Memories…memories of a life another lived for him. Memories, voices, sounds, scents…they echoed from a place he could no longer touch, or sense. All that remained was this faint awareness and an endless dark field. A field containing nothing but phantom images of himself dancing…dancing in a ritual he could never understand.
Tinkling like the wispy shadows of long forgotten silver bells, a voice broke through the haze of his existence. "Swamp. Mountain. Ocean. Canyon. Hurry..the four who are there…bring them here!" What could that mean?
Soon this was forgotten as he drifted back into the faint glimmer of awareness that was his life. Drifting, always drifting through the darkened field of phantoms. Waiting, always waiting at the edge of life. Waiting at the edge of existence, the edge of oblivion, yet somehow bound in place. Unable to continue, trapped in this shattered mirror of life.
"They were doomed to begin with." The voice of an owl rustled the grass of his phantom reality. "All that awaits them is horror and terror. This is all that ever has awaited them, all that has awaited them since their god left."
Deku….such a familiar word. Images blew through his world like shifting clouds…images of a swamp. Images of painted logs rising from a poisoned swamp. Images of others like himself. He saw a large wooden creature holding a scepter woven of the stock of a plant so familiar to him. As the strange brown nut atop the scepter flowed through his memory, he could almost…remember.
"Actually, when I see you, I am reminded of my son who left home long ago…Somehow, I feel as if I am once again racing with my son…"
A deku! He was a deku. Memories of his life began to materialize before him, his consciousness beginning to return. He stood on an endless stone floor, his father hovering before him…his father, butler to the deku king. As his mind began to return, he watched his father's still form wavering in the plane of his awareness. Hovering…waiting…waiting for his son to return.
* * *
Koride pulled himself up onto a cliff overlooking the swamp and dove into a large pile of moist leaves. Hoping their rotting stench would be enough to conceal him from his father, Koride covered himself with the decaying leaves around him. While most were ignorant to the fact that a fat, bean selling human had burrowed under the palace, his father knew. He was the butler and caretaker, and knew all of the palace's secrets: even the secrets of the labyrinth. Koride raced through the labyrinth with his father every day, always to be 'rewarded' with a history lesson. He'd seen the Mask of Scents, and he knew what it could do. With the enhanced ability to find and recognize scents, his father would easily be able to track down Koride.
Yes, even now, Koride could hear the faint whirling his father made when he hovered. Koride held his breath, and did all he could to keep his body from excreting his scent. He relaxed, trying to slip into a state of near unconsciousness. He took more after his mother, a deku shrub, and as such he'd inherited the natural defenses of their kind.
After what seemed like ages, hearing the sniffing of the Mask of Scents, Koride finally heard his father hover away, searching elsewhere. He waited for a few eternal minutes before bursting out of the leaves, rushing in the direction he knew would lead out of the forest. He jumped into a deku flower, thankful he'd inherited at least a few of his father's abilities. He could feel the gas from the flower flow into him and two large blossoms sprouted in his hands. Kicking down against the flower's interior, Koride caused a burst of gas to hurdle him into the air.
As the flower's petals expanded, they began twirling in the wind. He could see the famous clock tower rising in the distance, barely visible through the thick foliage of the swamp. He tilted in that direction, held up in the air by a combination of the light gas inside him and the twirling flower. Glancing down at the swamp below, be began to notice something very wrong.
The water was changing.
He held back a scream as he saw a skull kid in a strange horned mask floating above the water. A shriek rent the air, and a dark purple color seeped through the water like putrid milk in a cup of tea. The small octoroks began to vibrate, increasing in size at an inhuman rate.
Horror filled his body as the flower petals in his hands shriveled, crumbling into glimmering specks of ash. The gas in his mouth was wrenched from his lungs. Shouting in terror, Koride plummeted towards the floating skull kid below.