Background: This is also another dream I had. A real window into the mind, eh? The pins carry significance... but who knows when I'll ever get that bit posted...
Loss
by Orin Drake
The
heroic figure of the Hylian they called Link stood in front of the castle
gates. The day was won, the world was safe, the princess was back
home and Gannon was gone forever. But out of the corner of his eye,
Link noticed something. Not so much something, but nothing.
There were suddenly no people around. The silence began to get deafening,
his own heartbeat betraying his instincts.
Suddenly
he looked ahead of him, to nothing but darkness. He shuddered so
violently the sword slipped from his hand, and as he reached to pick it
back up, it simply wasn't there anymore. He looked at his shield,
but it disappeared in front of his eyes into dark mist. As he swallowed
hard, he heard the distant laughing of a wretched beast, setting his skin
crawling.
He
was thrown quite suddenly against a wall of flat, silvery stone that he
was certain hadn't been there before. As his vision returned to clear,
he found himself inside a darkened castle tower, standing face to face
with the demon he'd thought he'd destroyed. He wanted, needed desperately,
to scream, to cry out for Zelda; but as he tried he coughed and tasted
blood. The laughter got louder as the evil eyes pierced him, making
him shiver like he never had before. In front of him was pushed the
carcass of Zelda, forced into his arms from the darkness. He could
hear her pleas in his head, but they weren't coming out of her mouth.
She'd become one of the souls trapped by Gannon, and he was forcing the
young hero to listen to her cries.
Link
suddenly felt his legs give underneath him, and struggled for breath as
he coughed up more blood. Searing pain slashed his sides and his
throat. He fell completely to the floor, agonizingly trying to breathe,
trying to stop looking at the rotting body of the princess, but unable
to close his eyes. He could hear Gannon laugh and walk slowly away,
leaving him to suffer for the rest of eternity as he grasped his throat
and looked at the shining floor in terror as thousands of pins began to
fall from his mouth.