Mario

written and designed by child author Tyler Chen Le Zu (9 years old)

Image designed by Tyler Chen Le Zu

Chapter 1

One day, a little boy named Mario was out hunting. He came across a dark cave.

Before entering, he took a deep breath to calm himself down. At the corner of his eye, he saw something sparkle as a ray of sunlight seeped into the cave, and bounced off the object reflecting light.

He wondered: Is it treasure? Is it a bottle of potion? Or is it just my imagination?

Carefully, he strode further in and found a bottle of potion on a rock. There was a poem carved on the rock, and it was in a foreign language.

Out of curiosity, Mario who was quite the adventurer, reached out for the potion and drank it.

“Gulp, gulp, gulp,” he drank a few mouthfuls of the potion.

“It tastes like frog! Blech!” Mario said.

“It better be worth it,” he thought as he took another few mouthfuls.

“Burp!”

Suddenly, a portal appeared. Out of the blue, a mysterious man which looked like his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great...grandpa appeared and said (sounding like his great-great-great-great...grandma) :“ Come with me while you can.”

Chapter 2

The little boy followed the mysterious man into the portal. At the end of the portal, he found himself inside a video game called MARIO.

Everything was pixelated. Looking at his own palm, he realised that he was made up of little squares.

When he tried talking, he also sounded like Mario from the video game. He muttered to himself: “How weird?”

At this moment, a mushroom with legs walked awkwardly towards him and bumped into him. He shrank.

He saw mushrooms, floating coins and lucky blocks. “It is just like in the video game!” exclaimed Mario.

Chapter 3

After he passed all the stages, he finally met Donkey Kong who had most of his energy depleted, with only 1 heart (of 999 hearts) left.

"DONKEY KONG,COME OUT AND FACE ME！！！" Mario BELLOWED. Donkey Kong came out and tried to kill him, unaware that Mario had gotten an extra life after conquering the underwater world. When Donkey Kong turned his back away from Mario, Mario popped out of no where, punched him in his face and pinned him down on the floor.

''TIME‘S UP!'' a voiceover in the game boomed.

Moments later, Donkey Kong and Mario tumbled out of the portal and are in the real world. Unbeknownst to Donkey Kong and Mario, Kong's personality had changed somehow. Donkey Kong became curious, very curious. No, Super Duper Curious. When Donkey Kong scratched his head and stared at Mario blankly, blinking his eyes like an innocent little baby monkey, Mario knew he had lost his memory. “How do you feel, are you ok?” Mario asked. Donkey Kong rolled his eyes and answered, “ OO! OO! AA! AA!”.

Mario took advantage of Donkey Kong's amnesia to befriend this archenemy of his in the game. They even played and lazed around on the warm grass under the afternoon sun. ~ The End ~

Afternote Tyler would like to share this YouTube link with all his readers: