The Moon Will Fall
Kafei's Story
It had been an entire day since I mailed my letter to her. Why didn't she reply? We have so little time, before the… I sighed, lying on my ruddy cot. It smelled a little like dead mushrooms. In the letter I had written, I told her that I would come for her the morning of the carnival. I promised I would be there in time. Yet, she does not reply. Doesn't she believe me? Oh, my beloved Anju.. Please wait for me...
It was ten 'o' clock. I could hear my old friend opening his shop through the wall. It was he, the owner of the Curiosity Shop, who gave me this small apartment for the time being. I struggled to climb up the crate by the wall, cursing the small, fragile body I was currently cursed with.
About a month ago, when that masked imp transformed me into this childlike state, I didn't care too much. But, while I was on my way to tell my fiancé, friends, and family what had happened, the unthinkable happened. A prancing man with a grinning face bumped into me. I at first thought it was an accident, until I noticed that the Sun's Mask I had been carrying, the mask I made for my wedding, was missing. The man had stolen it! I chased him, but with my small, childish legs, he outran me. Afterwards, I was devastated. I could bring myself to show my face to anyone, especially not my dear Anju. It had taken so long to make that mask, so much detail... I could never reproduce it. I decided to take into hiding until I could get it back. I went to my friend, who owned the Curiosity shop. At first he didn't realize it was really me, until he noticed the mask I was wearing. It was a Keaton Mask, and he himself had given it to me when we were children. He gave me the apartment I'm staying in now, and the time passed…
Once I was standing steady on the crate, I looked through the eyes of a mask hung on the wall, which hid a hole. The other side of the hole looking into the Curiosity shop at an angle where I could see anyone who entered. The hole was cleverly disguised as a helmet of a suit of armor once belonging to an Iron Knuckle. My friend and I had agreed that, since most stolen goods ended up at his shop, the man who had stolen my mask would show up too. Then I would follow him to his hideout… I had been doing this since I started living here, though, with no sign of him. I was starting to lose hope.
After standing there on that crate for hours on end, I was growing tired. My little legs were straining. I hated being so weak. I checked the clock in my room. It was roughly around midnight. Then, I heard a door creak, and I looked back into the hole. There was a customer walking in…
It was him.
He was selling a large bomb bag, which he probably stole from the old lady who owned the bomb shop. That cowardly bastard stole from children – as he didn't know I am an adult under a curse – and the elderly. It made me hate him more. I dashed out of my apartment as my friend held him there. I made it to the curiosity shop in time to see him walking out. I handed a letter I had written for my mother to my friend for him to deliver, and I followed the thief.
It took hours of quietly sneaking after him. I had to be as stealthy as the legendary Garo Ninja of the ancient Ikana Kingdom. Ironically, the prancing thief was heading into the Ikana canyon. At about Dawn, we reached his headquarters, a cleverly disguised cave, blocks by a large boulder made to look like the rest of the canyon wall. Unfortunately, he didn't go in. I hid behind some fallen rocks as he ran about elsewhere in the canyon, probably doing that dirty work of his.
Small earthquakes became more frequent as the hours passed. At around noon, I looked up. There is was. The moon. A few days ago, I, and many others in town, noticed the moon was strange. It was high in the sky, during the day time. It was a dark pewter instead of the normal glowing silver. It also had a face. It had large nose with two clear nostrils, and a mouth, the lips drawn apart in an ugly snarl, showing its huge, square teeth. But the eyes were what captivated and frightened me. They were a frightening red. Wide, omniscient, staring straight into my soul with its evil contempt for life. Every day it drew closer, as if slowly falling on our land of Termina. The townsfolk calculated that it would fall on the day of the Carnival of Time. That made matters worse for me and my beloved... we were to be wed on the morning of that Carnival. Most of the townsfolk fled Clock Town just three days before the moon was supposed to fall. Those left were people who ran businesses, that helpful gang of children who called themselves 'The Bombers, a secret society of Justice', the Carnival committee members, the soldiers, and my father and mother, who were the Mayor and his Wife.
I felt helpless as I stared into the huge face of the moon, which had fallen deathly close. I knew it would probably fall tomorrow morning, on my wedding day…
Eventually, the sun set. The thief, whom I had learned was named Sakon, pranced around the corner, smiling as usual. Why did he prance everywhere he went? It was rather silly. He couldn't see my hiding place behind the rocks as he opened the large door of his hideout. During the few seconds the door was left open, I dashed in.
I was in a small room, stolen treasures in every corner. There was only one door leading onward, and I walked through it. More treasures, and… MY MASK! The Sun's Mask was resting on a platform between two locked doors. I smiled to myself, and walked over to grab it. I should have known that this seemed to easy...
I had accidentally stepped on a blue floor switch, and a panel of glass lid in front of the mask, blocking my mask from me. Then the mask began to slowly move backwards into the next room. It was on a conveyor belt! I squinted my eyes, looking past the mask. The belt on the platform stretched through three rooms, separating them into halves. Until the end, it was blocked off by thick glass, but it opened near the end. However, it ended with a hole. If I didn't hurry and find a way to get my Sun's Mask before it reached the end of the platform, it would drop into Sakon's vault, and I would lose it forever! The door to the right had opened when I pressed the switch, and I ran over to it. But it closed in my face the moment I stepped off the floor switch. It would only open if someone was standing on the switch.
I tried many things to hold the door open or keep the switch pressed. All the treasure in the room was either to weak to hold the door open, too light to keep the switch down, or too heavy for my childish muscles to budge. All the time, the alarm that had sounded when the conveyor belt started was blaring. But then, it stopped, and I heard the sound of something falling into a room far below the floor. The Sun's Mask… was now forever out of my reach.
It was midnight; in the far, far distance I could here the Clock Town fireworks commemorating the start of the Carnival of Time. I stood in a daze for a moment, but then I decided that perhaps Anju would forgive me. As long as I was there, after having been gone for so long, a child or not, Anju still loved me. I loved her as well.
I know she had gotten my letter. I trusted her. She would wait for me… wouldn't she? I ran as fast as I could back to town, the moon drawing ever closer towards Termina to complete its sinister plot. In my letter, I asked Anju to wait for me in her room. My beloved trusted me as well, she's told me so many times. I reached Clock Town and ran as quickly as I could to the Stock Pot Inn where she worked and lived. Almost everyone had fled the town by now, save for Mutoh, the head of the Carnival Committee.
In the inn, I ran up the stairs to Anju's bedroom. This was it. I'd have to tell her that I was perhaps irreversibly a child and I had lost the mask I was supposed to give to her…
I swallowed hard, reached out my small hand, and turned the handle. I threw myself into the room, my eyes shut tight in apprehension.
It was silent. I opened my eyes and looked about the room.
She wasn't there.
I couldn't believe it. She, and her family, had all left! I figured that her mother and grandmother would at least flee to Romani Ranch, where Anju's best friend Cremia lived, but I never thought Anju would leave with them after reading my letter… I had promised Anju… why didn't she wait? She was a brave woman, she couldn't have been that frightened of the moon. But, did she really think I'd leave her alone to die when the moon struck?
I told myself I had to be a man. In the last 2 hours before dawn, I could find somewhere to hide and survive when the moon struck, and in the morning I could go to the ranch and find her…
But then, I looked to my right. There, almost glowing in the faint light seeping in from the window, was Anju's wedding dress. She had made it herself, perhaps with her mother's help. It was on a wooden Mannequin, and it was stunningly beautiful. It was such a pure white that it was heavenly. The skirt fell in delicate folds, some parts made to turn up, like the petals of a flower. The shoulders of the sleeves where open. The sleeves themselves were long, form fitting, and they ended in a sort of glove that covered the thumb but opened for the fingers.
In front of the mannequin was the bouquet of dried flowers and vines she had made. But what captivated me, was what was on the mannequin's head. Along with a beautiful, elegant veil, was a mask. It was silver, with a golden smile on the face. The upper right side of it was framed with a golden crescent. It was the Moon's Mask.
When I proposed to her, we both vowed to make masks to exchange on our wedding day. I would make the Sun's Mask, she the Moon's. She completed her dress and her mask in the past three days, but she didn't stay to wait for me? It was all too much.
I fell to my knees before the mannequin, tears streaming down my cheeks. She had failed me. My beloved Anju didn't trust me enough…. Or perhaps I failed her, by trusting her too much, putting too much weight on her delicate shoulders. We had failed each other, and it was over. The moon was falling, we were miles apart, and she didn't even know where I was or what I was doing.
I brought my hands to my face to wipe my tears, thought my hands were mostly covered by my too-long sleeves. But no matter how many times I wiped my face, I continued to weep. The ground rumbled beneath me, shaking drops of tears from my chin. I looked to the clock. I had been crying for longer than I thought. Dawn was almost upon me. I stood, reaching up towards the Moon's Mask. I wished to hold it in my last moments, hugging it to my chest, making myself believe I was holding my fiancé.
Blast it all, I was too short to even reach the mannequin's face. My childish body cursed me still with my short legs and arms, prohibiting me my final request. I could hear crashing outside, in the direction of the Clock Tower. Outside the window, I could see flames from the moon's body, enhanced by the rising sun's rays, which were peeking over the horizon. I clenched my fists, staring into the eyes of the Moon's Mask Anju had made, and mutter one final curse to myself.
I started to hear an explosion, and everything convulsed before my eyes, moments before my hearing faded and my eyesight went blank. In my final fleeting thoughts, I said to myself "At least Anju is saved…"
What I didn't know, and would never know, the explosion following the the Moon's crash swept across the land, burning everything and everyone in Termina.
The Moon fell on Clock Town, on me, on Anju, on everyone.
The Moon Fell on my Wedding Day.
