*** Author's Note: Hey everyone, just to let you guys know, I'm not new on the site, I've just never posted anything... so I'm new here. Heh. Anyway, this is a Link and Midna adventure, for now, we will see where it goes, but this chapter is pretty... dark? Not really, but not something one might expect from an opening chapter. This story is not based off of the storyline of Twilight Princess. That said, this is a story involving characters, names, and other stuff that is not owned by me, and I claim zero ownership, so no copyright infringement intended. Umm... I don't know what else to say... Read, hopefully you enjoy it, review and leave feedback for me, if you would.***
The Running Shadow, Chapter One
The young man blinked furiously, trying to come to grips with his reality. He heard someone moving around, beyond his blurred vision. He was immediately aware of four things. First thing's first, he was slumped against a cold stone wall on something cold and made of stone… the floor, obviously. Second thing. He had metal shackles on his wrists and ankles. He moved his legs, seeing how far the chains would reach, giving up before he found the limit. He heard frantic whispering somewhere in the shadows. The third thing he noticed was a pressure in his ears. He was either very high up, or very deep underground. And fourth, perhaps the most important thing he noticed… his eyes were closed. Yet he had no power to open them. No matter what he did or how hard he tried, his eyes wouldn't open. He heard footsteps coming closer and decided to be still. He heard the footsteps stop in front of him, and he felt something warm and wet touch his arm. He winced, but didn't flinch away, just prepared himself for the worst. He heard a shrill, childlike giggle, then the young man gasped as the cold chains popped off of his wrist, relieving the pressure there. The first thing he did with his new members is raise them to his eyes, finding a cloth over them.
A blindfold, eh? Geez, why didn't I notice that? He thought.
He ripped the cloth off and looked up at his savior. Quite literally up, for… it… was floating in midair, looking down at him. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, but his instincts told him not to trust it. It looked to be a rather chubby, deformed child, but its skin… its skin was all wrong… instead of the usual tone of peach, or even tan, this creature was… patterned. Half of the creature was grey, and the other half was a very odd color… a black that was green. Its eyes, or eye, rather, for either it only had one, or the other was hidden under a… well, there's no easy way to explain it. It looked like a crown, made of stone that had crumbled over hundreds of years, and it was fully half the size of the creature. Once it noticed him staring, it gave that shrill, magical giggle again, swirling around in midair.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you it was rude to stare… Link?"
He figured that by the pitch and tone of the voice, the creature in front of him was female. He tensed up, hating his luck. He was always awful at communicating with the fairer sex. In fact, he was famous for losing his language skills around women in general, even if they weren't considered by popular opinion to be attractive. Apparently, the circumstances here permitted an exception to his disability.
"I… I'm sorry, but… what are you? And how do you know my name?"
She clutched her chest, but her smile was devious as she snorted derisively, doing another flip in midair.
"What am I? How rude… most people would ask how someone is, not what. As for how I know who you are… Well, I'll just let you use your imagination. If you have one, that is. Now get up, hero. We need to get out of here. I'll help you, but you have to trust me."
She looked over, seeing him still leaned against the wall, pulling on his arm frantically.
'Come ON, loser. Let's go!"
He stood up and looked around. When he had been sitting, giant piles of rubble had been blocking his view, but now that he was standing, he saw clearly that he was in a jail cell, and the piles of rubble… were bodies, male and female, human, monster and animal, all at varying stages of decomposition. He took a shaky breath as he felt his throat tighten, looking away so that he didn't puke. He swallowed, mustering his courage as he looked at the little… creature. He still wasn't ready to call it a girl yet. He looked everywhere but the bodies, walking slowly towards the door, then hearing a slithering sound, he jumped back behind a pile of bodies as something dark and twisted came into view. It had a body similar to a vine monster, but its head was flat, and it turned it from side to side as if scanning for something. Sensing nothing, it disappeared back into the shadows. Link had had enough of being pressed against the decaying corpses, bile filling his throat as he closed his eyes and thought of something else when the creature spoke again.
"Okay, looks like they have shadows as guards. They'll kill you as soon as look at you, so we'll have to find another way out."
He sighed and sat down cross legged on the stone floor, his eyes and mouth still tightly closed as he rocked back and forth tersely.
"Wow, some hero you are…"
He opened his eyes at this, his anger overcoming his logic.
"I never claimed to be a hero. That was all you. You never told me your name, why you called me a hero…"
He lapsed back into silence as he kept rocking, his nerves about to snap.
"Well, I can teleport us out of here, would that help?"
He looked at her, slightly disgusted, both with his environment and his realization that she had hidden that from him the entire time. He nodded his head slightly, not wanting to move too much. She giggled again, twirling in midair and floating in a circle around him. He didn't pay her any attention, because that would just make him dizzy and increase his urge to vomit. Instead, he looked at the ceiling and saw a black and green shape form there before his very eyes. He looked at the creature, panicked, only to see her disintegrate. He reached out for her, but he saw himself disintegrating too.