Hello! For those of you who don't know me, allow me to introduce myself: I am TheWordmasterofFiction, and I'm proud to say that I write SSB fanfics. Some of you might have read a previous work of mine over the past year, which I thank you for, since all your support tells me I'm doing something right.

The following fic is my first multi-chaptered fic since I brought Stars of Destiny (my first fic) to a close back in July. As far as fics go, this is by far the darkest one I've ever written: it's a mystery, but it's also a thriller that will leave you guessing with each coming chapter. Some might be cautious about reading such a dark fic, so if you're one of those people who wants to go read happy stories, go find a nice trollfic or something with Marth right now.

...For those who are still here, I present to you Smashed Minds. Enjoy.

*Note: One of the following characters speaks in a dialect. The spelling of his words is not accidental, so don't freak out when you see it*

*Nintendo owns all characters featured in this fic*

Chapter One: Arrival

The dense clouds of fog hovered just barely above the choppy black water, only parting to allow the rusted hull of the old fishing ship to cut through. David removed his thin metal glasses and wiped the foggy lenses with a portion of his black turtleneck before placing them back before his blue eyes as he faced the gloomy surroundings. A strong wind made the ends of his long black cloak flutter weakly like surrendering flags, and the air pressure was wreaking havoc on his knees that were hidden from the air by his tan pants. It felt like a lonely primeval world out amid the waves, with no land in sight and only the sound of the water to soothe his ears. Who would choose to travel such a desolate stretch of sea, on a day such as this? For a moment, David wondered if he had made the right choice in traveling out here, to a place he had only heard of in hushed whispers and late night drunken talks at bars. Yet, all the answers to his questions lay somewhere out in this misty miasma, and if he were to turn back now, his dreams and career would vanish in a flash. No, he thought to himself, it's best if I keep going. There's no turning back now.

The leathery clunk of old boots alerted David to the fact that another person had joined him at the bow of the ship. It was an old man, with a wizened face that hid his squinty eyes beneath layers of age and wrinkles, and who had small twin tufts of snow-white hair that jutted out from under his faded yellow captain's hat. His uniform hung off his shriveled body in a way that made him almost appear skeletal, and David couldn't help but shudder at how the years had claimed this man. Although middle-aged, he feared the day when his body would overtake his mind, and he would become nothing more than a walking corpse like the man in front of him. In an attempt to lighten the somber mood, he turned to the old man and asked, "Are we almost there?"

The man, known as Kapp'n by his crew, turned his head in a way that reminded David of an old tortoise. "Aye," he croaked in a voice scarred by tobacco smoke and passing decades, "You're almost at th' island."

"Do you know of any good hotels on this island?"

A burble of laughter wheezed its way out between Kapp'ns cracked lips. "No man would dare stay on that cursed piece o' land under 'is free will, ever fo' a day. Only thing there is th' crazies: they own th' island, and nobody dare take it from 'em."

David frowned and absentmindedly ran a hand through his thick brown hair, whipping away the moisture as he questioned, "So if there's no place to stay on the island, does that mean I'll be bunking on the boat?"

This comment earned him another wheezy laugh from Kapp'n. "Th' boat be leaving as soon as you step off. There be only one place t' stay on this hellhole, and it's with th' crazies themselves."

"What? You mean you're just going to leave me here?!"

"Naw, th' boat'll be back in a month's time."

"You've got to be kidding me," David grumbled angrily as his stomach clenched in panic.

The old captain gazed at him solemnly. "What'd you expect-a lil' town on the seashore? This place is dangerous, boy. A person like you shouldn't be pokin 'is nose where it don't belong."

"Yeah, well my job is all about poking my nose where it doesn't belong."

Suddenly, the loud drone of the boat's foghorn erupted in the silence. "We're here," Kapp'n breathed, with what sounded like horror in his voice.

The captain was right, as the rocky profile of the mysterious island filtered through the fog. Waves pounded against its black coastline with terrible force, giving off a noise that sounded like the rumble of a million thunderclouds. The sheer cliff lines stood proudly against the overcast sky, as if taunting those who came close to run away in fear and never return. A dock soon materialized from the fog, and jutted out from a small space of rocky sand-the only place it seemed possible to land the boat. The wood looked to be warped and splintered, and twisted to the point where it could fall apart if you looked at it the wrong way. The old man grunted and knelt to lift up a long plank of wood, nearly taking out David as he swung it around to face the ocean. With another grunt, he lifted it with shaking arms and placed it on the side of the boat as they drew up to the dock. For a moment, it hung halfway between the edge of the boat and the watery abyss below, then with a solid clunk the bottom half hit the dock, creating a ramp.

