Pre-reading Note: This story contains scenes of torture but in my opinion not too bad compared to others out there. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!
The Great Forgotten Hylian Holocaust
They said it would be a short war; a war that within days of erupting would come to a subtle end. But it raged on, turning the one week battle into a seven year war.
The great leader of my time, a man whose descendants would go on to rule over this unholy wasteland, declared war on this imposing tribe, saying that their ultimate demise would lead to eternal salvation. He insisted that the animals be tamed once and for all.
Yet who were these animals, you ask? Who could have inspired this tragedy that befell our land, you ask? The answer was so blatantly obvious that it remained hidden for years.
The Gerudo of the western deserts.
For years, we had remained in peace with the desert's dwellers. For years we never gave a second glance at these beings as traitors. Yet they were thieves down to their heart. Sneaking behind our backs, stealing food, water, livestock, clothing, anything they could get their filthy hands on. Why you ask?
They live in a desert. By day, the searing heat so intense, any decent man's clothing would've melted and fused into his skin, but by night, the freezing winds blow with such unspeakable power; I witnessed with my own eyes men being swept off their feet and flying away.
They live in a land that provides no help; the ground so dry, the earth below them cracks away, threatening to give out at any time. Rain doesn't beat down from the sky there. They live in a land of nothing so it's only natural for the dwellers to revert to thieving.
Even so, we lived in harmony with them for years, unaware of the treason they committed on a daily basis. They became lazy and reckless and were caught on several accounts of first hand thievery.
At this old age, I do not recollect everything that happened. I just remember walking into the plaza of the soon to be named Castle Town, and hearing roars of excitement as the leader, who we had just sworn in as king of the land, declare the war on the savages out west.
Like I said earlier, this war was supposed to last a week but when the Gerudo offensive began, they conquered a large section of Hyrule, in possession of everything from the desert lands out west, to Kakariko Village out east; and that's where this story begins.
It feels just like yesterday. One minute mounted on my noble stead, riding triumphantly into war and next, shackled around my ankles and wrists. All I knew was that I was currently walking to a place no stories ever escaped; a place so sinister, the evil could be felt radiating off the walls. I was blindfolded, along with the other members of my regiment, just as we passed the once welcoming sign of Kakariko. We were dragged through town like a herd of mules. The cobblestone streets soon gave way to plump soil beneath our war torn boots. The graveyard was never a pleasant place to be walking during this war, as it only meant the Death Camp awaited you.
Yes, what you will come to learn as the Shadow Temple, a name given to try and hide the bloody history buried in time, was built by the Gerudos. Have you ever wondered why the walls are stained in blood? Or why only slowly decaying corpses litter the floors of this convoluted dungeon? This was a place of terror.
Up until that point in life, I never considered a worse fate than death. But that first night in the internment camp gave me a different view of that.
The blindfold was ripped off my face and just as my eyes focused in on the dim dungeon walls around me, the woman who led us here threw a fist at my face, sending me flying onto the ground. Three other gerudo guards came out of nowhere and began kicking me in the stomach, forcing me to my feet just to throw more fists at my weak body. I cannot describe the blood that I hurled out of my mouth that night, as it just seemed to waterfall out. That night, too weak to move, I fell asleep on the dungeon floors, lying on the sharp pile of rotting bones from prisoners of the past.
I awoke with my wrists shackled up on a wall as if I were to be crucified. My clothes were stripped off me, leaving me in nothing more than a tiny cloth around my waist. I tried to turn around, to face the opposite direction of the wall in front of me but the minute I moved my head, a searing pain overcame me. A gerudo guard held her torch ablaze on my bare skinned back. The embers sifted off of it and landed on my skin, etching out black burn marks on my spine like ink on a blank piece of paper. She pulled away after what seemed like an eternity and for the first time since my capture on my horse, I heard the sounds of another voice.
"You fought valiantly for a decomposing kingdom. The Gerudo have respect for that. However, your act of valor only impeded our progress to destroy your land once and for all. You shall be dealt with."
"Y-You… you're going to kill me aren't ye?"
She only chuckled and from the sound of shuffling feet, I could tell she had begun to walk out of the chamber.
"By time we finish with you, you will have wished you had been killed out in the battlefields."
The metal door behind me clanked shut and the one torch in the room was extinguished, leaving a palpable darkness and abandoning the dim glow it had once provided. I could only see black before I felt-
WHACK
A hard, thick rope collided with my back. I was being whipped. I hung in darkness being whipped until I eventually blacked out, but no doubt they could not see that due to the everlasting darkness the chamber provided.
I remember hearing sounds of screams being emitted from the torture camp. I remember hearing the sounds of guillotines chopping the head off some poor man, the wet, heavy thunking noise like a watermelon being quickly sliced in half.
On my way back to my cell, I was blindfolded once again and I remember as I drudged on past the rows of guillotines, I kicked something round. It felt like a ball but, I knew what guillotines did to people and I knew exactly what this miscellaneous object was as it was fleshy and still warm.
I could go on for hours, recounting my terrifying visit at that death camp but I was one of the lucky few ones, for within a week of my stay, nearing the end of my time there as a prisoner, Hyrulian forces liberated Kakariko Village and the death camp along with it.
They told me I was on the edge of death, and that one more day living in those conditions would only have brought certain death upon my soul. But I survived. I was brought back to Castle Town where I recovered. I was even awarded a medal of honor and a knighting by the king. The war dragged on for another five years after that, but after my recovery, I never saw the eyes of battle roaring in my face again. I stayed in Castle Town to protect its citizens and the king. I eventually ended up finding my true love love in a girl with blonde hair brighter than the sun, named Zelda. We married and little did I know, I had married into royalty.
This is no love story though. This is a story about the true horrors that lie within what is now the Shadow Temple. The blood stained walls, the guillotines, the fabled death ship that carried the corpses of the unlucky to the pits of Hell. It takes one with the ability to see the truth to uncover the murderous past that place has. It is a place of death and torture, a place where hope is sealed away within the everlasting darkness, a place that no soul will ever walk out of alone. For this place, this "temple" hides much more than any mere mortal can take in. It hides the history of the long forgotten genocide of the Hyrulian Civil War.
Link the Second and Zelda II, my children. As I write this letter, another war has yet divided this country. Tomorrow, you and your mother, Princess Zelda will hide both of you in a place no one will ever find or harm you, the Kokiri Forest. Both of you, yes, your sister too, the destined Princess of Hyrule. Keep each other safe. And never forget about what happened there, for its history lies in your hands. Goodbye my children. I regret that I cannot follow you.
-Sir Link- your father.
This story is dedicated to the countless innocents and prisoner of wars who never were able to peek out at the sunshine and whose lives were unfairly cut short. You will never be forgotten.
Author's Note: A little something way out of the ordinary from me. My first dark themed story but hey, there is always a time to try something new. I don't know if I'll ever do something like this again as this is a one shot I made based on the theory that the Shadow Temple used to be a death camp, hence the creepiness of that dungeon. Seriously Nintendo, this was an E rated game. How did you get by with that? Also, in the end I noted that Zelda and Link from Ocarina of Time are actually siblings. "But that doesn't make sense PenguinForce! Only Link grew up in the forest, not Zelda. How could they be siblings?" Well, I'll leave that hole to be filled in by your imagination... or who knows, maybe I'll write a sequel to this story... Anyways, thanks for reading! And if you enjoyed this story, then why not hop on over to my other story, A Pair of Unlikely Heroes! See you there!