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Humans are not made for this.
Humans can only withstand so much, and Luigi is fairly sure he remembers reading somewhere that people can only withstand up to a certain amount of temperature of 108.14 degrees Fahrenheit, because growing up he for some reason always liked to learn random useless knowledge for no reason, but it was certainly helpful here because he’s fairly sure where he’s being imprisoned is about a thousand times hotter than what the human body is able to withstand before dying from hyperthermia.
Although he doesn’t think he’s dying.
He’s hot and soaking wet and sticky and it’s grossing him out horrendously, but there’s not much he can do considering he’s sitting in a confining round cage that’s too small for him to even spread his legs all the way out without his feet sticking out from in between the bars. At this point, though, all he wanted to do is drown in a cold bath despite the icky feeling of already being drenched in sweat.
One of the blurry blue blobs speaks over the floating psychopathic star’s joyfully depressing statements. “Hey! Green guy. Why are you wet?”
Luigi looks up at the penguin, the very same one who tried fruitlessly to ‘comfort’ him when the blue star told him he was ‘home’ when he first arrived.
“I’m . . . sweating,” he says, breathing heavily. The breath does nothing to cool him off, though, because it’s as hot as he feels. “it’s too hot in here.”
He takes off his cap and wipes his forehead, but a few seconds later it’s sweaty again, and Luigi is fairly sure he’s bordering on hyperthermic levels of body temperature, and he tries fanning himself with his wet cap.
“Humans can’t stand heat?”
“Only to a certain level,” Luigi explains. “eventually we can get too hot and end up with hyperthermia or other damage, and have a heatstroke.” At least he thinks he explains it correctly. He’s not sure at this point. He’s tired and he feels like he’s being boiled alive. He starts to pity some of the food his Ma cooks, because that’s exactly what he feels like.
“Is there anything you can do to fix it?”
Luigi shakes his head. “No . . .” he takes a shaky breath. “water. Need . . . water.”
He unconsciously clenches his hand around his green hat and his eyes float down to the green letter L in the middle of the white circle on the front, and briefly imagines the red M his brother wears that matches his. He thinks a tear rolls down his face, but he also knows logically that he’s most likely literally too hot to produce a tear right now, so it’s realistically more likely more sweat.
Mamma Mia , he thinks. What I wouldn’t give to be back in that gross sewer right now.
This is it. He’s going to die. At this point he’s kind of starting to see the psychotic star’s point about the sweet release of death. He can barely see at this point, his vision blacking in and out, some of his consciousness wavering and he’s certain he’s blacked out multiple points, because there’s certain points in time he thinks he doesn’t remember, but it’s hard to tell considering all there is to do here besides boil alive is stare at the brick wall and down at the molten lava below.
You don’t deserve this, but you’re all invited to the royal wedding!
He remembers one of the penguins cheering.
. . . where you will all be ritualistically sacrificed!
Panic ensued after that, but Luigi caught the star saying finally, mercy , and Luigi couldn’t help but be torn between the two.
He clenches the cap once again like his life depended on it–because it kind of did, except it was in red and had a different letter and was being worn by someone else–and all he thinks is:
“ Mario . . .”
He’s twenty-four and all he wants is for his older twin to save him, and he feels so stupid and useless because there’s nothing he can do without dying.
He’s also now fairly sure he’s bordering starvation at this point, but he could just be really really hungry. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, but he thinks he’s been here long enough to know that he could certainly die if he’s not saved soon.
His thoughts are starting to slip, and he can’t really keep a straight train of thought at this point unless the train changes it’s tracks multiple times, but sooner or later it would disappear and he couldn’t remember what it was he was thinking about in the first place. He knows he had a mini panic attack at some point for some reason, but by the time it was over–he didn’t remember much of it considering he blacked out at that point–he couldn’t even remember why he was so upset in the first place, and it only looked like heavy hot hyperventilating–or heavy breathing at least, considering his chest was twisting in ways that made him feel like his heart was inside his body sideways.
Of all the ways he thought he could die, being kidnapped by a lovesick turtle dragon who ruled a kingdom called the Dark Lands suspended in a metal cage over a large pit of lava alongside talking penguins and psychopathic stars was not on his list.
His overalls are bothering him by this point. He rolls his shoulders, but it does nothing to ease him of the feeling that was slowly driving him insane– figuratively, not literally –but it’s not like he can take them off because one: they are his pants, and two: even if he did, the metal would burn his butt, and he wasn’t willing to go that far.
Yes, he would rather die than get his butt burnt in front of a bunch of penguins.
Everyone continues to panic, including the new guests (monkeys? Gorillas? Apes? If he was all there he would know, but he’s not and so he doesn’t) and all he can do is stare into space and clutch the green hat in his now bare hands like a lifeline, like it was his life and he could grip it so tightly that it wouldn’t slip through his fingers.
But everything was.
And there was nothing there but lava and heat to catch him.