This was it. Here was he last chance to turn back and head to the safety of the mainland, never to speak again of the island he now stood before. Yet...he couldn't describe it in mere words, but something amidst the shrouded rocks called to him, like a siren luring a sailor to his underwater grave. They had always said curiosity had killed the cat, but David highly doubted this was true. Curiosity was his driving force for everything he did in his job- why should he deny it now? There was no other option. He had to go on.

With a silent prayer for confidence and an adjustment to the pack on his shoulder, David took his first step off the boat and down onto the ramp.

"Boy!"

The ancient mariner's sudden croak made David stop a foot away from the bottom, causing the ramp to groan and dip under his weight. Pointing a shaking, bony finger with widened eyes the color of mud, Kapp'n boomed out, "Don't believe a word any o' 'em say! They'll try t' get you their side! There's a reason they never leave th' island! Watch your head, boy, they'll steal it away!"

David stared at the captain, and then hoarsely replied, "Thanks-I'll keep that in mind." With this he continued his last step onto the dock. The wood creaked and cried in pain from beneath his shoes, and the wind kicked up into a howling wail around him. Slowly the boat drifted away as he watched, vanishing back into the mist within moments of his arrival, leaving no one else around but him. The fog that had accompanied him like an old friend had arrived before him, and spread out so thickly over the island that he could barely make out the ground in front of him. In fact, he wouldn't have been able to see even the nose on his face if it wasn't for a pinprick of light that soon shone through the cloudy barrier. It bobbed, swayed, and slowly grew in size, until David suddenly realized that it was the light of a lantern, and that someone was coming to greet him.

Finally, the person holding the lantern emerged from the fog, holding the lantern above their head making it seem to float without assistance like a miniature sun. It was a woman who stood before him, a woman with skin and hair so pale that she seemed to be a lonesome ghost. She wore an old-fashioned white dress that pooled around her ankles, along with what appeared to be a nurse's cap perched upon her head. Lowering the lantern, she regarded the surprised newcomer with a single blue eye, while the other hid behind her snow-white bangs. "I take it you're our visitor," she said in a cool, clear voice, with her tone implying that it was a statement rather than a question.

David couldn't help but smirk slightly. "Are you expecting anyone else?"

A faint smile flashed over the woman's face. "Just one today, I'm afraid."

"Well then, that's probably me. I'm guessing you are-?"

"I am Rosalina- Nurse Rosalina to the other doctors and nurses who work here," she finished for him. "I have been sent here to bring you back to the Mansion."

Peering around Rosalina's shoulder, David tried to get a glimpse of the aforementioned Mansion. "Where is it exactly? I know the island's not very big, but I thought for sure I'd be able to see the Mansion from here. Is it far?"

The nurse raised a single eyebrow in surprise. "What may seem small on a map is sometimes larger in reality. The reason you cannot see the Mansion is not only due to the fog, but also because there are many hills here on the island and the Mansion is past most of them. As for how far it is, it's not too far-if we walk over a few hills behind me, you should be able to see it soon. If you would follow me, I'll lead the way there-be careful and follow my footsteps though, as the ground is slippery."

"Lead the way then." David began walking behind Rosalina, who moved like a specter and seemed to glide through the mist without stumbling. In an attempt to make conversation, David asked, "So, how long have you been working here?"

"Ever since my mother came to work here when I was fifteen, almost twenty years ago," came the murmured reply. "I watched her work and helped her with her duties, so I grew up wanting to help people. When she died, I took over her job as a nurse and have done the best I can do ever since."

The surprise on his face must have been evident, for she took one look at him and let out a silvery laugh. "I understand your surprise. I take it I look much older than I actually am."

"Uh...um, I wasn't saying you're old or anything..."

"I understand. When I first came here, people assumed I was some sort of ghost or witch. Now they just accept I'm an ordinary nurse and leave it at that." The pair had to dig their feet into the muddy ground as they ascended up a steep incline, as Rosalina finally asked softly, "What about you?"

"Well, I'm a reporter on the mainland who wanted to write about this place, I guess. Although there's a lot of speculation, no one really knows what goes on here, and I want people to read about what this place is all about. I'm actually surprised that I was allowed to come here and write a story about it."

"The Master seems to have made an... exception in your case," the young woman answered as she paused at the top of the hill and extended a long milky-white finger to point. "There it is."

David stared in the direction of her finger as the fog lifted up from the ground and was absorbed back into the overcast sky. Before him at the bottom of the hill loomed a large, old mansion flanked on either side by the coast and raging sea. Its red brick exterior was cracked and covered in choking vines of graying ivy, and the whole place seemed to be ready to crumble into the waters below. An aura of foreboding haunted the small windows it possessed, and seemed into the tangled and overgrown foliage that surrounded a rusting iron gate. It was a place as wild as the island it was built upon-and perhaps as wild as those who were confined inside the half-ruined walls.

This was the infamous Mansion of the Mentally Smashed and Insane, and somewhere inside David's greatest story awaited him.

