhabitants. The jolly folk who strolled about the marketplaces and conversed amongst each other and whom I had the pleasure to live with, to enjoy our collective company.

Now, I wonder if I am the only living Toad remaining in this town, joined by a pair of pallid shopkeepers who are strangely stalwart against the dilapidation surrounding them. Their disposition seems only a sad anomaly, and a cruel contrast to the state of my own mind, at that.

As I observe, two mustachioed men and toddlers championing red and green uniforms have dropped from the heavens unto this land, and have begun marching their way through this broken landscape. I can only salute their righteous endeavors as they seek to battle forth against Toad Town's occupiers, to wrestle back the bare remains of our town and at least give some solace to our hearts.

If babies must fight for any semblance of our salvation, then so it must be. It wouldn't be quite a stretch in these draconian times.

As for myself? I was fortunate enough to be off in the vibrant grasslands during the invasion; now I stand as a wanderer inscribing whatever confounded wisdoms and descriptions I can onto charred-up pieces of paper, wishing to preserve a tragic history of this land. Perhaps the narration of such gratuitous detail of a fallen city is somehow fulfilling to my heart, to take stock of destruction and paint a picture of collapse that the mind can imagine. To somehow attempt to give words to what the mind can barely comprehend.

There are still many more places in this world that are left reeling from the invasion's disastrous wake. Still more regions I must document for the sake of some twisted posterity, some distraction from the chaos. A Shroob-infested Peach's Castle seems to be a good place to scurry on over and pray that I don't get caught. I fear it is only the irreverent desperation in my mind compelling me to go on such fraught expeditions. And yet, I still seem to grasp some moronic faith for the future…

In a final message to those reading this, whether weeks, months, or even years from now, I ask of you one thing.

May this be a reminder that the happiness you experience is precious and fragile, and that it may be stolen away from you at any moment as you brave desolation and sadness. However, I also say that when anguish strikes, may your spirit be only bolstered in stride, and that you work your way back up from the depths of tragedy and sorrow. By whatever means able to be grasped; by whatever means this ascent from darkness may be made possible.

Since there is not one moment without the smallest iota of hope, even in the dystopian scenario that I, and the denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom, still face. Even if you wind up defeated or tortured or gagged–the tantalizing idea of fighting again and again for the future is always an option that, at the very least, gives one a sense of purpose in this chaotic world. So that you may have your own place in the hardened annals of time. So that there may be one place in your beaten soul that breathes of some valiant solace amid a veil of dejection.

May the soul of the Kingdom never vanish, for there will always be hope, I say!

CONCLUDED.