"This place is definitely showing its age," David remarked dryly as he took in the state of the place.

"It's quite old- over two hundred years in fact." Rosalina carefully picked her way down the side of the hill, allowing David to follow behind her as they made their way to the black iron gate. "Of course, the mainland only provides us with enough money to manage the patients and pay for medicine, so there's never enough to even think of restoring this place." A brief shadow of emotion passed over her face as she opened the gate with the screech of rusted bolts shooting through the air. She took a long look at the front door of the Mansion, which waited in all its dark wooden glory for them to approach it.

"Something wrong?"

Turning, the woman looked to David with cautious eyes. "I hope you know just what you're getting into here, David."

It was only after this conversation had long occurred that David would realize he had never spoken his name to her. At the time though, her words made his blood run cold, but he merely replied, "I'm pretty sure I'm ready."

The nurse merely shook her head and strode to the front door, where she pushed open the double doors that creaked open with a sound akin to nails on a blackboard. As they swung outwards a blast of cold, stale air slammed into David's face, stinking of ammonia and bile and causing him to take a stumbling step backwards. An unearthly wail rose from the yawning darkness in front of him, but Rosalina merely moved forward as if she had never even heard it. Some part of David screamed at him to run and never return to this hellhole, but he felt himself numbly move forward and pass the threshold from sanity.

The entryway was large and painted a dull, tired lemon color, with only a single dusty chandelier suspended above their heads casting pale shadows upon the rickety double staircase. Other than a round table with a plastic vase of dying flowers, the room was devoid of anything else, which David found strange.

As if reading his mind, Rosalina murmured, "The patients are probably in the sunroom, since it's where they're taken after dinner."

"I thought they were too dangerous to be alone on their own..."

"Oh they are-why else would they be here? However, I and the other doctors and nurses keep each patient drugged to dull their minds and reflexes, and there haven't been any incidences. You have no need to worry. Now, if you would follow me, I'll take you to the Master-he's very eager to meet you."

With a feeling of dread deep in his gut, the reporter swallowed his nervousness and once again fell into the familiar stride behind the young woman, who veered right and ventured down a narrow corridor lined with dark wood. They passed a few doors on either side of them ("Those are rooms with all the patient's medical files," Rosalina explained) before coming to the end of the passageway, where Rosalina stopped and knocked on a set of black doors. Opening one a bit, she stuck her head inside and murmured something, then withdrew her head and stepped aside to hold the door wide for David.

Grumbling a quick thank you, David moved past Rosalina and into the room, as the doors shut behind him with an echoing thud.

Although not too large, the room seemed small due to the left and right walls being entirely made up of bookshelves bursting with various forms of literature. They stretched all the way to the far end of the room, where a large glass window overlooked the frothing sea. The sickly pale sunlight that shone through was the only light cast on the two sofas that faced each other in the middle of the room, which nearly hid the large mahogany desk that sat in front of the window. David might have missed the desk altogether, if not for the large high backed chair that faced the window.

A hoarse cough came from the chair, followed by a slightly nasally voice. "Don't be shy-come closer." As David walked toward the chair, the voice continued to speak to him. "Welcome to the Asylum. My name is Dr. Main, but due to how I run things here some call me the Master. Forgive me for not standing up to greet you, but I happen to be under the weather at the moment, and I'd hate to make you ill. I take it you are..."

"I'm David Kojima, from "The Daily Newsstand" newspaper."

"Kojima? How interesting- that's a Japanese name, but you don't sound to be Japanese."

Not many people would pick up on that, David thought to himself as he replied, "I'm partially: my mother was Japanese."

"Ah...and your father?"

"Never met him."

"I see." There was an awkward pause in the conversation before the Master gave another cough. "You know, I don't usually approve of journalists coming to the island: the patients here don't handle visitors well, especially those who come asking questions. Yet, I sense that you aren't like the other cookie-cutter journalists that try to come here. You want to come here because you are curious, not because you need a quick story or a one-sided opinion on our doings here. It's a different path you take, one that makes you stand out."

"I...suppose you're right, sir."

"Ha! I've embarrassed you already with my philosophical musings! I suppose it's the price someone like me has to pay...now then, I wish to inform you of a few rules before you go off on your writing, rules I had to establish since our staff and patients are unaccustomed to guests. The first is simple: do not antagonize or upset any of the patients. Some of them have delicate minds, and sometimes the simplest question could trigger them to do...well, things they wouldn't normally do. The second rule is also simple: you may hear of the Mansion's third level, but I wish that you stay out of it. There are certain things up there that I wish to keep private. Lastly, the most important rule." The doctor paused, and then finished in a deeper, deadly serious voice. "Believe everything. Trust nothing. Obey all. It's the staff's motto, and unless you stick to it while you're here, this place will consume you."

It was a strange thing to say, but David expected nothing less from such an eccentric person. However, before he could respond, there came from outside the door a stream of curses that would make a sailor tremble in fear. The doors behind David opened as Rosalina reentered the room, this time dragging a struggling young woman dressed in blue pajamas behind her. The woman seemed to be in her late twenties, with a slender figure and long golden hair that was more gnarled and wild than the prickliest of thorn bushes. Her eyes were filled with uncontrollable energy like that of an atomic bomb, and darted around as she kept her desperate fight against the nurse.

"I hate to disturb you, sir," Rosalina raised her voice over the other woman's yelling, "but one of the doctors caught this young lady palming her drugs instead of taking them. When ordered, she refused to take them and caused a disturbance among the other patients."

This set off another round of fresh curses from the blonde-haired woman, until Dr. Main finally ordered for quiet. As the room fell silent, he sighed audibly. "I believe this is the thirteenth time this month that I've had to speak to you about an incident, Samantha Aran. Every time I tell you the same thing: you need to take your medicine if you want to get better."

"I don't want to get better! I'm already fine as I am!" The woman glared with blue-eyed outrage at the chair the Master occupied, balling her hands into fists as she spoke. "It's your damn medicine that makes me unfocused...makes me forget myself. Besides, like I've said before, my name is not Samantha, it's Samus!"

"Miss Aran, Samus is a figment of your imagination," Rosalina told the woman gently. "You created her in your head. That's the reason you have to take your medicine, so you can be yourself and not Samus.

"I'd rather be Samus...at least she wouldn't put up with all this bull-"

"Enough!" Dr. Main's angry cry drew silence once again, as David watched the scene with a mixture of shock and fascination. "Sam, this is my final warning regarding your behavior. If anything like this occurs again, I will be forced to take some more...serious measures. Do you understand?"

The woman-Sam-stared at the back of the Master's chair with a fury that threatened to burst out of her shaking frame, and with great control replied, "Yes sir. I understand."

"Good. Now then..."

However, Sam's eyes had drifted away from the chair at this point, and alighted on David, who had watched the ongoing madness without a word. For a moment, he felt as though he had seen her before, and judging by the look of recognition that passed over her own face he knew that she felt it too. Yet, the look quickly faded from her eyes as madness once again swallowed her whole, and she wrinkled her nose to ask "Who's the new guy?"

A sigh and a slight wheeze came from the occupant of the chair. "This is Mr. David Kojima. Here's here from the mainland to-"

Sam cut the doctor off with a sly smile and hissed at David, "So, what did they put you here for? Mental breakdown? Snapping and killing someone? Arson? Public indecency?"

"I'm not crazy," David told the woman as he stepped back from her volley of questions.

Sam let out a wild laugh. "Liar! We're all mad here!"

"Nurse, please take Miss Aran back to her cell- and make sure to increase the sedative tonight," the Master ordered, as Rosalina once again hauled the now-screaming and kicking mental patient out of the office and slammed the heavy doors shut behind her. It took a moment for the echo of the madwoman's cries to fade from the room, but once they did Dr. Main jovially remarked, "I'm sorry you had to experience that, but unfortunately that's how we must treat most of our patients here. They can easily turn from docile to enraged within a second, so make sure not to let your guard down when you happen to be among them."

David nodded, but his mind was still filled with the crazed screams of Sam, and the blaze of fire he had seen in her eyes. Was that what awaited him here; an island devoid of sanity or reason? If this was the case, it would either provide him with a story that would be the magnum opus of his career, or would become a memory that he would never again look back on. "I understand, sir," he finally told the doctor. "While I hopefully won't get too close to the patients here, I'll be sure to treat them with caution."

No noise came from the chair, until a sigh escaped the doctor. "You are a strange man, Mr. Kojima. To stay here on this island, alone...most people might consider it a sign of madness, but I see it as a man who is determined to find something. What do you wish to seek here?

"Knowledge and the truth about this place, sir."

"Then in time it will be yours, I guarantee it. Now, since you will be with us for a month, you will need to lodge in one of the Mansion's empty rooms. One of our doctors should be outside waiting for you in order to lead you there. I wish you luck on your story, Mr. Kojima, and I hope you find what you're looking for."

"Thank you, sir." David gave a grateful nod to the chair and then walked to the door and out of the room.

A silent moment passed in the office before Dr. Main finally hissed aloud, "It's a shame he wants to learn the truth...he has no idea what his curiosity will cost him."

Last time I had a fic with updates, I updated about once a month, so I'm expecting to do the same with this one. The next chapter should be out by mid-January. Until then, I would HIGHLY appreciate it if you left a review below (and please for the love of George, try to make it more than three words!). If I can get more reviews than Supper Smash Bros., then I will be a very happy author and I'll know you guys don't hate me. :)

Thank you for reading, and once again please remember to leave a review!